Some examples: taking the tape and taping the entire office,
leaving me to stand outside in order to continue with the exercise (because I
will NEVER stand inside your boundary!); staying sitting in the seat and taping
just the peripheral around the self; putting the tape around one’s waist,
chest, finger, ankles; making boxes so tiny one needs to stand on their tip-toes;
making the box so small one’s arms can’t move; taping around one’s neck or
one’s head; putting the tape across one’s mouth, making a shape that includes a
back door, a front door …. Some people have handed the roll of tape back saying
they have no boundaries.
Boundaries are what protect us from other people’s stuff. If
I have no boundaries, and you are anxious, I will be anxious. If I have no
boundaries, and your are sad, I will be sad.
If I have no boundaries and you have a need, my need will be secondary,
or gone altogether. Boundaries are what give us the strength and ability to say
no, to say I matter, what I need is important, I have needs, I count, this is
me, I am capable.
For the longest time in doing this exercise, I understood it
as the “other” coming into my space, transgressing my boundary … but the other
day I had a bit of an epiphany … sometimes we bring the essence of the “other”
(mother, father, lover, husband, kid, friend….) into our space without them
even being conscious of it. It’s as if their spirit inhabits us (this is just
an analogy) – so that within our boundary there are now two. In doing so, I
allow this “spirit of the other” to subsume me, to render me less important, in
the end to render me powerless – I render myself powerless. We become angry
because “if they cared” they wouldn’t expect this of me … but they aren’t
conscious of what I am doing – there’s the catch. I come home from a hard day, feel it would be
great for me to go to my yoga class, step in the house and feel that would not
be ok with you, I would be dismissing your need for my company, my care of you…
and I drown out my own need without even noticing .. except for the part about
getting angry… angry that your needs come first, that mine get dismissed …. And I haven’t even said hello.
That’s a very different stance than being overwhelmed with the
“other’s” emotions, or being made responsible for them. It’s a different stance than having to suffer
the emotional contagion from another – that emotional energy that you get
affected by.
So how to shift, how to begin healing a compromised sense of
self? The hardest thing you will ever
have to do is believe that you are worth it. If you begin to cultivate that
belief then you will have to begin saying no; you will have to start recognizing
when some feelings are yours and some don’t belong to you; you will have to
tolerate someone else’s sadness, anger, loneliness and not take responsibility
for it. No small feat! You will have to speak up to make your own needs known.
You will have to do the work of getting to know yourself to know what those
needs in fact are – because you have been putting them aside and dismissing
them for so long that you are somewhat out of touch with them.
Take heart though, the work is worth it. Inside that
boundary that would go around your own physical being is something spectacular
… you! Someone who is curious, lovable, deserving of respect, unique, worthy,
beautiful …. No I’m not making this up. All that you are, all that amazingness,
all that potential, all that worthiness, lives inside your boundary and very
much deserves your attention. We are all so very worth it.
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