Boundaries Face To Face Part 22

Why is it so important to join the boundaried family? Mainly because as with any spiritual discipline, boundaries can't be worked on in a vacuum. We need others with the same biblical values of limit setting and responsibility to encourage us, practice with us, and stay with us. That's what Wayne discovered.

Wayne couldn't believe the change. Over the past few months, he'd become aware of his lack of boundaries at work. While other employees went home on time, he was frequently asked to stay later. He wanted to stand up to his boss and let him know that his work limits were going to become tighter and more realistic. But every time he approached his superior, his anxiety kept him tongue-tied and silent.

Wayne despaired of ever developing mature work boundaries. About this time, he joined a support group at church. His relationships in the group deepened, and he began to trust the members. Finally, he was able to emotionally "take them with him" to work the day he sat down with his boss and worked out the overtime conflict. It was the safety and support of the group that gave Wayne the strength he needed to tell the truth at work.

Jesus defined fellowship as two or three people gathered in his name, saying that he would be there in their midst (Matt. 18:20). It is this very combination of his Spirit and the emotional memories of those who believe in us that helps us keep firm boundaries. Why? Because we know we have a spiritual and emotional home somewhere. No matter how caustic the criticism, or how severe the rejection of the one we're in conflict with, we aren't alone. And that makes all the difference in the world in boundary setting.

Step #4: Treasuring Our Treasures

After you feel safe being around people who believe that grace and truth are good (John 1:17), your values will start to change. You will begin to see that taking responsibility for yourself is healthy, and you will begin to understand that taking responsibility for other adults is destructive.

When people are treated as objects for long enough, they see themselves as someone else's property. They don't value self-stewardship because they relate to themselves the same way that significant others have related to them. Many people are told over and over again that nurturing and maintaining their souls is selfish and wrong. After a while, they develop a deep conviction that this is true. And at that point, they place little value on taking care of the feelings, talents, thoughts, att.i.tudes, behavior, body, and resources G.o.d entrusted to them.

This principle is taught in Scripture: "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). In other words, we learn to be loving because we are loved. Grace must come from the outside for us to be able to develop it inside. The opposite side of this truth is that we can't love when we aren't loved. And, taking the thinking further, we can't value or treasure our souls when they haven't been valued or treasured.

This is a key principle. Our basic sense of ourselves, of what is real and true about us, comes from our significant, primary relationships. That's why many people who were unloved in childhood can be inundated by caring people in their adult years, yet not be able to shake a deep sense of being worthless and unloveable, no matter how much people try to show them their loveability.

Helen's father s.e.xually abused her in her early years. She was terribly traumatized by the molestation, but tried to keep the secret and protect the family from being upset. By her teenage years, however, Helen inadvertently began to "tell the truth" about her family problem, in nonverbal ways. She became s.e.xually promiscuous at a very early age.

As an adult, Helen reflected in therapy on her tumultuous teen years. "I can't even remember the boys' faces. All I knew was that someone wanted something from me, and I felt it was my duty to give it to them-for no other reason than that they wanted it! I felt that I had no say-so in the matter."

Helen had not been treasured by one of the people who should have treasured and cherished her most. As a result, she did not treasure herself. She provided s.e.xual services to just about anyone who requested them. She had no sense that her body and feelings were a "pearl of great value" (Matt. 13:46), given to her by G.o.d, which she was to protect and develop.

When Christians begin to value getting well, recovering, and developing themselves into the image of G.o.d (all of which are different ways of saying the same thing), a shift occurs. They begin desiring a return on G.o.d's investment (remember the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14a30). Taking care of themselves becomes important.

Steve walked up to me excitedly one day. As he wasn't given to emotional outbursts, I knew something important was going on. He showed me his Bible, where he had been reading 1 Corinthians 8:11: "So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge."

"Something is happening inside of me," he said. "For years, I felt guilty about reading that pa.s.sage. I thought it was condemning me for leading weaker Christians into sin."

