Sometimes I read or hear of an idea and it is like a lightning bolt. I can feel the neurons reorganizing; pruning the old rotting branches. I can see the new yellow-green buds forming and popping into life. Yesterday was one of those days. I have been thinking about boundaries all wrong. I suspect we all really have. The subtle shift is so powerful. I am tingly thinking about how much growth is possible for me as I incorporate this mental shift. If I could simply learn to let go it would likely be a faster journey to the same place. Or I could learn to turn my brain off. I think I will try all three of these routes, the former new one and the two familiar other ones.
What is a boundary? Is “I do not let Andy talk to me like I am an idiot” a boundary? (Sorry to the Andys out there, I had to pick a name, I’m sure you are all kind souls 😀 ). Thankfully no. That would be a direct request. Words matter. Andy could violate your direct request. But neither Andy nor anyone else can violate your boundary. Only you can. The boundary in this situation would be “I will stop calling Andy if he mistreats me” or “I will tell Andy that we are no longer friends and leave the relationship if he continues to hurt me”. Only WE can violate our boundaries. Our boundary is what WE will do if someone or something violates a communicated or even non-communicated direct request. It seems more kind and even effective to try to err on the side of communicating our important direct request items than not communicating them. But ultimately even deciding whether to communicate a direct request is also OUR decision.
For me the light went on. Only I can violate my own boundaries. How empowering! How comforting. I can’t wait to see if this subtle shift is possible for me. It puts all the onus on us and not others. It is about us and our reaction. Violations to expressed or uncommunicated direct requests, essentially the road map to our boundaries, will be violated by the world again and again. Even by people who love us. People and animals and minerals can’t read our minds. I am responsible for my happiness. Of course disease and job loss and car crashes and dog bites and everything else is still out there in the offing. But, what are we going to do about these things?
“She keeps violating my clearly communicated boundary”! No, I keep violating my own boundary each and every time she violates my direct request.
But of course I will need to keep a little grace in my pocket at all times as I walk this new path. I will go astray. I may freeze when I find the spotlight shifting from others to myself. I will need this grace to fortify myself for this new exciting and scary world! And I need to remember that others have their boundaries, communicated or not. I must honor others. I must honor myself.
I get to honor others. I get to honor myself!
