Personal Boundaries vs Oneness
Hello everyone.
Today, I've decided to answer a question
that I've been getting again and again
for the last 2 years.
The question is about boundaries.
What are boundaries?
How do I set healthy boundaries?
And most especially how do I rectify the idea of boundaries
with the idea that we live in a Universe that is all one.
We exist in a third-dimensional physical reality
and thus we perceive a self.
This gives rise to the perception of a boundary
i.e. a separation between ourselves and that which we see as other.
What are boundaries?
Boundaries are guidelines
for how someone relates the self to the rest of the world.
They are rules of conduct
built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions,
attitudes, past experiences, and social learning.
Personal boundaries operate in two directions
affecting both incoming and outgoing interactions between people.
Boundaries help to define an individual by outlining likes and dislikes
what is right for a person personally or wrong for them personally.
Defining these things helps us to know
how we will and won't allow ourselves to be treated by others.
Here are some signs that you might have unhealthy boundaries.
Saying "no" when you mean "yes". Or "yes" when you mean "no".
Feeling guilty when you say "no"
acting against your integrity or values in order to please others.
Not speaking up when you have something to say.
Adopting another person's beliefs or ideas so you are accepted.
Not calling out someone who has mistreated you
accepting physical touch or sex when you don't want it.
Allowing yourself to be interrupted or distracted to accommodate someone else.
or their immediate wants and needs.
Giving too much just to be perceived as useful.
Becoming overly involved in someone's problems or difficulties.
Not defining and communicating your emotional needs in relationships.
But it's important to understand that the biggest problem
is not that other people violate our boundaries
it's that we violate our own boundaries.
When you let someone violate your boundaries,
you are violating your own boundaries.
You are not staying true to what feels good to you.
This is self-betrayal.
If you go against your personal boundaries
you violate yourself, you abandon yourself.
Boundaries can get very complicated if we were defining boundaries
according to cerebral concepts of right or wrong,
wanted or unwanted.
Or according to boundaries other people think are or aren't healthy.
After all, there are physical boundaries, emotional boundaries, mental boundaries,
spiritual boundaries and sexual boundaries.
So I'm going to make it very easy for you.
Your boundaries are defined and are no different than your feelings.
Your feelings will always tell you
whether a boundary has been violated.
So as long as you are listening to your emotions,
you know exactly what your boundaries are.
For example, if someone said something that hurt you
they crossed an emotional boundary.
You will feel hurt, which is your indication
that your boundaries need to be reassessed.
Or if someone asks you to a party,
and you feel as if you don't want to go
but you go anyway,
you have violated your own boundary,
and your emotions will reflect that to you by making you feel negative emotion.
This is why it is so crucial to be in touch with how you feel
all day every day.
So we can think of a boundary as a line that uniquely defines and separates
your personal happiness,
your personal integrity, your personal desires,
your personal needs,
and therefore, most importantly your personal truth from the rest
of the universe.
He who does not listen to and respect what they themselves feel,
violates his own boundaries.
He who does not listen to and respect what others feel,
violates other people's boundaries.
It is as simple as that.
Practice feeling how things feel.
Listen to how you feel. Listen to your emotions.
Because your feelings and your emotions are the indication
of what your boundaries are.
It is very important that you start to listen to and heed those emotions,
if you want to live the kind of life that's worth living.
If you want to enjoy your experience.
If you want to stay In alignment with your own personal truth.
But it's important to understand that personal truth,
which is what boundaries really are,
can only be told to you by you.
Society can't tell you what your boundaries are.
Your parents can't tell you what your boundaries are.
Your friends can't tell you what your boundaries are.
Only you can know what your boundaries are.
But this is what society tries to do.
This is what your friends try to do.
This is what your family tries to do.
This is what your mate tries to do.
They try to tell you what your boundaries should and shouldn't be
or are and aren't.
But they can't step into your body feel for you.
It is crucial that we not only know who we are
and what we really want,
but also that we know that we are known for who we are,
and what we really want, by others.
When we are ashamed of who we are and what we want
we have poor boundaries.
We are ashamed out of our true sense of self as children,
in order to fit into the family
and into society.
We had to develop an identity
that was acceptable to the people around us.
A false self.
This is a survival strategy.
We become the person we think we're supposed to be,
and shame the person that we really are.
How do you know if you have set up a false self?
You fear other people thinking negatively of you.
Do you know what you really want?
Do you let other people tell you what to think or believe,
or how to feel?
Do you do things that you don't really want to do,
and say yes when you really want to say no?
Or say no when you really want to say yes?
Are you afraid to let people know how you really feel?
Are you afraid of people thinking negatively of you?
When most people think of a boundary violation, they think
of an intrusive boundary violation,
like a rape,
when someone does something to you,
and it's almost a towards you, directional violation.
But there are also other kinds of violation.
There is a violation that's called a distancing violation as well.
What that is, is when someone whom you are close to withdraws from you.
They cross an emotional boundary going outwards, away from you.
That is also a boundary violation,
and it is sometimes the most painful kind.
Those of us who had invalidating parents
have a very difficult time setting healthy boundaries.
