Most, if not all, of us deeply desire to feel and be connected to someone or something. Sometimes, we satisfy this desire with our relationships with God, family, significant other, friends, careers, and other things or experiences. However, all of these relationships and/or connections — except the one with God (NB: distinguish a relationship with God from a relationship with the church; more on that another time) — can and do get messy many times for several reasons.
When that happens, we start feeling misunderstood and rejected, so we build up walls to shield ourselves from being hurt in the future. One way we build up walls is by shutting people from our lives and turning to things or experiences because we expect them to never disappoint us. We can turn to excessive drinking, immersing ourselves in our jobs, spending money excessively on unnecessary things, etc. so that we still feel/maintain some sorts of connection to the world without surrendering any control to anything that could disappoint us.
Another way we try to protect ourselves is by letting people in for sure, but only in the very small, perfected, unreal, and/or seemingly okay parts of our hearts that we don't mind other people knowing. So, we pretend to be okay, and we start thinking that the walls we've raised up are keeping us safe, which they may sometimes do, but make no mistake, these walls also prevent us from healing and being fully known and genuinely loved.
Don't get me wrong though. I'm not saying that boundaries are wrong or unnecessary. In fact, I believe precisely the opposite. However, as Henry Cloud and John Townsend put it, boundaries must be strong enough to keep the bad out and penetrable enough to allow the good to sift through (2008), and the reasons are simple:
if you constantly give something (love, support, etc.) out without letting anything in, at some point, you're gonna run out.
if you hide the important parts of yourself from your loved ones, they won't love you wholly and truly because they don't see the real you.
Obviously, opening up will not happen overnight, and, unfortunately, sometimes, people will reject you when show your authentic self, which sucks (their reaction, not you). But you've got to trust (and hopefully you already know from experience) that there are people who will still love you in spite of your brokenness. Even with those people, however, you can and should still maintain your boundaries.
So, speak out your boundaries. Reinforce them when necessary, but don't make them too rigid to allow any good things and people in your life. Also, remember that it goes both ways. People in your life have boundaries just as you do, and their boundaries must be respected too. Additionally, those people may be healing—after all, we all are healing at some point in one way or another. So, remember to be a little more gracious and gentle.
Works Cited
Cloud, H., & Townsend, J. (2008). Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. Zondervan.
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