Love and Boundaries

Falling in love is not an extension of one's limits or boundaries; it is a partial and temporary collapse of them. Once the precious moment of falling in love has passed and the boundaries have snapped back in place, the individual is disillusioned. Real love (the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth) is a permanently self enlarging experience. Falling in love is not.

M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Justified Anger

To be “angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way -that is, not within everybody's power and is not easy.” The Greek philosopher Aristotle offered that observation more than 2000 years ago.

Justified anger revolves around boundary violations, but sometimes, a proper boundary is never put into place or maintained. In their book Boundaries, Henry Cloud and John Townsend write about how a person’s skin is the first boundary. People who are sexually abused as children are often confused about maintaining that boundary, not realizing that it is appropriate for them to claim ownership.

There are other psychological boundaries we fail to set. Regular violations of that psychological marker make it hard to see things for what they are.

One way to gain clarity is to think about your children. If a boyfriend, boss, etc, treated our child the way they treat us, how would we respond? This is when anger is justified.

Seeing a situation from a different angle—putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes—helps us to work around our distorted boundaries and more clearly see the situation for what it really is.

Stephen Goforth

A loss can set you free

Deafness freed Beethoven as a composer because he no longer had society’s soundtrack in his ears. Perhaps therein lies a lesson for each of us. I know, I know: You’re no Beethoven. But as you read the lines above, maybe you could relate to the great composer’s loss in some small way. Have you lost something that defined your identity? Maybe it involves your looks. Or your social prestige. Or your professional relevance. How might this loss set you free? 

You might finally define yourself in new ways, free from the boundaries you set for yourself based on the expectations of others. 

Arthur C. Brooks writing in the Washington Post

Boundaries

Boundaries help us to define what is not on our property and what we are not responsible for. We are not, for example, responsible for other people.  In short, boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out.  Sometimes, we have bad on the inside and good on the outside. In these instances, we need to be able to open up our boundaries to let the good in and the bad out.  

Boundaries are not walls. But in every community, all members have their own space and property.  The important thing is that property lines be permeable enough to allow pass and strong enough to keep out danger. 

Boundaries are anything that helps to differentiate you from someone else, or show where you begin and end.  The most basic boundary that defines you is your physical skin. The most basic boundary-setting word is no. It lets others know that you exist apart from them and that you are in control of you. Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices.  

Setting limits on others is a misnomer.  We can’t do that. What we can do is set limits on our own exposure to people who are behaving poorly; we can’t change them or make them behave right.  The other aspect of limits that is helpful when talking about boundaries is setting our own internal limits.  We need to have spaces inside ourselves where we can have a feeling, an impulse, or a desire, without acting it out.  We need self-control without repression.  We need to be able to say no to ourselves.

Henry Cloud, John Townsend writing in Boundaries