Boundaries AND Forgiveness

All right you guys, welcome to another installation of the Wholehearted Podcast. I’m Tyler Patrick your wandering therapist and I'm excited to be here with you today. We still can't seem to kick the freezing cold temps right now so I think again it's another 12 degree day outside. My dog is like pattering around on the ice; she doesn't want to be out here right now. So I still got a toughen her up I guess a little bit but. I wanted to talk with you guys a little bit about something that kind of came up this week with my groups and also something that happened on social media. It kind of started with a post that my brother, Brandon, who is the expert from the podcast of the Betrayed, Addicted and the Expert podcast, he posted something on Facebook. And in essence, The thing that he posted was that. If we choose to see say our partners in a certain light we're going to find more of the same things that we see in them. And so if we choose negativity, eventually we see negativity, which feeds more negativity and it becomes this negative cycle. Whereas if we chose positivity, then we would likely see more positive things, which would lead to more joy, which would lead to this feedback loop going upward instead of downward. Which I thought was a pretty good point, except for the fact that, some other people got on and started commenting on about how. He was being insensitive to what it's like for someone who's been in a relationship where there's been bad betrayal or there's been abuse or something. There was really no validation for the experience of somebody who's been in a relationship like that. And people were saying, “well you shouldn't you shouldn't see the positive in somebody if they're actually abusing you.“ And so then I got on and just posted something related to the anatomy of peace called The Collusion Diagram, that talks about how we can still have a heart at peace and not have to stay in a bad relationship or we can still have boundaries. And so that got me thinking over the last couple of days about two words that most people never put together. And in fact people think they actually are opposite to each other in some ways. And I want to talk to you today about how to fuse these two words in a way that they can work in a symbiotic relationship, where you can have more power and more joy and less suffering in your life if you can figure out how to do these things. And those two words are: our boundaries and forgiveness. And so often when I teach the concept of forgiveness in my groups and in my practice, I see that my clients have a really difficult time with the concept of forgiveness and they think that if I forgive somebody for something that they've done to wrong me—maybe my partner’s betrayed me, or maybe somebody slandered my name at work, or somebody has done something to harm me or abused me in the past—if I forgive them, that means that I'm going to have to, number one, stay in the relationship, and number two, allow myself to continue to be abused again. And they don't understand that you can still have boundaries and forgiveness. With forgiveness that there's another concept that the Anatomy of Peace calls it “having a heart at peace.” One of the one of the women who commented to what I posted said, “So you're telling me that I should have stayed in twenty-five year relationship where I was continually abused.” And my answer would be, if I had a chance to talk in person, because it's too hard to talk over text is, “Absolutely not.” My answer had nothing to do with whether or not you should stay or go in that relationship. You should definitely not subject yourself to being treated that way, right? My answer was that, in setting the boundaries, you can choose to set boundaries with warmth and love and with the heart at peace. Or you can do it with resentment and anger and frustration, and the only difference between those two things—they'd be the exact same boundary—the only difference would be the level of suffering that the person who's setting the boundary is going to continue to absorb depending on where their hearts at. So boundaries and forgiveness. When you have boundaries without forgiveness, and you have resentment, what you end up with is, you end up with more suffering and a really harsh smack punishing boundary, right? But that doesn't help the person who's trying to actually set the boundaries in a certain way because they never actually get a chance to let their heart continue to move on and heal. If you have the other way, which is the world's definition of forgiveness which is “let it all go and don't do anything different and let people continue to hurt you,” well, what you're setting yourself up to do is be a doormat, potentially. You might have a forgiving heart, which is awesome if that's a gift that you have to be able to let go and forgive, but you set yourself up for the potential risk of being continually hurt and harmed, If you don't also put boundaries into place. The the marriage of those two things together is that I can get my heart to a place of peace where I can see even a person who has hurt me with compassionate eyes; I can see them as human; I can see them as not all good or all bad but simply as human with good and bad— and as a result of seeing them that way, I can now set the boundaries that I need to in the relationship in a loving way that allows me to keep my own integrity—to value my own values, to feel good about how I've set the boundaries in the aftermath, and to protect myself from continually being hurt. So I'll give you an example of how this might work. If I'm in a relationship with my wife and I've been betraying her for several years and it finally comes to light. She, through the course of trying to figure out how to just survive, she knows it's not right. She knows she deserves to be in a relationship with someone who's honest and transparent and humble, which are core principles of recovery; core principles of wholehearted living. She knows that she should have that in her relationships and she hasn't had that with me up to this point. She can set the boundary without forgiveness and with resentment and without a heart of peace which would sound something like, “Tyler get the hell out of here. I never want to see your face again. You disgust me. I will no longer allow you to continue to hurt me. You're the most despicable human being I've ever met.” She's set the boundary. She's going to get to safety. She's gonna get space. She's not going allow me to hurt her anymore. But, her heart is in a spot where she will continue to harbor those evil feelings, she'll continue to suffer. She'll continue to allow me to hurt her by proxy, even if I'm not in the picture anymore. And you guys will see this. Look at all of the divorces that happen in the world. Very few of them end in an amicable way. Part of it's because people's hearts go to war, and they never actually get to forgiveness and letting go for their own sake; for their own hearts. Same situation: my wife's heart is at peace. She sees me for who I am: a flawed man who's made some mistakes, who's doing some things to harm her. But, she also sees that I'm a human being, and that there might be some good to me too, and that maybe there's some things that are driving my behaviors, even though they're not okay. And I can't continue to do them in the relationship. She might come to me and be able to say something like, “Hey Tyler, this is really really hard for me. I can't allow you to continue to treat me these ways. I deserve honesty and respect and transparency in relationships. For some reason I don't know what it is, I know that's really really hard for you. I can't continue to be on this crazy train with you. I wish you the very best. I hope the best for you. I just can't come along anymore. I need some space. I need some time. I need a break. And if you decided you wanted to be honest and transparent, there's a chance that we might be able to figure something out. But until then, I'm not a part of this anymore.“. Hopefully you can see and hear and feel the difference between the two things. This example has a heart of peace. It has forgiveness. It has boundaries. It allows her to still value herself. Keep her home values and integrity intact. While also letting go of all of the pain that she might be carrying as a result of the things that I've done to her. So the challenge you guys is to think about your relationships in this context. Think of places where you might be harboring some resentments. I heard a quote one time that said, ”If you're harboring a resentment it's a sign that you don't have accurate boundaries.” And if you have some resentments think about what boundaries might need to be set. But not just ‘what’ boundaries, but ’how’ you'll set those boundaries by getting your heart to a place of peace, by seeing whoever it is that you need to set those boundaries with as a human being who is neither good nor bad. They're both. Just like you are. We're all good and bad. It's all part of our nature. And if we see that in people, it allows us to then operate from our value system instead of be reactionary to whatever is emotionally going on for us. So hopefully that's a helpful tip to you. Consider your relationships in the context of boundaries and forgiveness, And I promise you that you'll experience deeper satisfaction and gratitude in your own lives and in your relationships. Thank you guys.