Building Boundaries

My mother being a counselor and my parents and grandparent both going through 12 step programs, I was raised from a preteen in an environment where Recovery "talk" was the normal. Boundary was a word I heard quite often. I remember one time when I was a little girl, I had gotten in my mother's purse. She told me that was a boundary violation. I didn't quite understand what that meant but I knew I was doing something I wasn't supposed to.

I have grown in my own recovery journey over the years.  The last couple years in Celebrate Recovery, I have grown in leaps and bounds. I have a better understanding of boundaries. Not just what they mean, but why they are so important and how to build and maintain them. Even rebuilding them again when I have allowed someone or something to knock them down.

Since my mother's death, my boundaries have been tested and violated, knocked down and manipulated, scorned and rejected. Here is the thing about building boundaries, they are mine. Right or wrong, whether others agree to them or not, boundaries are there to protect us, our family, our children, our environment, and our life. They are as necessary as breathing for one that is trying to thrive in a dysfunctional environment. Since we all can find some dysfunction if we look into our lives, we all need boundaries.

Building these boundaries brings opposition. Codependency is the need for someone else to be who they are so  we can be who we are. When one person or even a family unit out of a larger family makes a change, it disrupts the accepted. Even if the normal isn't healthy. So to make these changes, to create these boundaries, often threatens others. They see their security fading because their actions and reactions have been based on our unhealthy actions and reactions. There is no healthy identity.  The family's identity has centered around the dysfunction and the people behind it rather than the a healthy center, such as Christ. When something affects that center, like a death, the whole unit becomes lost and without direction. They start searching for a new center.

Looking back, I realize as the oldest child, the outgoing child, the one that questioned the "normal", the one that searched for more, for better, how much I did really participate in making myself the center of all that nonsense. I allowed it to be heaped on me many times, because I felt that being in charge of fixing it all, made me in control. That false sense of control led me to believe I could make it better. I could fix everyone else. I could cure all the addicts, and alcoholics and then I could be okay. I had led myself to believe they were the problem and I had no part of the problem, but I would be the great one responsible for the solution. I.could.fix.it.

THANK YOU GOD FOR CELEBRATE RECOVERY.

I learned my part in the problem. I learned that I had that victim mentality that kept me in denial. I learned that my solution wasn't even a solution, it was insanity. The solution, surrender. When I laid down my will to fight, to control, to fix, God's will in my life took over. The nuclear family unit became better. It wasn't centered around me, or my spouse and my children, it was centered around Christ and God's word. I had made a mess of everything I put my hands on, but as I learned God's truth, that mess started being cleaned up.

With my family unit in place, I had built boundaries, along with my husband. Our home would be Christ centered, and following that, recovery centered. Oh what joy and peace is developing in our home. I just can't describe it. God is amazing and the work he has done is amazing.

My husband and I are from huge families, and not everyone's reaction is created equal. Many have become very angry, even accusing us of abandoning them. I don't want to go into that, it's not my side of the street. I bring it up because I want others going through recovery to know what I have learned. It is normal for people to think the old you has abandoned them. We are made new in Christ. The old us is gone. This is a good thing. There are those that will have to learn and grow and adjust to the new us. They may be angry, they may walk away, they may embrace this change and follow our lead. We have to give them over to God.

Our boundaries are what allows our recovery to become successful and remain successful. The stronger our boundaries, the more serenity and peace and joy and happiness we can maintain. There will be dark moments and our boundaries may get cracked, they may even completely tumble, we just rebuild them.

Boundaries aren't to hurt others either. Healthy boundaries will help others as much as they help us. They won't enable the person seeking drama, seeking a scapegoat, seeking undeserved praise or sympathy. They allow the person on the other side to enter into a healthy situation. Whether they stick around, be nice, be mean, or leave, we have to be prepared for that reaction with grace, mercy, kindness and forgiveness. Our reaction may not be this, but with prayer and practice, our reaction can become this. If we fail in our reaction and our old self tries to take over, we surrender as soon as we catch it and we try again.

These word today, they come from a place of deep pain that God used for his glory and turned into deep understanding. I share them with the sincerest hope that one person reading them may find relief from the loneliness that we encounter in this process. We aren't really alone, God is just giving us space for one on one time with HIM. Take that opportunity if you are there, seek him, find him. He will help you build boundaries. After all, he is our great protector.

 "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." ~ Proverbs 4:23 NIV

A Grateful Believer in Jesus Christ,
Johnna Payne-Hurt