Family, Boundaries, and the Work That Remains
Familia, Límites y el Trabajo que Queda por Hacer
A student asks about reconnecting with estranged family members and how to navigate the tension between maintaining boundaries and using difficult relationships as opportunities for deeper healing.
Family, Boundaries, and the Work That Remains
A student asks about reconnecting with estranged family members and how to navigate the tension between maintaining boundaries and using difficult relationships as opportunities for deeper healing.
I want to continue on the topic of family. I haven't talked to most of my family for a few years. While I was going through deep trauma work, it just wasn't working out, and it felt really good to have distance from them. I come from a family where "family is everything," so the level of obligation and the intense structure and expectation to fit in, meet demands, and show up a certain way was overwhelming. It was very liberating to step out of that and challenge all of their ideas of what you were allowed to do. They eventually just got used to the fact that I wasn't going to be talking to them anymore, and it was great.
Then this week, it was my dad's 75th birthday, and I started to feel so much love for him. I was in such a good place that it felt like a good time to reach out. I did, and we had a nice talk. I was feeling so much love afterward that I thought I'd reach out to my brother too. I sent him an email and decided to apologize for my part, because I understood that I was in a dark place dealing with my trauma and that involved them, but they didn't ask for that. They weren't on their healing journey. So I was apologizing for what I was bringing to the situation, even though I felt the way they handled it was really not kind. I just wanted to own my part.
His response was, "Cool. Sure, we can talk." I noticed the disappointment. I wasn't expecting anything, but I felt disappointed that there was no acknowledgment from him. I sat with that and came back to the feeling that I still love him and still want to connect, and that he doesn't owe me any acknowledgment.
The call with her brother
Before our arranged call, I felt so much fear in my body. It was incredibly intense. When we talked, it was okay at first, but then there were moments where he would snap and project something. I would gently tell him, "That's not what I meant. I'm really here in peace." I could feel there was a lot of pain from him. Even though his email had said, "Let's connect in a positive way and let go of what happened," it was obvious he wasn't letting go. It turned into him being triggered and projecting and emotionally dumping on me.
I just sat in silence and held space for everything. It was really intense in my body: so much fear, feeling his fear and his anger triggering my own fear. After holding space for a lot of it, I gently pointed out that he kept saying he didn't want to go back and talk about anything and wanted to let it go, but he was obviously not letting it go. He calmed down and agreed, and we ended the call in a really beautiful space of love and connection. We just looked into each other's eyes for a few minutes in silence. It was really sweet. He ended by saying, "I'm just going to try to stay open with you." I said, "Great, I will too. Let's see how it goes." He said, "Let's talk soon," and I noticed the nervousness around that.
When I got off the call, I felt horrible because all of that energy was still there. Even though we ended in a beautiful way, it felt like it was on top of stuff that wasn't being discussed. And I have to accept that he's not willing to do that, or even capable, because he doesn't do any self-reflection. He doesn't believe in looking at his feelings.
The question of boundaries
So my question is around boundaries. I've heard different perspectives. I've heard, "Definitely have stronger boundaries with people who aren't meeting you in a vulnerable way and are dumping things on you." I've also heard, "He's just triggering stuff in you, so that's your stuff being mirrored." I'm sure both are true. I was probably overly boundaried with my family by never talking to them and never having to deal with any of this, and then feeling lots of peace and love in my life because of that avoidance. But now that it's coming back in, I feel all that stuff returning. I wonder if it's just more work for me to do, or if it really is about maintaining a better boundary with people who can't own their stuff.
When boundaries are necessary, and when they aren't
From what you shared about the conversation with your brother, all of these things have to do with the actual reality of the situation: the context, how difficult they really are.
The way I see boundaries is that they are really necessary when we can't cope with ourselves. If we are not able to say no when we want to say no, if something is coming up that we are unable to handle within ourselves, then boundaries help us cope with that. We manage the context so that we can deal with what's happening internally. But once that is, in a sense, done or clear to some degree, boundaries are not necessary. What happens then is we just do what we want and say what we want to say. The whole notion of a boundary becomes unnecessary.
You could say, "Well, actually a boundary just means saying no when you want to say no." But to me, a boundary is what you did with your family in order to work through trauma. You needed the space, so you set a boundary with them to create room for you to deal with what was coming up.
