Reducing overwhelm, maintaining self trust, and building self esteem in the wake of a significant loss as you build a new foundation for yourself demands titan-level mastery of boundary building.
Boundaries are a hot topic.
Here’s my take.
I believe in meeting my own needs. That’s controversial. The fact of inter-being, interdependence, and interconnectedness do not negate my stance.
As an adult, my boundary system is not a tool for negotiating my needs with other people. I meet my own emotional needs.
My boundary system is designed to help me maintain a realistic and desirable standard for my behavior within a given context. I have a standard for the quality of life and relating I want to experience. My boundaries safeguard that standard.
I assert my standards before communicating my boundaries.
Standards create culture and identity. What I will and will not do is rooted in the quality of my standards. Caring for the people I love through a willingness to share resources with them is a standard because I value sharing the burden of survival. The boundaries I have to uphold that standard are between me and me. I hold myself accountable to the standard by honoring my boundaries. Clear boundaries are made from clear values.
If a hot life I love is a standard because I value my vitality, my boundaries allow me to uphold that standard. If time and space to grieve is a standard because I value my heart and peace of mind, my boundaries allow me to uphold that standard.
The key is that everything I desire becomes a standard. No hoping and wishing.
A standard is a choice.
It is not an obligation.
The clearer and grounded the desire, the better the standard. The better the boundaries, the greater the intimacy, connection, and belonging.
A mentor said to me: you prioritize what you value. They also said that wherever you are experiencing deep frustration in your life there is a low standard.
This is my boundary equation.
(Value) + (Standard) = Vision
Value = Priority
Standard = Desire
It’s a hypothesis, and it works.
If I value the freedom to live and work anywhere as I wish, then I’m going build a location independent lifestyle that allows me to live and work anywhere at my own pace.
There is nothing you can’t do when you commit to upholding a new standard for your life.
It costs to live a busy, low standard life. The smarty pants posture is to blame our structural conditions or the unpredictability of life.
Busy people have a low tolerance for unpredictability. Their idea of flexibility is a schedule that adapts to their desire for control, which busy people sometimes call their flow or their moods. It’s a low standard.
Busy bodies experience a heightened sense of insecurity and uncertainty because being busy is a coping strategy. Busy bodies manage anxiety, stress, and overwhelm by doing more. The source of their distress is the fear of never being, doing, or having enough.
Busy bodies know better.
But they must… keep… going…
I had a high school boyfriend call me, “Miss Busy.” I was Miss Extracurricular.
Makes sense. I was 17.
Except it continued into adulthood.
Doing too much and the fear of being too much are two sides of the same coin. It’s a defense structure. For some, it’s an attachment design. For many, it’s a trauma response. For others, it’s an ego state. All are true.
Anytime we’re in an over-under relationship with a person, a place, or a thing we are polarized. Overworked and underpaid. Over giving and undervalued. Under resourced and overwhelmed. Polarization creates intensity which manifests as anxiety and avoidance. Whatever brings us discomfort, we choose an opposite, and therefore extreme, reaction or strategy to cope—that’s polarity.
It’s not good or bad. Just a state of opposites.
Busy energy is intensity. It is the opposite of intimacy.
The lack of clear boundaries is a sign we are living in a wounded child place. Rigid boundaries are a sign we are living in an adapted teen place. Both ego states signal to us that we are struggling with worthiness and ideas of perfection which interferes with our experiences of safety.
Instead of consulting self help books and manifestation tactics and shadow work, consider this—when you are in an adult place around your worth, you accept that as a human being you are equal to other human beings. You are not better than or less than anyone. You matter. Brent Charleton taught me this.
Our boundaries get wonky when we feel less than, exposed, defective, and needy or better than, closed, perfect, and needless. The functioning adult place creates safety by knowing we matter, therefore knowing what we want and need and creating boundaries that honor our new, realistic standards.
Boundaries do a lot for us. Mostly, they protect our energy and preserve our emotional autonomy. Everything we want out of life is connected to our energetic hygiene and how we experience our own agency.
I was not raised to know that I belonged or that I was worthy of life and taking up space because I was human. It is a belief I carry now because I value functioning adulthood. I lived in a wounded child and adapted teen space for a long time due to chronic exposure to adult responsibilities at a young age. I have balance now.
When you’re busy, it’s hard to know what you want. What you desire in a busied state is to not be busy. To know what you actually want, you need free time.
Free time requires that you raise your standards. If freedom is a standard, you will give up being busy. When you have standards, you have balance. Once you know what your standards are, you’ll know what to prioritize.
If you are feeling stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed, let me help you audit your boundaries. You’ve had your share of boundary indoctrination, but I can guarantee you, a fresh set of standards will give the structure to your days a facelift.
If you need a deep cleaning because you’ve got some worthiness stuff going on, or you’re recovering from several or one, big, deep loss at the beginning or middle of a big transition: call me, and clear your path forward.
When I was busy, I avoided intimacy. Avoiding intimacy meant I was avoiding connection and creating intensity. The intensity creates anxiety. There is no authority here, and you become burdened with feelings of inadequacy. It didn’t matter that I was competent. My anxiety made me ineffective. My fear of being ineffective became my personality. I busied myself with goodness because my anxiety made me desperate to believe I was a good person. I had high expectations and low standards.
It was a miserable, powerless, and unsexy life.
That doesn’t have to be your reality nor your destiny.
Free people know themselves. Busy people don’t.
That hurts, and it’s true.
Kiss busy goodbye.
Holler if you need me.
I love you. I mean it.
You’re worth it.