I teach authenticity. Boundaries & authenticity go hand in hand like a horse and carriage. You cannot have one without the other.
First, I'll start by saying that we don't understand boundaries.
There are 2 types of people who are far from their authentic boundaries: the people who think it's selfish/wrong to have them and those of us who use boundaries as walls or weapons against others.
Now hear me out on this one.
People pleasing, codependency and any other similar dysfunctional ways of relating are the ones who need to get in touch with their boundaries and their limits as fast as possible as a way to get back in touch with their true self.
One of the most important lessons someone just starting out their healing as a people pleaser is the ability to embody learning how to saying no. They need to get to the point where they understand that by NOT saying no to the wrong things they will deplete themselves to the point where they will get physically sick because we know that our body is the manifestation of our disowned needs and truths. So the farther one drifts from their inner true self they were born with, the more the body takes it upon itself to make that unbearable for the person so that the person in this case cannot and will not be able to dismiss and bypass their disowned true self without excruciating pain. The more of who you are you had to disown as a child, the sicker and joyless and lacking vitality you become. But let's get back to the people pleasers.
Their way back home to their true self must start with recognizing how saying yes to what they don't want to do feels in their body. The somatic awareness guides them (and everyone, honestly) to what IS right for them. Your body, if you listen and feel close enough, sets your boundaries for you. However with the other types of people, boundaries can become like walls.
Some people, knowingly or unknowingly, may fall into the trap of using boundaries in order to disconnect from people and push them away (I'm talking about pushing away the workable relationships, not abusive ones, I'll go into that later). When this is the case, there is an emotional pay-off they get from being this way.
In extreme cases, the idea of boundaries can also be used to manipulate or even justify hurting people. In such cases, we turn 'boundaries' into weapons for abuse. I know it sounds crazy, but it happened to me & to many of my clients as well. If it hadn't happened to me, maybe I wouldn't have considered this. I'm going to give you my example with my ex boyfriend. He was highly abusive, both verbally and physically. I stayed in that relationship for 8ys, as a codependent hoping that he would change eventually, which he didn't, obviously. However I remember every time he would get angry, I would tell him that this made me feel unsafe (boundary) and he would respond to my boundary by yelling at me his boundary: "Well yeah, this is me, this is how I am, I won't change, take it or leave it". This was, in his mind, a boundary he would put with me to shut me up. And he did, because I had nothing more to say afterwards. But see this is an example where boundaries are wrongly used to shut the victim up. These are not actual boundaries, this is plain and simple abusive behavior.
Most people, after they discover the idea of a boundary, they subconsciously see this as a leeway to finally give voice to all the resentment, rage, despair that they felt they couldn't until then (which is totally understandable, no shame or blame here, I was this person too!).
I had a client who used boundaries in an overaggressive way with her parents in law because they had a different view than her. I'm not discussing who is right or wrong here. I'm discussing what her actual and authentic goal was with the boundaries she put. She used to bellow and lash out and because our nervous system is wired in such a way to perceive anger/rage as potential threat, the parents in law used to go into shut down and freeze, not being able to hear her. She made that mean that they were disconsidering of her. Which is a totally valid perspective to have. Then I asked her What do you truly want & expect from them when you set these boundaries? Is it possible that yelling at them makes it difficult for them to receive you? Is the message inherent in your boundaries important to you & you want it to be delivered in a way that is received fully? If yelling at them your boundaries is obviously not working for you to get your point across, what else could you choose here that may bring you closer to your goal, which is for them to respect your difference in opinion? Upon a closer look, she realized she felt invalidated. That was her truth. The rage she was setting boundaries with, even though totally valid, was the reaction coming from a wound she had from her childhood, when her point was never taken into account and that made her feel canceled. And so I taught her how to embody her actual true boundaries. And guess what, her boundaries were eventually respected.
People think that boundaries should stay consistent throughout their life. Their boundaries are rigid (which makes sense for them to be this way when you first start learning about being boundaried), but the problem I personally see is when they STAY rigid, repelling, off putting. And in this article I will show you how boundaries are meant to change the more we change and get closer to our true self.
ALLOW FOR YOUR BOUNDARIES TO CHANGE THE MORE YOU CHANGE
We absolutely need boundaries. It's how we get to have healthy relationships.
