Do you avoid confrontation with people because you are afraid of getting hurt? Well, today we are going to discuss handling boundaries. DIVA Helaine Harris and I spoke about this recently and here are the nuggets I learned that I want to pass along to you.

It’s about us learning how to forgive our enemies, people who annoy us and treat us unfairly . It’s not really that you’re doing this for the other person. We do this so we don’t spend out lives being tormented and upset. It’s not for the other person, it’s for ourself.  You’re not spending your life being upset with someone whose off having a great time. There’s freedom in that. When your heart is full of anger and bitterness, you are not free.

When you begin to live like this, you learn to stay inside your border where you’re safe. When you step out of your boundary and try to get back at other people, then that’s when you get yourself into trouble.

We spend so much time talking about people who aggravate us but we won’t talk to the people who aggravate us and telling them what is or isn’t acceptable.

It’s a margin or a border we set in our life. We have to set boundaries in our life.

For example, when I was 18 and moved into my first apartment with a roomate, we had a boy in our building whose place was the party apartment. He had an open door policy. You could come over anytime you like, door was always open, you didn’t even have to knock. He and I started dating. Now  me, I’m the opposite I like to know when people are coming over. I lived downstairs from him and he used to just roll up on me at my place.  And so I finally had to tell him: “I’d really rather you not come over without calling first. At first he was offended, “Well, I’m your boyfriend and I live downstairs.” I had to explain that wasn’t trying to be rude but that was my boundary.

We need to not only set our own boundaries, but we need to respect other peoples boundaries and not get aggravated about it because everyone is entitled to having their boundaries respected.

If your neighbor’s dog poos on your lawn and you don’t have a fence, you can’t get mad at the neighbor. But if you have a fence then your neighbor is going to have to be a lunatic to pick his dog up and put him over and let him poo on your lawn, then you have a right to be mad.

So what we need to do is put up some fences in our life and stop letting everyone walk all over us and then get mad at them because they do it.  Can I get an amen?

Are you resentful because you feel someone is now or has taken advantage of you? Well, you know resentment is a really bad thing and sometimes a little hard to detect. Resentment is a deep root that gets deep within you and does something with your attitude. You start thinking things about people like: “I dont like your shoes, the way you look, your voice” it seeps into your attitude. I think it’s the reason why people have depression or chip on their shoulders.

Maybe you set boundaries and donn’t enforce those boundaries? If you say things like: “Do that one more time, and  (insert a consequence) then next time that person does it you have to do what you said you were going to do. If no, then our borders and boundaries become a joke. So we need to be strong with our boundaries.

It’s just a thought.

Have a wonderful day!