Are Your Boundaries Barriers? (building healthy boundaries)

This has to be one of the toughest things for many of us to do. The reality is that we’ve lacked the ability to define boundaries in our lives for so many reasons, but one primary one has been our desire to be wanted, our intrinsic need to be approved of or included in something sometimes is the very thing that doesn’t allow us to grow, it stifles us in the need to be approved of which robs us of healthy boundaries and in turn, stops us from being our most authentic self or pursing the desires of our heart. 

Where we don’t define boundaries in our lives we grant space for disrespect to flourish. We essentially convey to people that they have total freedom to treat us however they’d like and the sad reality is that this becomes an easy outlet for some people to transfer the traumas they never transformed out onto us. 

Boundaries are not about being mean to others, they’re about loving yourself enough to care for your mental and heart health first. 

Many times we lack boundaries in relationships, even more specifically romantic relationships, because of the hope we’ve sold ourselves. Theres going to be a way broader dive on this one in the next chapter, but it’s still important to hold onto as we unpack through boundaries because at its core, a lack of boundaries partly connects to a disordered hope. A thought that if I allow ‘a’ I give room for ‘b’ to happen, the truth is that in a lot of instances we have created a false paradigm that becomes really common in our lives. We so desperately want the story line in our mind to be true that we are willing to abandon reality for disordered hope. 

Everything has been intertwined so far, the reality that the way our parents or guardians or even lack thereof, have treated us or didn’t do for us, creates a chain of trust or lack of trust, the same things we’ve been given, we fall into, the fact that it has changed the way we think or deal with guilt, the fact that we have lost confidence, every single principle we have touched on brings us to this one reality.

The reality that boundaries bring a hard stop to every single one of these things. It by no means makes it an easy thing to do, but it is so important that it merits its own chapter. Your true joy, your true freedom, your loosening of choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, stops with this one main principle, boundaries, but at an even deeper level, 

boundaries with yourself. 

The hardest thing you will ever do is become truly introspective of yourself. The reality is that we are so good at looking at what everyone else is doing wrong and analyzing their mistakes but the moment it comes to ourselves, we become emotionally blind. Partly because we have become so accustomed to ourselves (naturally so, you are you after all) but this also becomes a huge problem when we need to address in us, what’s hurting us.

We aren’t able to define boundaries in our habits or patters or even in how we allow people to treat us, because we have yet to heal the deep love we need for ourselves. We fall into patterns and habits that sometimes are destructive because there is comfort in the struggle I know that in the change I've never experienced. 

Start treating you how you need others to treat you, don’t accept any less from anyone else, including yourself. 

At it’s core, we can say that the way we treat ourselves is a reflection of what people have said or done to us over the course of our lives and this is a very true and valid thought, but we also need to begin to question for how long are we going to hide under this premise? If we continue to make this our home we will continue to live under it. It becomes really easy to allow our boundaries to be dictated by our past. For this very reason, we need to make distinctions between healthy boundaries and unhealthy illusions of boundaries.  

Boundaries v.s Barriers 

The reality is that a lot of people make a home in their hurt or their fear. Sometimes this comes from a misguided attempt at producing healthy boundaries, we think that we deny access to all things and all people we now create a space where the hurt we’ve lived can not enter, ironically giving birth to a hurt that not only is more aggressive and larger but compounds on the past. We don’t heal we house our hurt, the pain that isn’t transformed quickly becomes transformed to the people around us but even greater into our new battle. 

Healthy boundaries are an absolute must, we need them for anything to flourish but most especially for our own ability to flourish. We need to understand that boundaries are meant to keep us safe but not keep us hidden. Nothing healthy grows in the dark or hidden away only things that in the long run will hurt us. 

For a sense of these I'll share a list of boundaries and Barriers, these by no means are the only ones but just some to get us thinking:  

Examples:

Boundaries | reactions | barriers

Barrier: Feeling incomplete without a person so now we don’t allow people to get close to us. 

Cause: So many can be listed here but to name a few; Abandonment issues, loss of life, lack of self-love, fear of self-reliance. 

Reaction: Clinginess, jealousy, rage, lack of self-improvement. 

Healthy Boundary: The need for personal development is huge here, the reality is that we become so dependent on people when we believe that we can’t depend on ourselves. A Healthy boundary is developing a life outside of the person. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t a central part of your life but they don’t become the hyper-focused portion of your life. We create boundaries not to separate people from us but so that we can be fully ourselves with them and not an unhealthy submissive version of ourselves. 

Barrier: Not allowing yourself to trust or love others because you’ve been hurt before.

Cause: Often childhood traumas are tied to not being loved or not feeling reciprocity &/or pouring in completely to a relationship that you were betrayed in. 

Reaction: Cold detachment or not allowing yourself to have honest relationships whether romantic or platonic. 

Healthy Boundary: Not overselling the idea of the person but allowing time to show you who they are while being open to the idea of depth in this relationship. There is a constant reminder that people are different and they won’t all fail you, but even if they do, your willingness to love and grow is not tied to their failings but to your goodness and openness. 

Boundaries are meant to keep you safe not to lock you away.

At it's core is it growing you or locking you up in a 'safe' place?