Have you ever noticed how in one moment it can feel all warm and fuzzy when someone comes close while in another moment it can raise your hackles?
Humans are social beings; we long for connection. In our awkward pursuit to fulfill this longing to love and be loved, our boundaries frequently collide—collisions that could just as easily create distance as deepen intimacy depending on our intentions and how they are handled.
“I just want to love and be loved. I want to love like Jesus did. Unconditionally.”
This was the last thing Whitney Houston said to her hairdresser, Tiffanie Dixon, according to Vanity Fair’s Mark Seal.
What does it even mean to love unconditionally? you might be asking.
Unconditional love is love without limits; it is absolute, not modified or restricted by reservations. I take that to mean that there is no limit to the lengths we will go to honor the sacredness of being invited into someone’s heart—to take being truthful and loving to the nth degree. Loving unconditionally does not imply loving with a “you have the right to use me as your doormat” clause. That would be fear-of-loss.
One of the benefits of an unconditionally loving relationship is that it provides a safe environment for the source of our collisions to surface for healing. Unconditional love will shine its light on everything that isn’t love.
“An intimate relationship means that we are willing to let go of our defenses and be seen by another for who we are, including all of our vulnerabilities and weaknesses—into me you see—which can be terrifying.”
~ Deb & Ed Shapiro
Our defenses are not our boundaries. They are protective walls that we created when it didn’t feel safe to be ourselves. Boundaries are not about ensuring that we never get violated although when crystal clear they ensure that. When boundaries are crossed and both parties choose to grow because of it, it brings them closer and clearer.
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."
~Soren Kierkegaard
So expect to run into others and to get rearended ever now and then. It's how you handle it that counts.
Love Boundaries
An understanding of boundaries is a necessary component to loving and being loved—to knowing and being known—to intimacy. Our love boundaries let others know where we desire to connect. They reveal that zone—that sweet spot—where it feels great to be us and to be connected with others.
Love boundaries let others know our pace for loving and being loved. They are the acknowledgment of our desires, a mission statement of sorts, that lets others know what we desire to give, to receive and to share in a relationship. Vulnerability is required for setting boundaries because it takes vulnerability, honesty and love to share how we desire to be treated and to admit when someone’s treatment has overstepped a boundary.
In our effort to connect we might overstep a boundary, come up shy of one, overlook a boundary violation, overcompensate or lose ourselves completely. Our desires for connection change as we do. This is why some friends are friends for a reason, others for a season and a rare few for a lifetime.
From Collision To Connection
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
An easy way to visualize boundaries is to picture your spiritual being as an orb of light that reaches out approximately four feet on all sides, above and below your physical body—sometimes referred to as personal space. This is why we can sense a person coming up behind us before physically seeing them and why it feels uncomfortable when someone gets too close. We sense them touching or entering our orb.
To experience this, try the experiment below with a friend with whom you feel safe being vulnerable.
Experiment:
Part #1: Begin a conversation with your friend. As you converse move progressively closer without physically touching. Note any changes in your friend’s expression or body posture. Note any discomfort you may experience as you venture into their personal space without permission. Once you have arrived in the discomfort zone, ask them how it feels to have you this close.
Part #2: Back off and let them know that you are experimenting with boundaries. Tell them about your new understanding of personal space and how it felt to be trespassing in theirs—the offender of overstepping a boundary. Note the vulnerability, the honesty. Does it feel natural to share at this level of intimacy? Or awkward?
Part #3: Try it again. This time with both party’s sensitivities heightened by the awareness of the experiment and the mutual consent. Notice when your energies aren’t touching, are barely touching and when they collide. Does it feel different with consent? Then switch roles and repeat the experiment.
Part #4: Try coming up behind them to see if they can sense you without seeing you and vice versa. This may take a little more practice.
Congratulations, you have just utilized a collision as a springboard to deeper intimacy.
Finding Our Way Out Of The Depths
Humanity can be likened to a sea of orbs, at various stages of understanding (brightness), organically attracting just whom we need to practice connecting. We can utilize our foibles as opportunities to reevaluate our methodologies, or keep doing the same thing and continue having similar experiences.
Now that we have consciously experienced the discomfort of a boundary violation our sensitivities are heightened so it is easier to find the zone where our orbs touch comfortably. But it is also helpful to understand what causes us to slip out of the KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) zone.
Love Without Truth Is Enabling
If your friend had allowed you to overstep his/her boundaries and you had no idea you were doing it, would you admire their generosity for allowing you to repeatedly make them feel uncomfortable? What if you were the generous one—would you expect to be admired? What you experienced in your experiment likely gave you cause to rethink this methodology.
