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At the end of this post…I am going to ask you how you make and keep boundaries in your life…and what your experience has been….or if you are having a hard time making boundaries…and what this is doing to your life…so be thinking about this, ok?
This is a touchy subject for me and I have typed and deleted, typed and deleted…..typed and deleted. I have come SO FAR concerning boundaries….but still have these yucky issues of guilt that I have to politely ask to leave when they show up……and old confusion that comes up, too…..until I remind myself of everything I have learned about making and keeping boundaries……and all of the twisting, gut-wrenching discomfort that came from the in-between stage of not have ANY boundaries and the new way of living when I promised myself to keep the boundaries I knew I had to make. The in-between is always the worst…….because you are fragile and wobbly and clumsy and some days it seems like it would be easier to go back to the old way because at least you know that old way and even if it is soooo wrong for you in almost every way….because the old way was comfortable and predictable and easy to put on auto-pilot.
But…now that I finally have boundaries, and I work hard every day to live by them……WOW. I finally understand what the wise people in my life were trying to tell me all along when they would say….
“YOU NEED BOUNDARIES, MELODY”
“YOU NEED TO MAKE SOME BOUNDARIES FOR YOUR LIFE”
….and that used to make me so frustrated….mostly because I didn’t know what the heck it even meant. Over the years, I have learned what it is to have boundaries in your life and also how to make them and keep them. I have learned the yucky parts….when you start living the way your heart wants to live and there are parts of how you were living that you have to leave behind. It changes some relationships. It changes the way some people see us. It changes the way we look at things.
It changes the way we answer questions…the way we say yes or no…….it changes our life. BUT…the cool thing is….we are the one doing the changing of our life…not a bunch of outside circumstances that we are constantly having to change color and shape and attitude to match. We are taking charge of our own time, our own life, our own future…our own mental, spiritual and physical health….
…which gives us the time to care for the things that fit INSIDE of the boundaries we have made for ourselves…the important things that matter most but that often only get what is left over after we have given to all sorts of things that we care about…but don’t LOVE…..often our families, our dreams, our close friends, our faith, our souls simply get the few strung out minutes left of us after everything else has taken what there was of us.
I am no expert….I am still learning. I still have a lot of tear filled days when I know I have to say no to things that sound fun and wonderful….to people who are fun and wonderful. I still mess up a lot…a lot. I still say yes to things I shouldn’t and no to things that I shouldn’t. I still say no to things I should be saying yes to, too……….but at least I am thinking hard about what the boundaries are before I commit to anything. That never used to really happen….I used to put it ALL out there, ALL of it…for the taking. I thought that is what you are supposed to do to be a good and nice person…..you are supposed to show all that you have and tell everyone COME AND TAKE IT…IT’S ALL YOURS!!! I am talking about time, skills, resources…emotional energy…wholehearted love……all of it…..ALL OF IT until there is nothing left over.
Well….when you do that….guess what? People take it…strangers take it….acquaintances take it….people at work take it…people at church take it….the internet takes it….food takes it…..habits take it…..old beliefs, thoughts and memories take it….sickness takes it…..even really good things take it….really good people take it…..and you can’t blame them…you can’t at all!!! They are just going through their lives too….doing their best….they have goals and dreams and when you have something that fits into their goals and dreams….it is the best thing for them to fill their basket with what is available to them, you offered it to them! It is a huge gift to them!!! AND IT IS A VERY GOOD THING TO GIVE TO OTHERS….A VERY VERY VERY GOOD THING!! But sometimes we are giving things away that really should be going to someone else or to something else……and then our time, resources, energy is gone and we leave the things and people that we love without what is best in us……..the parts of us we WANT to give to the people and things that we love most. When time is gone, it’s gone. When energy is gone, it’s gone. When resources are gone, they are gone.
THAT is why we have to make boundaries for what we have to give….and where we want to give it……IMPORTANT AND LOVED AND CHERISHED PEOPLE AND DREAMS COME FIRST….and then when there is some left over….THAT is what we give away. The really cool thing is that when you live your life this way….the energy multiplies, the love multiplies, often the resources multiply…….and then we have more to give anyway. Giving our lives to things that we THINK we should be giving our lives to drains our energy, sucks our time and makes us resentful (unless we are joyfully giving it after we have already given the time we need to give to the most important things in our life)
OK….so this sounds all simple and easy…doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. But there are not many things in life that are worthwhile that come easily and stay with us. When things come easily…they go easily too. What this takes is really digging in and figuring out what you are about….what you want to give your life to….how you want to feel….what you want to learn….what you want to contribute to your family and your friends and your life’s work….what you want your life’s work to be….what you believe…..how you want to love…how you want to be loved…..who you want to give your most energy-filled, patient, well-rested minutes and hours to (because there are only so many of those in a day)….
