Boundaries, Walls and Safe Space

I love getting into the meaning behind the meaning of words and off and on through the years, have explored the concept of boundaries - which incidently I never was really good at for many years of my life.

For me, I was in many respects boundaryless - coming from a deeply ingrained sense of being of service which is a part of my personality and Spiritual DNA. And, I was to learn to my own detriment.

When I first started to learn about working with what I thought was boundaries, staking my claim to my own sense of sovereignty, they were statements that were uttered more as demands than boundaries and whilst they gave me a sense of where I started and stopped and where you started and stopped, they served more to alienate me from you and you from me. In my naievete I thought boundaries were for you - as to how you treated me - hence the walls!.

These first attempts at stepping into my space, came from that sense of my Inner child feeling exposed and unsafe and were her expression of making a stand. And I bless her, for she had the courage to stand up for herself and me, as I learned and faced the erroneous beliefs and lack of self worth that stemmed from my inability to engage in healthy boundaries. This was when my boundaries became walls. Used in this manner they can and often did and do set the stage for confrontation. For me, here, they activated my reptilian brain and the flight and fight response which rendered me incapable of engaging in a mature and response-able way. I have come to experience others who too are learning about their journey with boundaries that they too come across in a similar way that I must have done.

Boundaries are, or have been a process for me, of learning the self respect needed to navigate my and our way through the intricacies and intimacies that are involved in being in relationshiup with Self and others. As I worked, learned and grew in the process, so I realised that what bounbdaries were for me, were not as much about you, as they were about me. How I was showing up for me, and what I would and would not allow from others in terms of how they engaged with me. This phase of boundary setting highlighted the repsonibility that I needed to take for me - how I showed up and what I gave permission to in relation to what I allowed into my Sacred Space. The 'walls' were beginning to crumble.

And more recently, as I explored the deeper meaning to the word 'boundary', so I came face to face with my uneasiness around the whole concept of boundaries. My intutive knowing told me something was off. Boundaries had become barriers to intimacy, to real connection with my Self and others.

And so i went into the meaning of the word boundary. Almost every definition and use of the word boundary is restrictive, it is a word that closes energy down:

• the outside limit of an object or area

• the area withint he walls of a building

• limits of an area

• a restriction that impedes progress or activity

• a line that demarcates separation

• a barrier

• a point where two things link, connect or interact

Now, not for one minute am I saying that I or we need to do away with ways that allow us to feel safe; to feel and experience deep meaningful, intimate connection with others. That would be foolish and take me and you back to where self respect and self esteem fell by the wayside.

I have come to a space of understanding that a word that is more condusive to living and engaging in a manner that is real, mindful, respectful of me and others, at the same time as honouring my sense of self and a means of demosntrating personal agency, is by establishing guidelines for myself of how I show up for me and show up in engagement with others. The energy that supports guidelines is birthed from my values, from Spiritual principle and the Golden Rule - of doing unto others as I would do unto myself and of causing no harm.

Engaging in this manner allows me