Boundaries are walls round what?

What is your understanding of boundaries, and how well established are your own boundaries?

This is the start of a new mini series on boundaries.

We hear chat of boundaries all the time in our modern lives, but what are they and how do we create them? And what are some of the issues around making and sticking to our boundaries? This is where we are going to go in the next few weeks. 

Good fences.

There is an oft-quoted line from Robert Frost’s famous poem Mending Wall that goes like this:

“Good fences make good neighbours”.

It is quoted in material dealing with boundaries, supporting the idea that personal boundaries are necessary and important to ensure mutually supportive, healthy relationships. Now I agree with this entirely. But what I have been musing on is the part of that poem that I still remember from English studies at school:

 

“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.”

(Robert Frost, Mending Wall)

 

 

What I was walling in and walling out…..

 

...and it strikes me that in that phrase lies the secret to understanding our boundaries and why they are indeed important.

 

• How can we build a wall unless we know where to build it?
• Why would we go to the bother of building a wall unless we had something to protect?
• And what is it that we are trying to protect?

 

The key to boundaries. 

And there it is – for me, the key to boundaries. Once you know what it is you want to protect – what it is you are walling in – creating boundaries makes perfect sense, and ensures that you are clearer on what you are walling out.

So…..what am I building boundary walls round?

Me.

Me. My identity, self worth, values, priorities and life principles.

 

Getting to grips with who I am and what I can do, and accepting and valuing myself as a unique individual with my own values.

Ooh, I hear the sound of hairs bristling.

I know, a huge and potentially tricky issue this one. I am NOT suggesting we all become islands, self obsessed and rigid in what we will and won’t do. Not good. I am however suggesting that we can start to create healthy boundaries only when we truly understand what it is we are trying to protect.

What do you know of your own physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits?

What can you tolerate and accept, and what makes you uncomfortable and stressed?

Where do you stand on issues that matter to you, and therefore are prepared to protect?

Boundaries is a topic that comes up often in my work.

It is important that we learn how to protect that which is most important to us, and to steward the resources that we have well. That will probably have changed in the last decades. What do you know of your mental energy levels, your physical needs to protect and nurture your body well, your emotional resource requirement for all you are facing in this life season?

And how are you protecting those precious resources?

Our rest needs vary with different life seasons; more on different types of rest here. And our boundaries can change as our life season changes too. But the core principle here is understanding what it is that is most important to me. That will allow me to make proactive and wise choices about how I expend my energy and what I say yes and no to. That is where we will go next time. 

We have finite resources – despite what we often subconsciously believe – and that means being aware of and proactive in protecting those resources wisely so that we can continue to bring the best of ourselves to who we are and what we do. 

Creating boundaries starts with self awareness – what are you walling in and walling out?