"Well, it does say that," I replied. "But you've noticed something else."

"I have," said Steve. "I'm seeing that I'm also a 'brother for whom Christ died.' That means I need to be as careful and concerned about myself as I am about others. There's no difference between what G.o.d thinks of him and what G.o.d thinks of me."

Steve had realized an important theological point. For years, Christians have been taught that protecting their spiritual and emotional property is selfish. Yet G.o.d is interested in people loving others, and you can't love others unless you have received love inside yourself.

Have you had Steve's experience? Is getting help and learning self-protection and biblical boundaries important to you? If it isn't, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to go through the hard work of developing good limits. You may need to spend some time around people who have a mature understanding of healthy boundaries and learn from their modeling.

This principle is ill.u.s.trated when the psalmist says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life" (Prov. 4:23). When we "watch over" our hearts (the home of our treasures), we guard them. We are to value our treasures so much that we keep them protected. Whatever we don't value, we don't guard. The security around a bank is significantly tighter than that around a junkyard!

Begin a list of your "treasures": your time, money, feelings, and beliefs. How do you want others to treat them? How do you want others to not treat them?

Step #5: Practicing Baby No's

The group was silent. After many sessions of considering the prospect, Shareen was about to set a limit with another group member for the first time in her life. Praying silently, the group waited to see if she could become a truthteller.

I had asked Shareen to mention to a group member one thing that had rubbed her the wrong way in the past few sessions. Though she was terrified, she agreed to try. At first she said nothing, obviously gathering up courage. Then, slowly, she turned to a woman sitting next to her and said, "Carolyn, I don't know how to say this, but here goes. It bothers me when you always take the good chair at group." Quickly, she ducked her head, waiting for the reb.u.t.tal.

There was none, at least not what Shareen had expected.

"I've been waiting for you to say something," Carolyn explained. "I knew you were acting distant toward me, but I didn't know why. It helps to know, and I feel closer to you now. You took a risk to confront me. Who knows-I may even arm wrestle you for the chair!"

Does this sound trivial? It isn't. Given her family background of a mother who made her feel guilty for setting limits and a father who had rage attacks when she dared disagree, Shareen was taking a genuine plunge. For her, boundaries were out of the question until her anxiety and depression wrenched her life out of control. That's why the best possible place for Shareen to begin her boundary work was in her therapy group.

Growth in setting emotional boundaries must always be at a rate that takes into account your past injuries. Otherwise, you could fail ma.s.sively before you have solid enough boundaries.

"This boundary teaching doesn't work," complained Frank in a therapy session.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well, as soon as I understood that I don't set good limits with people, I called my father the same day and gave him what for. Can you believe what he did? He hung up on me! This is great, just great. Boundaries have made things worse for me, instead of better."

Frank is like the overeager child who is too impatient for training wheels on his new bicycle. It's only several falls and skinned knees later that he begins to entertain the possibility that he skipped some steps in his training.

Here's an idea to help you navigate this step. Ask your support group or your good friends if you could work on boundaries with them. They will show you their true value in their response to your truthtelling. Either they'll warmly cheer you on in being able to disagree with and confront them, or they'll resist you. Either way, you'll learn something. A good supportive relationship cherishes the no of all parties involved. The members know that true intimacy is only built around the freedom to disagree: "He who conceals his hatred has lying lips" (Prov. 10:18). Begin practicing your no with people who will honor it and love you for it.

Step #6: Rejoicing in the Guilty Feelings

As strange as it may seem, a sign that you're becoming a boundaried person is often a sense of self-condemnation, a sense that you've transgressed some important rules in your limit setting. Many people experience intense critical self-judgment when they begin telling the truth about what is and isn't their biblical responsibility. Why is that? Let's look at the answer in terms of slavery and freedom.

Boundary-injured individuals are slaves. They struggle to make value-based decisions on their own, but they most often reflect the wishes of those around them. And even though they can be surrounded by supportive boundary lovers, they still experience trouble setting limits.

