Contemporary society has seen a dialogue about boundaries, empowerment, energetic permissions emerge that I dont think is terribly helpful.
This is not going to be a popular piece, and Im sure you might have some comments to make, and Im totally okay with that, my only request is that you make them in a gentle way, that is respectful of other people here.
I believe that we live in a world that has become highly individuated, and along with that, has come the idea that we can define and determine and teach people how to behave toward us individually and personally. We talk about training people on how to treat us and it being our fault when we have not done this or when they do not do as we had trained them. As though we are some kind of satalite, or citidel.
I adhere to the findings emerging from Brene Browns work that people with boundaries are the most compassionate people, becuase they know how much they have to give, and they don’t exhaust themselves.
That I believe. I support the notion of boundaries and empowerment and energetic permissions on that level. When it comes from a place of knowing thyself and your needs.
I do not ahere to the more contemporary notion that we have to be aggressive territory defenders that leap to the defence of every transgression with full force to educate and punish the transgression. I think boundaries, when viewed as a rule, or a thing to do, become difficult, rigid, inflexible, and at their worst, can isolate us.
I listened however, to a wise women this week who redefined her ideas of “boundaries’ with some people in her life to “tone”. I thought this was an absolutely magnficient reframe.
Instead of feeling as though she must educate and enforce, she found herself looking to how she wants to feel in relationships, communicating that, and inviting conversation and collaboration. Of course there are people we still need to have very firm rules in place with, the people who cannot and will not respect our wishes, and for those people, we must protect ourselves more proactively. But for the people who are in our inner circles, who say things or do things ignorantly, and who we dont necessarily want to have hardline conversations with that involve ultimatums or make us feel like we have to use aggressive language, we might be better served by the idea of a ‘tone’ of our relationship.
The best thing about this reframe I thought, is that we already know and are using tone in our relationships. Its not something new we need to learn, or something new we need to understand how to do, or something else we have to do when we are already super busy. We already set the tone of our relationships with our partners, children, and workmates. We sometimes get it right, and we sometimes dont, but we defintely do it, and we definitely know how we do it and all we have to do is tweak it if it isn’t serving us.
Tone feels flexible and responsive to me, whereas boundaries just feel like im drawing a line in the sand and refusing to budge. Drawing that line is important in some circumstances, but in others, its just too rigid for me.
I’d love to know how you are setting the tone in your relationship with others, and with yourself, and what you think of this reframe.
As always,
Stay Gentle with you
A
PhotoCredit – Unsplash, Andrea Tummons
Amy Madden 