Answering the Question: My Own Worst Enemy
Realizing that boundaries are not just something other people need to honor PLUS a read you need to pick up this weekend.
Asking the Question is a weekly series that offers a low-stakes entry point to journaling. Every Sunday I’ll deliver a prompt to your inbox, and on Fridays share how I processed my response to it (and hopefully you will to!). Drop a comment, subscribe, do whatever feels right to you.
For the first time, I outlined this week’s newsletter on paper before coming to Substack to type this up. Boundaries brought up an emotional tonage of words for me, and I wanted to make sure I was able to distill my reflections into something coherent and useful for all of you.
Let’s dive right in.
How do you enforce, or defend, your boundaries?
Answering the Question, Part 1: The Test
There are three stages to boundaries: identifying, communicating, and enforcing. I consider identifying to be an ongoing journey, as we sometimes don’t discover a boundary until we are confronted with a situation that crosses it. Recognizing that is a skill we should all work to develop. Thanks to therapy, I consider myself to be somewhat adept at this, though no expert.
Communicating my boundaries has proven easier, thanks to being an only child. Doing what I want? Saying no? Focusing on what serves me? Check, check, and check. Certainly, I can work on how I deliver information about those boundaries, but the message is still transmitted.
This week I discovered it’s the third part where I really struggle.
In relationships, in friendships, in family, I have no problem expressing my red lines, my boundaries, to those I’m interacting with. I share what they are, to the best of my knowledge, and distribute that information to others, as well as receive theirs, so that we can create a mutually safe space together. However it is there that my enforcement typically ends. Once communicated, I expect others to catalogue and honor those boundaries at every juncture in the future.
It’s a test. Do they love me enough to remember what I said? Do they respect me enough to keep this need top of mind? Am I worthy of their love and respect? Do they value me?
Consider how much of a burden this is asking of someone. Consider the millions of data points we as people process each and every day, from the weather report to sports scores to the emails in our inbox. Consider how much of that, consciously or otherwise, secures a spot in our memory, pushing out other critical information we’d rather hold on to (why do I know all the lyrics to “No Hands”? No idea, but I wish I remembered my third birthday party instead).
From that perspective, how could we expect anyone, other than, perhaps, those closest to us (a romantic partner, a best friend, a parent), to remember our boundaries at all times? Even amongst that more intimate group, 100% retention and accuracy is an unfair ask. And to put such a value, such weight, on their ability to recall these boundaries at all times only sets us up for self-inflicted pain.
In the past, when a partner or friend has crossed a boundary I previously told them about, I took it as a sign that I neither had their love and respect, nor was I worthy of it. Passively partaking in the situation at hand, I allowed my line to be crossed and assumed that was what I was worth.
But when was the last time I had told them about that boundary? That morning? Last week? Six month ago? Six years ago? I was interpreting their ability to recall what my previously communicated boundary was for their ability to honor and respect that boundary. Those are not equal, and it is the latter that is much more informative and important than the former. And, quite honestly, it’s a bit egotistical to think they’re just sitting there remembering everything you’ve ever told them about yourself. They have their own life, their own boundaries, to worry about.
What matters is not that someone has memorized your boundary, what matters is whether they choose to honor it once put forward. Their ability to recall every data point about you is not a reflection of their love, rather it is how they act when confronted with your vulnerability. Do they honor your boundary, or disregard it? That’s the information that matters.
Answering the Question, Part 2: The Professional Self
Typically we think about our boundaries as they relate to interpersonal interactions. But that relationship was not the one I spent as much time writing about this week, with the exception of the insights above.
The area I have historically struggled the most with my boundaries? Myself, and the battle between my personal self and my work self.
(Relevant for you to know for the paragraphs ahead is that from 2011-2021 I co-owned and operated a digital marketing agency)
Given the unique position I have had professionally, the crossing of boundaries in my career, of impeding on work/life balance, has never come from a superior or “upper management,” but rather from my own self. From my own inability to respect or honor my needs and discomfort.
For example, a few years in I decided to turn off push notification for e-mail and remove the Gmail app from my phone. Doing so, I assumed, would allow me to short-circuit my vicious after-hours/weekends e-mail checking cycling. For a while, it worked.
But then I started navigating to in-browser email clients, and began the process anew. Even though I knew I needed to give myself space, a boundary, I did not honor that need and instead prioritized the Work over myself. And what did it to do me? Caused incredible anxiety, drove me away from being present when with partners and friends, and signal to others that it was also okay to cross my boundaries again and again.
The why of this has many facets that need to be unpacked, something I’m going to try getting into on LinkedIn this month as a part of #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth. But it’s a result of the way we center work in our lives, the bait-and-switch of the way we talk about, but do not practice, work-life balance, the client-vendor relationship, and so much more.
As I go forward, I know this is the area in which I need to do the greatest work. If you’ve confronted this problem before, I’ve love to talk about it with you.
Our Readers Speak
No reader reflections this week, but I’d encourage you to drop me an email or a DM with your story about boundaries. I think this is such an important topic, especially Part 2 of my reflection this week, and I hope we can have a useful chat about it.
And always feel free to hop in the comments below. I’d love to take some of your journaling prompts for future editions!
Something For The Weekend
I’m not telling you anything you don’t know when I say that social media is a great way to keep in touch with people you were never really in touch with in the first place.
Which brings me to this week’s thing for your weekend.
While I was at Georgetown, I had the pleasure to briefly exist in the same orbit as Sara Elise (think: group project). Naturally, this led to passive social media connections. In the years since I’ve been able to watch her journey from afar, and it has certainly been inspiring and impactful. In fact, her annual More/Less practice for the New Year is something I’ve adopted for myself.
This week, I’m excited to share that her first book, A Recipe for More, has dropped! Though I’ve only read the first few chapters, I’m already prepared to drop an endorsement and suggest you grab a copy.
A brief overview of what you can expect to find:
In this expansive debut, A Recipe for More: Choosing a Life of Pleasure and Abundance, creative, host, and "pleasure doula" Sara Elise offers a profound and challenging inquiry into the forces that keep us in a state of survival and limitation and asks us to consider a new way to live. Sara Elise leaves us with what it means to be present to what’s unfolding around us and open to the change that is possible in that empty space.
A Recipe for More is a quest to examine the ingredients of our lives, those essential components that make up our days. Have we chosen rest, breath, movement, agency, visibility, play, and pleasure? Or are we trapped in the numbing and violent pattern of self-inflicted suffering? Do we celebrate the unique and precious wiring of our brains? Are our relationships a garden of ever-growing and evolving roots? Do we nourish our bodies with what it requires to sense and receive? Are we liberated, awakened, and alive? In the tradition of Adrienne Maree Brown and Sonya Renee Taylor, A Recipe for More is a radical argument for dismantling the systems that oppress us. But it begins with the individual, and the simple recipe of our every day.
Consider ordering your copy today!
(And sign up for her Substack to receive even more delicious journal prompts)
Back on Sunday!