I Can Have Me and I Can Have You Too
Hello there.
Innately we all desire to merge with others,
and we also all desire
a sense of self.
We have these seemingly contradictory desires
because we are ultimately multi-dimensional beings.
This means, at one level of us,
we are aware that we are one with everything that is.
At another level of us,
we are expressions of that oneness
that perceives ourselves to be singular expressions
of that consciousness, with free will.
This desire between contradictory
or seemingly contradictory states,
it causes an endless push and pull within us
relative to other people.
Because we believe that we have to choose between them.
However, if we are traumatized
at some point in our life
by relationships,
what we tend to do is to polarize
to one direction or to the other.
For example,
if we are traumatized when we are younger
by what we call enmeshment,
that is somebody is overly involved or controlling of ourselves,
we tend to polarize
towards being completely independent.
We develop a fear of relationships.
We push them away.
On the other hand
if we're traumatized at some point in our lives
by disconnection and loneliness
we tend to polarize towards merging.
To the point where we're terrified of autonomy
and our boundaries are too weak.
This week I received a letter in the mail that struck me.
It was from a girl who wanted to know
why it is
that developing a sense of self,
feels so bad.
Why developing boundaries, makes her feel sorrow.
Why it was that all of these self-help techniques
that teach you that you can be the universe unto yourself,
feel like the opposite of what she really wants.
The spiritual and the self-help fields
are completely about
helping the self, developing the self...
They tend to focus entirely
on the idea of autonomy.
Think about it;
How many times in the spiritual community
or the self health community,
have you heard things like this:
Fill up your own cup.
Everything you could ever want or need is inside you.
The only approval you need is your own.
No one else can make you happy, only you can do that.
Essentially self-centered ideologies
that exalt the idea
of spiritual, emotional, mental and physical independence.
For some people, these ideologies are liberating.
It feels amazing to them.
For other people, it feels extremely painful.
Why is this?
I'm going to explain.
Having a sense of self versus other
is a part of participating in this physical dimension.
The individual perspective and experience
is what is currently serving the expansion of this universe.
And so, we perceive a difference
between ourselves and the rest of the world.
This individual perspective
is a kind of boundary that defines us from everything else.
This is why in a world where we operate from an individual perspective,
it is important to develop healthy boundaries.
But what our boundaries, really?
Boundaries are not walls between you and the world.
In fact, boundaries are nothing more than a defined sense of self.
If I say I like chocolate ice cream
and you say you like vanilla ice cream,
those preferences are in fact, boundaries we both have.
Those boundaries do not conflict with each other.
A person may say:
"I want to keep my life private"
and another might say:
"I want to be open with my life,
and because you're part of my life
that means that I need to tell the world what you said".
Those boundaries are in conflict.
And it's these conflicting boundaries
that cause the conflicts in our relationships.
A sense of self, therefore boundary,
includes a sense of how someone relates the self to the rest of the world.
They are rules of conduct,
built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions, attitudes,
past experiences and social learning.
Personal boundaries operate in two directions,
affecting both the incoming and outgoing interactions between people.
Personal boundaries help to define an individual
by outlining likes and dislikes,
what is right for them personally and wrong for them personally.
And defining these things,
helps us to know how
we will and won't allow ourselves to be treated by others.
How do healthy boundaries develop?
They develop when parents allow healthy boundaries to exist
between themselves and their children.
That there's the problem.
When children are in the process of being socialized by their parents,
often parents of today's age
don't even take boundaries into consideration.
We do not see children as people,
so we do not address them
as if they have valid likes and dislikes,
valid wants and needs.
We don't address them as if it's appropriate for them to be different
than us.
Long story short,
parents are so often identified with their children
that they violated child's boundaries again and again
by trying to make the child a mini version of themselves.
A reflection of their desires, likes and dislikes.
When a child in this kind of environment
tries to express a boundary,
the parent feels invalidated.
And if it is an unconscious parent,
the parent then reacts defensively
to this invalidation.
They react by violating the boundary
in an incoming intrusive way,
or an outgoing distancing way.
When most people think of boundary violation,
we only think of incoming boundary violation.
Things like controlling someone else,
or calling the names, or straight-up slapping them.
But there's another kind of boundary violation
which is in fact more damaging.
It's distancing boundary violation.
It's an outgoing boundary violation.
It is to say that
"If you act in a certain way,
I'm going to violate our connection by withdrawing."
The child who experiences
incoming boundary violations as a child,
is the one who develops
an adult self that tries to resist relationships.
They gravitate in the direction of unhealthy independence.
Because they have enmeshment trauma.
This child has been educated
that is not okay to have a sense of self or to have boundaries.
The subconscious message growing up was:
"You can't have you,
and stay emotionally or even physically safe around me,
at the same time.
