During the interviews, it blew my mind when I realized that many of the truly committed compassion practitioners were also the most boundary-conscious people in the study. Compassionate people are boundaried people. I was stunned.
Here's what I learned: The heart of compassion is really acceptance. The better we are in accepting ourselves and others, the more compassionate we become. Well, it's difficult to accept people when they are hurting us or taking advantage of us or walking all over us. This research has taught me that if we really want to practice compassion, we have to start with setting boundaries and holding people accountable for their behavior.

(Brené Brown "The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are")