We may violate our boundaries and let other people violate our boundaries
all the time.
We may lack them altogether.
Here's a common scenario;
A child begins to feel angry because their parent is always working
and never has time to be with them.
The child expresses that anger and is invalidated.
The parent says, "I spend more time with you
than any other parent I know spends with their children."
And the child is shamed then, for being ungrateful.
The child learns that the way they feel is "not true,"
and that they should be ashamed for feeling the way they feel.
Anger is not acceptable,
so the child creates a false self that cannot express anger.
Potentially, a false self that says, "thank you," all the time.
Over time, he or she believes
that who they really are is happy and grateful.
They have never really admitted the fact that deep down, they are truly angry.
It is hard for people to set boundaries
because, number one, we put other people's needs and feelings first.
Number two, we don't know ourselves.
Number three, we don't feel as if we have rights.
Number four, we believe that setting boundaries jeopardizes the relationship,
and number five, we never learn to have healthy boundaries.
Most of us were told when we were young
that how we felt was either not how we felt,
or was not okay to feel.
Most of us were told that what we saw, we did not see.
Most of us were told that what we think we wanted
is not what we really wanted.
Or that it was not okay to want what we wanted.
we lived lives where our own personal truth
was invalidated again and again and again.
This made most of us feel crazy
and as if we could not trust ourselves.
So we began to go against the way we fet
and the things we wanted and in doing so,
we did not stay true to ourselves.
this internal self betrayal is what caused us to stop trusting ourselves.
Self trust is all about boundaries.
That's all it really is.
If you don't trust yourself,
you have not so good, not so healthy boundaries.
It means that you are in the habitual pattern
of abandoning your own personal truth and the way you feel.
This internal self betrayal makes you feel unsafe with you.
We don't trust ourselves when we feel unsafe with ourselves.
And who would really feel unsafe with someone who abandoned them?
That's what you've been doing to you.
No wonder you don't trust yourself.
We feel unsafe with ourselves when we watch ourselves
make decisions that don't feel good.
Or act in a way that doesn't represent our true selves.
When we ignore the way we really feel,
and abandon our personal truth,
we become in essence, untrustworthy to ourselves.
The only way to begin trusting yourself,
is to learn how to tune back in to how you feel
and to honor how you truely feel.
Maintaining a false self by denying who we truly are,
denying what we truly want,
denying how we truly feel,
is a barrier to intimacy.
We cannot have good relationships with other people,
because our false selves become like a mask,
a mask that we won't let anyone past.
Much more than that,
it's a mask we won't let ourselves past.
We become convinced that the mask is us.
it takes over our personality, it takes over our identity,
it takes over our sense of self,
to the degree where we have no idea who we are, what we want...
We're confused, we're blundering through life.
To have intimacy, to have a deep relationship with someone,
is to let the truth, the full, total, unrestricted truth of who you are,
meet someone else at the heart center.
You can't do that when there's a mask in between you and them.
We want someone in our lives, desperately,
that understands how we feel.
But we don't even understand how we feel.
We wind up having a relationship of convenience with ourselves.
We only listen to our own personal truth
when it doesn't cause trouble or difficulty.
We don't realize that we are causing the very difficulty
that we are trying to avoid
by not listening to our feelings a personal truth,
all the time, regardless of whether it causes difficulty or not.
The bottom line is:
It is impossible to know who you are,
and what you like, and what you believe,
and what you want,
unless you know exactly how you feel.
People must have healthy boundaries,
in order to have healthy relationships.
That's the only way you're going to get into a relationship,
and not lose yourself completely.
So how does this idea of boundaries
fit into the idea that we live in a universe,
in and of a universe, which is all one?
It seems like a contradiction, but not so fast.
If I am embracing what I truly am,
what I truly want, what I truly need,
what I truly feel,
I am embracing the unique expression of source energy
that I truly am.
I am actually more in alignment with a universe that is one,
than if I am losing my boundaries.
Because I am denying the true expression of myself
as an extension of source.
In other words, I am embracing the unique expression of source that I am,
rather than seeing myself as separate from others or from source.
And so, personal boundaries are not a contradiction to spirituality.
We are simply using the word boundary
which we associate with resistance.
~ giggles ~
In one sense, to have boundaries
you have to differentiate between yourself,
and between the rest of the world.
But we don't really have to worry about doing this, do we?
Because our physical brains do it for us.
The minute you come down into a physical experience,
as a physical human,
your experience will tell you
that you are separate from the rest of the universe.
So it doesn't take much thought to see yourself as a self.
It was always the plan for you to experience a separate self,
because this perspective serves the expansion
of the universe's own process of self- awareness.
So we all already do experience a self and other.
This perspective creates a good deal of unhappiness,
until we allow ourselves to go in the direction of individual happiness.
Which ultimately leads to our discovery that we're all one,
and that whatever serves our individual happiness,
serves all else that is.
But here's the thing that really matters.
A boundary is not about resisting what you do not want.
This is why most people see boundaries as unhealthy.
because we associate them with resistance.
And I can tell you that if you're in resistance
to something that is unwanted,
Then you are not in alignment.
