Establishing Boundaries

Establishing boundaries is good and why you should is worth considering. We scratch our heads in disbelief. Certainly, we understand that people will disappoint us just as we disappoint them. But when you feel like you’ve just been wasting your breath, and they’re never going to listen, what do you do?

You know the kind of person I’m talking about. The one who lets you think they’re listening, but they’re merely playing you. You end up feeling very betrayed.

It’s time to establish some boundaries.

Now just so you know, I don’t expect for one minute that someone who has asked for my help has to do everything I say. Of course not.

Don’t be a garbage can.

But when someone takes up significant time and space in our life because they are asking for help and take none of the advice we offer, we have simply become a garbage can for them to dump in. They walk around feeling better while we are worn out. Our time might be better spent concentrating on someone else.

And this comes from someone who gives a very long rope. 

Even Jesus walked away from those who didn’t listen. I guess you could say he established boundaries as well.

Turning the other cheek

Turning the other cheek” doesn’t mean we allow ourselves to get used up.

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Remember, we only have two cheeks. Once they’ve both been slapped, we don’t keep whipping our head around for another blow. Talk about whiplash!

When it’s not your circus, not your monkeys, create some boundaries.

“Not my circus, not my monkeys”, is a good approach to take. In other words, there comes a point in some relationships where we’ve done every conceivable thing we can think of to help and to no avail. It then becomes their circus and their drama. We do them and us no good buying a ticket to their performance.

The hard truth is some people have to learn life’s lessons the hard way. And the harder truth is that some people never will.

Aging is not a guarantee of maturity.

And it’s not young people that are immature. I’ve known some incredibly mature young people and some childish old farts. (Sorry about that, but it’s the perfect word.) It should be that way, but sadly, it isn’t. They can disappoint us as well. Some people don’t mature at all, no matter how old they are.

Some people remain immature their entire lives even when their wrinkles and gray hair should suggest otherwise.

If you have someone like this in your life who is draining you but never filling you, you need to think through the relationship. It doesn’t have to end but it does need to change. At the very least, we need to take a vacation from them for a time.

“me”

Hope this helped you today.

But what about us?

Oh, and by the way, we should all remember that when we’re the ones seeking advice, we need to listen and at least take into account what our “counselor-friend” is telling us. We may choose not to follow it but to never even consider it makes us no better than the person who does that to us. They may end up creating boundaries for us!

God bless and I hope you have a really good day.

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