Boundaries and What Lies Beneath Them
Los límites y lo que yace bajo ellos
A student asks whether setting boundaries is ultimately about discovering what is true for you. The teacher explains that boundaries are a necessary but limited tool, and points toward a deeper, more creative way of relating.
Boundaries and What Lies Beneath Them
A student asks whether setting boundaries is ultimately about discovering what is true for you. The teacher explains that boundaries are a necessary but limited tool, and points toward a deeper, more creative way of relating.
When I was listening, I got the idea that setting boundaries, knowing your boundary and living according to it, is really about the truth of who you are. Is that right?
The practice of setting boundaries, to me, is a tool for when you haven't been able to flow that deeply. When we haven't yet learned to flow deeply with something, we need boundaries as a way to manage. For example, if I break a leg, I'm going to use a crutch until I can use my leg again. A boundary is a kind of crutch: useful, necessary, and important to learn.
But it's better to be able to go deeper, to relate more deeply. For example, if there's a person who always engages with you in a certain way and you keep getting stuck in that pattern and it's just not good for you, the boundary might be: I don't see this person anymore, or I walk away. Whatever the boundary is, it's a way to manage being stuck.
The deeper option
There is a deeper option, which is more creative. It depends on how problematic the relationship is, but for example, with someone I once had to set a boundary with, it's no longer necessary. What I want is just more naturally happening, and I don't end up in that situation anymore.
Boundaries are good practice to learn. But what I'm also pointing to is that there's something deeper. We can relate to the very thing the boundary says no to in a more creative way.
I have the same experience. I am fully aware that my mother has her way of living and tries to educate me to be like her, to live her life, when my situation is totally different. For quite a while I couldn't speak to her. But we still have a good relationship despite not talking so much. I realize more and more what I cannot accept from other people, and slowly I'm getting to see what I'm truly about. It is very slow.
It's slow, but it's deep, so it takes time. And on the other side, there's also going to be a kind of deactivation of whatever is driving the pattern, wherever that comes from.
Letting go of control
There was anger first, and now it's a lot calmer, not so reactive, because we cannot change people. They are the way they are. That's what I've come to realize. I cannot change myself either. There's nothing here; there's nothing there.
I feel like, at the same time that I'm not accepting how they try to force me, I'm also accepting that this is just the way it is. There is a lot less resistance. And there's also not knowing what the relationship will end up looking like. There's no controlling the consequences, no need to worry about the relationship breaking apart. If it happens that we cannot live with each other, then we separate. That's how life happens.
It might surprise you. You may end up with a better relationship than ever before. But it doesn't have to be that way.
It can be complicated. Thank you so much.