To Teach Our Daughters ...

INNER PEACE FOR BUSY WOMEN

~by Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.

Excerpt on Setting Boundaries:

The two most important things about devoloping good boundaries are that they increase respect, and they focus your attention on what really matters. If you have trouble setting boundaries and routinely let other people's needs swallow your own, that's a behavioral symptom of low self-esteem. You can get to the roots of the problem in therapy, but how much does that really matter?  Unless you change your behavior, you can count on a Loretta LaRoche-style tombstone that says, "Did everything for everybody, felt bad about herself anyway."  If you don't respect yourself, no one else will either, and you'll keep adding insult to whatever your original injury was.

So here's the thing about boundaries.  In addition to keeping your energy focused on what's important, and giving you time and space for yourself, good boundaries prevent you from splitting into light and shadow.  Authentic compassion comes not from granting everyone else's wishes while you sit seething in a drafty corner, but by doing the things you need to do for yourself to keep your center.  Only in the centered state can you tell the difference between the compassion of true caring and the fearful controlling of codependence.  That's what we need to teach our daughters.  But first, we have to learn it ourselves.