On the other hand the child that experiences distancing
boundary violations,
is the one that develops
an extreme anxiety
about being disconnected.
They become the clingy child,
that just will not let go,
that is hanging on for dear life,
to somebody, anybody they can find,
especially the primary attachment figure,
because they are so desperately afraid of the starvation
of the disconnection.
They're desperately afraid of the isolation
which is in fact the very trauma that they endured.
This child has been educated
that it is not okay to have a sense of self or to have boundaries.
To have a sense of self or autonomy
was to be isolated.
Isolation is a form of torture.
Let's take a look at how this might play out in a real-world scenario.
Let's say you've got a mother and her three-year-old daughter
and the two of them have to go to church.
But the little daughter decides:
"What I want to do,
is to wear my cowboy boots my jeans and my lucky star wars t-shirt."
But the mom what she wants,
according to her own boundary, is for people in her life
to see her as a competent mother.
Obviously, if her daughter goes to church dressed like that,
no one's going to think that way.
So that particular desire, want and need of the daughter,
really doesn't fit in with the mother's wants, needs and desires.
The daughter asserts this boundary,
but her mother would rather that she wear a dress.
So,
after this conflict ensues,
instead of explaining the situation to her daughter
and coming to a meeting of minds or lovingly enforcing a limitation
where neither party has their boundaries violated,
this mother chooses to shake her head and disgust and walk away.
The message this mother has sent her child is:
"You can't have you and have me at the same time."
If you are a person who has found your way to spirituality
in order to try to feel better in your life,
but these more self-centered ideologies
such as fill up your own cup,
everything you need is inside you,
the only person who can make you happy as you,
makes you feel like total crap,
then you are the kind of person
who is suffered on going,
outgoing violations to your boundaries.
These self-centered ideologies
that are liberating to the person who feels trapped by connection with others,
are instead re-triggering the trauma of isolation.
They are reinforcing the idea
that you're all alone and always will be
and that needing connection is not okay.
If we are this kind of person,
we begin to view our own boundaries
like bargaining chips.
We're willing to let them go,
as long as it gets us connection.
So we're the kind of person who gives up our personal preferences
in favor of other people's preferences,
because at least we get to be with them.
One form that this takes
particularly strongly in women,
is sexual boundaries.
We tend to just abandon our sexual boundaries completely,
because we can transactionally get away with giving you sex,
so we can guarantee connection.
So today I have some news for you,
but it's not just news for you,
it's also news for your counterpart,
those people who love those self-centered ideologies,
who feel liberated by the idea that all you need is you,
because they feel trapped in relationships.
So this news I'm about to give to you,
is news for the both of you.
And here it is:
The door to your heart will be unlocked
the minute you get,
that you have adopted a very unconscious, and extremely painful limiting belief,
that you cannot have yourself and have other people at the same time.
And guess what? It isn't true.
There doesn't have to be a conflict
between your sense of self and connecting with other people.
Right now you don't have much proof to back this up,
but we have to start somewhere.
So what if you can have a sense of self,
and also merge with others?
What if you could have boundaries and have connection?
What if you can have yourself,
and have other people at the same time?
What if these seemingly contradictory desires,
are in fact, complementary?
To deepen your understanding relative to this topic,
I want you to watch two videos I created on YouTube.
The first is:
How to Develop Healthy Boundaries,
and the second is:
AND Consciousness (The Modern Day Replacement for The Middle Way)
We can think of a boundary as an imaginary line
that uniquely defines your personal happiness,
your personal integrity, your personal desires,
your personal needs
and therefore, most importantly,
your personal truth relative to the rest of the universe.
But none of that means you are all alone.
You can have that
and have intimate connection and companionship, at the exact same time.
Sometimes we are with people
who are truly incompatible to us.
That means that our personal boundaries
and their personal boundaries
are going to be in conflict,
when we're in the time-space reality
of the physical dimension together.
And when this is the case,
quite often we can no longer share space, physically.
But I don't want you to think that this means you're all alone.
In fact, if you adhere to your own personal values,
your own personal truths,
your desires, your wants, your needs...
What will happen is you will have stopped
abandoning yourself.
And as a result of that,
you will now be a vibrational match
to people who will never abandon you.
You will be a match to people who are truly,
truly compatible to you.
And those people will leave you with a sense
of being completely
in company with people who will connect to you,
who will not abandon you,
who will not leave
and who will in fact make you feel completely connected.
The opposite of loneliness and isolation.
So today, I'm going to leave you
with this particular truth:
You can have yourself
and have other people at the very same time.
In fact the best relationships
are the result of establishing this truth within yourself
and within your relationships.
You don't have to choose between them.
Have a good week.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com