AND THEN…
You gotta start making some really hard decisions….decisions that will change your life. You gotta start making decisions that protect the things that are most precious to you…….THAT IS WHAT BOUNDARIES ARE….they are the limits, the fences, the border patrol that protect the things that are most precious to you…….your most important relationships….your most important work…..and most importantly…the sacredness that is YOU…your heart, your ideas….the unique contribution that you can make to the very life and to the world that you can make…and ONLY you can make……..and really, you can only make that one unique contribution if YOU are the one who is in charge of your life……..and when you are giving to the things that you choose, that you believe in, that you were always meant to give to…….when you are full of the bliss, energy and vitality that comes when you are living true to YOU and to your truth.
Here’s some of the questions that I had to answer to get to this place….the questions that I am having to ask myself daily (and sometimes it is really really really hard…..but, worth it)
There are pages and pages of these kinds of questions…and it took me a week or two to answer them all…the funny thing was…the same answers kept coming up…..and the answers got louder, more clear and more insistent the more times they came……they wanted to be heard…..THEN…once I knew the answers….I knew what I had to start to protect, and what I had to build a protective BOUNDARY around……..it has changed everything. I used to be racing, running, chasing and stressing…trying to be everything, do everything and figure it all out…….my family and friends got the leftovers. I have slowly, clumsily and sometimes painfully rearranged my life day by day to follow my own truth….the truth I found in those soul-deep answers. Now I have boundaries. I feel safe. I feel like the things I love and cherish most are safe. I feel at peace. I feel on track. I feel HAPPY.
Boundaries rock.
So…….what about you? Where are you with boundaries? Have you always had them? Have you never had them? If you made them somewhere along the way….how did you do it?
WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO POST AND SHARE!!!!!!!!
thanks for always being so willing to share.
xoxo
melody
p.s. if you need help making boundaries…the class starts next week…..it will help you figure out the exact life you want to live, why you are not living it right now…and what you need to do each day to get there…would love to have you. CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT
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I have boundary work to do.
I signed up for your course earlier today!
I know this will be a safe & challenging place
to get to work on “what’s next”.
Ah, yes – boundaries. Well, some might think of boundaries as constraints to living life to the fullest or as a way of boxing yourself in. Experience has taught me that boundaries actually allow me to live my life much more fully and with a certain grace and dignity in the way I treat myself and my immediate family.
Boundaries aren’t really all that tough to put into place as far as other people are concerned. Someone invites you somewhere, you say “no” a few times and the invites get fewer and fewer until they stop. Boundaries, however, are very tough to put into place as far as our inner lives are concerned because we have so often lived our lives according to the “shoulds” of other people.
There is extreme power in a very small word: “No.” Boundaries come in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are boundaries as far-reaching as “I will no longer take ownership of other people’s problems” and as small and mundane as not responding to an email or letting the answering machine/voicemail pick up a call when you’re on your “own” time. Today, for example, I was being barraged by emails regarding a union grievance so I simply logged out of my work email account when I started to feel stressed and unfocused and picked messages up at the end of the day.
I’ve learned to set up strong boundaries over the last 2-5 years. And I’ve been progressing toward a life chosen to be lived with love and happiness embedded within it. It’s liberating, not confining.
I have lots of boundary issues as well and Soul Restoration really helped me with that. In Soul Restoration 1, I evicted everyone … yes EVERYONE because I had so much work to do. I felt like Soul Restoration 2 gave me the strength to let some people back in but in a different way. Some people, many people have not yet been let back in and I’m not sure if they ever will. I feel like I have to continue to work on my boundaries all the time while I work on myself …my soul. Thank you Melody. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Thank you for this post! I have struggled with this for years! I didn’t realize it, but I have been protecting my boundaries by saying no lately. Thank you for helping me to realize that I am doing the right thing! So many people make it seem like I should be giving more of my time to everything else. I still have to make some hard decisions, but I’m getting closer.
