Boundaries Part III: Setting Boundaries

I recently read that a successful woman does not "continually [dwell] on her past difficulties. You cannot allow your negative experiences to color the way you live your life today." I agree and disagree. All our past experiences are for our "profit and learning." I believe we are given or allowed to go through certain life experiences to teach us, and if we don't learn it the first time, I believe the lesson gets repeated and often more intensely until we do learn. Some of those lessons can be from positive experiences, but I think if we are sufficiently humbled and teachable profound learning can come from negative life events.

While it does little service to dwell on past experiences, it seems impossible to figure out where I need to go, without looking at where I've been. I hope those of you who are reading my blog do not believe I am mired in the muck of my former follies. Rather, this blog is an attempt to make conscious changes to my previous (and often destructive) way of thinking. I do not want to the problems in my past to perpetuate, therefore I must change my behaviors; but in order to change my behaviors, I must change my attitude; and in order to change my attitude, I must change my beliefs; and in order to change my beliefs, I must change the way I think; and to change the way I think, I need new information and a new internal dialogue. (Enter Mind Over Mood by Greenberger and Padesky [1995] … but more to come on that in future posts.)

One of the problem areas in my life I am on a quest to change is my blurry boundaries. According to Cloud and Townsend (1992), "The first step in establishing boundaries is becoming aware of old family patterns that you are still continuing in the present. Look at the struggles you are having with boundaries in your family of origin, identify which laws are being broken, and then pinpoint the resulting negative fruit in your life. ... Look at your own life situation and see where boundary problems exist with your parents and siblings. The basic question is this: Where have you lost control of your property? Identify those areas and see their connection with the family you grew up in, and you are on your way” (p.130, 133).

It is important I stop believing I am a victim of other's boundary issues and realize I am the problem. Cloud and Townsend (1992) remind us, “[we] do not act in inappropriate ways for no reason. [We] are often trying to meet some underlying need that [our] family of origin did not meet. Maybe we are still entangled because of a need to be loved, or approved of, or accepted. ... It is not enough to understand your need. You must get it met” (p.133). Sadly, in the past when the people I wanted to show this love, approval, and acceptance did not, I slipped into despair and I searched out self destructive sources to meet my needs.

This brings me back to the situation with my friend (See Boundaries Part I.): Should I have told her “yes” even when I believed I was not in a position to help her? Guaranteed, had I said “yes” I would have taken a sacrificial (not compassionate) position, and resented having to postpone my own plans in order to take care of her needs. In Bonds that Make Us Free, Warner (2001) proposes that “[taking] up a hard, resentful attitude toward others is to have to live in a resented world, a world full of people who oppose and threaten us. How they are in our eyes is reflective of how we are. The punishment for self-betrayal is having to live, in this resented world, a life that’s far more difficult than it needs to be” (p.53). Therefore, my resentment in giving an obligatory “yes,” causes me to suffer a more difficult life.

Warner (2001) also suggests “Self-betrayal occurs when we … do to another what we sense we should not do, or don’t do what we sense we should. … The personal obligations we feel to one another, soul to soul, call us to give of ourselves without reserve. Anything less … is self betrayal” (p.20, 22). Furthermore, “People who own their lives do not feel guilty when they make choices about where they are going. They take other people into consideration, but when they make choices for the wishes of others, they are choosing out of love, not guilt; to advance a good, not to avoid being bad” (Cloud and Townsend, 1992, p.124). Obviously, I had not taken the steps to own my life as I acted more out of guilt and out of not wanting to seem bad. So, how do I say “yes” out of willing compassion? How do I learn to say “no” in appropriate situations? How do I set boundaries that will keep me from betraying myself?

Cloud and Townsend (1992) propose that “establishing boundaries in thinking involves three things.

1. We must own our own thoughts. Many people have not taken ownership of their own thinking processes. They are mechanically thinking the thoughts of others without ever examining them. They swallow others’ opinions and reasonings, never questioning and ‘thinking about their thinking.’ …

2. We must grow in knowledge and expand our minds. …

3. We must clarify distorted thinking. We all have a tendency to not see things clearly, to think and perceive in distorted ways. Probably the easiest distortions to notice are in personal relationships. We rarely see people as they really are; our perceptions are distorted by past relationships and our own preconceptions of who we think they are, even the people we know best. (Matt. 7:3-5).

... Taking ownership of our thinking in relationships requires being active in checking out where we may be wrong. As we assimilate new information, our thinking adapts and grows closer to reality. Also we need to make sure that we are communicating our thoughts to others. … We have our own thoughts, and if we want others to know them, we must tell them” (p.45-46).

Throughout my life, I have passively avoided communicating my boundaries, choosing instead to ignore or retreat into obscurity. When I have tried to verbalize my boundaries, the other party usually pretended to understand, but continued to violate them. Perhaps I was not believable, or maybe as the strength of my fences were tested, they were found to be flimsy and full of holes. Regardless, I have not yet found a way to firmly convey the seriousness of these boundaries.

