One important way to show respect for yourself and others is to set strong healthy boundaries for yourself. A boundary is the line between what you are ok with and what you aren't ok with: what is acceptable to you and what is unacceptable to you. Personal boundaries protect your physical safety as well as your emotional well being. Healthy boundaries are flexible allowing you to open your boundaries to let people you trust closer to you. For example: you might share more information with someone you trust and feel more comfortable being physically close to them. With people you don’t know as well or you distrust, you will probably keep your boundaries closed more tightly not allowing yourself to get too personal.

But boundaries aren’t just about controlling which people we allow close to us. Healthy boundaries also control our own behaviour and which behaviours we will accept from others. For example, a person may be comfortable with kissing her partner in public, but “draw the line” at her partner touching her in a sexual way in front of other people. That “line” is her boundary. Abuse happens when one person violates another person’s boundaries.

Think about your boundaries around physical touch, sexual behaviour, language, morals and values.

Who knows better about violence against Aboriginal women than women who experience it?

Learn about violence by asking a woman who trusts you, how violence has affected her life. Then, if she feels comfortable to talk, sit back and listen. Your role isn’t to challenge her on the details, nor to debate whether something really should have bothered her or not. It is to listen. Simply trust that if she tells you something hurt her, then it did hurt her.