You ever have one of those days where you are heading into work and you come across a detour? You turn in the direction the detour says and drive for a little only to find there isn’t another detour sign? Welcome to the struggles of understanding boundaries.
Boundaries seem to be very confusing for alot of people to understand. It is very similar to coming across these road closures. It can seem at first like an attempt to control our behavior but lets talk about how its very different.
Road closures are setup when there is repair work up ahead, or construction being done, and the township involved wants to control the traffic. Wait! Did I not just say that these road closures and detours are NOT about control? Here’s where the confusion is.
The township isn’t telling me I HAVE to follow the detour. It also isn’t saying that I, and I alone have to follow this new route to get to work. It is simply saying that IF I plan to get to work, and I still desire to get to work, that this detour is HOW I can get to my destination. The choice to follow the detour to get to where I want to go, is 100% up to me, and how important getting to work is for me that day. It is not control at the driver level, it is traffic control. The detour is being asked of everyone to follow.
When we, as all people do, set up a boundary, it is like setting up a road closure inside ourselves we want to limit the incoming traffic to. Whether it is to allow time to heal, get through something, or just how we want to interact with the world, it is important to set these boundaries. However, it is just as important to set these detours to allow people to get to us in the way that allows us to feel respected.
So a boundary might be that you don’t like holding hands in public. It’s not enough to just communicate that you are uncomfortable with this kind of public display of affection, but to also think about and communicate what ways a person CAN show their affection. A boundary is all the ways we don’t want to be treated however a detour is how we DO.
Leave a comment of not only a boundary you have, but also your detours.
Changing Optics 