Melody thank you for sharing of you, day in and day out. Your daily truths are the high point on many a day, and I learn so much from this little corner of the internet. I answered along with many of your statements above, and found myself answering the same. I was content with a simple life. I had a taste of the rat race this Fall and Winter, and enjoyed it and the resources it provided our family…but felt that on many a day my soul and the energy I had for my loved ones was gone. I’m living a simple life again as I transition back to being a stay at home mom with kids in school…and I’m floundering…big time. It’s been a month now, and I’m still finding my way. I’ve said “yes” to things my gut screams out against. I’ve built some boundaries, but not enough. I want to have the courage to let some relationships go, and the courage to make some changes with others. I think it’s time for me to sign up for SR 2 and really do some searching and setting some goals and limits. Thank you for all you do.
Melody, thank you for once again sharing your heart and your journey with all of us. You remind us of things that we ALREADY KNOW, but have forgotten or set aside in our busy, driven, and distracted lives. Boundaries are a huge issue in my life… I am on the path to recovery and healing after NOT having ANY boundaries in any area of my life for as long as I can remember. Certainly for the entire duration of a 32-year marriage.
Like you, I offered up every single bit of what and who I was to anyone – and everyone – who wanted a piece of me. Or all of me. And that’s exactly what everyone took – all of me. There was nothing left for me…. no ‘me’ at all, just a vessel through which things (time, energy, solutions, creativity, ideas, money, compassion, service, etc.) flowed to other people. I’m not saying that being a servant and a vessel for God is bad – but to be hollow, empty, and feel used up and useless every day of your life is not at all what God intended for us. We have to protect ourselves, too.
I tried to stand up for myself and set boundaries with those closest to me, who honestly were the ones doing the most damage to me. Walking away from those painful, hurtful, relationships, after the boundaries I had set were repeatedly crossed and laughed at, was the hardest thing I have EVER done. I pray that God heals my family relationships… but I will not be a doormat any more. Thank you for reminding me that I don’t have to. <3
Thank-you Melody. Your open honesty and willingness to share is always appreciated.
Re: My current obsession with BOUNDARIES: After beginning work on SR1 and kicking everybody out of my Soul House, I was suprised to notice that people actually started showing up at our REAL house to “visit”. (Did I mention we live in Florida?) I now suspect that these same people may well be space invaders from the MOON. Although I have sucessfully sent them back to their home planet, the assumption that it is O.K. to use and enjoy what it has taken my husband and I nearly 20 years of work and sacrifice to establish is intrusive, rude and must stop. Boundaries are a “good thing” and I plan on using part of my SR2 time in trying to figure-out how to establish them without alienating my friends and family, or having to put-up a barbed wire fence!
Melody,
First, thanks for being open and sharing the work you are doing in your life to address boundaries. I’ve had a very odd last year – I’ve found myself struggling with things I never expected to face – being at home, not working, not bringing home money, depending solely on the financial support of my husband (while that may seem odd, I’ve always been very independent), and have had quite a learning curve. I’m slowly realizing that in this year God has been teaching me – or trying to, at least! And I’m fairly sure I will be here, in this place, until I learn the lessons He’s waiting for me to grasp. Part of that lesson is boundaries. I love your journaling, and I should be doing more of it. Thank you again for sharing your heart and your struggles and successes.
I had trouble with the type of boundaries you are speaking of when I was younger. I felt a need to satisfy people so I would say yes. Full time work, children and a home to look after soon took care of teaching me to set those boundaries.
My boundary problems are slightly different. I call it intimacy boundaries. There are and have always been things that people do that I have trouble with. For instance, a young couple divorces and a friend of one of the former spouses becomes the new man or woman in one of those lives. I can’t imagine dating a man one of my friends was formerly married to, but I see people do such things often.
Intimacy boundaries are always constant with me and sometimes as I watch the world I wonder if perhaps I have too many boundaries in this way. Would love to hear comments from others on this. Or perhaps my boundaries are really sane and the world has gone crazy with having none.
This is just where I am at right now!! Would love to do your course, ooh wish you were in the uk!! You put it so well when you say that you gave it all away to everyone else……I have just come to realisation I have been living like this!! Devastating!! I want to relearn how to be a daughter, mother, wife, sister,friend and ME, ME, ME! To stop striving and stressing and just chill! Running around after everyone else and every cause that I think I should be involved with has now stopped!! I’ve had to close all the barriers for now, to preserve myself and my family!! It got too painful out there!! My body is so stressed, don’t know how long it will take to recover, but it all had to stop!! Thank you so much for your posts they are fabulous!!
