Families and Boundaries

Today I realized I'm a lot more capable of cutting people out of my life than I'd previous thought. But boundaries can be a good way to keep people in your life before resorting to extreme "axing" measures.

There is this form of "normalizing guilt" that takes place when a family doesn't set clear boundaries or exercise accountability. If there is a family belief that some people can just "quiet quit" their role in the family and it's too uncomfortable or unsafe to address, you can bank on there being a loss of safety.

Safety requires us to set boundaries, be attuned to our anger, allowing in the necessary conversations or even conflicts that lead to outcomes that introduce healthier, attuned action, accountability or even consequences.

But if we stay in the same outdated narrative , one that avoids/masks anger or suffering of others with false narratives of comfort, harmony and numbing, we will begin to normalize feeling guilty about having needs. Our needs become "too big" to vocalize, and we form resentment based on our needs going perpetually unmet.

Nobody wins here because everyone has needs that ought to be witnessed, felt into and vocalized. The impact isn't just felt in the family itself. Every relationship feels the familiar internal battle and even if we meet someone safe we aren't attuned to ourselves, or the language to make a request of them. Or if we do make that request, there often arises a feeling of "being a burden". So how can we move forward?

Don't tolerate quiet quitters. Remember that appeasing others to avoid a confrontation isn't harmony; it's just quiet discord. A household strangled of it's life as the result of trying to force things into balance but with no clear direction forward.

Don't tolerate lateral violence. Unresolved conflicts lead to gossip/putting down others, and this creates further disconnect often times pulling in another person into our conflict which needs to be resolved between two people. 

Explore the "unconconsciously determined rules" which are wreaking havoc on the family system. If you want to change the way the family functions you need to bring awareness to what broken rules are running the show behind the scenes.  

I'm still trying to figure out how to better set boundaries with my family and feel like it's a day by day challenge. But it requires a lot more energy to keep something alive that at the end of the day you need to ask yourself "do the ends justify the means?" If your family dynamic is on "life support", at what point do you decide it's time to pull the plug? I hope for your own sake, for the peace of mind you deserve, for the safety of your children and their future kids that you have the strength/self-awareness to know how to set effective boundaries and the stability to maintain them.