Are You Over-Boundaried Or Boundary-less?
Like many young children, my daughter, Isabelle, loves Dr. Seuss’ classic children’s book, Green Eggs and Ham. You have likely read this book as a child or to your children, but to refresh your memory let me share the plot with you. In this classic story, Sam-I-Am offers an unnamed yellow character a plate of green eggs and ham. This stern looking unnamed creature tells Sam that he does not like green eggs and ham.
Throughout the story, Sam continues to ask him to eat this food in various locations including in a house, box, car, tree, train, boat, and other places. He also asks the grouchy character to eat the green eggs and ham with different animals such as a mouse, fox, and goat, but he continues to tell Sam that he does not want to try them. Finally, the unnamed antagonist agrees to taste the green plate of food in exchange for Sam-I-Am leaving him alone. When the unnamed yellow creature tries the delicacy, he is surprised that the dish is quite tasty. He thanks Sam and the moral of the story seems to be an invitation to be more open to new things, people, and foods.
My daughter, Isabelle, is a recently minted 4 year old, but several months ago, not long before she turned 4, we were reading Green Eggs and Ham and Isabelle stopped me during the story and looked up at me with her big beautiful blue eyes and said, “Mom, Sam-I-Am sure doesn’t have very good boundaries, does he?”
I was flabbergasted by her statement. I did not know what boundaries were until I was in my 20s, and here was my three year old using the word boundaries in a contextually correct manner and seeing another important moral in Dr. Suess’ famous book. And she was correct. Sam-I-Am did not have very good boundaries, while the grumpy character seemed to be exercising healthy boundaries by saying no to eating the green eggs and ham. The unnamed character had told Sam-I-Am no over 10 times and Sam kept pestering him.
I was 25 years old when I started working as a Chaplain Resident at a veterans hospital. Chaplain Residents work 20 hours a week seeing hospital patients and spend an additional 20 hours a week in both pastoral education classes and reflecting on their work under the care of a pastoral educator. The pastoral educators who supervised me could see my strengths and weaknesses. They talked to me about many of my growing edges, including the fact that I struggled with boundaries and taking care of myself.
People who struggle with boundaries can have a hard time saying no to others, they put the needs of others before their own, they tend to take on others’ problems or responsibilities, they don’t make space for self-care, and they often experience exhaustion and compassion fatigue, because they are overwhelmed by all their commitments. If this list hits home for you, it may be time to start setting healthy boundaries in your life.
The pastoral educators I worked with really encouraged me to make time for self-care and self-reflection, and they also encouraged me to say the word no more often and set boundaries with my family of origin. I learned that saying no to others meant saying yes to myself, and this was life-changing for me. Setting boundaries is something I still have to diligently work at all these years later, but I have found I actually have so much more to give to others when I practice good boundaries.
While setting boundaries has been a life-giving practice in my life, I am worried our culture might be going too far with the practice of boundaries. I have met with both clients and friends who have shared painful stories of children who no longer speak with them because their coach or therapist advised them to have stronger boundaries. Somehow a coach’s advice or Instagram post about boundaries, convinced them setting boundaries meant cutting off a relationship with a loved one permanently. And while there are times when cutting off a relationship can be necessary because of emotional or physical abuse, or dealing with someone who has a severe personality disorder, I hear too many stories where the cut off seems to be rooted in more minor issues like political differences, religious arguments, or personality conflicts. Even our contemporary language of unfriending or ghosting others, suggests that our boundaries with others might be too extreme.
We are very blessed to have a Bowen Theory Education Center here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This center’s mission is to educate the community about Dr. Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory, which is a type of therapy that advocates for differentiation, which is another word for individuation or boundaries. This education center has an 8 month program you can take through UTC to study Bowen Theory, but it also has a yearly symposium on Bowen Family Systems Theory that I have attended at least 5 times.
In 2011 and 2012, I attended a Bowen Symposium at UTC and the speaker, Dr. Papero shared that Dr. Bowen’s emphasis on differentiation or setting boundaries with your family of origin was often misunderstood. He argued that while Bowen articulated that it was very important not to have a fused relationship with your family, Murray Bowen also posited that cutting off emotional contact with your parental or extended family can actually increase the intensity of anxious symptoms in a family. Dr. Papero explained that opening up meaningful relationships with our parents and extended family could actually reduce the tension and symptoms in the entire nuclear family. He also told us that being disconnected from one’s family leads to an increase in chronic anxiety and stress. So while Bowen believed that being in a enmeshed relationship that lacks boundaries with a parent, love one, or colleague can cause anxiety, he also articulated that being disconnected is equally destructive, with the possible exception of abuse of some kind. Papero shared research with the symposium attendees that indicated the best predictor of whether a marriage will be sustained is correlated with how the couple maintains contact with their extended family.
Bowen Family Systems Theory also suggests that cut offs in a family system tend to perpetuate cut-offs. For example, if you were to cut off a relationship with your sibling, your own child would be more likely to cut off contact with their sibling. This is because Bowen Theory believes there is a multigenerational pass down and the family system continues to repeat the patterns that have been modeled to them.
I am so glad my daughter already knows the word boundaries and realizes they are important. However, as this world becomes more and more polarized, my hope for Isabelle and all of us, is to be mindful that boundaries do not have to mean cut-offs. If there is a family member or friend in your life who is hard to love right now, I would encourage you to set boundaries with this person, and yet think about how you might also stay connected to them in some meaningful way. If we are too strict with our boundaries, we are over-boundaried. But if we are too adaptable, we are boundary-less. People with healthy boundaries tend to live both individuated and connected lives. They have found the sacred balance between autonomy and belonging.
A version of the article was originally published in the Lookout Mountain Mirror.