The alien problem
The more we go down the path of spirituality combined with deep therapeutic and psychological work, the more we tend to forget how it was before. Relating to people who have not done that work, who have not done any spiritual work or any psychological work to any degree, is really like you've become an alien to them. We are all weirdos, crazy cuckoo people to them. If most of society actually heard your experience or knew what we do, they would think so. It's becoming more accepted, but we really are quite different.
Your brother doesn't believe in any of that. The way to deal with this is to notice that there is a really big gap in understanding, and it is pretty much unbridgeable in the sense that it would take so much for your brother to understand you. Bringing up the working-through of trauma with a family member who doesn't believe in that is more likely to create friction. You need to communicate as if you're talking to somebody who thinks you're an alien, who doesn't understand your language, and frame things in the language he might be able to grasp.
This applies to everybody drawn to this work. Even if you're new to it and you resonate with it, it puts you in a very different form of being compared to what's considered normal in society. And it's worth remembering: they have not had the luck or the fortune to be drawn to this.
The luck is mine, because that's my challenge. Being around them, they love it. They're absorbing this energy that I'm in, but it's also triggering all of their trauma, and then they dump it back on me.
Navigating activation without retreating
That's the part where, in coming back into relationship with them, your stuff is going to get reactivated. Your question was specifically about whether you should just keep the boundaries. I would suggest not. The call you had with your brother was perfect. You're just going to be learning how to navigate what's activating in you and what's not yours.
If there's actual abuse that you need to stay away from, you stay away from it. The boundary is needed when you are unable to say no to abuse and you stay in an abusive relationship. But there's a difference between an abusive relationship that we're attached to and a relationship where there is problematic expression, anger, and pain. If it's not pulling you in, if it's activating things and it might be painful, that's where it's for you to feel into where the line is, so you're not pulled into something you don't want.
When you say the word "abuse," there's such a spectrum of what abuse is. This does feel like abuse, maybe on a lighter level. Especially since I am so sensitive and so open now, it's very intense. It's why I don't spend a lot of time out in the world doing mainstream things or going to places with a lot of intense energy. I do have to be careful about where I go and who I spend time with. And then there's this special category of family: people I would never choose to hang out with, but through some blood genetic bond, I love them because we spent so much time together and share genetics.
It's an unelective relationship. But from what you described in that conversation with your brother, I really feel that was a good conversation and that it's probably going to help you deepen in the work of your own healing.
The healing work, the emotional and psychological work, is all very valuable. It's very different from the waking up, but both are necessary in order to know freedom and live it in daily life. We can wake up to freedom but then be completely trapped in problematic relationships and dynamics. I think there's a deepening here for you, as you move back into relationship with your father and your brother. Navigate it, see what's coming up, notice what's yours and what you can simply say no to. When I say abuse, I mean really bad stuff, versus him getting triggered and saying hurtful things. That's not a big deal in the same way. But it's up to you to navigate that line.
From the sense of what you've shared, you ended up in a lovely moment. After the call, there was something that felt horrible. But my sense is that there's a possibility of deepening there for you, a place where more can open up after all the work you've done and your period of isolation. Then again, in two or three months this could change. You engage with him a few more times and it's just bad. Things change.
There are a few different things at play. One aspect is that I can feel the pressure come back, like now I'm expected to engage with him at a certain frequency. That's me feeling that from him. He actually said, "This is what scares me about connecting with you: you're so unpredictable and you change every moment. I'm consistent. I talk to Dad once a month, and Mom..."
He might ask you to call him every other day or whatever, but that's his problem.
And then I say no, and he gets triggered into, "See, I can't trust you. I'm not going to open up to you anymore."
Freedom as the foundation
I get it. I'm just suggesting: explore that, if you're interested. I'm assuming you've called him, you're sharing this, because there is some interest. You've reached out to him. But if you feel absolutely no interest in a relationship with him, don't have one.
I don't think I thought it through. I was just feeling love and thought it would be nice to reach out. Now that the reality of what it might look like is setting in, I'm not sure I'm interested in having an ongoing relationship. I would just like to think of him in a fond way and feel like we're on good terms, without needing to engage regularly. But I know that won't work for him. He's either going to be hurt and mad and resentful and then we don't talk, or we're talking and there's expectation.
