When Boundaries are Actually Rules

I remember sitting in a coffee shop with a friend over a decade ago; I had moved to Nashville less than a year before and was slowly starting to lean in, even more, to the questions I had around my faith and the rules I had created for myself as a result. Though this friend came from a church with similar theology and practices as what I had participated in, she had a more open position toward various behaviors and ways of interacting with people. Despite her being years younger than me, she was someone I deeply respected; I took her gentle challenging of what I considered my boundaries, in stride and appreciated her feedback. She began asking me about my physical boundaries: what I viewed as allowable regarding physical intimacy within romantic relationships. 

I shared with her my boundary: no kissing before marriage. Though I didn’t say it, the ‘no kissing’ part also implied “no’s” to many other physical acts of intimacy. Basically, I was ok with holding hands and hugs. Everything else led down the slippery slope of sinfulness. 

This was not a boundary I had ever put much thought into before. I had learned over a decade before that I was not to see how close to “the line” I could get, but rather I should see how far away I could stay from it. I was praised and made to be an example for others who were desiring to live their lives and relationships in a godly way. 

However, on that day–perhaps because of the deconstruction work I had already done–I was ready to hear her challenge. When she gently asked me where, in the Bible, I was basing this rule off of, I was stumped. For the first time, I realized that there was no Bible verse that talked about how important it was to save my lips for my future husband. In fact, I began to recognize that there were no verses in the Bible that spoke to many of the rules I had for myself–rules that had been prescribed as the mostly godly practices to engage in, in order to have a holy and pure relationship.

It seemed almost easy to consider that I needed to reevaluate my rules (ahem, boundaries) around kissing. It was a light bulb moment in the sense that I couldn’t argue with what she was saying. So I began to consider discarding that boundary.

And then it hit me: if this rule that I had clung so tightly to was in fact not in the Bible and had not been prescribed by God himself, then I needed to take a hard look at all of the rules I had for myself. Intuitively I recognized that pulling on this singular thread would likely unravel the entire garment. 

So I pulled. And my world bottomed out. 

I hadn’t considered that letting go of one boundary would result in having to question every aspect of my life. There was relief and freedom in this…but also terror, doubt, and confusion. 

Though I sometimes wish I would have been able to get out of high control religion much earlier in life, there are silver linings of gratitude I have for being older. One of them is a fully developed prefrontal cortex of my brain that allowed me to learn from my mistakes, evaluate things logically and employ greater amounts of wisdom more naturally. Because of this, I understood that the discarding of my boundary meant I needed to reflect on and develop new boundaries for myself. I didn’t want to live without what I felt was a solid foundation that my beliefs and values informed. 

***

I used to think that I regretted not taking more intentional time to develop boundaries for myself after discarding the ones that stemmed from high control religion. I often wondered if I had been more thoughtful and reflective if I would have saved myself from harm and confusion that I endured. 

It’s possible. It’s possible that if I had created a new set of rules (ahem…boundaries) for myself that I would have avoided much pain. Maybe I would be at a different place in my life. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to spend as much money on therapy. It’s possible. 

However, I can also reflect back to know that any boundaries created back then would have been the same amount of fundamentalist and rigid that were present in my boundaries from high control religion. I still would have used them as a measuring stick for how I was doing–how good I was, how much more evolved I was, or how much more responsible I was. I still would have judged others by the boundaries I had created for myself. 

It’s not that I didn’t have any boundaries. I did. But they were rigid and inflexible. I did want to feel safe but ultimately my boundaries were the rules I tried to get others to follow in order to help  myself feel safe. And when they didn’t follow my prescriptions for life, I felt hurt and often was hurt. 

What I realized many years later is that my boundaries were a desperate attempt to keep myself safe by creating a list of do’s and don’ts. But they didn’t take into consideration what I needed to feel safe, my own sense of empowerment, or that it was my job to implement and hold these boundaries. I didn’t trust myself to keep my boundaries. I needed others to respect them so that I could respect them. I outsourced my trust to others and hoped that by trusting them, I would be safe. 

It wasn’t until I began developing self-compassion and self-trust that my boundaries began to change. Learning to trust myself offered me access to things like being self-reliable, giving myself the most generous assumption, allowing for mistakes, recognizing that I shared a common humanity with others that didn’t require self-judgment. Self-trust allowed me to silence the loud voices of self-criticism and turn the volume up on self-compassion. I began to believe in myself and trust that not only could I provide safety for myself, I could communicate that to other people and live from a space of honoring and valuing myself even if others didn’t.

In so many ways setting and holding boundaries no longer feels scary or daunting. I don’t worry about what others will think of my boundaries. Nor do I get offended if someone else doesn’t prefer my boundaries. My boundaries are for me. They are developed from a place of knowing and trusting myself and offering myself kindness and compassion. 

Developing boundaries on a foundation of self-trust and self-compassion was a theme that came up repeatedly in my research for my doctoral work. Over and over, the research reflected that when we are able to tap into these things, we develop a sense of empowerment and a freedom to engage with the world and others in a new way that honors everyone’s humanity and celebrates each person’s uniqueness.