Sixteen-year-old Josh ran away from home. Not far — just to a friend’s house — but far enough to make a point. There’d been a lot of nagging, a lot of lectures, a lot of upset: between Josh and his mom, between his mom and his stepfather, the whole household churning with grievance and history and everyone’s feelings about everyone else’s feelings.
He finally came home. And when he did, he brought something with him that stopped his mother cold.
“Mama, I don’t want your story. I just want your boundaries. I just want to know what the rules are.”
Sixteen years old. He didn’t want her history of being wronged. He didn’t want explanations or justifications. He wanted to know what she would and wouldn’t accept. Clearly, calmly, and with love. To feel her love — as opposed to her story — he needed to know her limits.
And here’s what he understood that took her longer to see: she had become unpredictable and unstable in her responses. At times she seemed willing to go along with something; other times she was upset by the very same thing. She was warm and endlessly accommodating much of the time, but angry other times — and in the face of all that ambivalence, it was getting hard for the people who loved her to find her. To know who she was and what to expect.
Humans in general — not just kids — have a tendency to push, to test the edges, to find out where you begin and they end. And when they push and there’s nothing there, something feels uneasy. Insecure. We need the wall — not because we want to be stopped, but because the wall tells us there’s a real person on the other side. That’s why kids test boundaries. That’s why boyfriends sometimes do. Even employees.
But as Josh illustrates, it’s bad enough not knowing where someone’s limits are. What makes it so much worse is that instead of people telling us clearly what works for them, we get their d___ stories — complaints, accusations, judgment, and upset. The whole production. Everything except the the information we’re looking for.
What am I saying?
The truth is:
People don’t want your story. They want your boundaries.
Your story is about the past. Your boundaries are about the future.
Your story is a black hole from which there is no return. Your boundaries are the way out — for you and for the people you care about most.
Of course, the real loss that occurs in lacking personal boundaries isn’t just incurring the kind of pulling out your hair moments described above with Josh. The greater loss is your soul (or at least what you’ve experienced as such).
If you’ve spent years giving your power away — to a spouse, a partner, a child, a colleague — pieces of you are scattered across the lives of those people. Living in and being true to your own personal boundaries is how you reclaim yourself.
At its core, Agreement 3 is your commitment to notice the difference between a loved one’s level of commitment and the level of your current involvement with them, including the privileges you’re extending. When those two things are out of alignment, something needs to shift. Agreement 3 is the first part of that shift- noticing.
But make a note here- an important one- real boundaries don’t come from disappointment in who someone is. They come from fully seeing who someone is — both ends of the stick — and choosing clearly what you’ll do and won’t do within that reality.