I have recently been engaged in the question of boundaries.
What boundaries do we want to create?
How do we create them?
How do we draw boundaries and remain open at the same time?
Questions around boundaries seem to be practically universal. One of the things I noticed is that we confuse being open with having no boundaries, or the reverse, having clear boundaries is confused with being closed up, inflexible.
For some of us, especially those that tend to think outside the box, to draw boundaries seems confining, like you might miss out on something, like it would diminish your spontaneity and chance for adventure.
For those who see openness as a spiritual state, then it could occur as though openness is the goal for growth and anything that inhibits that growth is counterproductive. In the spirit of the old Zen Chinese saying, “you cannot fill a cup which is already full,” it would seem if you show up with lists of what works and doesn’t work for you (boundaries) you are showing up with too much “stuff” and might not learn all you can, or miss a valuable spiritual lesson. And yet, even an empty cup has a boundary, it has edges. In other words, you could say, you cannot fill a cup when the cup has no sides or bottom!
We have concerns about drawing boundaries. What if I appear rigid, no fun, stubborn, selfish, controlling? And the list goes on. Most of us want to be open. Openhearted, open to new ideas & experiences, open to the other person’s point of view, open with our defenses down.
And to draw boundaries can seem like putting our defenses up and we don’t want that.
So, in relationships, how do you be open and have boundaries at the same time?
Let me start by telling you that this state in relationships does exist. I’ve seen it. It is not the unicorn many of us think it is. Some of the healthiest, wholehearted, connected partnerships I know of are with people who have the strongest boundaries. They are able to create boundaries, speak them powerfully, and honor the other’s boundaries as well. It seems this sets up an amazing “playpen” for magic, intimacy, and connection to happen. And it almost seems counterintuitive - drawing and negotiating boundaries can seem cold and businesslike, as if it would take away from intimacy, not build it. And what I have found is that it is quite the opposite. When partners have clear boundaries that are honored, it seems to bring a sense of safety. And when people feel safe, they feel free to play, free to be alive, free to let go and be vulnerable.
So then how do we do this?
It seems to me the first part is to begin to physically feel the difference between defenses and boundaries. Defenses seem to occur physically right next to the heart, right on top of it, literally like a plate of armor or some substance that is hard and protecting from attack. When you are creating a boundary and speaking about it, this guard is not around your heart, the energy is flowing around your heart, there is breath, there is movement, the boundary feels like it is outside of you, maybe an arm’s length, maybe more. Lisa Wimberger in her book New Brain New Beliefs has a great meditation where she combines her studies of neuroscience to the physical sensation of drawing boundaries.
When I speak about “movement” going on in the heart when you are creating boundaries vs. being defensive, this can get tricky. What I find is that when I draw a boundary it can be terrifying, “What if they don’t like it? What if they are offended? What if they think I’m being selfish, bitchy, difficult, hard and crusty?” In this state, my heart is sometimes racing, like it is going to jump out of my chest. However, this feels different from when I put my defenses up. When my defenses are up, the chest is tight, locked down, nothing going in and nothing getting out, like my heart turns to stone. The kind of heart palpitations I’m talking about are more along the lines of the type of exhilaration you feel when you are taking a risk, and, for a long time, creating boundaries for me seemed like a huge risk.
I have more to say from the AEP perspective about boundaries and why they seem so risky. And, for now, if you are engaged in the question, “how do I stay open and create boundaries?”, my invitation is to begin to notice how it feels in your body when you are defensive vs. creating a boundary. Notice where the energy is located, what is happening to your nervous system, what visualize imagery comes to mind to describe it, and how do you feel afterwards (drained or energized). Obviously in order to begin to notice these things you will have to create a boundary! Have fun with it. Start with something small just to see how it feels. My guess is that finding opportunities to be defensive will be less challenging...as human beings this seems to come unnervingly easy to us.
Experiment with this almost like a game until you begin to build an bodily awareness of what it feels like to create a boundary vs. being defensive. In my next blog, I will talk about where we may have made the decision that creating boundaries was bad, not allowed, or too risky.