You are quite simply AMAZING ♥ Thankyou for being able to share all your heart work. You are an INSPIRATION. There actually aren’t enough words to say ♥
Ray: I think boundaries and values are pretty close to each other. I also think they may be pretty personal. If your friends do things you woulldn’t do, then that value is certainly telling you something about your boundaries. It doesn’t mean you are wrong; it may just mean that what you value is different.
Great post, Melody! Between Cloud & Townsend’s book “Boundaries” and life coaching from Joan C. Webb, and your SR 1 & 2 classes, AND “How To Hear God’s Voice” by Mark & Patti Virkler, I am making better choices for my own personal boundaries and family boundaries! Then Kelly Rae & Beth’s class Hello Soul Hello Business is helping me make business boundaries.
First I had to see that I am limited as a human which makes my time and energy and life a precious commodity. Then accept that it is ok that I don’t have an endless supply of resources to give and share. Then see that it was worth protecting. That my heart, mind and body are sacred and deserve to be honored and protected. Then learn that it is ok to say no. Boundaries are FREEING. It sounds like such a paradox. But in learning to say NO, I am free to more TRUE “yeses”. I can let my “no” be “no” so that my “yes” can be a sincere and wholehearted “YES”!
Part of recognizing all of this included processing the emotions of remember all of the boundary violations I allowed. Getting angry. Walking thru those is and was HARD, but fueled my choice to live a new way and to teach my kids when to say yes and when to say no.
This has been a huge battle in my life, and the first battle ground was in my own mind. Once my beliefs changed, living it out became possible. And then living it out was the next battleground. It still is. But I am getting better and better, more and more free.
Thanks for your work in sharing this area of your life and providing tools to make it real in our own lives.
I need to be better at holding my heart closer, and keeping my dreams and ambitions and plans safe from the people who I know will dismiss them, and dismiss me. I also want to learn how to be warm and friendly with those people WITHOUT giving too much of myself up. It’s really hard for me, but it will be worth the work if I can get there.
I’ve always struggled with boundaries! Growing up in a dysfunctional family with one parent as an alcoholic and the other with borderline personality disorder did not help! I was told to stuff my feelings. So as an adult, I think I felt it was safe to share… and found out, no it’s not always safe to share. My name Angela means “bringer of truth” and maybe I take that too literally, IDK… I’ve read the book Boundaries, and it all makes sense, but most of the time I swing from one extreme to the other. If I feel someone is “safe” I’ll share, if not I clam up. I need to find a happy medium. I need to find that place where I am safe and protect myself.
Sometimes my boundary lines move and shift but for the most part I have gotten better establishing and keeping them. I thinkit began getting easier when I realized I never had my own set of values. I had what I thought were values based on what parents, friends and society view as important, but I never reallyh owned or claimed my own. Slowly though alot of soul searching and classes like Body Restoration, Soul Restoration 1 and 2, I began realizing that I had some pretty strong values and that I wasn’t always holding myself to them. As I began doing the work like the fun sheets in Soul Restoration 2 I found it difficult at times to dig deep enough for the answers true to my soul. The work of answering and asking myself questions and outlining a simple set of values allowed me to begin boundary work. This tied so nicely into the lesson I learned in SR1 about my Soul House. The boundaries were based on how far I would let people into my Sould House. It then became so easy. I knew who the Moon People were, who I would only let on the lawn, and I now had a visual of where those boundaries were. My challenge was realizing that not everyone in my life was my best friend, nor had my best interests in mind. That allowed me to keep and maintain boundaries for a large group of people. The true Soul House people were a little hard to establish boundaries with because I love them so much and saying no is hard. But one of my values was to love on my family and closest friends, so most of the time those boundaries don’t apply because I CHOOSE what I want to do, what I can do. Mostly, I have learned that the DOING for others is usually OVERDONE by me. Most of the people I love only want to be near me. They don’t need things or huge displays of affection that cost me a great deal, they want time, and its my choice to offer that freely and to the extent and ability tha ti can. It is so freeing. Those that require more that that are probably classified incorrectly and need to move to the porch!
Boundaries involve saying “no” and having it stick. The best thing I have learned about how to do this is figure out my position in a situaiton, develop a phrase that clearly defines what I will or will not do and memorize it. When I say no but people keep pushing (as they will), I simply clearly and unemotionally repeat the phrase every time the other party tries a new tack to get me to budge. Do not engage in conversation or debate about the subject, simply repeat your position. They will go away. They will not be happy, but how they react to YOUR position is THEIR issue, not yours. It gets easier as time goes on to hold your boundaries, as with anything you practice.
