Part ten in a series.
This week marks the end of the first half of James Mellon's "Mental Muscle" Spiritual Boot Camp. For the second week in a row, Boot Campers were asked to focus on two intentions: boundaries and priorities.
I begin with priorities because, frankly, they were the less painful of the two for me. That was not the case for other Boot Campers. There was consistent reporting from people who do not make themselves their #1 priority. From my vantage point, this was tied to the battle between selfishness and selflessness.
When I was 22, I went into my first "live in" relationship. After only three months, the guy told me he was moving out. I was hurt, but put that aside for an attitude of "if you love someone, set them free." The guy wanted to go and who was I to stop him?
Even though he wanted out, he was completely irritated when I didn't fight with him about what was happening. He yelled, "You are so selfless!" That accusation didn't faze me one bit. At the time, I was proud to be selfless and thought it was a good thing. I believed making others a priority was what I was supposed to do to be liked and considered a good person.
The day after our break-up, I came home to find he'd left a copy of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" on my pillow. I figured he was trying to send me a message, so I began to read.
In his copy of the book, endless passages about selfishness were highlighted. After reading one particular section, I literally ran to the bathroom to vomit. I don't remember what I read; only that the extremities of selfishness were so negative they made me sick. I never picked up the book again. I couldn't believe someone wanted to live that way, or wanted me to live that way.
After an experience where I got physically ill from the idea of being selfish, I was even stronger in my resolve to be selfless. It took years to realize a healthy form of selfishness existed.
When Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat, Pray, Love", was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a woman in the audience asked Elizabeth, "How can I pursue all the things I want in life without becoming self-centered?"
Elizabeth's response was, "In Mandarin Chinese they have two words for selfish. One means, 'doing that which is beneficial to you' and the other means 'hoarding, greedy, and cruel.' I think it is an etymological problem in English that we have taken those two entities and pushed them together into one, so we automatically think that anything beneficial to ourselves is hoarding, greedy and cruel."
Those words changed my life. The pattern of putting others before me stopped right there. I was given an excellent litmus test for knowing when there was nothing wrong with making myself a priority.
Following the "Mental Muscle" directives, I kept a daily list of priorities. My lists were very simple and almost the same every morning; to have a good day, take care of myself, and stay clear and calm in facing any challenges that might come up. When James asked us to list our overall priorities to him during a Boot Camp session, mine came in the order of "healthy 'me first', then family, friends, and job." I feel my priorities are in line and I'm happy about that.
Boundaries are another story. I've mentioned feeling unable to push through walls and boundaries throughout this series. Now, I had to spend a week examining why.
James believes all boundaries are bad. He said, "There is no such thing as a healthy boundary. You all can argue with me on this, but there is no reason for a boundary if you know who you are. There is nothing you need protection from. There are choices to be made, but making a choice [does not mean] putting up a wall."
As the week started, I completely disagreed with him. I shared stories on the "Mental Muscle" blog that included some of the worst experiences of my life, and also wrote James privately to discuss even bigger boundaries I have. Everything I wrote explained why all of my roadblocks and walls were necessary to prevent hurt, pain and rejection.
I don't believe I had boundaries initially. I didn't want to believe people were bad, or abusive, or greedy. I trusted so easily; then I would get hurt. I got so accustomed to being hurt that the walls around my heart kept getting bigger and bigger. I became skeptical and no longer felt I could trust my instincts. I never realized that the more I was closing myself off, the more I was hurting myself.
James asked, "How would you feel if you were to drop all your boundaries?"
I immediately thought of a piece of art on my bedroom wall that contains a quote: "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" Every time I see it, my answer is "Everything!"
James' question is close to the same. The idea of living without boundaries feels exciting and liberating. I would enjoy not having boundaries and being able to maintain a sense of "feeling safe." I believe that in breaking down the walls, my life would be radically different and I'd have everything I want.
So, with that, I found myself actually understanding James' point of view on boundaries and how bad they are. Walls have truly done nothing but box me in. Boundaries have been damaging to me and my spirit.
This is not to say it won't take an enormous amount of work to get rid of my boundaries, but my feeling about them now is that they stink. I feel the walls in my head buckling and my priority is to keep knocking them down.