Fuzzy boundaries make of us damp paper, and of the world a soggy match.
I’d like to take some time today to talk about boundaries. Not that fence-line dispute with your neighbour; I mean the safe space that exists in you and around you, the demarcation that defines where you end, and where all else begins. Be that the physical boundary of your skin, or the emotional boundary where you draw the line at taking on other people’s problems, or stepping into other people’s business. In energy medicine these boundaries are part of grounding, root chakra energy, and they are the energetic mirror of the body’s immune system*. Our boundaries can be thought of as the point at which our own body/thoughts/limits of perception/memories/emotions meet everything else in the world. Other people, animals, nature, the air, anything of which we do not have direct and internal knowledge and over which we have no control. This is where Self meets Other.
To paraphrase Fritz Perls (the ‘founding father’ of Gestalt psychotherapy – his wife Laura Perls being the ‘founding mother’) this meeting point, or Contact point between Self and Other is the place at which Self really exists. Without this contrast, there would be no Self; we’d all just be swimming in the same soup mix. Well, we are essentially – we’re all made of the same energy – but the point of being in these lives, in our current containers, is to work through our own stuff. Learn our own lessons. Grow our own Selves into higher consciousness. If we’re swimming in everyone else’s soup we just can’t do that. Sure if we were all in a soup of divine consciousness and perfect love it would be fine but for the moment there aren’t many beings on the planet who have reached this state. So I don’t know about you but for the moment I’d rather just stick to my own soup, thanks!
Like a healthy, functioning immune system, it is essential to operate in this world with an established concept and recognition of one’s own boundaries – the space in which one keeps their own stuff and consciousness, and to be able to meet with, rub up against and make contact with Other, without taking it into ourselves, or at least being so aware that we can eject what is not ‘ours’ from our soup mix when we choose. To be in the world, but not of it, one might say. To be with someone else’s pain, grief, anger, but not let it become our own unless it really is indeed our own. This takes practice to learn and maintain and is not a once-and-done effort – just like the immune system takes years to learn ‘other’; to differentiate, and to develop its various methods of ‘ejecting’ what is not ‘ours’.
Have you had that feeling of everything just being grey…?
This all sounds very serious, and indeed it does have serious consequences for wellbeing (physical, emotional and mental) when we do not differentiate, or are unable to stay within and respect our own (and others’) boundaries. Imagine the weight of living with everyone else’s onions in your soup? For today though, I want to focus on the JOY of having safe and strong energetic boundaries.
Joy? Yes. Have you had that feeling of everything just being grey? No joy in activities, company, food, life. Sounds a bit like depression, right? Yes, I have been there. Think about this for a second – if our boundary, our contact point with the rest of the world, is fuzzy, then of course everything is going to seem grey. We’re missing that spark, that flint edge, that line of fire that ignites between us and other.
Fuzzy boundaries make of us damp paper, and of the world a soggy match. To have a strong boundary makes us at the same time both more protected and more OPEN. Because when protected, we are safe to be open. A healthy immune system can give its sick lover a reassuring hug without freaking out. By really being strong in our own space, we create a stronger contact point between Self and Other that can then ignite the exciting alchemic reactions that occur when two boundaries meet.
So that’s the beauty of good boundaries – both hard-hat and heart-opener, all at the same time.
I was reminded of this recently, just standing alone in the park alone for all of a minute, waiting for someone. Instead of just looking at the ground (my bad habit), I consciously looked up and around, and allowed myself to feel the difference between myself (all that I really know) and the trees. The guy going past on the bike. The dog chasing a ball. They become, for those few precious moments, not just passing visions to observe, but fascinating other beings, other realities of which I know nothing. And I felt the pure joy of potential, held in that space of not knowing, curiosity about all the possibilities existing all around. The joy of being purely in my own space, within my own boundary of consciousness, surrounded by potential sparking points. That’s the buzz that is missing when the world goes grey; when all blends blindly into one soup, without awareness and without intention.
