Good articles over at The Burning Heart on healthy relationships and boundaries. I find that I need this is essential to my healing, growth, and pursuit of God.
Here is an exerpt:
Our greatest need in life is to be connected with God and others in loving relationships. But connection is only one side of the relationship coin of life. The other side of the relationship coin is autonomy. What do we mean when we use the word autonomy? Autonomy is the state or quality of being self-governing. It involves the ability to function independently of others as a separate individual without being co-dependent upon other people. Autonomy has to do with the ability to make independent decisions in life and to set boundaries in your personal relationships.
Sometimes we can become connected to other people in unhealthy or dysfunctional ways (especially in our families of origin). Maybe your father or mother was overbearing in the ways that they related to you. Perhaps they made decisions for you and always told you what to do in your life. As a result, you did not learn how to become an autonomous individual. Instead, you became dependent upon other people’s approval and decision-making abilities.
Dr. John Townsend, Hiding From Love, says that when we are connected to others in unhealthy or co-dependent ways, we end up feeling overwhelmed by the demands of life. We experience problems in keeping up with life and being controlled by the needs of others. We have difficulty filtering out the needs of others from our own needs.
In order to experience autonomy, we need to learn how to set personal boundaries in our relationships. According to Dr. Townsend, boundaries are foundational to a sense of personal identity in life. They identify us for who we really are as persons. They tell us where we begin and end in relationship with other people. This is essential when it comes being able to love other people in healthy and effective ways.
Boundaries become our personal “brands” in life. In the Old West, ranchers always used brands to identify their cattle. If the fences broke down and the cattle intermingled with other cattle, the owners could easily identify their animals by looking at the brands. In the same way, God gives us boundaries or “brands” that can help identify us when we intermingle with other people.
When we have poor boundaries, we will find ourselves taking on other people’s problems and neglecting our own. When we aren’t clear about our own thoughts, feelings, values, motivations, or behavior, we can never be sure that our acts of service for others are being done freely. We end up doing these acts of service out of a sense of obligation, fear, or guilt. Our personal boundaries will help us become more loving people.
Dr. Townsend points out that God Himself operates from a place of balance when it comes to matters of connection and autonomy. God describes Himself in both positive ways (what He is) and negative ways (what He isn’t) in the Bible. He tells us that He is loving, holy, just, and compassionate (to name a few of His character traits). But He also tells us what He is not. He is not a man. He does not take part in evil. He is not a lover of violence. These “not” statements are part of God’s boundaries. They help us trust Him in greater ways because we know where He stands on different issues.
People with healthy boundaries know how to say “yes” to what is good for them and “no” to what is bad for them in their life. They are just as free to say no to some one they love, as they are to say yes to them. This is because love is not possible without personal freedom being part of the mix. A person who ends up saying yes to someone else’s demands because of a fear of hurting that person’s feelings is not operating from a place of love. Saying yes to someone else because of fear is compliance, or people-pleasing, not love.
What are some ways that we can develop boundaries in our personal relationships? Here are some practical steps: (1) Ask God to help you become a truth-teller, (2) Find people who celebrate your autonomy, (3) Practice disagreeing with others when you don’t share their point of view, (4) Take responsibility for your own mistakes, (5) Learn to respect the autonomy of others.
Dr. Townsend says that all of the above steps need to be done in the context of having some supportive relationships with a few key people in your life. If you try to do these things in isolation without any support, you will probably only experience more boundary injuries in your life. Ultimately, you need to find some maturing, caring people who will love your boundaries just as much as they love your connection.
The litmus test for the quality of your relationships is this: Do the people who are closest to you love your “no” as much as they love your “yes”? If those who are closest to you affirm your compliance, but withdraw or throw tantrums or attack when you set limits or have an opinion, then there’s a problem in that relationship. Your “yes” is being loved, but your “no” isn’t. When your “no” isn’t loved, then you aren’t being loved either.
Comments