What I Learned About Scary, Sacred Boundaries
For the big-hearted among us, boundaries can be terrifying
Something shocking happened in one of my classes this week. It was a setting in which we study and practice the practical skills of caregiving — listening and offering presence in times of crisis — and I was playing the role of caregiver. The topic was addiction, which was not easy for anyone, and after completing the exercise, I waited for feedback.
I received some positive notes on the way I listened, paraphrased, and affirmed the other person’s experience, which was not particularly surprising, because connecting from a heart-place and sensing other people’s feelings comes naturally to me. Next, citing a time the careseeker had pushed me for personal information and I had gently directed the story back to him, I was praised for something that does not come naturally to me at all.
I was praised for my boundaries.
Anyone who knows me will understand why I say boundaries are not my strength. By default, I seek closeness and intimacy. I tend to dissolve barriers. That is just who I am.
Let me be clear: Seeking connection with other humans is not a bad thing. For me, it’s a great gift. It is one reason why I am pursuing the work of care in the first place, and generally, it makes it easier for me to establish trust with others, even when I don’t know them well. Yet constantly moving towards others means I always risk leaving myself behind. And leaving myself behind means that my tendency is to make sure other people’s needs are met before I ever consider addressing my own.
As any student of boundaries will tell you, leaving my own needs behind in a relational dynamic means I often find myself in situations in which I give, and give, and give, until suddenly I realize I have reached my capacity and start to resent that I am not receiving the same care I offer others in return. And once I reach that point, I cannot give any more.
Over time, several teachers have pointed out that my boundaries are diffusive. When I studied yoga for back care, I was warned: You will have to strengthen your boundaries to help people who are in pain. When I talk to my therapist about interpersonal struggles, I am guided towards the same thing. With you, she once said, we do not need to work on empathy. But we really need to work on boundaries.
No kidding.
When my classmates praised my boundaries in caregiving, it was helpful to hear that what I had done was actually appropriate. Because for people who seek closeness, using any boundary at all tends to feel aggressive. In the moment when I decided to use that boundary, I wondered if the other person experienced my caregiving stance as too distant, too sterile, or too withholding.
Not at all, my classmates assured me. There was no distance. The boundary you used was vital to the situation and critical to providing meaningful care. The intimacy and trust you seek were still present in the conversation.
Being witnessed in this capacity and receiving that feedback was affirming, because I have been thinking about boundaries a lot recently. Over the past few years, I have had to learn how to employ boundaries in situations where I never wanted to use them at all.
There were immediate family members whom I had to recognize were not capable of supporting my wellbeing. There was a friend whose repeated micro-aggressions I had to finally admit were causing more harm than good. There was another friend who relished my ongoing support and accessibility but was never available when I needed the same. There was one who could not find time for me against her career, and there were some who relied on me to do all the work of connection. Eventually, I had to choose boundaries in every scenario.
It was not easy. Each situation caused frustration and discomfort, and I waffled for significant amounts of time, feeling drained and confused, before finally choosing my own wellbeing. While many people will tell you that boundaries are important these days, very few talk about how difficult they can be to engage. In my world, just like in my caregiving class, using boundaries with family and friends felt aggressive.
Recently, I told my therapist about a boundary I had to use with an important figure in my life. It had been uncomfortable, and I worried it might have upset the person involved. When I told my therapist how I had described my stance with as much care as possible but also set a boundary around future engagement in the relationship, she was thrilled. And I was thrilled that she was thrilled! Making progress is a good feeling.
My therapist validated my choice to honor my own needs and assured me I had done the right thing. She also confirmed that using boundaries might indeed cause discomfort or inconvenience for another person. But, she added, you are now choosing to recognize that the other person’s discomfort is not your problem to fix.
She pointed out that in many cases, the most wholehearted, loving, and compassionate people actually have the strongest boundaries. That realization had been a lightbulb moment in her career, and it will likely be the same for me.
It turns out Brené Brown agrees with my therapist. In her book Atlas of the Heart, Brown writes that “Boundaries are prerequisites for compassion and empathy. We can’t connect with someone unless we’re clear about where we end and they begin. If there’s no autonomy between people, then there’s no compassion or empathy, just enmeshment.”
Enmeshment in relationship feels like closeness — I know this from experience — but eventually, the tangles always start to show. When you are enmeshed with others in the tapestry of relationship, the threads representing your own needs become almost impossible to see. Brown also recommends that we “choose discomfort over resentment” in relationship, which is advice I am only beginning to understand for myself.
What Brown must be saying is that if I can learn to set boundaries earlier in my relationships, I will be able to offer care and compassion within a structure. Whatever structure I design will be intentionally crafted to support my own needs, limits, and capacities, and working within that structure to offer others support without going beyond it will guarantee that relational exchanges in my world, both personal and professional, are life-giving for both parties involved. Myself included.
Put another way, strengthening my boundaries will will allow me to love others more freely, more widely, and more beautifully. Knowing my limits and preferences, and employing them early in a relationship rather than after I reach the point of resentment, will help me avoid depletion and love wholeheartedly. That sounds like it might be worth a little discomfort.
Boundaries, it turns out, are the thing that will enable me to do exactly what I am on this planet to do.
Going forward, I am thinking about the interpersonal work of love and support — the sacred care I can offer others — as a flowering plant. By putting the plant in a smaller pot, one that is clearly defined, not too big or too deep, I allow the plant to focus on flowering.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the constraints of the pot are precisely what prompts flowers to bloom. Within the pot’s boundaries the plant is free to grow; it can focus on producing flowers rather than spreading itself thin to cover more ground. And doesn’t that sound nice?
May our pots be strong. May our flowers be a blessing.
Between you and me—
Hello from the mid-semester crunch! October is absolutely wild in my world this year, featuring multiple orchestral events in North Carolina along with my first midterms at school. And — spoiler alert — I am also preaching my first sermon! Preaching, for our purposes, is defined as “proclamation of holy truth.” It need not be based in religious tradition or even happen in a church. Mine will lift up the climate crisis, and I am honored to explore using my voice in new ways.
In other news, I heard Reverend William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign give a lecture this morning. He called for a third reconstruction in this country, and his message was shockingly good. I am still processing… but it may have changed my life. Grateful as ever to witness.
That’s all from me this week! I hope your fall days are colorful and your burdens light. I’ll be back on November 5 — till then, take care out there.
The audio version of WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is back! New episodes available on Spotify, Apple, Substack, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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I love this so much! So much wisdom, so capacious and good. Thank you!