Healthy Boundaries

The other day I was at the gym, watching a show on Vh1. I'm not a big fan of reality tv but I was attempting to climb a mountain on the elliptical machine and I just didn't have the energy to change the channel. Now most reality shows, from what I can gather, are about as far from real life as one could get. This one, however, seemed different.

I caught the show somewhere in the middle so I don't know all of the details but from what I could gather, a woman was attempting to set some boundaries with her son's father. "Today I am going to tell him that he needs to take my son for the weekend," she said. "But this is going to be very hard for me. I've never done this before, even though it's what we had agreed upon. I'm just not used to setting any kind of boundaries with him. With anyone for that matter. "Aha!" I thought. "Even reality show characters have problems with setting boundaries." Then I hit another difficult incline and forgot all about this poor woman until I sat down to write today's post.

Let's face it. A lot of us have problems setting boundaries with certain people in our lives. In fact, as I scroll through a mental list of all of the women I know, EVERY ONE of them has told me, at some point, that they struggle with setting boundaries with at least one person. We want to be perceived as nice and helpful. We want people to like us. We want the people we love to know that we are there for them. And of course all of this goes utterly wrong when we start to let others cross that sacred line that divides our true selves from our obligatory ones.

In my previous entry, I discussed the difference between being compassionate and being a doormat. In her amazing book on personal healing entitled Light Emerging, author Barbara Brennan discusses the differences between positive relationships and negative ones:

Healthy positive relationships are interdependent and have clearly established contracts of honesty, support and caring. In them there is plenty of room for freedom, creativity and self-expression as well as healthy care and concern for each other. On the other hand, unhealthy relationships are created through negative, unhealthy "contracts" that limit, trap, use, control and even intimidate the people in them. They block creativity, personal expression and interfere with the natural personal growth of each person involved.

Brennan goes on to state that these negative relationships are actually the result of negative "contracts"-or unspoken agreements-that we have gotten ourselves into. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. The friend who is always late, even to appointments when timelieness is needed? The family member who borrows money from you and never pays you back? You don't say anything to them because of a negative contract. Somewhere along the line you agreed not to say anything. Not out loud of course, maybe not even consciously. But somewhere inside of you, at some point in time, you registered that this behavior bothered you and then decided that you weren't going to say anything about it. That is a negative contract. According to Brennan, the only way to get out of a negative contract is to break it.

If you begin to examine, honestly and openly, why you've created a negative contract, if you begin to truly look at your intentions, what you will find is a need to be approved of and loved. For example, perhaps you have a problem standing up to your mom. When you call her, she criticizes you and you don't speak up on your own behalf. Ask yourself why. Are you afraid if you did she would get angry? Hang up on you? Never speak to you again? And what if she did one or even all of these actions, what would that ulitmately mean? That she did not love you?

If you look deep enough, what you will realize is that underneath every negative contract is a fear of not being accepted and not being loved. Ironically what happens when we participate in negative contracts is that we never get the kind of acceptance and love we are looking for because when we allow others to violate our boundaries, we will not feel accepted and loved by them. In addition, we will not feel as if we love or accept ourselves either, because we are not standing up for ourselves. A negative contract serves no one, not even the other person whom you think you are helping by continuing your participation in it. If you have any negative contracts in your life, I would highly encourage you to break them. The payoff for breaking a negative contract is very rewarding, even if it seems very scary and daunting to do so at first.

There are two steps to breaking a negative contract. The first step is to become aware that it exists and to raise your awareness of the negative effects it has on your life. The second step is to gather up enough courage to do that which you are most afraid to do in regards to the negative contract- to do what you must do in order to break it. If you've thought of someone with whom you have a negative contract, it's time to dissolve it. As long as you have a negative contract with anyone, you will stifle your true self, your creativity and your deepest love. Don't you think you deserve a happy and solid life? Don't you deserve honest, fulfilling relationships with others? Those negative contracts need to be broken!

In this post, I've included two charts, complete with examples and written explanations so that you can understand how to complete them. I've included an example from Gary, a man who believes he has to give his mother excessive caretaking in order to be loved by her. (This is an example from Brennan's book). The explanation will walk you through how Gary filled out both of the charts and will give you information on his story. I have also included my own personal example chart as well.

The first chart is designed to help you raise your awareness of why are participating in the negative contract and how the contract is negatively affecting your life. As you go through and fill out your own chart (after looking at the examples), be compassionate with yourself. There is an innocence here, a deep innocence that we all participate in because we want to be loved and accepted, that led you to create this contract in the first place. Now that you've grown into more self-awareness, it is time to break it. The second chart will walk you through the process of breaking it and will ask you to reflect on the benefits this action has on your life.

As you go through these exercises, there need not be any self-judgment on how long you've participated in the contract or how bad you've let things get. The essential and most important part of this exercise is making the decision and mustering up the bravery to leave behind what no longer serves you.

The following documents and charts are taken from one of my 12 week programs entitled Project Confidence.

Step One: Awareness of Negative Contract and Its Effects. Examples and charts here.

Step Two: Breaking the Negative Contract and forming a Positive Contract. Examples and charts here.

Good luck with the task ahead. Once you break the negative contract, go out and do something very nice for yourself. It's not easy to conjure up the courage to do this and you deserve some very big congratulations.