Boundaries are where our generosity ends and another’s responsibility begins. Our generosity reveals the value we place on connecting and our fear of losing it. But repeatedly overcompensating for others can only serve to desensitize us. It may keep a friend physically close, but at the expense of distancing them mentally, emotionally and/or spiritually—at the expense of intimacy, vulnerability and respect. We might even be tempted to complain about such a friend, but now we can see that if we have complicated matters by overcompensating rather than communicating, we haven’t given them a fair chance to honor our boundaries. Silence is enabling.
Too ‘forgiving’ is a form of too generous. Sometimes what we call ‘forgiveness’ is simply a means for avoiding confrontation. If we acknowledge a violation, but are then quick to ‘forgive,’ it downplays the magnitude of the violation along with the necessity for the offender to be accountable.
If you slip into enabling, back off, face any fears you may have of losing connection; then try again. Meditation is a great place to find your own words for connecting with love and truth.
Truth Without Love Is Condescending
Although you had good intentions for your experiment, you overstepped a boundary, your personal space merged with your friend’s and you both experienced discomfort. You practiced truth without love. You knew that you had something valuable to offer but you failed to ask permission. You knew something that they didn’t and you were using it to your advantage.
When we offer advice or criticism without permission, we offer truth without love. We haven’t considered that our truth may not be their truth, that our advice has not been solicited, nor why we feel responsible for ‘fixing’ our friend.
Have you been on the receiving end of unsolicited advice or criticism? How did it make you feel? Was it what you needed? Did it feel invasive?
Discomfort felt in your experiment likely gave you cause to rethink offering advice or criticism without permission. We may have become desensitized to the discomfort it causes but that doesn’t negate it.
Why do we offer advice or criticism?
It may be because we value the connection and fear losing it, because we long to be valued or because we fear our friend’s actions will reflect poorly on us. When a friend is struggling or even when their lives have changed in a good way, we may feel them slipping away. Their energy is focused elsewhere so we can’t feel their orb touching ours like it used to. This shift can scare us when we don’t understand it and our fear can throw us into enabling or condescending behaviors. When condescending we want to tell them what to do and how to do it or guilt them to bring them close again. But condescending can only serve to create distance.
Venting without permission is condescending too. Have you ever noticed that when a friend vents they feel lighter and you feel heavier? That is because their confusion has seeped into your orb. Venting for venting’s sake brings to my mind a flailing garden hose spewing discord onto anyone in the vicinity. Not so respectful.
If you desire to be of assistance, people respond best when treated with respect. If you miss the joy a friend brings into your life, be truthful. Let them know what you cherish about them, not to burden them, but so your love is expressed rather than withheld. When taking someone’s choices personally enough to warrant condescension it would be more loving, truthful and simple to admit that we are emotionally charged than to offer advice, criticize or vent from this charged place.
Expressing love, care, and concern kisses the hurt. If you’ve ever experienced condescension, it feels more like having a band-aid ripped off.
Truth With Love Is Liberating
Close your eyes for a moment and revisit your experiment frame by frame.
In part #1 you thought you had a good idea, but you didn’t engage your friend prior to proceeding. You were up to something that they weren’t in on. What deepened the intimacy was using the situation as a springboard into truth and love territory.
In part #2, you were honest about your violation. Your actions caused discomfort and you owned them. Justifications and excuses didn’t distract you; you kept it simple. Discomfort was caused, you initiated it and you both felt it.
You invited your friend to be honest about his/her discomfort. You were genuinely interested in getting to know him/her better.
You shared how it felt to be the violator. You let your friend get to know you better.
Then together you sought correction. You went in search of the sweet spot where your orbs tenderly, thoughtfully and deliberately touched. Heightening your sensitivity by reenacting the violation helped you to find it.
You both entered the zone where learning, healing and growth take place. It is the place where truth and love both reside; the place where it is safe to drop our defenses and be seen for who we are, including our vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
When we are truthful and loving with our touches, those around us are there simply because they want to be (unconditionally) rather than because we coerced or enabled
Conclusion
“I just want to love and be loved. I want to love like Jesus did. Unconditionally.”
Jesus was true to Himself. His love for God was unwavering—it was without condition—without enabling or condescension. He didn’t pretend that there was no God in order to get along (enable), nor did He try to change others (condescension) to get them to come along with Him. They followed Him of their own volition.
As with the proverb, “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly,” Jesus’ crucifixion was followed by His resurrection. Fortunately we don’t have to physically die to put to rest our enabling and/or condescending ways—our behaviors that block intimacy.
Mastering truth with love transforms us, inspires others and may scare off those who aren’t ready. It reveals our colors, shares our hearts and lifts us to a place where others value mastering it too. It becomes easier with practice and if you’ve done the experiment you’ve got one under your belt already, along with a gauge for what it feels like. After all, everyone is looking for the sweet spot where orbs tenderly, honestly and respectfully kiss; some just don’t know it yet.
When desiring connection remember the KISS Guide to Intimacy:
- Truth without love is condescending,
- And love without truth is enabling,
- But truth with love is liberating.
