Boundaries (Part One)

Life can get pretty crazy sometimes. You can’t say yes to every person and every opportunity that comes your way. There are going to be occasions when it is completely acceptable to say no.

Toddlers are very good at using the word no. I wonder what age it is we get to when we develop the idea that we are no longer allowed to say no. Good children say yes. Be a good child. Be compliant to those more powerful than you. Always say yes.

These powerful people don’t always have to actually be more powerful than you, you just have to believe that they are more powerful than you.

And then there are some people we give more power to than we really ought to. Disorganised people tend to have more “emergencies” in their life than regular people. And in their disorganization, they may panic and demand that others fix their disorder for them. Poor planning tends to result in “emergencies”.

If those people exist in your life do not enable them, empower them. How do you empower them? By not always rushing in and fixing their problems for them, and cleaning up their messes all the time. You empower them by occasionally saying no to them.

Start asking them questions like: How did that happen? What are you going to do about it? How are you going to clean up your mess? What are you going to do in the future?

Rescuing people from themselves can get exhausting. We overly romanticize playing the part of the hero. Especially those of us who attribute our worth to being the rescuer.

I hate mess – both figurative and literal. So, as a result, I have developed a life long habit of cleaning up other people’s messes. I called it having an ‘acts of service’ love language. I recently discovered that ‘acts of service’ is not my main love language. I had simply come up with a justification for my dysfunction.

I would clean up someone else’s mess before I was even asked to. That way, I could avoid confrontation with the mess maker, or the conflict that would inevitably ensure when others were affected by the mess. I got so good at it that now I can sometimes foresee the damage a mess could create and tidy it up before anyone else is affected. Church folk call it an administrational gifting. Perhaps. An administrational gifting I developed through a fear of conflict that usually arises from mess that hasn’t been dealt with. (If you’ve read my previous post Courageous Conversations, you may remember my distaste of confrontation and conflict.)

I remember a conversation I had with a mentor once that went something like this.

“I have to do their job for them if they don’t do it.”

“Why?”

“To stop a mess from happening.”

“What would happen if there was a mess?”

“People would get angry.”

“Maybe it would be good to let them make a mess anyway…”

I remember thinking: No. No it would not be good. But I have tried to apply her advice over the past couple of years with varying degrees of success.

Sometimes you need to let people make a mess so that they can see the consequences of their actions (or inaction) and learn from them.

Being a powerful and responsible person doesn’t mean that you never make a mess. What it does mean is that as a powerful person you will clean up your mess. Powerful people don’t ignore their mess and/or expect someone else to clean it up for them. I’m referring to mess in the more figurative sense. But internal attitudes do very often manifest in an external reality. A messy mind and heart can often lead to a messy environment.

Note: I’ve heard some say “Oh but that person is a ‘creative’. You know how ‘creatives’ are.” Being a ‘creative’ is not an excuse to be irresponsible. I know loads of tidy, responsible and respectful ‘creatives’. Their ability to organise actually helps them, not hinders them, in their ability to create. Just ask any ‘creative’ who runs their own business.

It is important to set boundaries in your life to protect your priorities. To steward what is important to you. Otherwise you will be constantly running around taking care of other people’s priorities on their behalf and stewarding what is important to them. If you cannot set healthy boundaries in your life, you will be exploited. That’s not an overly cynical world-view. That is just a cold hard fact. People who do not have boundaries either grant free access to all and sundry, or they have solid walls in place, letting no man in. Boundaries are not walls. They are gates that you hold the key to. You decide who has access and what level of access they have to your life. You decide what you will do and what you will not do. You are responsible for you.

Danny Silk says in his book, Keep Your Love On, “when you start telling people what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do and follow through on both, people come to believe what you say. Your words have weight.”

Even Jesus said, let your yes be yes and your no be no.

When you start saying no, your yes starts to mean something.

Sometimes letting someone make a mess looks like saying no to them. When someone is not used to being told no, they won’t like it. They may even freak out a little. But eventually they will get over it. They may learn, or they may move on to someone else. But at least your priorities will be protected and your self-respect will still be in tact (as well as your mental health).

And if you still cannot say no, try searching out a toddler who will most probably be happy to teach you.

Gate image from Flickr

Courageous Conversations

I hate conflict. I know that hate is a strong word, and I use that word intentionally here. I HATE conflict. Anger is a scary emotion that I would prefer avoiding at all costs. (the background of where that comes from is a story for another time) Nothing instigates my flight or freeze response more than when people express anger, especially by yelling. I feel like the character Brick from the movie Anchorman “Loud noises!”

How has that been working out for me? I can tell you. Not that great.

The purpose of healthy confrontation (or courageous conversation) is that it leads to healthy connection. If I want the genuine connection that I crave, then at some point I will need to wade into confrontation. Normally when the relationship gets to that point I freak out. Either the relationship stays at one level never going deeper, or the relationship is over. I have preferred to live miserable or let relationships disintegrate. I have burnt many bridges along the way.

I am now at a stage where I am tired of hiding for fear of being incinerated by some fire-breathing dragon (because that is how I often perceive people when they are angry you see). I cannot be free to be who I am if I am in constant hiding.

The scary reality that I need to face is that no community can deepen in connection without the presence of confrontation. There are few relationships in my life that won’t at some point meet head on with the need for those courageous conversations. So that means learning how to have those courageous conversations or brave communication. It means learning how to honour one another when we disagree. If no one in the community disagrees, then that’s a big problem. Because no one agrees on everything, so if everyone is agreeing on everything all the time, then someone is lying. The grown up version of hide and seek.

We need to acknowledge that we are different, and that we will have different opinions and ideas about things – even things that really matter to us. As it turns out, it is usually when what is important to us is insulted, that we feel the most hurt. And that is when the strong emotions we are feeling in that instance threaten to lead to unhealthy reactions. The infamous flight or fight response comes into effect. Some people come out swinging. Others run – either by physically or emotionally withdrawing, or by hiding. There is always playing dead – just pretend you don’t care at all. But that can’t last forever. You can only play dead for so long before all of that pent up emotion resurrects you into some kind of rage-full flesh-eating zombie. And like a volcano, we end up spewing our anger all over the poor innocents around us.

Whether we react by hiding from people or screaming or slamming doors, the result is the same: disconnection from the people around us.

I need to ask myself: How much do I want connection with this person? My desire for connection will hopefully be stronger than my fear of the potentially awkward unpleasantness of the conflict. I am a novice when it comes to confrontation so don’t read this hoping that I have all the answers you’re looking for. This isn’t a teaching session. There are people who have developed tools for doing confrontation well. I am not one of those people. Not yet anyway.

I am not offering a simple solution to deal with your fear of conflict in 500 words. All I can offer is to share with you a snapshot of my journey into embracing confrontation as a forerunner to connection.

Take courage dear heart.