Loosening and crumbling away with unthinking haste

Ego boundary is a psychoanalytic term that refers to the emotional function of distinguishing between self and other.

It’s that sacred combination of knowledge and trust. Not only knowing who we are, but feeling that it’s safe enough for us to be who we are, without the fear that the other is going to engulf us.

Hartmann, the psychologist who coined the term in the early nineties, proposed that there were people with thick boundaries and people with thin ones. And he suspected there were real brain and body differences between the two, so he developed a questionnaire to gain more insight.

Since the eighties, over five thousand people have taken his questionnaire, and hundreds of scientific papers have referenced it. What was most fascinating to me about the research is, older people tended to score somewhat thicker than younger people.

The research found older people didn’t necessarily feel their feelings any less, they simply learned how to compartmentalize them. They made it a practice to brush aside their emotional upset in favor of handling the situation and maintain a calm demeanor.

It’s actually one of the best things about getting older. If somebody around us is deeply stressed, angry or upset, our ego boundaries are thick enough so as not to absorb and embody their drama.

There’s no fear of putting ourselves at the mercy of people. We can calmly and confidently sit with the other give them the support and love they need, with no fear of getting sucked into the vortex.

Practicing hot yoga has been a holy arena for deepening this practice. Because when the room is a hundred degrees and the sweat is pouring out of pores and your muscles are quivering, you stay calm by threading your breath through every movement. Even if your heart is racing and your hands are hot enough to heat soup, on the surface, you appear unruffled.

Even if the yogi next to you is huffing and puffing and sucking back water like they’re lost in the desert, you breathe through it.

It’s knowledge and trust. You know who you are, it’s safe to be who you are, and who other people are isn’t going to change that.

You are safe and protected within, and you can open up to the world and what it has to offer without fearing that your personal space will be invaded.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are your boundaries thin or thick?