The culprit here is a weak conscience, or an overactive and unbiblically harsh internal judge. Though we need our internal "evaluator" to help us know right from wrong, many people carry around an extremely self-critical-and inaccurate-conscience. They feel that they are transgressing when they aren't.

Because of this overactive judge, the boundary-injured individual often has great difficulty setting limits. Questions such as, "Aren't you being too harsh?" and "How can you not attend the party? What a selfish thought!" are raised.

You can imagine the havoc when the struggler actually sets a limit or two, even a small one. The conscience moves into overdrive, as its unrealistic demands are being disobeyed. This rebellion against honest boundaries is a threat to the parental control of the conscience. It attacks the soul with vigor, hoping to beat the person into submitting again to its untruthful do's and don'ts.

In a funny way, then, activating the hostile conscience is a sign of spiritual growth. A signal that you may be protesting unbiblical restraints. If the conscience were silent and providing no "how could you?" guilt-inducing messages, it might mean that you were remaining enslaved to the internal parent. That's why we encourage you to rejoice in the guilt. It means you are moving ahead.

Step #7: Practicing Grownup No's

Think for a minute about this question: Who is your number-one "boundary buster"? Who is the foremost person in your life with whom it's difficult to set limits? More than one person may come to mind. This step deals with those extremely complicated, conflictual, frightening relationships. Straightening out these relationships is a major goal in becoming a boundaried person.

The fact that this is the seventh, and not the second, step underscores the importance of making sure we've done our painstaking homework and practice before now. Setting important limits with signficant people is the fruit of much work and maturing.

It's important not to confuse our goals here. Often, Christians who have been boundary injured think that the objective is to set limits on those important areas, and get life stabilized again. They may be living for the day when "I can tell Mom no." Or when "I can set limits on my husband's drinking." While these sorts of confrontations are very important (Jesus spoke of them in Matthew 18:15a20), they aren't the ultimate target of learning boundaries.

Our real target is maturity-the ability to love successfully and work successfully, the way G.o.d does. This is the goal of becoming more like Christ: Dear friends, now we are children of G.o.d, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2) Boundary setting is a large part of maturing. We can't really love until we have boundaries-otherwise we love out of compliance or guilt. And we can't really be productive at work without boundaries; otherwise we're so busy following others' agendas that we're doubleminded and unstable (James 1:8). The goal is to have a character structure that has boundaries and that can set limits on self and others at the appropriate times. Having internal boundaries results in having boundaries in the world: "For as he thinks within himself, so he is" (Prov. 23:7 NASB).

Developing a well-defined, honest, and goal-oriented character structure produces this step. By this time, those frightening major no's have been prepared for over time, with lots of work and practice.

Sometimes the large no will precipitate a crisis. Someone important to you will be angry. Or hurt. Or abusive. The truth will expose the divisions in relationships. The conflicts and disagreements already exist. Boundaries simply bring them out to the surface.

Prayerfully make a list of your significant relationships. Now add to that what specific treasures are being violated in these relationships. What specific boundaries need to be set to protect these treasures?

Step #8: Rejoicing in the Absence of Guilty Feelings

Step #6 involved understanding that your first steps into a boundaried existence will most likely be met by the harsh resistance of an overactive and weak conscience. With consistent work and good support, however, the guilt diminishes. We become more able to "keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience" (1 Tim. 3:9).

You can take this step now that you have shifted allegiance spiritually and emotionally. You have changed from listening to your internal parent to responding to the biblical values of love, responsibility, and forgiveness. And these values have been internalized in the heart by many, many relational experiences with people who understand these values. The heart has somewhere to go for self-evaluation besides a critical conscience. The heart rests in the emotional memories of loving, truthful people.

Evelyn knew something was different inside when she confronted her husband on his critical tirades. "That's it, Paul," she said, without raising her voice. "If you're not using a civil voice with me in ten seconds, I'll be spending the evening at my friend Nan's house. Make your choice, because I'm not bluffing."

