Today I was challenged to recognize, set and communicate a boundary with a friend. This was for my own self care and preservation, because I was feeling drained by how I was processing the information presented. I saw myself trying to fix and problem solve, in a situation where it was not my job, and it wasn’t asked for, nor was it clearly presented as something that was ready for solving, or required solving at all. Although space was graciously made to hear my unfiltered bias, aka opinions on the matter and consent was given to share them, my programmed response to the information shared was all about me. The fixing was all about my comfort. This is not a judgment, but I realized the truth of this.
Especially as neurodivergent and highly sensitive people, we need to have some control over our environments, and even the way we correspond with the people around us can fall under that umbrella of control. Sometimes its a bare minimum of what we need to function. Bringing self-awareness to this can help us to navigate the “outside” world, a reflection of our inner world and relationship to self. If we are aware of the boundaries we need with others, and the boundaries we need to set for ourselves, I believe this Life can be a more peaceful process, unfiltered as it can sometimes be.
The requested boundary of not discussing the upsetting matter deemed a “problem” and witnessing this friend’s repeated behavior and pain in regards to it, was graciously received with utmost kindness, and it was a healthy experience where I was able to “LIVE” in the moment analyze my own unproductive and destructive behaviors. This is not to say that having compassion and wanting to help and be of service is a bad thing, but healthy boundaries, consent and self awareness of your motivations is key to a healthier dynamic with self and other. I’ll share my process and inner awareness as it may be of service if you have shared similar experiences.
I caught myself “fixing” and trying to get someone else to see a connection between two actions, behaviors or ways of being, so that they could have that “pop” that my clients had before. This relief or release happens when they begin to see things in a new light, its clearer all of a sudden and the pieces are fitting like they hadn’t before. It’s also pleasurable for me to witness, satisfying to have that feeling of completion. Some clients they’ll choose to disconnect from the pieces, while other pieces fit and thrive as the connection matches who they truly are.
This is where my motivations became selfish.
Whose to say that I know better than this person, for this person? Whose to say that my interfering is for sure in their highest greatest good? Just because a person, continually brings you (what you consider) a “problem” that they cannot solve does not mean its for your solving. Or it might mean that your brainiac brain may solve it as to what you see is fit (tho it may not fit them)… and then you can actually have the willpower to choose not to share it until the other person asks and gives full consent for your interjections. (Ok there’s a little bit of reprimanding myself there.)
After all, you are still contributing with interference in a way, just by holding space and being there in the receiving and listening, but hopefully for an empath, not receiving too much. Which is so odd because with most of this self-help abundance training its about opening wide to receiving. Maybe there’s a way to receive information and sense without taking it on, or not taking it on as your responsibility to heal or solve. Not everything needs solving. Not everyone needs changing.
Although change is available to us all, it is a choice.
The truth is, people will change in their own time, if you can be a positive influence to them passively, or actively, Great. Sometimes just being you is enough to incite change not only in the environment, but to influence the people around you. If you are carrying around unsolidified, irretrievable, liquid molten anger, then you are also representing that frequency in the world. And likely, you yourself are burning… alive or dead.
I look at the reasons for selfishly wanting to present a solution or provide a less sufferable way of thinking about a seemingly stuck situation, and the number one that comes to me is: I do not want to suffer. I think that somehow “curing” them is going to release me from some pattern I’ve been held to. I’ll receive a get out of jail free card, or through karmic osmosis, finding the cure will help me to stop my obsessive patterning around the same thing. I also don’t like to see people I love suffering, and as an empath, to feel their suffering and have to clear it too. As a neurodivergent person and an HSP the emotions may feel more intense, and it may take me longer to process. I guess there’s a better way of being, of discerning, of not hiding but moving energy to the side or navigating it more healthily, passing by you without going into you, but again, Imperfect Human Being here. I like to say that we are all perfectly imperfect, and this brings me to my next query.
Who is to say that I am wiser than you?
Who is to say that you do not know your body, your spirit, and your mind that you have kept safe and protected for so long?
Who am I to say that I am better, or know YOU better?
You do know.
You know your highest and greatest good, and all it takes is moments to tap into that.
So rather than me continually telling You what to do, I invite you to remember your all knowing, your highest self. God or Goddess. Creator or Creatrix. Neither or both. All that Is.
We are not as different as you think. We are all trying to control our worlds, so that we can feel safe, be-ing.
We are all trying to love so that we are loved…
For some of us, loving and accepting is automatic, and for others its been a lifetime of struggles getting back there, to our original way of being, and because all we know is what we have experienced, or feel intuitively…
We can sometimes fall into the trap of not understanding or recognizing ourselves in each other.
Most of us want to create a peaceful place for us all to co-habitate that gets better and better. Most want to contribute to a bigger purpose or sense of justice, or to support one another. I’ve experienced many neurodivergent people to be very compassionate, but are they naturally so? Are highly sensitive people uniquely wired to have more compassion, or is this ultimate compassion also fueled by common experiences? While I do see this common trait in many divergents, there is more than just being compassion by nature at work here.
Most highly sensitive humans are so loving because we know how deeply it hurts to not be loved, so accepting because we know how deeply it hurts to be judged, and so forgiving because we know how deeply it hurts to be shunned.
As neurodivergents, after having a lifetime of unmatchable behavior etiquette forced upon us, the “should nots” and “can nots”, a deeper motivation for helping or “fixing” is often ultimately because we want to be loved and accepted ourselves. And knowing this embrace has not come easy with others, we can only whisper into our pillows at night the wish that some day we might even come to embrace ourselves.
Being more comfortable in ourselves, in the “outside” world, would lend us to being more comfortable with ourselves in the “inside” world, or so is the tale we like to tell. Although by now, many of us know the value of our inner work that often comes first. Truly being more comfortable with ourselves means being held in our suffering, acknowledging our Truths and our Lies, witnessing and laying down next to us as we dispel our woes, or chew them over and over again, and Unconditionally loving and accepting ourselves, acknowledging the opportunity that God gave us… To be held in the arms of Love, as we are Created again.
Make no mistake, we are One.