When Boundaries Become Unnecessary
Cuando los límites se vuelven innecesarios
A student describes reconnecting with estranged family members after years of distance, and asks how to navigate boundaries with people who haven't done inner work.
When Boundaries Become Unnecessary
A student describes reconnecting with estranged family members after years of distance, and asks how to navigate boundaries with people who haven't done inner work.
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 of expectation to fit in, meet the demands, and show up a certain way was overwhelming. It was very liberating to step out of that and challenge all of their ideas about what you were allowed to do. Eventually they 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 the right time to reach out. I did, and we had a nice talk. Afterward I was feeling so much love that I thought I'd reach out to my brother too.
The apology and the response
I sent him an email and decided to apologize for my part. I understood that I was in a dark place dealing with my trauma, and that it involved them, but they didn't ask for that. They weren't on their own healing journey. So I wanted to own what I was bringing to the situation, even though I felt the way they handled it was really not kind.
His response was basically, "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 loved him and still wanted to connect anyway. He didn't owe me any acknowledgment.
Fear before the call
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 these 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 coming 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, projecting, and emotionally dumping on me. I sat in silence and held space for everything. It was really intense in my body: so much fear, and feeling his fear and anger triggering my own fear. After holding space for a long time, I gently pointed out that he kept saying he didn't want to go back and talk about anything, that he wanted to let it go, but he obviously wasn't letting it go. He calmed down and agreed, and we ended the call in a really beautiful space of love and connection. We looked into each other's eyes for a few minutes in silence. It was very 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." And he said, "Let's talk soon."
I noticed the nervousness around talking soon. 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 sitting on top of things that weren't being discussed. I have to accept that he's not willing or even capable of going there, because he doesn't do any self-reflection. He doesn't believe in looking at his feelings.
The question about boundaries
So my question is about 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 their stuff on you." And I've also heard, "He's just triggering stuff in you, so that's your own 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. I felt lots of peace and love in my life because I didn't have to face it. 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.
From what you shared, and it's good that you went into some detail about the conversation with your brother, all of these things have to do with what the actual reality of the situation is: the context, how difficult they really are, and so on.
Boundaries as a coping mechanism
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 internally, then boundaries help us cope with that. We manage the context so that we can deal with what's happening inside. But once that is, in a sense, done or clear to some degree or to a great degree, boundaries are not necessary. What happens then is that we simply do what we want and say what we want to say. The whole notion of a boundary becomes unnecessary.
Now, you could say, "Well, actually a boundary just means saying no when you want to say no." But to me, a boundary is, for example, 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 yourself to deal with what was coming up. That is often necessary.
The gap in understanding
I think the more we go down this path, the combination of spirituality and deep therapeutic or psychological work, whether one or the other or both, the more we tend to forget how it was before. And this applies to me as well. To relate 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 becoming an alien to them. We are all weirdos, crazy cuckoo people. If most of society actually heard your experience or knew what we do here, they would find it very strange. It is becoming more accepted, but we really are unusual.
You described your brother as someone who doesn't believe in any of this. That's a common attitude. The way to deal with it 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 an enormous amount 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.
That's where the context and how you communicate become important. There might be a way to frame things differently. You need to communicate as if you're talking to somebody who thinks you're an alien, someone who doesn't understand your language, and you need to frame things in language he might be able to grasp. This really applies to everybody in this group. Even if you're new to this work, if you resonate with it, it puts you in a very different way of being compared to what's considered normal in society.
Recognizing their position
The other thing to remember is that it's not just about you. They have not had the luck or the fortune to be drawn to this kind of work, or the fortune to feel that they are able or capable of doing it.