Boundaries - exploring both sides of the fence

Personal boundaries have two sides that we need to take into consideration.  Most people are familiar with the one side, where we establish a protocol to ensure that our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health remains in tact and not violated by others in any way.  The other side is where that same boundary helps us with our own behaviour to ensure that we don't violate other people.  That is our own personal boundary.  To complicate matters, other people have their own boundaries that we need to learn about and respect as well.  

Boundaries are one of the toughest aspects of any relationship as it requires that we monitor all the fence lines and take 100% responsibility and accountability for the boundaries in our lives.  It seems that it is socially acceptable to breach boundaries and use guilt or even shame against others to justify the breaches.  Those that breach boundaries have fences that are not well maintained or, in the case of psychopaths, no fence exist at all.  Standing up for one self to ensure the boundary is being respected can, at times, be interpreted as one being an ass hole, bitch or jerk.  Despite the covert violence to intimidate people from maintaining the boundary, it takes courage and determination to ensure one's own health and well being is secured, especially around people that are violent!  

Boundaries may seem rather restricting, especially in a world that is struggling, at war and contracting significantly.  What I've found is that my boundaries were actually liberating, healing and freeing.  The skills to recognize what boundaries are, setting them and ensuring they are respected, ended up changing my life. 

On the one side, the boundary helped me with my relationships with people as I set the standard for behaviour, respect and honour that I wanted to see in my life.  If I run into somebody who has higher standards, that is my opportunity to re-evaluate my boundaries and make changes.  What is most important with this side of the fence is that I had to let people know what those standards were.  Otherwise, nobody knows what my boundaries are and they end up breaching the boundary trying to figure it out.  It is important that I let others know how I view myself and the standards I set for that relationship.  This requires open communication and informing my wife, family, friends, clan members, etc on the expectations within our relationships.  I've done a lot of talking to make sure this is communicated in a healthy way.  With my wife, negotiations were required to ensure that we could have a respectful, intimate relationship.  Consensus was mandatory, otherwise the relationship would not work!

On the other side, the boundary also helped me with the discipline to restrict myself so that I don't violate or breach other peoples boundaries.  In some cases there was no breach to the other individuals boundary but it was a breach to mine!  In other cases, the other individuals boundary was tighter than mine and I ended up breaching and the incident helped me tighten up my own personal boundaries.  It is this side of the fence that I had to work on the most, especially being a reformed emotional and mental abuser.  The old patterns were to engage in violence when ever I got frustrated, angry or hurt.  The new boundaries were critical for me to ensure that I did not lash out at anybody.  

For a reformed abuser, this side of the fence is the toughest to deal with as it requires that I hold myself accountable at all times.  Many fail at this and then fall into the system which is more than happy to set boundaries for people.  But for me to do this myself required that I learn how to self-govern.  Self-governance is the foundation behind my recovery, discipline and freedom.  These firm boundaries saved my life and will set me free as well.

What really surprised me though is that by setting firm boundaries, it gave me a foundation to evaluate all my relationships.  A few years after my recovery, I was confronted with my relationship with the state.  When I evaluated that relationship, I discovered that it violated many of my boundaries as the state is very abusive and violent.  The standards upon which I live my life was much higher now and more so than the standards set by the state.  I refused to lower myself to their standards and it turns out that they really struggled to rise above and meet me at mine.  

As with all relationship on this physical realm, they must all come to an end at one point or another.  If the other party is not able or willing to respect my boundaries, I am perfectly able and willing to say good bye.  In April 2008 I said good bye to the Queen and her lords that govern her demesne / empire.  It has been a really tough relationship to say good bye too as many caught up in the matrix don't comprehend what I AM doing.  

I've also said good bye to many other people too.  I love them dearly but was not prepared to compromise myself for the relationship.  Some got very angry with me, but I recognized that their anger is a result of being confronted about the boundary issues.  It was not healthy for me, especially after all the work I did to recover to surrender to other peoples covert violence!  Saying good bye is really tough and I had to mourn the losses, even though they were still alive.  But it was necessary to maintain my own physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.  

Without going through this process, I have no doubt that I would not have made it and I would not be here to write this blog.  It saved my life and changed it drastically.  It gave me the tools I needed to prosper in a world that chooses to build castle walls for war rather than building healthy boundaries for peace.  

I choose peace and I am at peace as a result of that decision and years of hard work to make it happen!