Boundaries Part 1 – What are They?

Profit recently learned to jump fences. Considering that Serenity is directly across the street from a small school this is not a good thing. Profit is a one thousand pound working steer in training to become an ox. At this point in his life he a half ton puppy who LOVES children.

He is actually quite beautiful when he jumps. If he was a horse he would be my hunter jumper prospect instead of my logging prospect. However, horse or ox, he needs boundaries to keep him and others safe.

Boundaries. That word gets used so many folks in trouble. Boundaries are a staple in healthy relationships. Boundaries ate not emotional walls with buttresses and ramparts to keep others out. They are not tools for manipulation or oppression. Boundaries are not an impediment to intimacy.

Boundaries are fence lines, property borders that allow each person the freedom and privacy needed to live and thrive. Profit in in his two acre pasture with his brother Asset. Next to him is my garden, the crop field, and the school. Each field and property has a designated use. I don’t plant my crop in Profit’s field and expect him to leave it alone. The children wouldn’t dream of walking through his pasture as a short cut to school any more than I would do laundry in my garden or set up house in the school. We each respect the free functioning of space. The children enjoy seeing the oxen. The oxen enjoy seeing the children. No one would enjoy Profit romping through a game of tag in the school yard.

How often do we do that in our relationships, though? How often do we think we have the “right” to jump into other people’s emotional or physical space and issues?

Boundaries are the fences that create safe, healthy relationships. Just like fenced fields, they have gates. When we decide to only walk into our neighbor’s field through an open gate does true relationship begin. When we enter their space as invited while respecting the edges of their emotional property real intimacy becomes possible.

Until next time,

Craft no harm,

Moriah and the flock