Boundaries 101🚪

“…Let me know when it starts to hurt.”

Hey there! I have been learning!! Did I say that out loud? Oops.

What are boundaries, with regards to human relationships and how we form connections?

As much as I want people to open up and give me a piece of them, I also should allow them shrink into themselves and their boundaries once in a while. I’m a big lover; if my love touches you, your body will tell you. But this sometimes makes me too pushy because it never makes sense to me when the next person doesn’t match up. These days though, rather than allow myself to get frustrated, I remind myself of all the things I’ve learnt…about how we are different, about boundaries, about patience being a virtue, about how not everybody will get it, about all the abouts. I’m not just trying to change, I’m about becoming my best self. And because your energy flows where your attention goes, I’m doing everything I can to welcome my higher self. It taps, you should try it.

But I digress.

Boundaries.

The good thing about boundaries is that it is internal and external. As much as you want to respect other people’s boundaries, do the same work to make sure your own boundaries are crystal clear to them too.

Boundaries help to make things clear and bring everybody onto the same page. And it’s so crazy how it presents itself, when you have a problem (weak boundaries):

• You paid in full for this training and you have questions that the instructors don’t seem to be answering but you don’t want to offend anyone so you’ll just Google when you go home (much like Bisi).
• Your friend had a baby didn’t tell you anything about it. She didn’t share any of the feels with you and you had to find out she had a whole baby weeks later when she posted on her socials. You both had been speaking all the while. Now you are quite upset but you won’t tell her. You’ll just let it fester.
• Your line manager constantly underwhelms your efforts and never acknowledges or commends your attempts at taking initiative. Now you’ve stopped putting in any effort at all.
• Your mum enjoys talking down (publicly) on your fiancé. You know it riles him up but she’s your mother.
• In this keke maruwa, this (perverted) man won’t stop brushing his arm against your side boob. All your non-verbal communication with him have fallen on deaf ears but you are in the bus and you don’t want to disturb the other passengers.
• A new friend is telling you they love you three days after your first meeting and it’s triggering your trust issues so you block them straight away because you suspect them to be toxic. Or worse.
• That person who used to have feelings for you when you hadn’t caught your own share has now moved on at this time when you have caught your own feelings.

All of this is for example.

Now, place yourself in these situations and check how you would react, knowing yourself. Do you still get upset when people japa without telling you? When people cut you off randomly? In the examples above, I hope you can identify where the persons involved missed it and I hope you realize the more productive approach they could have taken. Nothing is written in stone but somethings are proven, low key.

You know, recently, my cousin told someone he used to be really close to that the reason he hadn’t taken their calls or responded to their messages (2 weeks worth of messages) was because he really was going through something. Guess what they said when he apologized. They said hmmmm. Then they went on to return to the country for detty December, inform all their mutual friends but they didn’t say a word to my cousin. It was when one of their mutual acquaintances asked my cousin if he knew that his guy was around that he got to know. This person left the country around 2018 (yea, so this was the first time they were coming home in 4 years). Were the two events related? Who knows?!😂

When you figure out your triggers and the things or people that calm you (or as G says, “bring you back”) you will be half-way through to becoming the strongest version of yourself.

You always gotta remember that wisdom is profitable to direct. And what is wisdom? It is to know how to go about doing life. (The same way knowledge is to know what to do and understanding is to know why and when to do). Remember that just as you are evolving, things, times, seasons, situations and people are evolving as well. Even your boundaries will evolve, however, that’s not gonna be a problem once you’ve mastered the basics.

I’ve been stating what I want very clearly recently and letting people know when I need more or less from them. I’ve also recalibrated my expectations meter to zero so that I can stretch my mind just as far as people are willing to go to be my friend or not be friends with me.

Old me: “this has to be my worst mistake by a mile.”

New me: “what have we learnt from this experience, Bunnie?”

Child, know your boundaries. It’s worth more than gold, it will save you a lot and it will save you from so much.

I really hope this resonates with you and you can draw out some sensible applications to infuse into your daily life. It’s all love: the presence as well as the absence. The parts make up the whole. So give people room to evolve and grow into different versions of themselves. Trust the process.

As usual, clap and comment and highlight and share this post so that I am assured that you are taking this as seriously as I am.

😘