I am feeling back to normal today. Yesterday was a bit tough but the reaction to the vaccine is over and I am back to normal. I have even gotten a few cleaning chores done today. So grateful it only lasted 24 hours.
Had an interesting experience today with boundaries. Someone, with the best of intentions, violated my boundaries today. I was able to immediately recognize it for what it was and was able to respond appropriately. When things continued to escalate, I was able to remove myself from the situation. Wow! That was easy!
I have been thinking all morning how there have been times in the past when I was the one that violated other people’s boundaries. Even though I had the best of intentions, it was still a violation. The class I took gave me a visual description of boundaries that was ever so helpful to me this morning.
Put yourself in a box and draw a border around it. Within this box are your beliefs, feelings, opinions, truths, dreams, fears, etc. that people don’t know about you unless you have shared them with someone. Draw a bigger box around that box and the space between the two boxes is what my class instructor calls your garden. The garden holds things that most people easily know about you. Examples might include where you live, if you are single or married, how many children you have, your profession, and perhaps causes that you hold near to you and share openly, etc. Those two boxes represent all that you ever need to be concerned about.
Whatever anyone else has in their own garden or inner box, is their business to hold and carry. I don’t have the right to agree or disagree with whatever people carry in their gardens and others don’t get to agree or disagree with what I choose to carry in my garden.
When someone offers you unsolicited advice, they have come uninvited into your garden and that is a boundary violation. The instructor of the class uses the motto “Honor Self and Honor Others”. That means when someone violates your boundaries, the first thing you do is honor self and recognize the behavior for what it is – a boundary violation. No one has to tolerate this violation of their own personal garden space. Then you honor the violator by gently telling them thanks, but no thanks. If the behavior continues you then take action to disengage yourself from them in what ever way feels appropriate. If the violation continues in the future, then you can disengage even further from them.
Somehow having a visual, helped me to see the behavior today for what it was and made it easy to recognize. My prayer is now I will remember not to violate someone else’s boundaries, regardless of how good intentioned I am. What happened today was not vicious or meant to cause harm. They sincerely were trying to help me. But, it was still a boundary violation and one that I needed to respond to.
I choose a course of action that was new to me and I handled the situation much differently then I would have in the past. That felt good! This class was worth taking. Ever so grateful I was able to recognize what was happening and take the appropriate action. I was able to stay out of blame and anger and not get pulled into a negative spiral.
Now I need to remember this lesson when I am on the other side of the garden and am tempted to offer unsolicited advice to others. “Not my garden, not my business” is my new motto.
I got the patterns I am going to stamp on tea towels cut out and ready to go. I need to go downstairs and dig out the blank tea towels and get them stamped. It will be fun to work them up. The pattern ended up having 20 patterns so will be able to make three sets of tea towels if I repeat one of the patterns. Embroidery work is relaxing for me so looking forward to getting at them.
Got my office cleaned today. Tagen had pulled out the bookcase to unhook his gaming devices when he moved and I had never bothered to push it back into place. I cleaned behind it today and got it put back together again. I had stacked some give away boxes in the office and I moved those to my car so I can get rid of them. Little things but it feels so good.
Not feeling well yesterday reminded me how grateful I need to be everyday that I wake up and feel good. I should never take my health for granted and need to appreciate more the good days.
It is a beautiful day on the prairie today with bright blue skies. The temperature is in the high 60’s. It is a touch windy but not bad. It can stay this way the rest of winter.
Kathy and I both looked for the Northern Lights last night. We both saw some light rims that were unusual but not sure they were the Northern Lights. Maybe? Seeing the Northern Lights is still on my bucket list. I came ever so close on the flight to the UK this fall. They were gone by the time I was told about them.
Feeling like I have opened a lot of free space within me. Not carrying other people’s stuff is freeing. I really had no idea how much of it I had been doing. The free space inside feels wonderful and light.
Grateful for the lesson on boundaries today, grateful the effects of the vaccine were short-lived, and grateful for the empty space within.