Boundaries & Friendship

“Damn it.  Fuck that!” I shouted, and threw the plastic bowl I was washing down on the metal counter.  A couple residents and I, including a deaf friend, had been joking during our dish shift about silly gestures we make to each other to add humor to our days and another resident had popped through the door to call our attention to way I had been moving my hips and that a guest might see us through the crack above the dish tubs.  After she left, I felt a hot, righteous rage brewing within me and an impulse arose that I gave myself permission to release.  I stormed out onto the landing.  “Fuck it!” I shouted again, startling a few bystanders, ripping off my apron, and tearing out into the snow in my thin sweater, up onto my favorite emoting hill.  And there it all came out, not in tears of shame or self-pity, but launched victoriously from what felt like a dungeon deep inside: “I have a right to occupy space!  I have a right to express myself and be joyful, and there is nothing inherently wrong or offensive about me!  I am not insensitive or a menace!  If I hurt your feelings, tell me, but do not treat me like a threat that must be tamed to protect every weak and vulnerable thing in this world!  Nobody here gives a fuck about me, and I will not be shamed for doing the best I can to cope and bring joy into my life.  I am not invisible!  I refuse to be small for your comfort!”

Then I started laughing.  A rich, round, and joyful celebration of liberation.  “How you like that?!?” I shot towards a clump of frozen grass.  The little one in me who had been punished for the way she tried to play with others smiled shyly.  The wife in me who was shamed for laughing too loud in public nodded with new dignity.  They never expected anyone to defend them so vehemently, and sighed in unison the sigh of being loved with reckless abandon.  Those who had been startled by my departure were equally surprised by my return.  “It’s cold out there!” I announced, smiling from one victoriously rosy cheek to the next.  “What else still needs to be cleaned?”  My deaf friend had caught our chiding but missed my outburst.  I hugged him in gratitude for having expressed equal disdain for our undeserved chastisement, which had made me feel safe enough to let the storm blow through me.  I know I over-reacted.  I am deeply loved and accepted here and she would never intend to oppress me.  What matters is that a deep and tender part of me had been liberated from shame, because I wasn’t afraid any more.

Boundary.  A limit or separation.  A definition of what I am and am not, of what is mine and is not, of what is okay and what isn’t.  It carries with it the implication of a line that must not be crossed and needs to be defended.  For someone like me, understanding and defending boundaries is crucial.  I was a bullied child and am a recovering love addict.  I am still learning that the most aggressive energy should only very rarely win, and how to hold onto my truth and my voice when those with vibrado begin snorting and posturing.  I am still learning how to tolerate other’s disappointment and disapproval, and how to not give myself away, in a thousand ways, to those who seem stronger, more confident, more certain.  This is my pain and that is yours.  That is your reality and this is mine.  This is my god and that is yours.  My best friends live their lives and witness mine, just as I do for them.  We cheer for each victory and grieve each loss, but we do not fight each other’s battles.

To one who explores spiritual teachings the ideas of boundaries and separate identity might sound an awful lot like the definition of ego, and ego is what keeps us distanced from god and all the infinite love, peace, and joy contained in that direct experience.  That separation must be breached for us to find ultimate freedom and fulfillment.  We practice this in dissolving our sense of self in meditation, in setting aside our preferences to be of service to others, and in taming our fears and doubts through cultivating trust and devotion in those that guide us towards our ultimate formless reality.  We grow tremendously when we challenge the limitations of who we believe ourselves to be, what we think we are capable of, and what we believe our lives are for and instead open ourselves fully as channels for greatest good from our higher selves regardless of how we believe we might benefit personally.

The interplay between these concepts – boundaries on the one hand and unity on the other – is baffling to me, both in theory and in practice.  I feel my energy mixing with that of another resident, inviting distracting and painful romantic habits, so I pull away and am tormented by guilt and fear, and feel my heart enveloped by an expansive sense of loving presence.  I absorb the hostility of another resident chiding me for distancing myself from her, and voice my determination to stand firm in my choices, and feel an empowering thrill of strength in my core.  I publicly question leadership, calling out behaviors that feel unsafe and shaming, and I feel all the corrosive energy trapped inside me dissipate into a tangible yet wholly unexpected sense of deep security.  How can this be when we are told to cooperate with our leaders as extensions of the guru, when we are told to find inner peace regardless of outer circumstances?  At what point does saying “no”, does demanding change, does saying “I need this for myself” become a spiritual imperative and calm acceptance a coward’s comfort?

