A few posts ago I wrote about the protective aspect of boundaries. The second part of your boundary is the containing part. Your containing boundary helps to contain your reactions and responses to people and situations. Its key job is to protect others and the world from you.
The containing part of your boundary is the part that keeps your stuff in. It helps you to handle your anger, frustration, and negative intensity in a relational way. It keeps you from harming another individual with your words, actions, energy or threats.
When we become angry, our containing boundary serves as a beacon for us to proceed with caution. It lets us know when we are about to cross the line and it pulls us back…if it’s a healthy containing boundary. If we do not have a healthy containing boundary then we are likely to be uncontained and subsequently violate other peoples’ boundaries.
If we call someone names, shame, ridicule, swear or yell at them, we are violating their boundaries. Telling someone what they are or are not thinking or feeling is also a boundary violation. It is not our place to decide what someone is truly thinking or feeling. Although we may think we know, we are not in that person’s head. We can only assume at best. In addition if we break promises, lie to, or put our hands on another person in anger, we are also violating their boundaries.
Whenever we violate another person’s boundaries, we are in boundary failure. This is true regardless of what the other person did. Many times people think they have the right to be emotionally abusive to someone because that person was hurtful to them first. This could not be further from the truth. Another person’s behavior does not give you or me the right to be equally offensive. You’re insults, hurtful words and/or actions are not justified, and they do, and will, get in the way of intimacy. Unless my life is being threatened, I do not have the right to be abusive in any way…ever.
We cannot have emotionally healthy and intimate relationships in our lives without a containing boundary. It is virtually impossible. Our lack of containment will keep intimacy at a distance even when all other factors are perfect. If we are not contained, we are not safe. If we’re not safe, we damage our relationships.
Challenge: Pay attention, for the next two weeks, to your containing boundary. Do you yell, swear at, call names, ridicule or intimidate others with your negative intensity? Do you lie, make promises you don’t keep? Do you threaten others by throwing things in anger, pushing, hitting, or shoving them? If you do any of these, do not kid yourself into thinking it’s not as bad as I think… the damage to your relationship is worse than–you think.
Commit to cleaning up your boundary violations first and foremost and then watch the changes in your relationships as a result.