Creating And Upholding Healthy Boundaries In Extraordinary Circumstances.

First of all, I’m sorry I’ve been so absent here. It hit me today I haven’t written a blog in over a month! Talk about slacking. In my defense I’m dealing with some extraordinary circumstances, guess the blog fits. Healthy boundaries, man this topic never gets old, having to create them sure does. At least it can feel that way sometimes. So, I find that we create boundaries in two ways, as a proactive step to avoid conflict and ensure a healthy relationship, or as a reactive step often fueled by others failure to behave right and our mistake of allowing it. Reactive boundaries often look like walls; they are built in anger, resentment, and hurt. They will do the job of keeping people out, but they work amazingly well at keeping our negative emotions in also. We’ve talked about boundaries in lots of ways before, today I’m going to talk about the times when we have to create them, uphold them, or adjust them during circumstances that already have us spread thin.
Guilt is the number one boundary crusher. Whether it’s with work, friends, or family, those we have to introduce to boundaries never like it when we do. That’s when they pack your bags and try to send you on a massive guilt trip. In work scenarios, we often have to set boundaries when our time is being abused and our wallet isn’t being compensated. Nothing wrong with that, if more people had set these boundaries long ago we wouldn’t have the massive walk out that we have now. Corporate companies, small businesses, and everything in between, have been using and abusing employees for decades. We did nothing. There was always something to keep us going. Bills, materialistic ideals, that one boss that just works so so hard and needs help. The list goes on, fear and guilt have kept us on the hamster wheel so long. When did the way to get ahead become picking up others slack for zero reward? I kid you not, when I was in retail management, they expected me to volunteer to work longer, train more, help with my superiors duties, so I could prove I was a “team player.” More like a giant sucker! Know what happened? I did it! I did it until I felt so used and abused that I quit in a blaze of dramatized glory feeling angry and hateful. Who wants that? If I had just set the boundaries in the first place I wouldn’t even be in this position. I know, I know, what if you get fired? Well that was my fear and you know what? I ended up without a job anyway when I quit. They sure did get a lot more out of me than I did them. So if we are going to get to the point of not taking it anymore anyway, why not just love ourselves and be comfortable in the first place? This is the mildest form of extraordinary circumstance I’ll use today but for many, it is extraordinary indeed. The pressure to succeed and provide is heavy, but the weight of unhealthy boundaries will always be heavier.
Let’s talk about extraordinary circumstances with our friends. It’s hard to create boundaries at any time but even more so if a friend is sick, pregnant, getting married, or grieving. These types of scenarios make standing up for us and upholding or creating boundaries hard. Here comes the guilt again. Excuses we make for one’s behavior based on circumstances. Know what happens? Those circumstances pass but the bitterness remains. Relationships will completely implode after we get so tired of them ignoring boundaries we forgot to set or enforce in the first place. Life changes us, temporarily and permanently. It’s impossible to love someone, socially or romantically, and expect them to be the same person throughout. Some will grow in a positive way and some will regress, some will do both, but change they will. It is so important that you keep your boundaries and do what you need to keep theirs during all of these changes. We can not let guilt or discomfort for one’s circumstance stop us from adjusting and enforcing our boundaries. If we do so in a proactive way, even if the change means we are no longer in the same place as them, we can leave the relationship with the same love and respect that we started it. Boundaries mean the difference between moving on and ending.
The most difficult is with family. Always is and always will be. Add in death, sickness, and hardship and you have an extraordinary circumstance just waiting to fuck your day up. The hardest realization I’ve had to come to is that your people aren’t always “your people.” Family is yours for a reason, love them, appreciate them, and if need be, let them go. That’s where boundaries come in. Sometimes the boundaries you have aren’t working anymore, and sometimes they are just flat out ignored. When this happens during an extraordinary time, it will leave you reeling. I’ve found myself in this place recently. All of a sudden every boundary I’ve ever set was being trampled and abused. It’s a time when nothing is certain and all I want is to be able to spend time. Time becomes extremely fragile when an event puts it into perspective for you. So having to set these boundaries or enforce them is even harder. It means that I have to be the villain in someone’s story, whether I mean to be or not. It also means that I won’t be the villain in my own. I don’t do this in hate or selfishness, I do this in love. Love for them and love for me. Not all choices are easy but they are necessary. Not all choices make you popular but they make you sane. If I refused to enforce boundaries because of extraordinary circumstances, all we do is buy time and resentment. When the passing comes, the healing comes, the marriage happens, or the baby is born, the abuse finally becomes center light. All of a sudden the ignored boundary has become a full blown line in the sand.
Relationships often break with no way to repair them and you find you’ve allowed yourself to be cut deeper than any bandaid will heal. There is no circumstance bigger than your boundary. There is no conclusion to ignoring them less than hurt. Our boundaries are always make or break but it can be done in love and understanding or it can be done in anger and vindication. Life is full of extraordinary circumstances, don’t let your boundaries become your walls. It is never easy to lose people because they can’t respect your boundaries or because you can’t meet theirs. It is never easy to let go of something we have loved and put effort into. When we make this choices proactively we can face the loss with gratitude and understanding. If you let the circumstance be bigger than you boundary, you will lose it regardless, you’ll just leave with a hell of a lot more baggage. Check your boundaries, check your happiness, check your peace, and don’t be afraid to adjust accordingly. You’re worth the love and so are they. No matter what happens, your people are out there, allow yourself to find them.