Boundaries ~ The Hard Way
Hello! 👋Happy New Year 🎉Welcome to another edition of Life Reliability Engineering. ✨Today's we're gonna be talking about everyone's favourite topic: boundaries! Warning: lots of feels and emotions incoming. You probably were expecting that if you signed up to this thing in the first place 😅I don't know how often I'll write or what topic I'll write about it, so please bear with me while I try and figure it out. I just know that I wanna write and share more this year because it's something that comes naturally to me - it's the medium I express myself best in.
Boundaries. Think back to when was the first time you heard about this word and it what context? My earliest memory of it is probably in the context of physical boundaries and I won't be surprised it would be similar for the majority of y'all. I had no idea that boundaries can (and should!) exist in the non-physical world too. Was I supposed to know? I don't know, it's debatable. The fact of the matter is that I didn't know - I wasn't told nor did I read about it and I grew up without them for the most part. I don't know if that's the case for most people, I'd be curious to hear about that. If you're keen to share, feel free to reply. 😊
I've always been a deeply emotional person with a huge sense of responsibility when it comes to my relationships. I've been what you'd term as a "giver" my entire life -- always showering love, affection, care and concern for the people in my life without expecting much in return. I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture here, I had and still have plenty of faults and y'all can perhaps see where this is going already. But that's my general disposition with people I like and care about. I'm the person making all the plans, putting in the effort, bringing the group together, shouldering responsibility that nobody really assigned to me because I felt like I have to else no one will. Looking back, so much of it was out fear: of rejection, loneliness, <insert negative emotion here>. Doing and putting in effort made me feel safe, maybe it still does to an extent. But it's also incredibly tiring mentally, emotionally and sometimes even physically. More importantly, it's not sustainable, especially if you want to do more with your life than invest all your time in people. My anxiety makes all of this even worse and wreaks havoc on my brain regularly.
I only started learning about this thing called "boundaries" in the last couple of years. At first, it confused me deeply: aren't you supposed to love people with all your heart and be selfless? Aren't you supposed to give it your all? I missed a crucial addition to this: it's okay to do these things but not at the expense of your own wellbeing. I had no understanding of the concept of "putting yourself first". It really didn't help that both my parents still live their life this way: avoiding conflicts and being selfless givers. I grew up being surrounded by selflessness at your expense and internalised that very deeply. As one might expect, this has led to disastrous romantic relationships and friendships. It took me a while to realise that isn't a sustainable way to live. I still wonder sometimes how I'd have behaved and how different things would be now if I had learnt about these things early on. Crying over spilt milk can be addictive and hard to shake off but I'm trying.
I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about these things and also speaking to friends who know me last year. I've been told this multiple times and I think it's an accurate representation of my approach to life in general: I'm a go-getter. If I want something, I make it happen. Period. If I set my sights on it, I will find a way to achieve it. I don't stop at anything. I'll do what it takes, sweat the hours and get it. Sometimes I wonder if subconsciously I try to apply the same approach to people and without the concept of boundaries, it's all bound to go very wrong, without a shred of a doubt. I'm gonna try and summarise what I've learnt about boundaries in as few words as possible.
It's still very much work in progress for me, but one of my goals for 2020 is to establish better boundaries with people around me so that I don't end up completely drained mentally and emotionally. The way I understand it boundaries are a way to protect myself while making myself emotionally and mentally available to other people in a sustainable way. So much of this has included confronting and understanding why I behave the way I do and what underlying beliefs trigger it. This has been a long and tough process. If you thought getting to know other people is hard, have you tried getting to know yourself and confronting the deepest, darkest corners of your brain? I'd recommend doing it with proper support, ideally a therapist, and you'd be surprised by some of the findings. So much of this work has been rooted in making myself believe that I bring something to the table and not seeking external validation constantly or defining my self-worth in terms of other people. The hardest part about setting boundaries has been dealing with people who violate them. It's really hard to do this if you've not known another way of life or aren't used to standing up for yourself. It can lead to so much shame and guilt when you finally stand up to someone for treating you poorly. I had a fight with a friend last year and rather than flying into a fit of rage, I dealt with it in a calm way enforcing my boundaries repeatedly. My therapist told me I did a good job and she was proud of me :ugly-sobbing: Standing up for myself has been extremely empowering.
The flip side to this is respecting other people's boundaries. It is a two way street. You can't violate someone else's boundaries while enforcing your own. A large part of this includes not taking things personally. This probably warrants a post of it's own because I'm convinced that this is one of the most important skills I'm going to learn in my 20s. It's really hard to, in a certain sense, desensitise yourself. Crippling anxiety and rejection sensitivity makes all of this 10x worse. It's easy to state, but it can be really hard to convince yourself that someone merely enforcing their boundaries doesn't reflect on you as a person in any way. It's a way to establish a healthy and sustainable relationship which will benefit everyone involved in the long the run.
I wanna make 2020 the year of me. If that's sounds selfish, maybe because it is? I don't think that's a particularly bad thing. I still struggle a lot with this. We've berated the world "selfish" and it comes with such negative connotations that down the line we've forgotten that taking care of and protecting yourself is not "selfish", it's your primary responsibility, one that you can't delegate. A friend put it better than I ever could: you can't consistently show up and be there for other people if you can't do it for yourself. No more letting people take you for granted and you having to prove over and over again what you bring to the table. If someone is refusing to meet you halfway, you can't walk twice the distance to make up for it. It's hard but I've been trying to live by this. I'll still be a mess, but I guess I'll be a slightly stronger and resilient mess. 😂
To end this issue, I'd like to share a random realisation I had the other day (if you stick around, you'll eventually notice that I've a lot of these 😂) We often try and cling to people who treat us poorly or don't put in the same amount of effort, if any. So much of that can be rooted in past encounters we've had with people. If you believe that they're the best you can do in terms of people, then of course, your brain will latch onto them due to fear of scarcity. What helped me get over this is slowly surrounding myself with and appreciating the people in my life who do treat me well and put in the work. It makes me realise how far I've come from being surrounded only by crappy people who made me feel like shit. More importantly, it made me realise that there isn't a shortage of good people in the world, so don't lose hope. ✨
I've been told this multiple times lately and it really helped me, so I want to pass it on to you: you might not be perfect but you do deserve to be treated with kindness, love and care. You deserve the world and you shouldn't let anyone tell you otherwise. ♥️