Nevertheless, if you're a person who's doing the inner work, and you probably either are or are flirting with the idea if you're here, you need to take into account that the understanding of what boundaries actually are will also need to transform the more you transform. The more you heal & define your true self, the more your boundaries will also evolve to mirror that. Let me give you an example of the evolution of my own boundaries.
Like I said I was a codependent, a people pleaser with a deep enmeshment wound that came from my mother's side. In the beginning of my healing journey when I first found out about boundaries and their role, I became very aggressive in how I asserted my boundaries.
I was right in setting those boundaries, don't get me wrong. They were valid and utterly necessary for the level of consciousness I was at in that moment in time. The way I set my boundaries was empowering for me then. And its not that my mother didn't respect them, surprisingly she did, for the most part. Where I had a blindspot was that I unconsciously used them to `get back at my mother` for the times she made me feel powerless in my childhood. My boundaries were my revenge. I wasn't using them to state my truth & abide by it, I was using them to hurt her. Behind those words there was a boiling unhinged rage against her which was totally understandable, and it did hurt her, but in the end, they hurt me too.
It took a while for me to step into the next phase of my healing, in which I allowed myself to dive into the rage behind those boundaries. And when I asked myself why, I had an epiphany - the rage came from an aspect in me that felt like I didn't matter, so the only way to make myself matter was to yell and fight hard to be heard. And then there was a polar opposite aspect that was extremely afraid to lose the connection with her.
So after I sat with these emotions, allowing them to settle, I asked myself `What else is there? How can I speak & embody my truth in a way that is not detrimental to my relationship with my mother (as she is a person I want to continue having in my life)?` So what I chose to do was to tell her exactly what I discovered about myself while diving into the boundaries. Because those were my actual true boundaries coming from my true self that had the whole picture of my needs & wants. So if in the beginning, boundaries for me sounded like "Don't ever come here again unannounced! I have no privacy, you suffocate me!", after the careful examination, this is what they sounded like:
"Anytime you come to my house unannounced, what I make it mean is that I or what I feel doesn't matter to you and it makes me fight harder for you to hear me and take my needs into account. This is why I get so infuriated. I don't want to be like this anymore, I don't want to be enraged all the time. But I feel it leaves me no choice because however many times I ask this of you - to stop showing up announced - you never respect it. The truth is I do need you in my life & I want to have a relationship with you, but at the same time I need to have my needs and limits taken into account as well. So that means anytime you want to drop by, please ask me if I'm OK with it beforehand. Do you think that's possible for you to do?" This right here was the whole truth about how I felt, how I thought, what my needs and boundaries were. These boundaries were coming from my true self.
And even though all boundaries are valid just as they are, at the level of healing you are at, if you do the inner work, your boundaries will most likely change too, as I said. Because the definition and meaning you assign to them changes. There is a caveat here. If the person in your life doesn't take your needs into account even after you specifically communicated them, at whatever stage of healing you are at, it doesn't matter, they are a person not worth having in your life. They're unworkable. What I'm talking about in here is workable relationships where even though there may be a dysfunction, it can be worked out when both parties invest effort and energy. Fortunately for me it was the case with my mother, however it was not the case, for example, with my abusive ex boyfriend that t I don't have in my life anymore. You need to learn to discern & take nuances into account. Those who will never be able to hold space for your boundaries and you need to let them go.
WHAT ARE EMBODIED BOUNDARIES & HOW TO EMBODY YOUR BOUNDARIES AS YOUR TRUE SELF
I personally advocate for embodied boundaries. What are those? Some people may have different definitions for embodied boundaries and that's totally OK, we don't have to abide by the same definitions or rules.
My personal definition for embodied boundaries is that they are the way in which we relate to & interact with the world as our true self.
These embodied boundaries mean you tell the entire truth of how you feel about the situation/person you set these boundaries with. Your authentic embodied boundaries are NOT reactive to the circumstances you're in, but they are examined, healed and owned manners of how you define your presence in the world.
And the person's real intentions with you will show because once someone knows the entire truth of how you feel about them and they don't do anything to alter their hurtful behavior in order to nurture the relationship, that person does not truly care about you, as I mentioned previously & feel the need to reiterate. And this is a red flag as big as China. Take it at face value.
