Watering My Lawn

When asked to give advice at a bridal shower, many women write, “Never go to bed angry.” My note card of wedded wisdom was always one of two: 1. “There’s no point staying up fighting it out—it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for your perspective,” and 2. “If you think the grass is greener on the other side, water your lawn!” The first was because I like to be contradictory. The second, I truly believe, but was horrible at following. I swear, I’m the poster child for what not to do in a marriage, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but my lawn metaphor is accurate in describing a committed relationship, and it also applies to the concept of boundaries.

My own lawn, my own personal spiritual and emotional health have suffered for years … I have sculpted a completely dry-scaped, rock-filled desert of a yard … while I have, instead, watered and pruned the yards of dozens of students, many friends, and multiple family members. I had removed the water from my own yard, and turned it onto the lawns of those for whom I had made myself responsible. I had sacrificed my own time for reading, writing, playing the piano, singing, meditating, and nurturing my important family relationships, to nurture the needs (and sometimes neediness) of others.

In the book Boundaries, the author tells a story of a mother and father who came to him, devastated about their son, who, they believed, was suffering from a myriad of problems. He was unemployed, failing out of college, using drugs, to name a few of the issues with which his parents had been “helping.” The doctor told the distraught parents, “He doesn’t have a problem. You do. … Would you like for me to help you help him have some problems? … As it stands now, he is irresponsible and happy, and you are responsible and miserable. … You need some fences to keep his problems out of your yard and in his, where they belong” (Cloud & Townsend, 1992, p.28). The parents were dumb-founded. How could their son have no problems? How could they be the ones with the problem? The problem was, they had been watering their son’s lawn, not allowing him to experience the natural consequences of his choices: a dead and dying yard. If they wanted to empower him to become responsible for himself, they needed to make those consequences apparent; they would have to stop being responsible for him; they would have to stop watering his lawn.

Cloud and Townsend clarify that, “Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. …We are not, for example, responsible for other people. Nowhere are we commanded to have ‘other-control,’ although we spend a lot of time and energy trying to get it!” (p.29-30). Oh, how I can relate! I must be honest and acknowledge there is a part of me that finds solace in focusing on helping others—always starting some new service project, planning or helping with some community activity or event, offering a listening ear or advice to someone in need. I remember several years in particular, when I served as the webmaster, membership chair and/or treasurer, the fall conference registrar, and the student competition registrar for the a statewide teaching organization, while I was also serving as the secretary for another statewide foreign language association, and volunteering as the teacher representative for the school’s PTSA … this all in addition to teaching full-time (including advising both yearbook and a drug/alcohol/violence prevention team of students), plus teaching a night class at WSU … while serving in the young women’s organization at my church … and being a wife and a mother to three little boys. Ever heard the phrase, “Jack of all trades; master of none?” That was me—Jill of all trades and doing a piss-poor job at everything! I just had the hardest time telling people no.

“People with poor boundaries struggle with saying no to the control, pressure, demands, and sometimes the real needs of others. They feel that if they say no to someone, they will endanger their relationship with that person, so they passively comply, but inwardly resent. Sometimes a person is pressuring you to do something; other times the pressure comes from your own sense of what you ‘should’ do. If you cannot say no to this external or internal pressure, you have lost control of your property and are not enjoying the fruit of ‘self-control’” (p.34). And, there you have it, folks! I couldn’t say no and so I was not in control of myself; rather, all of the things I was doing and people or organizations I was responsible to were in control of me.

The question is, have I learned my lesson yet? I’m trying, but old habits die hard. I am still the webmaster for UCTE (though the baton is in mid-pass), I am still advising yearbook and the student team (but, they bring in extra income and a unique opportunity to really connect with students), I still serve on the PTSA, but as for the rest of the extra-curriculars, barring motherhood, I am on sabbatical until I can get a grip on my own yard work, until I can fertilize and water my own lawn for awhile. This includes taking a break from not only volunteer work, but also some relationships. “Sometimes physically removing yourself from a situation will help maintain boundaries. … Or, you can remove yourself to get away from danger and put limits on evil. The Bible urges us to separate from those who continue to hurt us and to create a safe place for ourselves. Removing yourself from the situation will also cause the one who is left behind to experience a loss of fellowship that may lead to changes behavior. … Taking time off from a person, or a project, can be a way of regaining ownership over some out-of-control aspect of your life where boundaries need to be set” (p.36). I am finding that in moving away from these situations and taking a break from certain people, I have room to breathe, greater peace, and a broader perspective of life. That is not to say the withdrawals of losing these connections hasn’t been difficult, painful, and sometimes lonely.

An old (and by old I mean long-standing, since he is my age, and I’m by no means aged, though there are days I feel like an elderly women with early-onset Alzheimer’s) high school friend has asked me on several occasions, “Do you know how to relax? Do you even know how to just sit still and do nothing?”

