Boundaries express love.
Boundaries beam from love.
Boundaries strengthen a foundation of inner and flowing out-to-the-world love.
I bump up against my lack of boundaries after a recent teasing storm that sent me into a silent fuming phase, and spent the following days spitting back quips around the boxing corners of my brain.
“Just who do you think you are speaking to me that way!”
Then a friend whose phone etiquette irritates me.
“HEY. STOP texting me at 6am. Ok, bae?”
That’s the mental text I leave unsent. With particular friend I know it’s not the texting; it’s a long line of crossed boundaries left unchecked.
And again when a yoga student makes a quick remark about the class.
“OUCH! Do you not think that I don’t have any feelings?!”
The episodes replay long afterward because I didn’t voice my initial response, which now burns in hot retorts that echo like an infuriated bird clawing, screeching “Let me out.”
For most of my life, I haven’t let that bird out, because sooner or later the feathered wings stop flapping or at least settle before being set off on a new rampage of squawking distress.
Instead of speaking a loud and clear truth, I’ve employed passive aggressive tactics, disappeared, or suppressed and suppressed and reasoned myself to be nicer, more understanding, suffocating my needs and silencing myself into a doormat.
An angry doormat.
And now in my year of Speak, as I grow into healthier relationships and a compassionate relationship with myself, I know the time to become clear and confident in honoring my boundaries is Now.
But first I need to know…What exactly are my boundaries?
I initiate a quest. I google search “How to establish healthy personal boundaries?” and find an article from the Oprah Magazine with a questionnaire designed to clarify boundaries.
The student in me prepares with a notebook, a purple pen, and afternoon time to reflect at my go-to eastside coffee shop where a fish named Mr. David swims nearby.
I’m ready.
Fill In The Blank: People May Not…
People May Not…
People May Not…
People May Not…
A fog descends. The blank page looks pathetic. I have no clue what to declare, not even in a free writing response where the only judge is that fish whose happily content in his bowl and not even caring what I write.
My heart catches the weight of the question and my constricted reaction sparks tears that I dare not let slide while in this hipster coffee shop vibe.
I skip that question. I go to the third. The third question I can answer. I can relate to this question.
Fill In the Blank: To Protect My Time and Energy, It’s Okay To…
I take a few deep breaths and relax into my heart and tell my heart that I will write what she offers to be finally seen in acceptance and light. I can flow with the heart-spoken response because I am becoming more fluent in the love language of self-care.
And then my aha epiphany on boundaries shimmers into bright awareness and heartfelt understanding.
Mr. David waves his maroon fins at me as I realize that boundaries are about love: self-love, love for friends and family, love for the world and how we want to show up in the world, as our best selves, which we do when we ensure loving boundaries to protect, nurture, guide us through.
Boundaries let love in. And keeps what and who doesn’t serve our highest good out.
Now I can answer these questions.
Now I can actually enjoy drawing my boundaries.
That bird existing in my ribcage that cues when I need to speak loud and clear, I befriend that bird and when I feel that bird getting restless to express, I trust my spirit word of Speak to address the feelings arising. And I relinquish fears of needing to be perfect in establishing these self-love golden lines.
Let the lesson in learning to speak a flame-fueled truth be messy.
Swallowing these feelings burns my throat. And the fear that the charge of my truth may scorch others is not real. If I speak from an intentional place of love to communicate my needs then I have done my sacred duty. The response of others is simply their response and I now love myself enough to protect, defend, and stand by my needs.
Through the practice of self-love I now have the inner strength to ensure boundaries.
The women I use to be, the younger selves I iterated through to now be me, didn’t know that their emotions were valid, and that having needs are legitimate and meant to be honored and at least listened to with respect. They knew to not take the world personally. And yet those “younger selves” didn’t know how not to take the world personally, particularly how to defend from hurting family and friends intent on casting their own projections or controlling how I perceived my way of being “me.”
This recognition breaks compassion open for these younger women who still are in need of healing within me. And so this phase of my life, this year of Speak, this inquiry into boundaries begins to press remedies to detoxify and liberate blocked energy.
I start by affirming my worth.
I affirm my worth as intrinsic gold interwoven into the universe of my cells and constellations of innate radiance that glisten in the essence of my being.
I am worthy of speaking up for myself.
My needs are valid and legitimate.
I inherently have the right to respect and dignity.
I also ultimately know what is best for me and trust only love to be the guidance directing me.
From this foundation, I lift my spine, open and relax into the throne of my heart and this is where I reign. This is where I proceed in setting into motion loving boundaries.
And in moving forward in love-bright boundaries, I share with you answers that have resonated and practices that are illuminating the way:
*I have the right to say no, and I have the right to take my time to make a decision best aligned with my values, my time commitments, and my energy.
Here’s a practice that I do to check in and discern choices:
Pause. Relax into the heart-space. Breathe and sink the question out of the mind and into the glimmering vastness of the heart: the kingdom of feeling, intuition, innate knowing, ancestral wisdom. Let the answer arise and trust the fullness of breath, the lightness and swiftness of feeling to communicate the best aligned decision for that moment in time. Purposefully act.
*“I do not have to buy into your reality.”
A Virgo starseed friend shared that phrase over a catch-up tea and my spirit roared in resonance.
I do not have to buy into your reality.
Most people are stuck in patterns and cycles, make decisions out of fear to protect closed hearts, and their judgments are projected pains. When you get a big and random reaction out of someone, you’ve probably triggered a part of themselves that needs healing. What a person thinks of you speaks more about them than it ever will about you.
I perceive people’s perceptions as illuminating insights to where they are in their journey. And there’s no need to judge; it’s a practice of discernment so I can stay clear and close to my truth and not allow anyone to belittle and influence my connection to self and how I choose to interact and show up in the world. I’m now more aware when I am acting into people’s perceptions of me and when I am making decisions from another person’s illusionary reality.
Here’s the truth (and I offer this as your truth, too) I can be as luminous and loving as I care to be and can go wherever I want to go. I give no one the power to determine how and where I show up in this world. Life’s way too precious for dimming any aliveness (which is what happens when we give our power away to other people). We are meant to enjoy and experience life while we are in its unfolding wonder and natural ecstasy.
*“Interesting that you feel that way.”
A healer gifted me this phrase and immediately it helps to clarify and separate my energy from someone else.
I envision a person’s intruding energy, their tinted projection and hazy perception as a bouquet and this bouquet is not mine to hold. So I give the blooms of their thoughts and their ideas back to them. Again and again. I am not your idea of me. I am not even the ideas I hold of myself. So I give that back to you. Because those thoughts are your entry point for further explorations of healing and understanding about yourself.
*Every interaction is an opportunity for healing.
Day-to-day interactions brim with enriching opportunities to establish healthy, healing boundaries.
Daily conversations shine forward with insights of where I am in need of healing.
When I listen to people speak, I stay aware of my heart, and when I feel my heart contract, want to close out of fear, I relax and breathe to acknowledge the blockage and work to release by keeping the heart open and optimally functioning.
From this open-space, I voice truths with steadiness and centered confidence, and circle the interactions with intention for the participating party, too. And so, the boys who tease me, the friend who texts at 6am, and the yoga student who made the flippant remark are all my healing-teachers and I can be teachers for their healing, too.
And I am granting myself oceanic grace in establishing healthy boundaries. This is a lifetime practice and those questions from the Oprah magazine will continue to prompt and challenge and my answers will evolve because life is movement and change. And the relationships I have with others reflect the changing relationship I have with myself.
So let it all be love, and let the love-illuminated boundaries sweep in more joy, ease, clarity, and ignite a deeper, brighter, expansive relationship with the world around and within me.