‘Boundaries’ are a problem.
Not least because anyone can set arbitrary boundaries about anything. I can make my boundaries anything I please and then insinuate that you are bad for breaking them.
What if my boundary is ‘give me your wallet or I’ll smack you?’ Well, that’s clearly not reasonable, you might say. But like it or not, you’ve just been dragged into a moral confrontation around what ‘reason’ actually means. This is not a strawman but is how ‘boundaries’ in effect often work.
The very language of boundaries is designed to be subjective and unquestionable, making it a convenient way to judge and control others’ behaviour, without justifying it rationally or reciprocally.
Someone who deeply values responsibility and empathy rarely if ever “crosses a boundary.” And if they do it’s generally a subjective not an objective one, and never persistently so. It’s not these people you need to protect yourself from. And likewise for those that you do, your ‘boundaries’ are not the solution.
I have a boundary, but it comes with a proviso. I will honour your freedom, and you will honour mine. Where you don’t, this isn’t so much a matter of ‘you’ve crossed my boundary,’ so much as you’ve violated yourself and me. That’s not only reasonable, it’s truth.
This is also what some well-intentioned people are getting at when they mention boundaries. But without the recognition of freedom as a guiding principle they use the subjective proxy of boundaries. Whereas in the absence a genuine interest in freedom, or congruency for oneself and others, ‘boundaries’ serve only as a somewhat convincing semblance.
Whenever I hear someone mentioning ‘boundaries,’ I know to take extra care around this person. Experience dictates that this is a word often not used with good intentions. Those who place boundaries in truth’s place are precisely the reason you need them.
None of this is to say that preferences around ways of relating to each other, sensitivity and timing, should not be respected. I wish that would go without saying. Or that you should not use the language of boundaries when it is genuinely honest and necessary.
But do you think that, if a hyper-advanced alien civilisation visited earth, they would spend any time at all discussing their ‘boundaries?’
Do not be fooled by this hypocritical, self-contradictory power play masquerading as psychological maturity. Shadow work requires this of you.
