Me and my boundaries Part II
I have had some time to work on putting boundaries in my life. I wrote in an earlier post (Part I) that life events had forced me to face the fact that I had no boundaries. Through this process, I have learned a couple of things.
1. Others are not always very accepting of you setting boundaries.
A TV psychologist often says that “we teach people how to treat us”. When you have allowed people to interact with you without boundaries for years and suddenly you do not just allow them the freedom to “roam around in your life”, they are not too happy about it.
2. Setting boundaries is often followed by guilt and second guessing.
Those same “roamers” have no problem in pointing out that you are not doing what you should be doing. It is never said point blank like that, but they like to pull that passive/aggressive stuff. It is hard to stick with it and keep that boundary set. But it is kind of like a child, once they figure out how to get their way they will try. You can’t cave!
3. You can go overboard.
Sometimes in life you do have to do things that you just don’t want to do. After all, it isn’t all about you and you do want to have healthy relationships in your life. That often requires you to do things that just are not that much fun. The great thing is though…you get to make that choice. You are NOT doing it out of guilt or the desire to please. You are doing it because you recognize that in this situation it would be the best thing for everybody, including yourself.
I thought that by setting boundaries, limits, and fences in my life that I would feel more isolated and contained. It has been the exact opposite. It is the most freeing thing to decide what is important to you, what you will allow in your life, and then living by that. You are able to avoid situations that you know will hurt you, or make you feel bad about yourself, and use that time and energy on the people and things that make you happy. Trying to please everyone is exhausting and it never ends. It is a constant rat race and the more you show people that you will allow that in your life, the higher they will set the standard for you to please them.
This has been a tough process and one that will never end. But it sure is better than trying to live for everybody all the time. In the end it allows you to have more to give to the people who really matter. And you get to decide who those people are.