And that's not a healthy boundary.
It's an unhealthy boundary.
So the people who walk through this world
having resistance to people violating them in any way,
are not a measure of health.
they're a measure of unhealth.
Those people are focussed on what is unwanted.
Pushing against what is unwanted.
their boundaries are erected to keep out what is unwanted.
Their boundaries don't exist to keep them happy.
They only think they do.
It is as unhealthy to have resistance towards violation,
that could be imposed on you by the world,
as it is to have no boundaries,
and let the world constantly trespass on your reality.
People who build walls against intimacy,
are not exhibiting healthy boundaries.
They are in resistance to the world.
An unhealthy boundary pushes against the world
and tells others how they can and can't behave.
But we have no control over how they behave.
And what they do and don't do.
We only have control over what we do and don't do.
So healthy boundaries, unlike most boundaries,
we're used to, such as fences or rules,
are non resistant in nature,
and thus they're in alignment with oneness.
Healthy boundaries are not about controlling
what other people can and can't do to you,
They are entirely about you personally defining
and then following your individual sense of happiness
and desires, and personal truth.
It is a state of self- awareness, integrity, and self love.
You can't have any of those things
if you are pushing against the world,
and you can't have them if you are letting the world define
who you are, what you want and how you feel.
Having a healthy sense of self serves not only you,
but also the universe.
And ultimately your happiness is, everyone else's happiness as well,
because we're all one.
I want you to engage in an activity for me.
Take out a piece of paper and a pen,
and write down ten things that you are the most unhappy about
in your current reality.
Maybe they're things that people are doing to you that you don't like,
maybe it's just a situation that you're not enjoying.
Then relative to this list, I want you to ask yourself:
"Are there any boundaries that I am crossing in this experience
which is giving rise to this negative emotion that I have?"
"How do I really feel about these experiences
or these things, items, that I've written down on this list?"
An example may be:
" My spouse watches the television after coming home from work
and ignores me."
"This makes me feel rejected and unloved.
Like a void of loneliness is welling up inside me."
"By doing this he is violating an emotional boundary,
because I'm not ok with people treating me like this."
"So I am going to write him a letter, expressing how I feel."
This last part is especially crucial.
It's an action step.
It's you deciding what it's going to take
for you to pull yourself back into alignment with your personal truth.
And to honor how you feel now.
It's crucial to make changes based on how you really feel.
To decide specific actions you can take.
Self expression is paramount in this circumstance.
In this case, you may decide to say no
next time someone asks you to do something.
Maybe you'll make a phone call
and back out of a commitment you made.
Maybe you'll set a boundary by saying something
to the next time they hurt you.
Such as: "Please don't derail my efforts to give up smoking,
or remind me how many times I failed.
Or, you could assert a boundary by asserting a positive request.
Such as: " I'd really appreciate your help to succeed this time."
I want you to remember that as time goes on,
your boundaries will be reassessed.
Boundaries aren't meant to be static,
they're meant to be constantly evolving.
Maybe as things change in your life,
maybe a new relationship, or a new baby in the house,
you'll have to reassess your boundaries.
Because your feelings relative to what you want to do and not do,
are going to change.
Allow this to happen.
Your boundaries will change throughout your life.
But it's very important that as your boundaries change,
They change according to your feelings.
Not according to how other people think you should feel.
Or change.
We can rehabilitate each other relative to boundaries, as well.
And it's very easy.
Just remember this:
Whenever you're in a conversation with someone,
stop and tell them that you want them to tell you exactly how they feel,
without being afraid of how you're going to respond.
Reassure them that what you really want
is for them to stay in alignment with how they truly feel.
And what they truly want.
This gives them permission to be themselves,
and to actually define their boundaries, when they're in your presence.
Think about what kind of world this would be
if we were all giving each other this kind of permission.
Instead of walking around trying to tell other people
what their boundaries should and shouldn't be.
The bottom line is, if we want to live happy lives,
and make the right choices for ourselves personally
we need to know how we feel, admit to how we feel,
and express how we feel.
Developing boundaries is a crucial part of finding our true selves.
It is therefore a crucial part of spiritual practice and life success.
We do not need to resist others to do it,
instead we need to fully allow ourselves,
and to express the truth of ourselves at all times.
As I said before, defining boundaries can be complicated,
until you simplify it, and understand,
that your boundaries are always reflected
by virtue of how you feel.
Your boundaries are no different than how you feel.
If you feel like doing something,
then do it.
And you are not violating a boundary.
If you feel like not doing something, and you do it,
you are violating a boundary.
It is as simple as that.
As a spiritual luminary my job is to offer to you
some advice for how to live a life which you enjoy living.
And my number one suggestion, is to follow happiness.
Which is the same as following how you feel.
You can't deny who you truly are.
You can't deny who you truly want.
You can't deny your feelings.
Without also experiencing a decrease in your level of happiness.
So the more in alignment you are with your personal truth,
and the more you honor your feelings,
the happier you will be.
It is my ultimate promise.
Have a good week.
Transcribed by: Sasha Silverman & Tanya Duarte