Gazing in the Mirror

January 25 - Boundaries

We change our behavior when
the pain of staying the same
becomes greater than the pain
of changing. Consequences give
us the pain that motivates us
to change.
~ Henry Cloud

Conditions are always effects.
Conditions being always the
externalization of thought,
it follows that they can be
controlled by changing the thought –
by thinking constructively.
~ Ernest Holmes

I do have issues with boundaries. I've never liked being constrained. "I love the openness that I am" to quote Byron Katie in the 41st Chapter essay in her book "A Thousand Names For Joy". I am wide open to Life. I am wide open to my Creator's purposes in conceiving me. I have been known to rebel strongly when anyone tries to push me into the space where they want me to be when it is not of my own choosing – and I don't even care if it is "for my own good". If it really IS for my own good, I assure you, I will "get there" on my own. But I am also open to ALL of the messages that surround me every moment of every day. I am open to the hearts that I feel care about me deeply.

I believe in people. Even though I know that there are some highly confused, damaged, and wounded animal kinds of people out there, I care deeply about the quality of life experienced by any person. Certainly I know to protect myself from wounded animals. I know not to get close enough to a wounded animal that I can be physically harmed. I'm less clear when it comes to people. My life has put me repeatedly in contact with people whose minds function differently from others – from Asperger Geniuses to the criminally "insane" and everything in between. To me these are simply "variances" because I do not believe there is such a thing as "normal".

In the categories this world throws us into there are such degrees and ranges of human expression that even if in general someone "appears" to share some of our own values, they may be at the furthest edge from the range within which we personally are expressing. We lean in certain directions – conservative or liberal, for example. I tend to be liberal regarding most societal issues, while remaining a bit conservative regarding economics and finances. I am highly aware of extremely conservative Christians for they are all around me here in the heartland of the USA. Most of them really do have "good intentions" but the dogma of their beliefs can be quite rigid. I had never encountered a highly religious, liberal person. Interesting combination – that. Religion puts many people into weird dimensions because many people really want to be "right with God" before they die. I don't personally believe it is possible to be "wrong" where our Creator is concerned.

I was raised to be a "good girl" and I try to be a "good wife". My inclination or preferences are a life that is filled with love, peace and harmony and for the most part my life is exactly that way. Yet I do have my limits and I definitely don't like someone attempting to take my personal power or free will away from me. I have discovered recently that extremists seek the edge and that they really have no boundaries. So it became clear to me that a person I was interacting with was seeking to discover my own personal boundary – how much would I allow ? That's a difficult and yet intuitive question. There are no preset limits with me and I am quite an amazingly accepting and allowing, consensual kind of person. But my boundary was reached in this instance and I felt it clearly and then finding that place in my own self I was able to establish what that boundary was just as clearly with this other person.

I believed in this regard that I had attracted to myself a person whose life trajectory includes learning about boundaries. I've been aware for some time that my own life's lessons are also about boundaries. I am clearer about them than my extremist friend was but even so, it is a constant struggle for me to define what they actually are. There is no distinct edge for me. I don't really like to disappoint anyone. I really do care about everyone and I will work very hard to find a place of understanding between my own self with any other person that I may appear to be in conflict with. Sometimes there simply is not that possibility of finding that understanding where we meet in common. A friend of mine wrote to me regarding this experience – "It seems to me, that by doing so, you are amplifying the values of the soul. I believe our values are like living energies behind the scenes that we reflect." This clearly and beautifully expresses my own heart's desire.

It may be that boundaries are one of the hardest lessons we have to learn in life. We want to get along and be cooperative with the common good. We want to trust that most people are well-intentioned and I do believe that they are – even extremists are well-intentioned, they just don't know where their own boundary should be and therefore they go too far. Once an extremist gets way out at or even beyond the edge of acceptable, they don't always seem to know how to come back to the middle. I love how Life throws us together. Life threw an extremist at me and I had to show that person what a boundary looks like but first I had to find out clearly where it was that my own boundary existed. As usual, my boundary is a moving target and it is not always easy for me to pin that line down.

~ perspective

My love knows no boundaries but
my tolerance of certain behaviors
has definite boundaries,
just ask my kids !!
There are boundaries in our human
existence – death is such a boundary,
pushing another person too far is
such a boundary – if we look for whatever
boundary, we will find it – eventually.
In every relationship I have with another
person I leave the windows to my soul
open to view; however when another person
violates my trust, then the walls that
protect and guard me become necessary.
Sometimes we need just a little pressure
against the boundaries that we understand
to make certain that they are the best
boundaries for our own self.
My tolerance is my patience when my
boundaries are tested to their furthest
extreme until the edge has been found
where my tolerance dissolves.

#coercion #constraints #extremes #harmony #insanity #liberal #normal #protection #receptivity #values