Try this exercise as a boundary practice next time you start to feel yourself melding into the mess around you and lose that joyful spark of connection and sense of Self. You may wish to read it a few times to memorise the process, or record it in your own voice to play back (listening to your own voice giving you instructions is very, very powerful practice!):
AURA BOUNDARY MEDITATION
Get yourself comfy sitting or lying. Allow yourself 3 deep cleansing breaths, letting your senses travel downwards through your body with each breath out. Take your attention to your tailbone and imagine a grounding cord – see it stretching down from your tailbone down into the safety and security of the earth. Give it a glowing red hue if you like playing with colour.
Now imagine you are sitting or lying in a bubble extending out all around you, above you, below you, reaching out to about an arms’ length/width away. This is your aura. Your personal and energetic space. Its surface is clear, transparent, and semi-permeable. Energy can enter in, and pass through, allowing two-way connection between your energy system and the world around you. In your imagination just have a look and nosey around in this space. Are there colours, or is it clear and transparent inside your bubble? What does it feel like? What does it have to tell you? Spend a few minutes quietly exploring, eyes closed, and just allowing whatever pops in to mind. We may call it imagination, but trust what comes up as reality for you. You may start to see areas of shadow, faces of other people known or not known, you may hear words or even see words. Perhaps there are spaces around you that just can’t reach, can’t imagine, can’t ‘see’ even in your imagination. Ask yourself what might be there, what you might not be allowing yourself to see? All this stuff, this baggage, is normal. It’s part of being human, but let’s just have a clear out for now.
Say to yourself “this is my aura, my energy, this is my space. Anything that does not belong to me may now safely move away.” Anything, any shadow, shapes, faces, people, situations, worries that are hanging about in your space, ask them just to step ‘outside’. Ask those energies to give you your space and step outside your bubble. Imagine placing whatever images or feelings you have just outside your perimeter. Use your hands to push, or your imagination, or your breath to blow them away from you. Maybe you can still see them, but they are now outside your space. Sometimes, we may feel reluctant to push away feelings, energies, people or situations that are very dear to our hearts. The truth is we are not pushing them away, we’re just coming back into our own safe space. It’s not about them. Use your breath to give anything sticky a little push and encouragement out and away.
Once your space is clear, let’s just firm it up for a few moments to really draw on that sense of protection and safety. Imagine the surface of your bubble, whatever colour or shape, is solidifying. Becoming like a clear crystalline structure – beautiful, yet strong. And very, very safe. With this solid protection all around you and your clear energy space for you to swim in, we’re just going to make it even more nourishing and nurturing for you. We’re going to fill this space up with healing light. You can imagine this as a silver or gold light if you wish. You can breathe this light out from your heart space, on the outbreath, and see it filling the space around you. Or if you like to connect to a divine source, imagine another cord stretching up from the top of your head, your crown, up into the sky, connected to a source of pure, unconditional and perfect love that works only for your highest good and wellbeing. And draw the energy down from this cord, into your heart, and out into your aura bubble, filling it with light. Spend a few minutes in this perfect, loving, healing space. Let your arms stretch out to feel just how large and accommodating this safe space is.
Now we’re going to safely and gently allow our energies to open back to the world around us, knowing that we can repeat this exercise whenever we like, constantly able to clear and reassert our boundaries. See that crystalline perimeter start to shimmer and glow, melting back to a semi-permeable membrane. If you extended a cord from your crown, just lovingly draw that back into yourself, thanking it, and knowing you can reconnect to this whenever your wish. Keep your grounding cord – this stays with you always. Take 3 deep breaths, focussing your attention on your feet allow your toes to wriggle, have a good stretch – take up all that energy space around you, use it – and gently open your eyes.
* not surprisingly the root chakra, where we harness grounding energy, is developing in the early years just like our immune system. Trauma (physical and emotional) in our early years affects not only the grounding energy qualities of safely and security, but can also lead to physical dis-ease in the areas of the body governed by the root chakra, such as; immune disorders, hip and lower spinal issues, bone, joint and circulation problems. For more information on this have a look at ‘Finding Home Ground’ on my website: http://www.klbtherapy.com/rebalance-yourself.html