Part I: Where Do you Build Your Sandcastles? — cova raine: the joy project

Do you build your sandcastles near the waves?

When I reflect on previous relationships, did I ever think about how I wanted to actually build and maintain a relationship, and what my own personal boundaries were?

I’m just going to jump right in. Often enough, the answer is no. Looking back to those difficult relationships, I see the primary need for me at those points in my life was a obsessive need for connection and love. Those needs superseded my self-worth and personal boundaries. I would ignore ‘that little voice inside’ when I was doing more, being more, giving more, and allowing abuse and manipulation into the relationship because my perceived need for connection was greater than honouring my own thoughts and needs being met. I was enacting the proverbial ‘hustling for self-worth’...and it was emotionally destructive for me.

I see this hustle much like building a sandcastle near the shore, just short of where the tide crashes. You wanted to build something beautiful, but didn’t really pay attention to how and where you were building the castle. You just were so focused on building this beautiful thing where it showed up in your life. Once you finished building it-- perhaps you got distracted, or maybe relaxed and left someone else to watch it, and went on another adventure. When you return, you find your sandcastle a wet sandy lump because you misjudged the distance and failed to keep your attention on it.

Do we build things with forethought to how they are going to last in our lives? Or, are we afraid to take the time to plan out and meaningfully contribute to our relationships, including creating healthy boundaries for ourselves and those we care about?

A relationship, any relationship, is like a binding agreement between two parties. We both set forward the rules and the structure to which we agree to which encompass our needs and wants for personal and mutual fulfillment. And so it is. But in cases when we let one person make all the rules, or change the rules without our agreement, imbalance happens. And that imbalance, over time, with compression of many events, can turn to confusion, dissolution, gaslighting, abuse, and a significant decrease in our self-worth. Those resultants are not what anyone signs up for in a relationship, but they can happen easily enough if we aren’t mindful of keeping our needs and boundaries in check.

Paraphrased from a Russell Brand podcast (Under the Skin), Brene Brown states, that ‘the most compassionate people I’ve met are the ones with “…boundaries of steel. They value themselves enough to ask for what they need and speak up for themselves when their needs are not being met.” That’s integrity. That’s wholeheartedness. That’s honouring your self and your needs equally in the relationship.

It’s balance.

Having boundaries and sharing them in a relational way isn’t being difficult. It’s honouring your needs, and also giving the other the opportunity to build a brick in that relationship structure you are creating together. You’re allowing yourself to be honoured and giving them the opportunity to honour your needs also. And this give and take is reciprocal—you both agree to the contract.

“Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”

— Brené Brown, Rising Strong

Recently, after a course of reasonably smooth-sailing in the ol’ familial relationship rebuild, I received an emotional punch I didn’t see coming. It took some time to review and sort out, but I did the work, recovered, and the journey continues on. I wanted to write about how those punches happen, and then zoom out further to a, “how did we even get here in the first place?”

Because-- like it or not, we are the architects of each and every relationship in our lives. We teach people how to treat us. And that framework is first created in how we treat ourselves.

It still stumps me some days, even with all my hard work in rewriting relationships to serve in more in a balanced and respectful way, I still have my slip-ups (or “how the fuck did I get back here?” moments). With past destructive and traumatizing dynamics that have been well-worn in my familial relationships, it’s still hard work and attentive practise to manage those relationships in a manner that is healthy for me. I’ve made great strides, I’m proud to say, and continue to do the important emotional and cognitive work to change my behaviour in a way that is empowering for myself. This work includes setting new limits and boundaries in these relationships. It also means monitoring those boundaries, self ‘check-ins’, and reviewing them if they aren’t ‘feeling right’.

The concept of a ‘reset’ in your relationships is akin I think to the analogy of a company restructuring: CEO re-evaluation of what’s working and what’s not; what changes need to be made and implemented in order to create a more streamlined and efficient business that serves the needs of the company and its clients (at least on an idealized level). It’s still hard work to learn new ways and make habit changes. Meaningful and lasting change requires thoughtful governance, consistent awareness, habitual practise & reflection to drive and manage the new parameters in that relationship. In plain English, It’s effing hard work.

But, like everything else in this world, it gets easier with time and practise. Trust me, it does. And for me personally, by adding an infusion of humour or a moment of play whenever you can, is especially helpful in diffusing elevated emotions. It also helps to diffuse the incredulousness of the situation at times. I can chuckle now when I’m seeing absurd or irrational behaviour from my family unit members, whereas I would have been spun out and devastated in prior years. I can detach from their emotional impact on me and see their behaviour objectively-- in a detached manner (most of the time!). It feels so much healthier and safer. I’m not spun out and lost in that cycle of pleasing, perfecting, guilt, and shame. Over time and practise, these boundaries and behaviours have become more organic and feel easier, and I can navigate new situations with better ease because I have ‘done the work’, and continue the practise.

This also means sometimes keeping some relationships ‘at a distance’ if they are not consistently willing to sign on to the contract. If they keep trying to ‘revise the contract’ without your permission, that’s indicative of an unwillingness to meet your needs—and that may require a lesser investment in that relationship (a.k.a. keeping that relationship or person at an arm’s length for your own emotional safety).

Storms and situations may still flare up, and I’m not impervious to faltering. But that’s okay. Because I have tools to review, reflect, make adjustments, make repairs where necessary, and get back on the horse again to continue riding. When we make the habitual effort to ‘do the emotional work’, we have the capacity to see the whole picture and can recover faster and more efficiently each time an event goes sideways.