Setting boundaries; leaving the hardest thing till last

We’ve had Jordan Petersen’s 12 Steps for Living, here is Brené Brown’s 10 Rules for Success (which I am assuming is the same thing). They are as follows;

1.     Show up

 2.    Cultivate authenticity

3.     Set boundaries

4.     Actively practice gratitude

5.     Embrace vulnerability

6.     Let go of perfection

7.     Explore your emotions

8.     Build shame resilience

9.     Risk failure

10.   Don’t have any regrets

Since I turned 30 I have been on the path. I started by going to a self-development class for a year. Then I did some family constellations which led to Family Systems training focusing on inter-generational trauma which I took over the course of a year. During my thirties I got heavily involved in mental health work; going to workshops, seminars and critical psychiatry conferences mostly in UCC. I gave a keynote on our collective response to emotional distress, a few talks on routes to recovery and a talk on co-dependency. I gave interviews on radio, in newspapers and for television. Many people contacted me privately and I struggled with the demands plus the practical reality of my life as a single mother of two children. I was involved on the DCU service improvement course where we worked on the proposal project to introduce open dialogue to our local mental health unit. And I managed to do all of this without really understanding or implementing boundaries around my sense of self.

You know how we often leave the hardest things till last? Well I did that with boundaries. I cultivated all the other aspects and wondered why my life was so incredibly exhausting. Wasn’t I doing the work? Like Brené Brown says in one of her many excellent talks some of us park everything so we either implode or explode or the body eventually draws attention to the things we do not want to face (because our bodies hold the score). I did not want to set boundaries because it brought up so much excruciating discomfort for me. Also I knew it would open a whole can of worms! Instead I was all things to all people which was exhausting but much easier. At 38 I collapsed and hit burn out. I recovered and got back up. At 40 I started therapy in earnest. I did therapy for 6 years. But it was only at 45 that I started setting boundaries and I cannot emphasise enough how awful and brutal the process was. 

There was a reason I had been avoiding the work. It was, in a word, BRUTAL. I would take a round in a military zone or have ten street fights rather than do this work. It is terrifying and long and arduous. You will piss everyone off, you will have sleepless nights with just terror as your companion, you will feel unspeakably isolated (because this is part of the process) and you will have to let go of being “accommodating” which I had been for most of my adult life in one way or another bar some rebellious periods and a breakdown when I was so distressed I could not function. Coming off pleasing and accommodating people is like detoxing from hard drugs (really I should have been in rehab with this shit). Being authentic and setting boundaries sounds like some easy thing that you go on some fancy spiritual retreat for but it is just sweat, blood, guts, tears and terror. Personally I think it is worse than childbirth.

At 27 I had a breakdown which took me 2 years to recover from. I thought a nervous breakdown was hard but in truth, it was much easier for me than setting boundaries. I know that sounds crazy but it's true. Maybe we leave the hardest stuff (and the most important stuff) till last because we have to be in a stronger position to manage the fall out and to tolerate the discomfort. I cannot overemphasize just how challenging this work is especially for sensitive, accommodating folks or people struggling with codependency issues or trauma. I know there is not a perfect time to do this work (and sometimes it is during a desperate time that you are required to do this work in order to improve or save your life) but it is good if you have done some ground work and have good, strong support in place, like a good therapist for example.

It may look easy but this work is really hard. It is hard getting real and getting into the arena but unless you want to watch your life rather than engage with it you have to do this difficult work. You have to confront some important matters you have been avoiding in order to live well and from your authenticity. It is brutal work but the rewards are great (or so I hear... I am not there yet!) In short I sum the results up as follows;

It took me years to stop taking emotional responsibility for everyone else and to start taking emotional responsibility for myself.