My advice would be to examine your relationship to your boundaries at every level of healing you are. This is going to show you how your boundaries will morph too and transform & they will inevitably encroach more and more of your personal truth and vulnerability. Your authentic self is NOT a state of endedness, an immutable inner self that doesn't allow for space for growth, the same goes for your embodied boundaries. What is true for you and about you will evolve the more & deeper you get to know your truth. Who your true self is in the now is all that matters &you must live in integrity with it.
So how to embody your boundaries? Here is my 3 step process:
1. The first step would be to tune into your body in order to discover what your authentic boundaries are right now in terms of your time, energy, space etc.
Instead of intellectualizing your limits around these things, drop into your body with your eyes closed and look for the feedback you receive from it You cannot embody your authentic boundaries without checking in with your body. They're called embodied boundaries for a reason.
Notice & witness the physical sensations & the quality of these sensations that come up when you ask these questions. They are your body's way of conversing with you about what is true for you. For eg a physical sensation of constriction, tightness, shortness of breath, anything that registers as unpleasant to you is how your body says NO, whereas a sense of relief, spaciousness, expansion, a sense of exhalation in the body is how your body tells you its your truth. Learning how to accurately interpret these messages is the way to live an embodied life as an embodied true self.
So let's take a concrete example and work with it, shall we. Say you want to understand your boundaries around how you relate to a friend of yours that you have a good relationship with (again, I feel the need to emphasize this as loudly as possible, this practice is not to be used to justify enabling an abusive hurtful relationship).
After you closed your eyes and dropped into your body, ask yourself the following questions & be as honest and vulnerable as possible, while in this state.
How do I truly feel about my relationship with my friend?
What part or parts of our relationship feel in alignment? How can I celebrate them more? What part or parts of our relationship feel out of alignment? What is my personal truth here?
What is the best way that I can remain a good friend to this person while also remaining true to myself?
What needs, limits do I have in this relationship?
Am I true to expressing them whenever I feel the urge to?
2. Once you discover all that you can possibly discover that you have access to at this time & at this level of consciousness, examine WHY. Own what you discover as your truth in the now.
Do you feel enraged, sad, disappointed by a situation/person?
What thoughts feed into this emotional state?
What physical sensations are associated with these emotional states?
And most importantly, WHY do you have them?
Asking yourself WHY is the most crucial tool to dig deeper into who you are & into the reason and the justification for having the boundaries that you have. Allowing yourself to answer that brings clarity into whether the boundary comes from your true self, a programming or a protective aspect that wants to protect a wound. Which, as I mentioned again and again, are all valid and important for where we are in our journey. If a baby learns how to walk by crawling, that doesn't mean crawling is bad, it's a phase that a baby cannot skip. And when we first learn how to set boundaries, we are all babies in this & that's perfectly ok.
3. Express that full raw truth of your boundary to the other person.
In this scenario, if your friend said/did something that made you feel a certain unwanted way(for eg they may have ghosted you), reveal exactly that. `When you disappeared, I felt abandoned and neglected. I made it mean that I am not important enough for you to let me know that you would disappear for a while. I totally understand your need to be alone and I respect and honor it fully, however, what I need to not feel this way would be for you to inform me in advance of your intentions so that I don't overthink, get anxious & misread your absence. This would be a healing experience for me as I had been dealing with an abandonment wound. Do you think you can do this next time?'
This is, in my opinion, an embodied authentic boundary. You listened to your body for what feels true & in alignment for you & you expressed that.
If this is a real friend, they will not forget this boundary of yours and will honor it. Because they want to have you in their life and take your best interests into account just as they do for themselves.
Boundaries are misunderstood in our society.
There is an extreme, polarized view of them. They either don't exist (because they make us feel selfish & hence they turn us into doormats) or they become walls or weapons that turn us into narcissistic, unnecessarily aggressive people when that shouldn't be the case (see my above example of my boundaries). The healthy version of your boundaries will be revealed to you the more awareness you have of yourself & the more you want to live in integrity. If a relationship with another deprives you of the relationship with yourself & your integrity & continually does so even after you share the truth of where you stand with it, you may want to consider whether the price you're paying is too high. Thank you.
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