Boundaries: It Takes a Village

One of the things Boundaries makes clear is that it's impossible to do boundary work in isolation. That's not because boundaries must involve other people (you have boundaries to enforce on yourself, and you and God have a relationship with boundaries), but because boundary work is HARD. We need the support of people who love us in order to do it.

Over and over, Boundaries talks about practicing boundaries with "safe" people while you build up strength to face the people who are likely to react with anger or guilt-tripping when you try to set limits. Your safe people will be proud of you for respecting your property lines, and they can remind you of what's your responsibility and what's not your responsibility in the aftermath of holding a difficult limit.

According to Brené Brown, the most compassionate people seem to be the people with the best boundary skills. When you don't constantly feel resentful or taken advantage of, you can help with a happy heart. You're not a walking mess of compassion fatigue.

Basically, I guess I want to do two things in this post:

1) I want to encourage you to recognize your "safe" people. Who can you talk to about your journey with boundaries? Who can help you say No when appropriate, and cheer you on for doing the difficult, right thing? Who can you trust to tell you if you become a boundaries Nazi who might need to reevaluate?

2) I want to thank the people in my life who are supporting me in this work. I thought people would be mad at me and judge me for being lazy and selfish when I started working on boundaries. Ninety-nine percent of the time people have understood and replied to my refusals with "Good for you! That's so hard!" It's been humbling in a tearing-up kind of way. I tend to prepare for the worst, emotionally, and it's nice to be proven wrong. I don't know why I assume everyone is out for my blood*, but I'm working on stopping that and I've loved being pleasantly surprised.

I think boundary work gets easier as the process continues? I'm new at it, so we'll see, but what I'm noticing is that my boundary muscle is growing at a surprising rate, and the people around me are getting more used to it too. There have been hiccups, but everything has been working toward healthier expectations and communication, so yay!

I love my village so much, and I'm excited to become a better villager every day :D

~Stephanie

* Okay, maybe it has something to do with fear of betrayal/being an Eight, but good grief, why can't I chill? XD