I groaned inside last night to realize once again that I have found myself a familiarly dysfunctional family – one with plenty of laughter and festivity, generosities, victories, and confidences, but also with big secrets no one is allowed to talk about.  We tiptoe tensely around the forbidden subjects that cause us all unease, that we are reluctant to address head-on because we believe they cannot be fixed that calling them out invites our dissolution.  We cling to our stories and our relative roles for survival, applying bandaids of hope and discharging splinters of cynicism to keep ourselves limping along.  I groaned inside not out of pity for our collective delusion, but for myself, for the little one in me I sacrificed so much for to free from exactly such a system only to find myself in one again.  But I won’t run this time because I know I am the magnet and some version of this will continue to pursue me like a horde of iron filings.  There is no way out but through.  Through loving myself as a mother soothes her child though all she can give are tattered clothes, leaky roofs, and dried bread.  Through speaking the truth in my core even if my words are vague and my voice tight, because I need an open flow of energy and air.  Through withdrawing my attention, my affection, my trust, even when I feel as though I will starve without seeing my reflection in another, because I must feed myself before I can feed anyone else.

Why do I remain vulnerable to these longings for and these seductions from men who are unable to fully see and care for me?  For the same reason I find myself invested in communities and projects facing significant adversity with compromised integrity.  I am addicted to externalizing the challenge, to wasting energy on hoping for what I cannot change so that I do not have to take responsibility for myself.  If I save this man, if I save this community with my self-sacrifice, with my loyalty, with my generosity, then I will have the love and security I have sought my whole life.  Many core spiritual teachings laud these very qualities of self-sacrifice as vital to success, while at the same time encouraging us to separate ourselves from a number of worldly influences so we can dedicate ourselves more completely to god.  It can be very confusing!

I know no other way to chart my way through this than in the way I always have: experience and experimentation.  Can I set aside the fear of being consumed so that I can more fully feel my body and all of its sensations in this moment?  Can I be present with them without reacting so that what I do is a reflection of my truth instead of a compulsive attempt to discharge energy?  Can I find a bit of what I touch in meditation in every moment so that the loneliness and insecurity gradually lose their hold?  When I hold my tongue, when I walk away, when I speak out, I am erecting scaffolding around my sense of self so I know I have the right to occupy the ground I stand on, scaffolding that can fall away when my foundation is strong enough to hold all things with equal love.  As the Tibetan llama who visited us last week reminded us, the relative truth is our separate journey home.  The ultimate truth is that separation is a delusion and our home is everywhere.

At intern circle last week, I invited everyone to reflect on a special friend they have had; someone who has inspired them, supported them, mirrored their best selves back to them.  A few shared about the beauty of being in harmony with others and described this uninterrupted flow as being a functional relationship.  Then I shared about a woman who is becoming one of my most precious friends, and who had shared with me the night before about something I had done that hurt her.  It was the last thing I expected, and certainly disrupted the choreography of our relationship, but her vulnerability inspired me, her trust moved me, and her gentle and righteous defense of her own boundaries brought us closer.  The group then co-created a description of a truly functional system by imaging the comic scenario of a janitor interrupting a play by trying to clean up as the actors performed.  There can be feelings of outrage, confusion, resentment, but all good actors know that no matter what happens, the show must go on.  The best friends and the healthiest communities can incorporate any unexpected event seamlessly into their shared reality because they trust, because they love.

My friends give me opportunities to set my boundaries.  They inspire me with their own boundaries.  The expansiveness of their love gives me permission to express what I have censored in the past.  They forgive my miscalculations.  And they send me back to god for my ultimate fulfillment, sometimes with their tender example and sometimes with the sting of their humanity.  There is no perfect place to hold and heal me, no perfect person to cushion me from loneliness and loss.  My prayer goes up and out, time and time again: “Please bring me someone to love.”  And time and time again what I find is simply myself and god, and a longing to love both with the tenderness and conviction I have seen in the faces and actions of a handful of my new friends.  As that primary relationship with god as experienced through myself and others changes me from the inside out, as I honor it before all other things, my circumstances will expand to bring me less of what I need to shut out and more of what I can fully embrace.  And what motivates me most is the thought that I could one day come to share all of myself with another person, without fear.

Nancy

“All boundaries are conventions waiting to be transcended. One can transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so.  In moments like these, I can feel your heart beating as clearly as my own and I know that separation is only an illusion.  My life extends far beyond the limitations of me.” – Cloud Atlas