That's where I don't think I can say much more. It's really up to you to explore and navigate and decide what feels right, what you want, what you don't want, and live that. But this is how it is with people who have not done deeper work.
The key aspect is that you can be free from your own dynamics with him. Then whatever he's doing could feel unpleasant, but it won't take you back in. If you've done the work, if you have become free from your own dynamics, your own narratives, your own stories, then whatever he does can't pull you back in. If it does pull you back into your own dynamics, it's more work for you.
That's the sense I got. I was noticing all the impact it had on my body and just staying with it. I'm super grateful that I'm able to feel love and peace at the same time that all of this is happening.
If you relate to him and every interaction is very unpleasant, there's no point. It really comes down to what you feel you want, trusting that, and going with it.
As far as boundaries go, as far as how things affect the body and mind and making choices that support that...
If you're free from deeper identification in your body and mind, things that are difficult will come and go fast, even with your brother, your father, your mother.
That's what happened with my dad and my mom. When we had conversations, things came up, but they came and they went. With my brother, I was surprised. This one's deeper.
The sibling mirror
Interesting. And that's why I'm saying maybe that's where there is more of an opportunity for deeper healing in you. But I can't know that. If I were to recommend it, I'd be doing you a disservice, because I can't know. It's only up to you to know. But I'm saying it's a possibility.
Clearly it is, because it's still alive in me. There's more releasing to do. When I meet the fear, it does soften into love. I can do that. But I notice the narrative still comes back. I remember you mentioning things about your own relational dynamics, both that you don't have many relationships and that you just haven't been deeply triggered in a long time.
Not much and not deeply. I don't have a lot of relationships, but it's not because I'm intentionally isolating. I'm just doing what I want, and relationships are very few.
There's an old saying, especially in the Zen tradition: to test your level of understanding and realization, spend some time with your mother. That was originally directed at men, but I think it applies to everyone. For you, maybe it's your brother. That's what's going to show you what more there is to work on.
It was a surprising one, because I didn't think it was that big with him. I thought the parents were much more intense. But the sibling thing is powerful, because it's like our peers. It mirrors how we relate to ourselves more clearly. With parents, it's easier to say, "Oh, they're from another generation," and look down on them a little. But with a sibling, it's like, "That's me. Those are my dynamics being mirrored back."
It all comes down to how we've created an identification. We often use a sibling as a way to say, "I'm not that," and so "I'm something which is the opposite of that." That itself is also an identification. Everything that activates and takes you into a difficult place is some form of identification, some form of believing something, and your brother seems to be activating that kind of narrative.
But I want to say there's always the other side: he's just doing something that's not nice, and it's unnecessary for you to put yourself through that over and over again. That's up to you. I don't have some extraordinary intuition where I know your relationship with your brother and can say definitively which way it is. I can only present the dynamics and the possibilities. It's up to you to find your own true, deep, free wants versus what's coming from identification or patterning. Maybe what you really want is to never see him again. Maybe what you really want is to see him once in a while and work through stuff, not with him, but in you.
Being careful about certainty
It's clear to me. My body tells me what I need and what I want. It was clear after the call that I wanted to have a better boundary. I do that with other people who go into projection. I just say, "Actually, I'm not available for that right now," and it works. Then I shift the conversation to, "But I am available for more vulnerable connection around this." That works with people I'm not that close with. I realized I just missed that step with my brother. I felt like holding space instead. Looking back, I didn't need to hold that space. That's clear to me.
But I remember a teacher once telling me, when I shared something similar, "That's all you. That's all your stuff. There's no him. There's no projection."
There's room for that perspective. When you say he's projecting, just be careful about being too sure about what's happening.
It clearly triggers something in me, so that is mine. And it's also what we were saying about being around people who don't do their work: you feel the impact of that.
It depends on the person and depends on the relationship. Some people don't do the work and they are lovely to be with.
Right, because it doesn't go that deep. I'm sure my brother's lovely to his friends. So I think it's a both-and answer.
It depends. My sense, to wrap this up, is what I said in the beginning. It's good that you've reached back out to your family and explored what that's like and what's happening for you. There's a sense that engaging with them may be a doorway for deepening your own work. But how to navigate that is really a moment-by-moment thing, and it's up to you.
Thank you.
You're welcome.