Boundaries
Where you end, and another begins.
A boundary is the felt place where you end and contact with someone else begins. We build our boundaries from experience, belief and what we learned growing up, and they shift with the roles we play.
Not a wall. A living edge.
A boundary keeps the integrity of something alive: a cell, a body, a person, a relationship, a group. In people, boundaries define the self at the level of the body, of energy and of psychology.
Personal boundaries are the limits we set for what feels reasonable, safe and acceptable in how others behave around us, and how we respond when someone steps outside them. They are at once the container for our inner work, a guide to it, and a sign of how it is going.
Without boundaries, our sense of who we are becomes diffuse, defined by what others say we are.
Watch how it meets the world.
Choose a type below and watch how it holds, or doesn’t hold, the world around it.
Warm dots are what you would welcome. Dark dots are what you would rather keep out.
Feeling your edge.
You can do this alone, or with someone you trust walking slowly toward you. There is no right distance. What matters is noticing yours.
Start with Grounding →Configured, dissolved, configured.
Boundaries are not fixed. In moments of deep connection, in a shared experience, in love, they can soften or open. That can be healthy and even transformative, when we are also able to return to our own edge.
Living with boundaries means letting them form, dissolve and form again, moment by moment. Out of that comes the possibility of boundaries that are strong, responsive, clear and fluid at once. In the dissolving there is always a moment of not knowing.
Where is your edge today?
- Where in your life do you say yes when your body says no?
- With whom does your boundary disappear? With whom does it become a wall?
- What does your body do just before you give in?