I was scrolling through Facebook a couple of weeks ago and came across a story posted by a life coach. His caption indicated that it is good boundary setting when you cut people out of your life if they disrespect you. I knew I shouldn’t have gone on Facebook (but that’s another story).
Stuff like this really irks me. It’s not healthy to cut people out of your life just because you feel disrespected, dismissed or not understood. You might be wondering why it’s not healthy. Let me start with a little tale.
Tara Brach tells the tale of a family of porcupines who normally spend the winter huddled together to keep themselves warm by sharing body heat. As the story goes, the porcupines become annoyed with each other’s quills pricking each other. So, one day they decide to disband. When the winter comes around again the following year, all the porcupines find themselves alone and cold, and as you might guess, they die from freezing.
The point of this story is that we need each other. And we can’t just cut off every person who annoys us or disrespects us. Cutting people off isn’t boundary setting, it’s avoidance. So you might wonder what’s the problem with avoidance?
The problem with avoidance is that it doesn’t solve the underlying discomfort with whatever that disrespect was. In fact, as we cut more and more people out of our lives, we become increasingly intolerant of any discomfort and end up being very alone. Let’s face it, relationships are uncomfortable and we have to be ok with that to have any relationships at all.
That’s not to say that you should just learn to tolerate abuse, but realistically, most uncomfortable relationships are not actually abusive. More often what really happens is that we are triggered (possibly from past abuse) and don’t know how to express our needs in the moment of discomfort. The emotions take over and it feels so damn uncomfortable that it’s hard to know what exactly has gone wrong. Most often, people want to meet our needs and go into relationship in good faith, but they don’t know what our needs are. So to be able to set a boundary (and essentially recognize and express our needs) we have to tolerate some discomfort to get to the underlying unmet need. For example, how do you know you need a winter coat if you’ve never tried to tolerate winter weather? You could just escape every winter, or you could learn to tolerate the cold, get your needs met (by dressing appropriately) and then experience all the wonderful things winter has to offer, like building a snowman or skating.
Janina Fisher wisely states that forcing a human to live all alone is like taking a fish out of water. Our environment is humanity, it’s being with others and feeling connected. And just like the porcupines, even the prickly people in our lives have something to offer. Learning to tolerate a little disrespect, a little discord, is healthy.
A boundary is telling someone how you feel in a certain situation and being willing to work through the discomfort of negotiating how that person can help you get your needs met or removing yourself from the situation (not the relationship!). Of course, never stay in an abusive relationship, but most relationships, even the healthiest relationships will have conflict, and all relationships are challenging at times.
In sum healthy boundaries allow us to stay in relationship with difficult people, they don’t force us to cut those people off. As Lisa Nichols say ‘can I get a yes yes?’
Remember too that cutting someone out of your life will inevitably have unintended consequences, can you live with those? Perhaps one of those consequences is that one day when you realize you want that person back in your life, they’ve realized that they are better off not being in relationship with you. Or perhaps people who you thought would stick around decide they prefer the other person better. There’s risks to taking drastic action.
If you find yourself cutting people off as a way to deal with conflict, perhaps it’s time to talk to a therapist. Perhaps it’s time to figure out how to get your relationship needs met in a healthy way that doesn’t leave you isolated. Perhaps it’s time to learn what healthy boundaries actually are and how to communicate your needs, while being respectful of others.
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