Only then can we drop through to a more authentic self

February 28, 2019 11:04 AM

A boundary is any limit that promotes
integrity.

It’s an indicator of what we decide is acceptable and what is not,
and what allows us to make meaning in accordance with our cherished life
values.

The secret is knowing that there are two types. Internal and external.

The former are physical boundaries that we set. They allow us to monitor and
regulate the quantity and quality of other people’s interactions with us.

Here
are few examples from my personal experience.

Cutting off contact with exes, confidently saying no to toxic people, choosing not to participate in
gossip, turning off my phone at nighttime, or leaving the party early when
people decide to start snorting cocaine off the living room table.

Pretty
straightforward. Difficult to set, but simple to understand.

Internal
boundaries, on the other hand, are much more complicated.

Melody’s
groundbreaking work on codependence called them invisible and symbolic fences
to protect our thinking, feelings, and behavior. These boundaries help us to
separate our emotions and responsibility for them from someone else’s.

If you’re someone who is hypersensitive to other people’s feelings,
problems, criticisms, to the point that you take them on as your own truth, you
have weak internal boundaries.

If you give up your integrity in an effort to
please others and keep conflict and confrontation at bay, you have weak
internal boundaries.

If you are the kind of person who is easily manipulated
and carelessly give away your heart and soul to the wrong people who end up
hurting or taking advantage of you, you have weak internal boundaries.

It’s
nothing to be ashamed of. Join the club. My internal boundaries were
nonexistent for the first three decades of my life. It’s still something that
requires deep, daily work.

A practice that’s been helpful for building my
internal boundaries is creating a filter for incoming information. It’s a micro
practice for checking the incoming information against what I know about my own
truth. Figuring out where I stop and others begin.

Typically, in form of a
question.

Is this message mine, or the desire of someone else?

Does this piece
of feedback register anywhere in my body?

How well does this incoming
information match what I know of my true self?

This way, if the incoming message
has merit, it can be explored. If not, it can slip off my back.

All boundaries, whether external or internal, are the keys to dropping through
to a more authentic self.

Learn to understand them, set them, accept then,
enforce them and evolve them.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Who is currently violating your boundaries?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag