BOUNDARIES. Myth or Meaningful?

Do you want thriving and meaningful friendships? A common mistake within most friendships is a lack of healthy boundaries. "But I'm so lonely, Moorea! I just want to be loved and known. SOMEONE has to know my story, don't they?

So much to say here: Filling that void at the expense of your self-love & value ALWAYS ends up with deeper emptiness: this is true for friendships, but also sexual relationships outside of covenant.

Being married now, I feel like I have a new perspective on why constructing boundaries would have benefited my social and inward life in my early 20s. I always needed and wanted intimate friends, like my life depended on it, until I learnt to become friends with myself in my mid-20s. But that's for another time:

In order to grow a garden of rich and meaningful relationships, we need great boundaries to protect the quality of the soil. I care about the quality of connection that I have with my husband - of all humans, he comes first. And the more times I set a boundary to protect that intimate space, I remind both him and myself that our connection reigns as priority. This causes him to feel safe and at ease, knowing his place in my heart is unshakable. Boundaries can look like me not sharing valuable / intimate information about his life with others. It can also look like declining invitations for exciting events or opportunities to serve if it clashes with our plans, an unresolved issue that we are working through, or the simple desire to just do nothing and be together like couch potatoes for an evening - because that is more precious than the most exciting new event. These sorts of decisions add value to our relationship and also to my heart. You see, despite all my big dreams and visions, the bottom line is, after God my heart's desire and priority is Felix. By making boundaries to protect our connection, I am also setting boundaries to honor the values and desires of my heart. This "parable" reveals the two main vitals for being able to construct healthy boundaries: - Recognizing what your values are / what your heart truly values and living with integrity to that for your own sake and the sake of your character.

- Displaying your value for the relationship so that the receiver can recognize your value for them. Boundaries protect relationship.

I remember reading an article on good customer service. It said that if you only had one hour a week to respond to customers, you should put all your time and effort into the ones that support your brand, have positive reviews, or have taken the time to send you their thoughts. Even though friendship building is not a customer service or marketing endeavor, the point I want to make is that, in customer service, you learn to PRIORITIZE your more meaningful connections. The more time you have, the more you can spend on those who are perhaps less connected to your brand. What does this do? it fortifies the relationship you have with your best customers, which in turn brings a better result , as they may recommend your brand to others.

If you invested all your time into people-pleasing to try and get everyone to like your brand, you might make peace with frustrated customers, but you would loose the authentic, real, quality connections which would have benefited the business more. Friends are honest investments of heart and time. Quality ones require higher levels of intentionality, and boundaries are necessary to produce intentionality within your relationships.

The other thing is that Boundaries are for your self. You should value yourself just as much as your friends, lest you wish to remain a doormat for the rest of your life. The Bible says to love others as you love yourself - that's saying something valuable about self love and making friendship with yourself!

Honestly, I don't trust a person as a close friend if they don't express a healthy self-love and ability to set good boundaries. Why? Because if they don't even show integrity to their own heart, then how can I know the integrity of this relationship is stable? I am proud of my friends if they put up a boundary, for example, "sorry Moo, can we skype next week instead? I only have 2 hours free before work and I need to rest". I respect their boundaries, and I celebrate that they can honestly share where they are at, without feeling obligated to fulfill a "friend's duty"out of a "lack" mindset, or insecurity / fear. Does that make sense?

The reason why my friend's boundaries don't lead to me feeling anxious or rejected is:

1) That is in God's hands, not my friends and 2) We have established, through protecting our relationship and making other sacrifices for each other, that we are in this for real. I know my friends love and choose me, so if they cancel because they need to look after their heart for whatever reason, I respect that. The bible talks a lot about being faithful with the little, and then being rewarded with bigger responsibilities (Luke 16: 10 &11). I see it the same way with being faithful with your own heart & life - managing that really well will often lead to finding friends who walk in an equal value level, thus promoting friendships that win. Remember: You are a Queen, and so are your friends. You each have a valuable kingdom to take care of, and that is your own heart.

There is more to say on this, but I'll leave you with that for now. xx M