For example, I had a friend who grew to need my attention, affirmations, support, and communication more than was appropriate or possible to give. When I wasn't available, I was made to feel guilty, as if I were a terrible friend for abandoning them. Finally, when the situation had grown too destructive, I verbalized my boundaries, asking this friend to not contact me for awhile, with no guarantee of ever being able to communicate again as we had. Still, I received texts, phone calls, and emails of apology, filled with baited stories and attempts to draw me out of my retreat. My boundaries had been clearly verbalized, but they had not been respected. Cloud and Townsend (1992) admonish: “We need to respect the boundaries of others. We need to love the boundaries of others in order to command respect for our own. We need to treat their boundaries the way we want them to treat ours” (p.90). Perhaps, I was suffering from a little Boundary Karma.

At first, I found it difficult to reject the calls, ignore the texts, and refuse to respond to my friend’s emails. I realized I missed the interaction, the dependency, the feeling of being needed, loved, and important. Giving up a person who helped meet many of my emotional needs, regardless of how destructive the situation had been, was intensely painful. Often, the perceived loneliness was suffocating. However, with each email I ignored and each call I rejected, I became stronger and more determined to follow through with the boundaries I had set.

Cloud and Townsend (1992) remind me that “[I] own [my] boundaries. They don’t own [me]. If [I] set limits with someone, and she responds maturely and lovingly, [I] can renegotiate the boundary. In addition, [I] can change the boundary if [I am] in a safer place” (p.120). In this instance, my friend did not respond “maturely and lovingly,” and I do not believe I am in a safer place emotionally … yet; therefore, at this point, the boundary cannot be renegotiated. More importantly, in the process I realized the biggest boundary I needed to set was on myself, more than on my friend.

Learning to delay gratification, control appetites, or simply put aside our own desires (even those that may be good) which would not be wise to follow, will help us to strengthen our boundaries with others. “We need to have spaces inside ourselves where we can have a feeling, an impulse, or a desire, without acting it out. We need self-control, without repression. … We need to be able to say no to ourselves” (p.44). I believe if we can tell ourselves no, it will be much easier to tell others no.

However, Cloud and Townsend (1992) point out it is impossible to “start setting limits until you have entered into deep, abiding attachments with people who will love you no matter what. Our deepest need is to belong, to be in a relationship, to have a spiritual and emotional ‘home’” (p.64).

“When we are not secure that we are loved, we are forced to choose between two bad options: 1. We set limits and risk losing a relationship. … 2. We don’t set limits and remain a prisoner to the wishes of another” (p.64). And in my experience, both bad options bring emptiness, loneliness, and bitterness that drive away the Spirit and foster further insecurity.

In evaluating my own relationships, there are very few which I believe are “deep,” “abiding,” where I will be loved “no matter what.” Love is conditional. The only unconditional love comes from or through God and Christ. Love from any other source is conditional; for a person to say it is not conditional usually means they have not yet suffered from inappropriate, abusive, or extreme conditions; they lack experience and maturity. Love within those circumstances isn’t really love; instead it is fear of loss, built upon obsession, desperation, and insecurity.

Even a mother and her child share conditional love, though the threshold of aversive conditions may be much steeper in this close familial bond. But everyone has a breaking point; everyone has a line that when it is crossed, the supposed unconditional love takes off its blindfold and sees what is really going on. There are many more people whose intolerant threshold includes basic human idiosyncrasies—not only that, but their love is so conditional, that by not meeting all expectations you are denied all their love.

Again, the only unconditional love comes through God and Christ—in their perfection they love perfectly, without judgment, without jealousy, without expectation. This concept is eloquently described in The Continuous Atonement:

God is bound to love me. It is his nature to love perfectly and infinitely. He is bound to love me – not because I am good, but because He is good. Love is so central to his character that the scriptures actually say, ‘God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16; emphasis added). … Not only did He require me to have faith and confidence in Him, but He is required to have faith and confidence in me. … God and Jesus are bound to believe in me – in my potential and possibilities – even when I don’t. God is bound to be as close to me as He is to any of His children because He is a perfect parent. (Wilcox, 2009, p.132-133)

Therefore, when my needs of being loved, approved of, and accepted by certain people are not being met, “[I] must face this deficit and accept that it can only be met in [my] new family of God, those who are now [my] true ‘mother, father, brothers, and sisters,’ those who do God’s will and can love [me] the way he designed. God is willing to meet [my] needs through his people, but [I] must humble [myself], reach out to a good support system, and take in the good” (Cloud & Townsend, 1992, p.133).

Gratefully, I have eliminated or minimized most of the destructive and negative influences in my life (still working on my own negativity), and procured a few positive people to help meet my emotional needs. But, this process is far from over …