Everyone has boundaries, it is just that we don’t all have healthy ones. When we are struggling to communicate with people who we find difficult, I think it is important and necessary to understand that we can’t change them directly. It also means that they can’t successfully change us the way they want either. This, at least to me, indicates that clever words and sneaky tactics are bound to backfire.
If what I am writing here is true, then there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that we are powerless to create the kind of relationships with others we wish we could. The relationship may always be fractured, because it involves the free uncoerced actions of both parties. The good news is we can enjoy life even if they choose to be difficult and complicated people. To do this requires taking our eyes off them and looking in a different direction. In a twelve-step recovery model, we acknowledge that our lives have become unmanageable in any and all areas of life (Step 1), that there is a power greater than ourselves (Step 2), so life no longer involves solving a puzzle or figuring everything out ahead of time, like a good game of chess, and that we can turn our lives, including our problems, including all the difficult people in our lives, over to this higher power (Step 3).
For me personally, I limit time with toxic people. The reason is simple. Difficult people wear us down and we then become like them. Small doses of time can work as long we are able to remain our best selves. If this is a problem, then the problem lies with us and not with them.
How do we create boundaries if the people we are trying to engage with fit into the dominate or retreat and clam category? How do we open conversation with those threatened by vulnerability, and shame. If we are not “right” (maybe we are) but want to be understood or heard, and the other side has only the two choices … push back Or give in ( in today’s world … ghosting you), how do you move forward. I watch my wife and her parents and one wants to have a discussion and the other gives two choices… ignore the past or retreat . If we discuss the past , then I will become the junkyard dog or cut you out.
Everyone has boundaries, it is just that we don’t all have healthy ones. When we are struggling to communicate with people who we find difficult, I think it is important and necessary to understand that we can’t change them directly. It also means that they can’t successfully change us the way they want either. This, at least to me, indicates that clever words and sneaky tactics are bound to backfire.
If what I am writing here is true, then there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that we are powerless to create the kind of relationships with others we wish we could. The relationship may always be fractured, because it involves the free uncoerced actions of both parties. The good news is we can enjoy life even if they choose to be difficult and complicated people. To do this requires taking our eyes off them and looking in a different direction. In a twelve-step recovery model, we acknowledge that our lives have become unmanageable in any and all areas of life (Step 1), that there is a power greater than ourselves (Step 2), so life no longer involves solving a puzzle or figuring everything out ahead of time, like a good game of chess, and that we can turn our lives, including our problems, including all the difficult people in our lives, over to this higher power (Step 3).
For me personally, I limit time with toxic people. The reason is simple. Difficult people wear us down and we then become like them. Small doses of time can work as long we are able to remain our best selves. If this is a problem, then the problem lies with us and not with them.
How do we create boundaries if the people we are trying to engage with fit into the dominate or retreat and clam category? How do we open conversation with those threatened by vulnerability, and shame. If we are not “right” (maybe we are) but want to be understood or heard, and the other side has only the two choices … push back Or give in ( in today’s world … ghosting you), how do you move forward. I watch my wife and her parents and one wants to have a discussion and the other gives two choices… ignore the past or retreat . If we discuss the past , then I will become the junkyard dog or cut you out.