My initial response to his question was, “Of course I do, but doing nothing just depresses me. I find if I slow down and don’t keep myself moving, I slip into lethargic apathy. I won’t even get dressed or move from my bed. It’s horrible. So, I prefer to just keep going.” I’ve pondered his question several times since, wondering why it is I have to be doing something, many somethings, nearly all of the time. I think my response, though it was somewhat superficial, actually speaks truth as to why I water other people’s lawns more than my own. Frankly, it’s easier and less depressing to focus on other people’s problems, it’s easier to solve the big issues facing someone else, than to solve my own problems. I’m a great reflective listener, I am a pretty good problem-solver, I have read a lot of books and can offer sound advice … for someone else. If the mirror was flipped around and I stood, staring into my own eyes, I would have to face the ugly reality that I wasn’t ready to see (and I’m not just talking about the random gray hairs and emerging wrinkles). If I kept enough “whatever’s” blocking my own vision, I wouldn’t be able to see the proverbial elephant in the room. And, it took that elephant practically sitting on my head for me to move my fingers from over my eyes.

You know, I’m an intelligent lady; I have a Master’s degree, for heaven’s sake! It’s not like I didn’t know things were out of balance, it’s just that I thought I could handle it. Instead, I was filling up my backpack with boulders, unable to carry anything. Cloud and Townsend point out the flaw in my way of thinking:

First, trying harder isn’t working. … Second, being nice out of fear isn’t working. … Third, taking responsibility for others isn’t working. … Part of taking responsibility, or ownership, is knowing what is our job, and what isn’t. … Any confusion of responsibility and ownership in our lives is a problem of boundaries. Just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t. … the inability to set appropriate boundaries at appropriate times with the appropriate people can be very destructive. … many clinical psychological symptoms, such as depressions, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, addictions, impulsive disorders, guilt problems, shame issues, panic disorders, and marital and relational struggles, find their root in conflicts with boundaries. (p.24-26)

And, don’t I know it! Depression, anxiety, guilt, marital and relational issues … check, check, check, and check! Did I mention I’m reading about a dozen books right now to deal with these issues? Check!

Friday evening, on our way to take our boys to dinner, my husband and I were talking about a mutual acquaintance, who, years ago, had suffered from a drug addiction, but has since been clean for at least a decade. He scoffed at how anyone could use drugs; he just couldn’t understand it. “What is the point,” he said, “destroying your life like that?”

I smiled and said, “Well, I suppose we all use something or another to dull our pain, to hide from our issues. It may be drugs, alcohol, pornography, sex … even over-eating …” I trailed off.

The radio played Christmas music in the background and the chatter from the boys in the backseats made it difficult for him to hear clearly my last example. Confused, he queried, “Over-reading?”

We both laughed out loud as we realized the error, but I suppose I may as well have added “over-reading” to the list. An outside observer, seeing the pile of books on my nightstand (and stuffed in my purse, and stacked next to the toilet, and sitting on my desk at work) could understandably say I am struggling with “over-reading,” that maybe my burying my nose in a book is my attempt to simply shield my eyes from everything I don’t want to see. Maybe they’d be right. And, honestly, if it were even a few months ago, I’d have to agree. However, I believe I have looked up; I have seen what’s in front of me, and instead of hiding my head in a text, I’m earnestly digging for solutions to put into practice. I’m not diving into the cover of some smutty romance story or escaping into the invisibility cloak of some fantasy novel (don’t get me wrong, I am still suffering from “Post-Potter Syndrome,” as my friend Lisa calls it, after listening to all seven books successively on CD). Rather, I am delving into books that grind at the sharp edges of my ego and offer salve for my scorched self esteem.

“Sometimes, we have bad on the inside and good on the outside. In these instances, we need to be able to open up our boundaries to let the good in and the bad out. In other words, our fences need gates in them. For example, if I find that I have some pain or sin within, I need to open up and communicate it to God and others, so that I can be healed. Confessing pain and sin helps to ‘get it out’ so that it does not continue to poison me on the inside (1 John 1:9). And when the good is on the outside, we need to open out gates and ‘let it in.’ … Other people have good things to give us, and we need to ‘open up to them’ (2 Cor. 6:11-13)” (p.31-32).

Just as Cloud and Townsend suggest, I am communicating with God and others (via this blog), confessing my pain, so it doesn’t continue to poison me and so I can be healed. There is so much good out there by way of books and people, I feel blessed and comforted. I wonder if I should have named this blog, “The Gate” – because I’ve unlocked it now; so, out with the bad, and bring in the good!

·      WORKBOOK QUESTIONS: Where are you watering someone else’s lawn while your own lawn dies? Are you allowing someone else to water your yard, instead of you? Is it cruel to stop watering someone else’s lawn, why/why not? (Post your responses below.)