Boundaries Are Like Training Wheels
Boundaries have become uber-popular in the self-help and wellness sector; and I believe that they have a place—like training wheels do. However, for long term health and happiness boundaries are not the way to create fulfilling or sustainable life and relationship well-being.
I get a lot of resistance and push back with this. Because, sadly, almost everyone has had at least one relationship in which they were treated unkindly or outrightly abused. They use that relationship as the cornerstone of their relationship experience and work to avoid a repeat experience and create boundaries in order to do so.
Here’s the problem(s) with that approach:
Taking the worst of relationships as the example and reference point of how relationship are and how you are in them globalizes the problem and diminishes the recognition and realization of the ability to create healthy relationships.
Boundaries, as currently popularized, are permanent; like many medications they are prescribed with no exit plan.
This “line drawn in the sand” becomes something that you must watch and defend— taking time, effort, energy away from creating a future you’d like—as well as creating distraction from, and distrust of, the awareness of when the boundary is no longer working for you.
For a lot of people, boundaries are not an absolute necessity if there is a healthy relationship that they had or have to model—
where you can recognize the ability to create and have a good, working relationship that is mutually beneficial—that it is possible and already evident/ available (like a close relationship with a grandparent, teacher, or coach);
and have gratitude for this relationship, for the other person, for yourself, and the gift each is to the other
…so create more relationships like this!
Boundaries aren’t a necessity if there is a healthy relationship(s) to model. Learn from that relationship. Know how you feel in the relationship—that you are appreciated for the gift(s) you are/offer and you feel nourished by and grateful for the gift they are to you. Choose to be with people who will allow you to contribute to them and will contribute to this energy to your life.
Poor, unhealthy, or otherwise dysfunctional relationships will fall away without having to create a “boundary” that divests your energy from your future if you are willing to make the good relationships more important and impactful than the negative ones.
However, IF you have a pattern of bad relationships, early or repeated experiences of being abused—especially by an early/primary caregiver—boundaries may be necessary AS A STEPPING STONE.
Unfortunate early experiences such as these can stunt our growth and development and may result in a poor self concept —where you do not know who you truly are without relation to another person, the value of you, what you like, what is/is not good for you. Without a healthy self-concept, you become over-reliant on others and susceptible to being manipulated and used by those who are not healthy themselves.
If you find yourself in this category, let me be the first to say:
“I am so sorry that you were treated so poorly. You are precious. It wasn’t your fault and you didn’t deserve to be abused or treated with disregard.”
I will also let you know that you are strong enough to handle it and you chose it.
…No, you did not cognitively choose to be abused. You chose something that allowed abuse to take place.
There is SO MUCH to say on this… quite often, those who have been abused are the strongest, most resilient, healing beings who either allowed themselves to be abused in order to heal something/someone, pay for being abusive in a past lifetime, or who create a pressure cooker of shitty life experiences to get them to choose to come alive and blossom as a person in a shorter period of time.
We don’t make sense and we often don’t make it easy on ourselves. I say this because I often get told I am blaming the victim when it’s actually the contrary—I’m advocating for the power of the person who is being told they are a victim and things “happened” to them, when in fact their power and choice were at play then and can be turned up and empowered now to shatter any identification with or as “victim.”
So, if you find that you are having trouble saying “no” to people and being depleted by people who say they are your friends or say that they love you, by all means, begin with boundaries. Get to know where you are, who you are. Take time for yourself. Practice saying “no.” Play with your free will—play with being an asshole, selfish, lazy—whatever label you resisted that led you to give yourself up for another…then, grow and expand beyond the boundary!
The boundary you set will become your own limitation if you are unwilling to go beyond it.
The purpose of a boundary is to give you the space to get to know you. Delineating the boundary will help you learn when and how you and other people respond to your space and autonomy. This is excellent information and awareness to have as you move forward and cultivate new relationships, including your relationship with yourself…
…Because the need for boundaries and protection from the outside is not as important as we’ve tried to tell ourselves… Because NOTHING that anyone else says will cut as deeply as what we tell ourselves… And NOTHING that comes from the outside has ever really been able to end us—somehow, we find a way to get back up, take another breath, another step…
(Even if you feel beaten down, but you’re still here, reading this— you’re not over. Your spark might be dim, but it’s still there. If you are thinking of self-extinguishing, ending your life, please take 4 more breaths. Swallow. Blink really hard. Clench your fist. Repeat until you can get out of your head and into your body. You’ve got what it takes to keep going. Call this number if you need to.)
If you use a boundary to control yourself or others, hyper vigilant of others’ behaviors or perceived threats to this boundary; to define who you are and what you can do; or demand others behave a certain way—it is no longer working for you. The boundary has then become a limitation that keeps others out AND you in—a hiding place.
Use your training wheels boundary for you. Get to know YOU. Get to know what you like, what you’d like your future to be, who you’d like to be, and how you would like to be with the world. Forgive yourself for taking on the abuser role. Heal the relationship with yourself. Then…take the training wheels off, put on your bad ass panties and go for a free-ride!
Yes, you will feel off balance, especially in the beginning. You might fall over a time or two. But, you know how to “ride a bike.” You know YOU, how to be you, who you are, the value of you, the gift of you, the future reality you can see and create.
Knowing you is the ultimate power and control.
When you get to know you, you become aware of the power of your choices, the gifts and abilities that you have that you can now use to your advantage; you develop a healthy relationship with yourself and cultivate a TRUST IN YOU that YOU have your back, that YOU are a resource you can count on, that YOU are capable and able to handle whatever you are facing. (And, just like riding a bike, once you know how, you’ll never forget.)
When you have that knowing, you no longer need a boundary because you will know when someone or something will contribute to your benefit or your detriment. You won’t need a boundary to determine when and how to be with people because you will have developed something even better—an acute, immediate, moment-to-moment awareness of you, of a situation. This keen awareness will let you know when to lean in or when to walk (or run) away.
Awareness is greater than a boundary because it gives more space and allowance—for you to be, feel, or behave in a non-linear, undefined way so that you don’t become a robot. Awareness and the trust in it/you will also give you the freedom and confidence to know the difference between a perceived threat and a real one, so that you don’t have to waste time and energy on hypervigilence and reactive defensiveness that pushes people away.
Awareness gives the space for and ability to be vulnerable—the essential ingredient to bravery, courage, and the ability to fully engage and connect with yourself and others. Boundaries eliminate the possibility of vulnerability because boundaries require barriers.
Training wheels will ultimately diminish the ride.
There is nothing wrong with training wheels. They are useful, just as boundaries can be. But when we rely on them too long, we diminish our own experience, growth, and expansion.
You didn’t come here to be small.
Boundaries may be a first step to “stop the bleed” and give you the space for healing to begin. But survival is not enough for us. For healing to continue and intimacy and thrival to become real possibilities, the boundaries and barriers will have to go.
You can do more than just get over your past…
Go beyond it into a life/relationship worth looking forward to and working for—LOVE, LAUGHTER, RESPECT, INTIMACY.
You can be happy AF.
Let’s talk about how to turn your situation around. No pressure. No sales. Just a conversation and a chance for you to learn more about working with me and see if we are a good fit before moving forward. It’s FREE. Click the button below to get started.