Series 5 / Class 3 ~ Borders (the beginnings of)

Building on our last class, backgrounds, this week we'll venture into borders. I like to think of borders as the things that define the shape of everything. It's where one thing ends and another begins. It's where we draw the line between ourselves and others, who gets what kind of access to our hearts and who doesn't. It how we mark the passages of time in our lives, too. Events can occur that mark a clear "before" and "after".

We use borders every day in our lives. Not just the obvious way, like the border between the country we live in, and the country to the south of us, but also in small, constant ways we probably don’t even think about because they’re so deeply ingrained.

Take time, for example. We divide up our time into day (morning, afternoon, lunch) and night (bedtime, too late, dusk) each with its own activities. Time for work, play, eating and (hopefully) solitude and renewal.

We create borders around certain areas within which certain activities are acceptable: it’s okay to be naked in the bathroom or the changing room, but not at the grocery store.

It’s okay to joke with some people about some things, but not with others. For example, what I call the “Inside/Outside” rule. When you belong to a certain group you are allowed (to some extent) to disparage other members of your group, but people outside your group are not allowed the same leniency, nor are you allowed to disparage groups you don’t belong to.

In our personal lives, we are often subjected to borders by outside agencies so we can be “sorted” for their convenience ~ gender, age, ability, income level, personality type, etc. And we can pre-sort ourselves into certain categories as well. We may exclude ourselves from some kinds of activities because we feel we won’t fit in or succeed in them.

Borders aren’t all bad. Sometimes the way we define ourselves is useful and gives us a sense of belonging and strength. One of the good thing about perceptions is that they can be changed. We weren’t always as we are today, and we will change as time goes on.

Years ago, I was working with a life coach and I realized there were times in my life when there was no going back. I’d crossed some kind of threshold and the only option was forward. In my mind I pictured it like walking up a teeter-totter: there’s a balance point at the middle when the next step will tip the whole thing the other direction and once you step, you’re committed. Sometimes that step is outside your comfort zone, but at some point, you have to go for it.

Everyone's borders are different ~ different events, different levels of openness and confidence, different areas where you feel safe (or not) based on past experiences.

The first three pages of handouts for this class are all about the abstract notion of borders and how they work in our lives, and a helpful article on setting healthy borders in our lives:

In our next post, we'll work on creating borders on the background pages we created in the last class. That should be fun (it will!).