For some it’s the gates guarding their Fort Knox and for others it’s trying every possible way of breaking out into someone else’s boundary. What’s going on? Why are we really into “boundaries” these days, so much so, we will even find fault in the best intentions of our friends and family as soon as we “perceive” an unforgivable misfeasance. It is all subjective of course and the other persons explanation is often overlooked as that might mean looking into the root of your own reaction. Perhaps that’s simply unacceptable to the ego of you that will not and cannot look 👀 in the mirror. After all, we are conditioned to survive and fear what’s on the outside.
Ironic it is because what lurks within is far more fearful that what we perceive on the outside.
What brought you to this juncture in your life when you decided right I have to really put up walls lest what? Boundaries are a survival instinct which at their root come from our primitive brain Aka reptilian. It is the old brain. When we consistently feel the “need” to defend our turf, and what’s ours whether that’s our right to be heard and seen, what is really happening is that we are trying to preempt any threat to our safety.
We simply don’t feel safe.
So we push. We pull away.
We build forts castles, palisades and barricade our insides lest our safety is taken away. But, do we wonder why we feel that way? Not about the experience you had to make you feel safe that a present one might evoke hence putting up the stockade but what brought that experience itself to you?
For those of us who have trouble having any boundaries at all also have a similar issue of safety. They feel rejected abandoned and a drive to break down barriers because that’s how they are conditioned to be. If love came very hard for them and their needs were rarely met they become used to fighting against the barriers and finding others with walls as high as those of their initial care setting or opposite to. If their wall was emotionally unavailable they will seek out others who mimic this.
Sometimes it is the case that one may not have developed a healthy sense of self and so to become codependent so that a need is met (not one borne of the present but the distant past) is how a relationship is carved.
Boundaries are in fact unnecessary and not worth the mention when we have a secure and healthy sense of self including a healed timeline if needed. The feeling of safety is an animal instinct and when one transcends the animal into the human, the fear centres are latent and come into use only when there is a real threat. Is there really any threat of survival? No. Not if you are also awake to your spirit.
If we can treat the root of the need to have a boundary as being inside of us as opposed to how others are, then we might do away with running away from love.
We are all on the same side and of the same soil.
One need not work at putting up walls; there is an automatic protective shield around us when we feel safe from within. Otherwise we need to keep manually putting these up for them to become permanent structures, yet utterly useless bar pleasing our mind momentarily.
What’s your boundary? How do you maintain your space? Do you share or do you hide? Even in sharing we may hide. Which one are you?