Strengthening your Boundary Muscles
Today I'm reflecting on the similarities between strength training and boundary setting.
I've been strength training for a couple of years now at a wonderful place called Reimagym (I highly recommend, if you’re looking). When I started, my trainers continually reminded me to soften the arch in my lower back by tucking my pelvis. This was to support my posture and help alleviate my back pain. It felt strange to do this, and my body didn’t especially like it. But they continued to remind me and I continued to make the change.
It took a full year before I could set up my exercises without a reminder about the pelvis tuck. In that year I'd also developed the muscles around the pelvis, so my body could make the change more easily.
One day, I realized that the "old way" of holding my hips was not natural at all. It didn't give me the support I needed and it made me feel a little unbalanced. After all the struggle, I could finally see what my trainers had been saying from the beginning - holding the body this new way actually SAVED energy. Eureka!
I've noticed that boundary setting has a similar arc to this postural tale. I’ll give an example from my own healing journey:
I was starting to see that I put in most of the effort in many of my friendships: I reached out first, I came up with ideas, I made the plans etc. This felt natural as I had been doing it my entire life - I barely knew a different way. So, I decided to challenge this old way and set a new boundary - I would only reach out first about half of the time. The other times I’d wait for my friend to do it.
This was, in truth, excruciating. My friends did not reach out with as much regularity as I would have liked, and consequently I felt ignored or excluded. It was painful and lonely, and I went back on my boundary just as I went back to holding my pelvis the “old” way: automatically, instinctively, and relentlessly.
But I persisted - I turned toward the pain in healing sessions. As I did, I began to see that my old way of relating contained a fear of re-experiencing wounds from childhood. As I learned how to meet my wounded inner child with compassion, the fears subsided. It wasn’t as hurtful when a friend didn’t reach out, ergo, the boundary became easier to uphold.
Inevitably, some of my friendships dried up over this. Others moved into a more balanced and satisfying formation. In new relationships I purposefully did not take on more than my fair share of the load. It started to feel more natural to not always be in the driver’s seat, and I got used to it and even enjoyed it. I still fell into my old ways, but I got better at noticing and stopping myself because I could feel both the cost of the old way, and the benefit of the new way. Just like with the pelvis!
The word “boundary” suggests a clear demarcation between one thing and another. When I hear the word I think of myself standing inside a hula hoop, saying “This is my space. You can’t come in here.” But the truth is WAY more complex than this!
Boundaries, in the interpersonal sense, are patterns of relating. They contain rules for what is and is not okay to say and do in the relationship, a blueprint for what one will tolerate. These rules can be explicit, but most of them are implicit, evident in the actions of the people involved and not necessarily in the words.
This is why establishing a boundary is much more like developing a muscle than stepping inside a hula hoop: a new boundary must be learned, practiced, supported and continually reinforced. In the beginning there is effort and struggle because the old way reigns, but as one slowly dismantles the old way a certain truth arises:
The body, mind, and heart know what balanced really means and, with persistence and the right support, that’s exactly where you end up.
