Setting Boundaries this Holiday Season — Shirani M. Pathak

Welcome to part two of our three-part mini-series on how to get through the holidays in a different way this year. Today, we’re talking about boundaries.

We’ve talked about boundaries before. In Season 2 Episode 13 of our Fierce Authenticity Podcast , I share with you that boundaries aren’t made for other people, boundaries are made for you. So, I highly recommend that you give that episode a listen.

One of the biggest misconceptions that we have when it comes to boundaries is that boundaries are for other people. We create our boundaries; we communicate them with other people and then we get upset when they don’t adhere to them.

Do you know what that is?

That’s participating in supremacy culture’s behavior of control.

Boundaries Are for You

If you’re setting your boundaries hoping that other people will follow through with them and then you get resentful when they don’t, you’re participating in supremacy culture’s sneaky behavior of control. You’re trying to control another person and how they engage with you. You’re trying to tell another person who to be in order to be in a relationship with you. When you do that, you’re putting yourself in a position of superiority, you’re putting the other person in a position of inferiority and you’re dehumanizing the person that you’re in a relationship with.

It’s really important that you understand that when you’re creating boundaries because you want other people to adhere to them, you’ve fallen into supremacy culture’s sneaky conditioning which keeps you out of authentic relationships, out of authentic communication and out of authentic connections. It keeps you out of intimacy; intimacy with yourself and intimacy with others.

Clear is Kind

Recently, in a conversation with a friend, I was reminded that “clear is kind”.

• It is kind for you to be clear with yourself about what your boundaries and your parameters are when you are considering how you’re going to do the holidays.
• It’s kind to be clear with yourself what you will and will not accept when it comes to this season. Even if what you will and will not accept relates to what you will and will not accept from yourself.
• It is also kind for you to very clearly communicate what it is that you need from others and then let go of any expectations or any outcomes because when you hold on to expectations and outcomes you fall into the behavior of “control is unkind”.

So, remember that — clear is kind; control is unkind. Especially when we are directing it outwards towards another person or another outcome or something outside of us because the reality is — we’re not God and we’re not in control of other people, places and things around us. We’re not in control of how other people choose to show up.

You have no control over someone else’s behavior. If you believe that you do and if you attempt to control another’s behavior and their terms of engagement with you, then you’re actually being quite unkind. That doesn’t mean you need to engage with people who are showing up in a way that is not in alignment with what your boundaries are.

When you take the time to get clear and be kind with yourself and others in your life in terms of what you are and are not okay with, you get to authentically and fiercely communicate your truth. Not because you believe you’re better than others, but because you know what you are not okay with and what is and is not acceptable to you from you, as a way to stay in alignment with your fierce truth, not as a way to manipulate and control someone else.

Judgment and Compassion Can Coexist

Another thing to keep in mind as you move through this holiday season is that focusing outwardly is a really great way to avoid looking at and focusing on what’s actually going on with you. This is one of supremacy’s greatest distractions — to keep us distracted from looking at ourselves by constantly looking outwards and judging others.

There’s a quote that I love from the 12-step Recovery Community: If you spot it, you got it. So, if there’s something about Aunt Sally and Uncle Joe’s behavior that is just grating on you and getting on your nerves, guess what? Now you have an opportunity to grow in your knowledge and intimacy with yourself. You get to turn towards Source. You get to turn towards Self. You get to decide that you’re going to look at what’s happening in your own personal experience, rather than looking out at someone else. When you can do that, you get to move through the world with an energy of compassion. Compassion for yourself, compassion for Aunt Sally and Uncle Joe, compassion for your mom, and compassion for everyone else.

Judgment and compassion can coexist. In one of our episodes, named The Both-And , I share with you how New Age modern spirituality teaches us that we can only have judgment or we can only have compassion, and that if we have compassion, we can’t be in judgment.

Well guess what?

Both of those two things can coexist. You can still have judgment towards yourself, towards Aunt Sally, towards Uncle Joe and you can still have compassion for every single person involved. That’s the beauty of Fierce Authenticity. It allows you to experience the both-and.

Catch Yourself Before It’s Too Late

When you’re engaging with boundaries in this way, when you’re being clear and kind, when you’re able to have the capacity to focus on what’s happening in your own experience rather than looking outward at someone else’s, and when you can hold the experience for both judgment and compassion at the same time and know that they can coexist, that’s when you’re engaging in the practices of Fierce Authenticity.

Fierce Authenticity allows you to catch yourself before you create too much wreckage in your relationships, before you create too much damage and hurt and pain. And more importantly, if you did cause some hurt (because you’re human), you’ll know and understand how to engage in repair before it gets too out of control.

I hope this post brings you one step closer to dismantling all of the ways supremacy culture has impacted your relationships with Yourself, with Source and others. If you’re ready to reclaim a fiercely authentic personal relationship grounded in an abundance and love that is so radiant, all your other relationships are elevated with you, then connect with me over in my Newsletter community at https://www.shiranimpathak.com/connect.

Originally published at https://www.shiranimpathak.com on December 23, 2021.

Shirani M. Pathak is an author, speaker, relationship therapist, consultant, and healer. Her work supports people and organizations in illuminating and dismantling the internalized oppression from supremacy culture so that they can experience authentic connection, authentic communication, and authentic relationships. Join her newsletter for weekly insights, podcast episodes, and other resources at www.shiranimpathak.com/connect.