Want better boundaries? Start doing things you hate.
Photo by Cindy Tang on Unsplash
We have this naive idea that we can figure out what our boundaries are while simultaneously — repeatedly — choosing safety.
Boundaries are synonymous with your intuition. This is not an intellectual process. You can think you know what your boundaries are while you're sitting cozy on your meditation pillow surrounded by sage and feathers and an excessive amount of crystals but when you're in the moment, in the real world (where all of us live) you're not going to have access to them unless they are available to you in your body.
Things don't become available to you in your body if you live in a comfortable isolated environment where you're not ever challenged or are not actively stretching yourself.
Spiritual communities and collectives are awesome, but this is one of the biggest places where they get stuck in the same way "muggle" communities stay stuck. You don't ever get an opportunity to build boundaries if you're constantly surrounded by people who live and think just like you do. Period.
BOUNDARIES ARE BIRTHED FROM AVERSION PRACTICES. From trying new things and floundering. From experimenting consciously with your edges. From allowing yourself to feel things you once decided were wrong to feel.
If you never do anything you hate, or feel anything you have judgment about, or talk to people you don't understand or who you think will never understand you, you will never, EVER, develop boundaries in those places. Not real intuitive ones that are of any use to you while you're living your actual life, anyway. And what's worse is that you will continue to have to use A LOT of energy to protect yourself from your own aversions instead, which in turn stunts your growth and hinders your power.
Wouldn't you rather use that energy creating?