Your Mind Will Try to Protect You By Resisting Your Healthy Boundaries

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I have to admit I’m a champion at complicating matters for myself. I’ve noticed as I have committed to becoming more attuned to my own needs and developing healthy boundaries, I often fail miserably as my mind goes down a familiar rabbit warren of thoughts that try to dissuade and confuse me.

While I feel better knowing it’s just a protection mechanism, it is something I have to be alert to as I determine to get better at holding healthy boundaries.

Why is it a protection mechanism?

Like many people, the main philosophy I experienced from the adults around me growing up was that they knew better than me what was correct and good. If I was good, I avoided punishment, simple. In response my “spidey senses” were acute, I was hyper attuned to people around me so I could think ten steps ahead to avoid danger, and my general strategy was striving for perfection in everything I did.

In short, my mind learned these strategies to keep me loved and safe throughout childhood. Unfortunately it hard wired those responses into my thinking and patterns of behaviour, whether or not they were suited to my changing, less dependent circumstances as I grew.

Once in the workplace and out in the big wide world of relationships, any criticism or conflict threw me into a tailspin. And, as I began to undertake psychometric testing in my career, a really confused picture began to emerge as I seemed to have adopted a little bit of everything along the way in order to stay ahead of any perceived danger; my nervous system on high alert much of the time.

By the time I was reaching my forties I became more determined to figure out who I am if I stripped away all the layers of fear and expectations.

So here I am another decade on, a recovering people pleaser working my way through the legacy of enmeshment trauma and co-dependency. Basically meaning I had no sense of self (where me ends and you begins), and no idea that personal boundaries were a thing (never mind a healthy thing), I thought good people were those who put others before themselves.

In traditional fashion, opposites attract. My partner’s challenges are quite different, having placed himself in a metaphorical bubble to protect himself from feeling pain, shame or guilt as he grew, he tuned out from any depth of feeling in himself or others. Empathy is a foreign word to someone who can’t relate because he has never let himself feel his own pain.

As I determine to develop healthy boundaries, in practice that means putting my needs before others who are used to quite the opposite. I can imagine that a people pleaser becoming healthy isn’t a comfortable experience for those who have been used to being indulged.

My experiences this week reflect this dynamic wonderfully. Both my partner and I suddenly found ourselves very busy. His workload increased just as the time approached that he’d scheduled to get some work done tiling the walkway through the heart of our house. Meanwhile I had been busy clearing everything out in readiness, while also preparing for another out-of-town trip with the kids.

Simultaneously one of my children decided it is now time to move to her big room, instead of the one adjoining mum and dad’s room, which will become an office. Being the think-ten-steps-ahead person I am, I suggested to my partner that we take the opportunity to recarpet since both rooms will be in an upheaval anyway.

Getting new carpets throughout was on our to-do list already, though not until next year, but logic and efficiency drove me to consider doing it sooner. But after introducing the idea to my gung ho partner (not a wise move for someone like me who likes to float ideas and mull things over before making decisions), I quickly regretted it as I started to contemplate clearing not just two rooms but six, in readiness for carpet to be laid.

Just thinking through the practicalities of adding that to my to-do list right now almost tipped me over the edge of my sanity. So here was a glaring signpost to a boundary. All I had to do was say, “Mm, it’s too much right now, let’s revisit later”.

But no, my keep-me-safe mind was in overdrive, it was thinking perfection, efficiency, discussions having raised expectations, not wanting to let anyone down and wanting to get this ghastly task behind me.

Short of Marie Kondo coming in and working with my kids directly on decluttering their stuff though (while I sit on a beach doing nothing except watch the sun glint on the water), my body did not want to cooperate with this plan at all, it simply filled me with dread.

So began the internal war within. I came up with a plan – not quite Marie Kondo, but a packing service. We have used a packing service a few times when moving, it’s always a small component of the cost and yet worth its weight in gold; especially for someone as ponderous as me.

Unfortunately, I tackled my highly stressed partner with my marvellous idea in the wrong way at the wrong time. The result was ugly, with all the worst aspects of our well worn old dynamics coming to the fore.

This set my keep-me-safe mind into hyperdrive.

But it was after observing my daughter attempting to write an answer to a question in a ten minute timeframe that it dawned on me how complex the workings of my own mind can be, and how it can completely coax me away from seeing what is obvious.

My daughter had to write about her favourite game and the three things she loves most about it. True to her nature she went diving down the rabbit hole, her imagination instantly filling her mind with all sorts of pictures and visions that make it incredibly hard for her to ever get to the part about the three things she loves most about it without having some sort of structure and tools to keep her focused.

In a similar way, my mind completely distracted me from that simply boundary “Mm, it’s too much right now, let’s revisit later” by instead taking the well worn pathways and patterns of codependence, defence and heartache.

It became so clear to me that I was making this whole deal way more complicated that it needs to be. I was making my needs into something I needed to fight for, because that is what I was so used to having to do to get my needs met as I grew up. In true fashion I felt deeply hurt and unseen.

My big win was I didn’t jump into the flaming pit of anger and outrage that I would have previously used to assert my needs. But I will admit my relief when my partner handed me a parcel that had arrived while I’d been away, it was Terri Cole’s Boundary Boss book that I’ve been waiting on. Terri has a beautiful way of communicating and instructing on boundaries and it’s clear I still have a lot of work to do in that area.

But I am grateful that endlessly unconscious cycles of “getting triggered and distracted” in my relationships have been broken, and what I have achieved is much greater awareness. As my partner says we “are a work in progress”.

And let’s face it, it is better to become aware of things, even if belatedly, than unconsciously repeating the same patterns of painful experiences without any learning.

If like me you have a pattern of co-dependency, your mind will likely try to protect you by resisting your healthy boundaries – especially in moments when you are highly stressed. But be encouraged knowing that this is normal, and why. Being aware of the pitfalls that can occur as you move towards your goal of healthy boundaries puts you far further along the path than you were before.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Take Heart - It Takes Courage and Tenacity to Step Into Your Power, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, In What Unseen Ways Are You Abandoning Your Own Free Will?, How to Appreciate Our Differences Enough to Admire and Want to Embrace Them, How to Stand in Your Truth and Be Heard Without a Fight and What You Need to Know When You Feel Pulled in Different Directions. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.