A remarkable change can grow in your life as you practice the art of setting boundaries. Your life takes on more definition. You know who you are more clearly. Time and energy are freed for your chosen pursuits. People gain respect for you.
As you set clear boundaries in different situations, you may begin to discover yet another benefit. As boundaries knit together, we begin to have a clearer sense of our spiritual presence in the world. Although boundaries are a practice, a defined behavior, they also carry us to a wider place within ourselves, a place where we discover what our lives are really about.
Harbra grew up in a fractured family. Her alcoholic father’s attention was on matters outside his family. Her mother, Cilla, was narcissistic and manipulative. Cilla’s primary interest in her children was in what they could do for her. Harbra did an amazing job of taking herself out of the culture that raised her. She educated herself, got a good job, and entered therapy. Over time, she set clearer and firmer boundaries with her mother and her other relatives, but they still occupied a corner of her life, and each week, a certain amount of time and energy went into protecting herself from them or recovering from their assaults.
Finally Cilla broke the last thread by allowing Harbra’s niece to be assaulted by Cilla’s lover. Cilla defended herself as an innocent and testified in court on behalf of the lover. Her granddaughter would have been tossed to the wolves had not Harbra and her sister rallied vehemently around the child, who was hustled into therapy and embraced by her sane female elders.
Harbra decided the boundary had to be stronger. She wrote a letter to Cilla saying she wanted no more contact with her. It was hard for Harbra to cut herself off from her mother, but it had become clear that Cilla would never be capable of even the mildest positive relationship with her progeny.
Taking this step freed Harbra immensely. A part of her that had always had to be on guard began to relax. After recovering from her grief at having to separate herself from her mother, she dispatched a few other manipulative and draining relationships.
Suddenly, the only people in her life were healthy ones. Little defenses she used to carry against the sucklings melted away. She felt stronger and healthier. Her mind was clearer. She was more freely centered within her own life. Within two months, she had an inspiration about the work she really wanted to be doing. Within another month, she had figured out how to get the education to do it. Within another month she had restructured her life to financially support her new educational goals.
You can’t imagine how much energy is being used by defenses until you set strong enough boundaries with the people who would sip your lifeblood. Boundaries are far more than a nifty technique to preserve your Saturday at home. When applied in the right places with the appropriate amount of firmness and dimension, they make way for entire possibilities that aren’t even dimly formed until you are free.
Each time you set a boundary and dissolve a defense, you pave your way to your own safe country, your own unique territory that is the fulfillment of your life and your mission.
I hope you have, through embracing this book, discovered walls or rules, roles or customs that have confined you to one place, preventing you from occupying the wider expanses. I hope you’ve seen ways to open the fortresses that have restricted you, that you are sacking any intruders in your life, and welcoming vision holders and good people. Most of all, my wish for you is that you have begun the enterprise of creating your own safe country.