Paul, ready to launch another verbal attack, closed his mouth. He, too, sensed that Evelyn was serious this time. He sat down on the couch and waited for her next move.

What surprised Evelyn was the absence of her self-recriminations after setting limits. Usually, she would say toherself, "You didn't give Paul enough chances," or, "You've just got to stop being so thin-skinned," or "But he works hard and he's good with the kids."

Her group had worked. Her practicing had paid off. And her conscience had begun growing up.

Step #9: Loving the Boundaries of Others

A client once asked me, "Is there any way I can set boundaries with my wife-but not have her set limits with me?" Though I admired his candor, the answer, obviously, was no. If we expect others to respect our boundaries, we need to respect theirs for several reasons.

Loving others' boundaries confronts our selfishness and omnipotence. When we are concerned about protecting the treasures of others, we work against the self-centeredness that is part of our fallen nature. We become more other-centered.

Loving others' boundaries increases our capacity to care about others. It isn't difficult to love the agreeable aspects of others. It's another story, however, when we encounter another's resistance, confrontation, or separateness. We may find ourselves in conflict, or not getting something we might want from the other.

When we can love and respect the boundaries of others, we accomplish two things. First, we genuinely care for another person because we gain nothing by helping someone tell us no. It just helps him or her deprive us better!

The second advantage in loving others' boundaries is that it teaches us empathy. It shows us that we need to treat others as we would like to be treated: "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself' " (Gal. 5:14). We should fight for the no of others just as we should fight for our own no-even if it costs us something.

Step #10: Freeing Our No and Our Yes

"I love you, Peter," said Sylvia to her boyfriend as they sat over dinner. It was an important moment. Peter had just proposed marriage to Sylvia. And she was attracted to him; they seemed to be compatible in so many ways. There was only one problem: they had only been dating a few weeks. Peter's impulsive proposal was pushing it a little for Sylvia's tastes.

"And though I love you," she continued, "I need more time for us to be together before we get engaged. So, because I can't say yes to you, I'm saying no."

Sylvia shows the fruit of maturing boundaries. She wasn't sure, so she said no. People with undeveloped limit-setting abilities do the opposite. They say yes when they are unsure. Then, when they have committed themselves to someone else's schedule, they realize that they don't want to be in that particular situation anymore. But, by then, it's too late.

I worked as a house parent in a children's home for a time. In our training for the job of living in the same cottage with several active adolescents, one experienced professional told us, "There are two ways you can start off with kids: first, you can say yes to everything. Then, when you start putting limits on them, they'll resent you and rebel. Or you can begin with clear and strict limits. After they get used to your style, you can loosen up a little. They'll love you forever."

Obviously, the second method worked better. Not only did it clarify my boundaries for the kids, it taught me to free up my own no. This principle is at the heart of this yardstick: our no becomes as free as our yes. In other words, when you are as free to say no to a request as you are to say yes, you are well on the way to boundary maturity. There's no conflict, no second thoughts, no hesitation in using either word.

Think for a second about the last time you were asked for something from someone. Perhaps it was for some of your time that you weren't sure you had to give. Suppose the person asking is not selfish, manipulative, or controlling. Reasonable people can make reasonable requests sometimes.

So you were asked for something you weren't sure you had left over to give. You weren't sure you could do it with a "cheerful heart" (2 Cor. 9:7). What happened next is what this particular boundary yardstick is all about. You probably did one of two things: Since you were unsure, you said yes.

Since you were unsure, you said no.

Which is the more mature of these? In most cases, the second. Why? Because it is more responsible to give out of our resources than to promise that which we might not be able to deliver. Jesus said that we are to "calculate the cost" of our endeavors.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him. (Luke 14:28a30) Boundary-injured individuals make promises and then do one of two things: (1) They resentfully make good, or (2) they fail on the promise. Boundary-developed people, however, make good freely and gladly. Or they don't promise at all.