For the last couple of months, who am I kidding, my whole life, really, I have been on a journey. A big part of navigating all of that has been learning how to extract toxic patterns from my life and set healthy boundaries with myself and others. Notice I say extract patterns, NOT people. People are inherently pure. People are inherently love. People are doing the best they can and trying to choose the experiences that they, themselves need to grow.
People are not inherently toxic but sometimes the energy and choices that they are aligning themselves with can be. Perhaps not even to them, who am I, really, to make that call? I'm certainly not their Soul. I do not know what experiences or even substances they may need to dance with for their own growth. All I can say without recrimination, is that the choices, substances and energies that some are entangled with, feel toxic to me. And that is where the bottom line lies, for me. I cannot in good conscience and accountability to myself entangle with those energies.
The point of relational boundaries is very simply this, distinction within the experiences of wholeness. There may be one energy ultimately a unified field of consciousness and that is manifesting through a billion and one flavors. Baskin Robbins ain't got nothing on consciousness!
Consciousness, whether acting in a conscious or unconscious way is full of variety, is full of choice, is full of possibility, none necessarily better than an other, just different.
A relational boundary is looking at what patterns I want to host in my body, in my life, in my reality. A healthy relational boundary is me taking accountability for how I feel, allowing another to have their experiences, no matter how unappealing or even awful those might appear to me, no matter how badly I may want to reach across time and space and choke or embrace them. I go back and forth on that one. Still human. Boundaries are not stagnant lines drawn in the sand, they are living breathing energetic agreements that truly allow individuation, communication and compassion to flourish.
Real compassion is me being responsible for my own feelings and experiences and ultimately my own happiness. I cannot be held responsible for any one else's feelings or experience. I can take responsibility for how my behaviors effect another and I can choose how to respond to another's behavior toward me.
Living in happiness does not mean that nothing uncomfortable ever happens. Discomfort is a part of living a dynamic life, of being human. Living a life of happiness means that no matter what happens, I attend to myself, my needs with care and grace; and as I do so, I become the best version of myself, my joy expands, my capacity to give as well as the way I show up for myself and others.
Justice Bartlett
Play Devotee & Transformational Ally Extraordinaire!
playfullyconscious.com
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