In our world of chaos and dysfunction we are constantly being bombarded with talk of the need for boundaries… the need to create walls big and small. We must protect ourselves. We have to keep the toxic people out of our lives or build rules around our interactions with them. I’d like to put a slightly different bent on the boundary conversation. If we are creating walls to keep people out… these same walls are keeping you trapped inside. Take the castle and the mote. How lonely the castle becomes. Once the bridge is lowered to let yourself out, the castle is left vulnerable. The two sides are then connected. What change has happened? Nothing? Just you on one side with your story and them on the other side with their theirs. Which one is truth? Probably neither is 100% accurate. Both sides see the world and their circumstance through the lens that has been crafted through out their lifetime… and others. J Boundaries??? Bound are we! Boundaries don’t create change… You do! One choice at a time! In the words of the Great White wizard… Be careful building walls because then you have to live inside. It’s hard to embark on our spiritual journey stuck behind walls. So, what if the conversation becomes about the strength and integrity of your vessel versus external walls. This is where personal growth and learning can really happen. I mean we sort of have ourselves painted into a corner as it is, don’t you think? Most of us have very little wiggle room. Our stories overlap. They lay on top of one another until you can barely fit… much less think a new thought. Do you remember the old Spirograph? The more times you went over it the more solid it became. You could see the layers but it became almost impossible to separate them… Much less find a clean spot to set your pen down. This is how we live. Trapped inside of the web of our own making. Tangled up in the layers upon layers of story. It is in our humanness to look outside of ourselves for the root of our problems. We seek to blame others for our fragility or weaknesses. Here is where we find need for boundaries. So, if you are building walls to keep people out you are in turn building a structure that keeps you stationary. You are adding solidity to your story. Your personal and spiritual growth has been ground to a halt. Now, for clarity sake, I want to be clear. By no means am I insinuating that we need to be besties with all people. We are all evolving… at different rates. Within the idea that we are playing a video game of sorts, we are involved in a process that contains many rounds… each with its own set of challenges; which in turn are dependent on our choices thus far. What if instead we adopt the idea that in your evolutionary process you have evolved to a different round and will be attracting different people. This bears no judgement on where those you are walking past are playing at the moment. They are not on the same spiritual journey as you. Back to the idea of the integrity of your vessel. When we feel the need to build walls we are feeling weak. We feel the behaviors of others are hurting us. We give power to their words and actions and we adopt them as our truth. One drop of dark into the light, makes it grey and murky instantly… the Great White Wizard. Fear is a very sticky place. When fear shows up the grey takes over, fast. The negative words begin to swirl around until in 2.2 we are immersed in a story filled with chaos. Emotion has taken over. We are thrown back in time and those old stored away emotions come pouring forward. They are dumped on top of our current circumstances adding a level of confusion for all those involved. Story is illusion. Emotion is not truth. When we are operating from the place of story the ground is shaky. The story is pieced together with ideas. The ideas are like scotch tape. They are not truth. They are not solid and they have no structural integrity. Operating from a place of story can become dark and glim; often leaving us struggling to know whats true. They are stacked on top of, and influencing, every experience you have… But they are not truth. Truth, stands beside Knowing. Truth is solid. Truth with all story swept away just is. We may have solid thoughts on how to progress but we are not bogged down in the words. We aren’t swept sideways by a glance or a grumpy word. The need to defend our story comes from its lack of integrity. Again, back to the vessel. Scotch Tape? What structure is solid pieced together like that? Would you put your fresh cut flowers in a vase that could not hold water? Would you blame the flowers? Would you blame the water? For the drippy mess? Or would you turn your attention to a more solid vessel? When you focus on you and your personal growth and development, your story changes. So here we are my friends. The lens is turned back our way. The disturbances that you are experiencing are yours. They are about you. If you are being bowled over by someone. Is the question then… Why? What are they bringing to the surface in you? What do we need to resolve in ourselves… that karmic strand… that has you connected in that way? Who in your circle do their behaviors remind you of? Mom… Dad… When we begin to look at how we are showing up and with what luggage, life begins to change. You see, this conversation is about healing you. When you are whole… When you are healthy… there is no need for walls. There is no need for boundaries. Words can’t seep in. There are no cracks in. Wholeness is integrity. Wholes comes when we have clarity around what we think. We have followed the thought back to the beginning. We understand why we believe it. Our words fall in alignment without struggle with our actions. We look to the next right choice and evolve into a clarity around what is acceptable. To us. You see, it’s not about them at all. It’s about you. When you buy a house you have made choices around what you think you want in your home. What you would be willing to live without. You make choices around the comfort of the monthly payment. Once your search culminates in the perfect home you would examine the terms and conditions of the contract. You would be going through a process internally around what was acceptable to you. What was comfortable. And then you sign or you don’t. It isn’t about the seller being wrong in asking their given price. It is about self-awareness. It’s about you knowing who you are and what is acceptable to you. Love may be boundless, but relationships have conditions. They are contracts around acceptability. Some we actually even have written out when it comes to the mingling of property. Especially now in this collective upheaval, let’s make choices that support our personal and spiritual growth versus choices made from exclusion. Let us make our choices consciously… Each thought honed to push us into wholeness. Here there is no need of walls. No need for blame. Just time for new and different choices.

Posted by Cherie at 2022-07-07 19:29:00 UTC