Thank you so much for this post. Setting boundaries and being true to what I wanted was a hard thing to learn but it is so worth it. I am like you and I want to be kind and nice to everyone but I had to learn not to be a doormat and to remove the users and disresepectful people from my life. I have learned that I can’t do all of it all the time but I can do everything eventually just not all at once. If we don’t replenish and fill our own needs first we crash and burn out. But if we take care of ourselves first then we can give back to others. I am learning to focus and work towards the life I really want.
Beautiful Post! I am not even sure I can recognize if I have boundaries or not. I DO recognize being open and giving it all away for the taking. Then feeling tired and empty and not being able to give my best to my family. That is familiar. This post gives me some insightful questions to ask myself…
Loved Body Restoration, Loving SR1 right now…looking forward to someday take this new class, too.
Thanks for BGC!
boundaries only came to me after years of counseling. i used to try to please everyone (which is completely impossible) and that left me feeling guilty and unhappy all the time. my mother has borderline personality disorder and i spent many years trying to make her happy to no avail and letting her walk all over me. i only learned that it was ok to have boundaries after a counselor explained it. i honestly had no idea that i deserved to have them, let alone make them.
an example of what i did with my mom: iif i didn’t answer my cell phone, she would call 3 or 4 times in a row. i finally told her, “mom, i’m sorry, but i will no longer answer your phone calls if you keep calling me over and over again. you can call me a second time if i miss the first one, but no more than that. if i’m not answering, it means i’m busy, not that i’m ignoring you. as soon as i see that you called, i will call you back.”
she of course hung up on me, but she got the message and it’s been fine ever since. my advice is to start out with small boundaries like the above. it’s practice for the bigger boundaries you may need to set later.
How did you read my mind? Seriously! I love to give to others, and I love to share all of the good that I have been given in my life. I am at a point where I have just about given everything I have. I’m tired. And, the sad thing is, I think my family has been short changed in the process. As this school year comes to a close and summer begins, I am struggling with figuring out how to make the changes that I need to. I want to stay home more. I want to take the time to really stop and listen when my kids are talking to me. I want to go to bed before 12:00 at night. I want to visit my mother more. I want to jump in puddles. I want to have time to clean my house good because it is a mess, and I don’t do well surrounded by a mess. I want to set boundaries. I’m not sure I know how to do that. Your post gives me the encouragement to try. Thanks for making me think!
Joanna Kelley, thanks for the input. Yes I believe you are correct. Our boundaries do have to meet up to our values. I have some strong moral values and I guess I let it trouble me too much when I see that so many people don’t have that. Loyalty and things such has morals were something very much taught to me and I find it hard to ever put them aside. I remember times when I was younger that more people seemed to have those same moral boundaries.
Hi Melody – just finishing up SR1 and boundaries are certainly my downfall right now. I have a very destructive relationship with my 11 year old daughter who has mental health issues and it’s ripping me apart. Your class is helping and I am sure I need more, but boundaries are a BIG part. Can’t wait for Tuesday
Melody,
It is a slow process, but I am learning. I have always been the girl that just wants everyone to be happy. I have always been afraid of confrontation and conflict. I realize now, after a very difficult depression and years of wearing ill-fitting masks, that all my people-pleasing tendencies have accomplished is to push me further down into a pit of anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, and exhaustion. I so need to take your Soul Restoration course and my goal is to get it done by year’s end, no excuses.
Omg! Melody how do you know what I am going through. To day in the doctors office waiting for my husband to get his radiation treatment I was reading my “daily little bird told me” and there was this post. I am in such a place where I need to set boundaries to protect myself and family right now that I am going to work on this today when my husband is resting. Boy do I need a rest, but putting up my boundaries and putting my boarder patrol on duty will surely help. This is the page I will work on today. All my love you have helped my soul heal inso many ways I can’t even tell you! You my friend are very much LOVED.
My heart has been so deeply hurt in recent months by a few family members…I have held true to my boundaries concerning “toxic” family members…unfortunately I have met a road block this weekend with other family members trying to invalidate by my boundaries and beliefs. This has brought me great distress and certain realizations. I am holding true though…as my husband says: “Being a Brave Girl doesn’t mean that you can win the fight, it means that you have the strength to do the hard right over the easy wrong!”