Boundaries Will Set You Free
Boundaries are a part of our lives. They characterise our interactions with people and ourselves, and I think it’s an important subject to inquire into. Boundaries are a vehicle to managing our energy system.
Nicole, who came to me for Intuitive Guidance, over the past 2-3 years had been experiencing relationships in which the same pattern repeated itself over and over again: things seemed to be going well, and then, at some point, her partner would want to shift the relationship to an open one. What would you do in this situation? How would you feel?…. The answer to these questions can tell you a lot about the boundaries in your life.
Boundaries are a sign of clarity! The level of your clarity will determine what kind of energies you will attract. Like the water in a pond which grows murky when there is a storm, but when everything is peaceful becomes as clear as crystal.
Nicole is a very beautiful women. She is good looking, engaging, and young: you might say “there’s nothing wrong with her”. Why do I say that? Because she felt a sense of shame. As if there were something wrong with her. There wasn’t! There was maybe something missing, and it relates to the way she manages her energies, the way she sets her boundaries.
The first time it happened it was someone she loved. They had been together for a year or so before he came up with this idea. Nicole loved the guy, and she didn’t want to lose him. So she tried. But it didn’t work out for her. After they broke up, Nicole had another relationship which went on for some time before the same thing happened. After a while, she was meeting guys that generally told her right from the beginning that an open relationship is what they were looking for. She got the message…. Well, at lease it caught her attention, and so she started trying to understand - what is going on?!
Often we get angry or point a blaming finger at someone, feeling they don’t understand us, or feeling shame at ourselves. But it all comes down to our not setting the necessary boundaries for others to communicate easily with us, which is to say that we are not transmitting what it is that we invite for ourselves and what, in all honesty, we just don’t welcome.
But, you may say, I know this guy whose “boundaries” are so clear, but he’s not pleasant to communicate with, he’s just rigid and inflexible. When people act like that it’s actually a sign that they are not exercising their boundaries, but are building walls around them instead to protect themselves from some form of fear. Boundaries are meant to serve you, not to freeze you in a state of stagnation.
I gave Nicole a Chakra-balance exercise* I designed. During the exercise, a spontaneous memory arose from an incident that happened when she was a child in school. The class was learning a theatre play, and Nicole, instead of taking the role she really wanted, chose the one she thought everyone else wanted her to take. There was no pressure, she had the choice, and she made one. She then thought to herself that she normally spends a lot of time with friends without quite knowing how to spend time with herself. If something came up, there was a lot of consulting with friends, lots of exchanging views… Now she really got the message.
Nicole realised that for the sake of being accepted and feeling that she was loved she broke her own boundaries. When we are afraid of losing something or someone we may not realise that what we’re really losing - is ourselves, our peace, our happiness, and our freedom.
To understand our boundaries, we don’t need to extend ourselves to our limits. Our limits will usually extend far beyond our boundaries. It took me many years to realise that even though I can take a lot of emotional pain, endure very difficult situations or relationships, it doesn’t mean I need to put myself through that. The fact that I can doesn’t mean that I want to. Limits are about how far we can go. Boundaries are about how far we want to go.
We need to cultivate clarity in our life, not to push ourselves to our limits. Just like in the clear pond, any one can look into it and say what s/he sees. Practicing boundaries can be a wonderful thing. Just after our session, Nicole left for a vacation on an island. She took a good book and enjoyed spending time with herself. Even when there was a party, she was following what she really wanted to do, not being afraid that if she chooses to have a quiet night on her own, maybe with a bottle of wine and a good book, she wouldn’t be loved. She experienced happiness and peace, and the clarifying of her boundaries set her free.
* Intuitive Guidance is not about “digging into the past”. Instead, the energy work allows a spontaneous understating to arise, it can be through a memory which will be valuable and illuminating to the issues being faced. It may be connected to a past event, but it actually happens in the present. Well, it is in fact in the present… you can read more on this here.
