Can we learn? Boundaires!!!!

[motheroffour]

Lupita,

I am really benefiting from your posts and the feeling that comes thru each one on this thread.  Feel like I am learning a lot from you.  So hard to identify my boundaries.  I read some of your thoughts today and realized just how much work I have in front of me.  I am a little daunted by the task but the timing is exactly right.  So, I guess I will get to work!!  Sometimes really hard for me to express what I feel and think. And others do it so much better than I.  Think I might be better at talking rather than this writing.  Just wanted to say thanks. You are giving me courage to face some of my fears.  BIG GIANT FEARS! About being alone.  But maybe it is a ghost.  Something that just isn't there.  Why do I think that I need it so bad?  I have been alone since I was 4.  Emotionally alone.  I have been a survivor and didn't really even know it.  My mother was so needy and controlling and insecure.  I was so problematic for her.  I haven't wanted to relive any of this pain.  Don't want to go back to it.  It is too much.  The pain has lasted for too long.  But I do want to move forward.  I so want to be at peace with myself and my boundaries.  Hard for me to understand the concept of not needing anyone.  Yet, we all come to this board looking for support and hoping to find friendship.  Solitary confinement is one of the worst forms of punishment.  I am trying to learn the balance and the skills to find the balance between being such a rouge/maverick, not needing others (which kinda feels incomplete truth to me), and finding and maintaining relationships in the healthy realm.

Lupita, don't know if I am making sense.  It is all stream of conscienceness today!

--mof4

[Hopalong]

Hey Lupita,
Thank you very much for printing these wonderful articles about boundaries...it is a great review. (I always like it when people include the URL from something, when you can...but no worries.)

It's positively electric to be around you when you have all these light bulbs going off! I can feel your energy, determination and joy in claiming yourself!

It may feel brittle at first but don't worry, just practice. Eventually you don't have to struggle to remind yourself, setting healthy boundaries just becomes a peaceful part of your exchange with the world.

hugs
Hops

[Lupita]

When O calls me and ask me why I am not taking her mother and S to the Dance I am not going to ask her why dont you take them, I am going to tell her that I am trying to be like her because she is an example for me and I am trying to feel comfortable and I really do not feel comforatble due to my own upbringing and I feel very sorry, but I wont be able to take them with me.


"You don't have a right to tell me what to think, or invalidate my feelings."

"Don't vent your anger on me, I won't have it."

"This is mine, you don't have a right to use it as yours."

"I won't accept your belittling jokes, your criticism or your condescending attitude toward me."

"I won't be disrespected - If you won't respect me, then stay away."

"Keep your hands off me."

"Stop doing that... or I'll leave" [ report you; file charges etc.]

"Don't try to tell me what to do."

"If we're going to have a working relationship, I need honesty, respect and equality."

"I need to communicate when we have a misunderstanding."

"I need openness and sharing in a relationship - your witholding is making our relationship not satisfying to me."

[Lupita]

Dear Hope, the site I will post when I fisnih, I do not want you to go and read it before I am finish venting. Just two more Ideas and I will post the site website.
Love you.

[Lupita]

Personal Boundaries - How do maintain them
 

  Ask directly for what you want. This shows who you are to others.

  Nurture yourself and your integrity. This creates an inner, intuitive sense that lets you know when a
relationship has become hurtful, abusive or invasive.

  Be objective about others' behavior toward you without getting caught in their drama.

  Maintain a bottom line - a limit to how many times you will allow someone to say no, to lie to you, to
disappoint you, or betray you before you will admit the painful reality and move on.

  Change the focus of trust from other to yourself. Don't put yourself in someone else's hands or expect
infallibility. Trust that you can allow others to be normally human and still have satisfying intimacy.


  Affirmations of Your Basic Rights
 

  Nobody has the right to know my mind or my business or to tell me what to think, what to feel or what to
do.

  I have a right to my own thoughts, feelings, values and beliefs.

  What I share with others about matters that concern me is determined by what feels right to me - not what
they want.

  If people are abusive or disrespectful to me, I have a right to tell them so, to ask them to stop and to avoid
them.

  I don't have to be nice to people who aren't nice to me.

  I don't need abuse or to be disrespected.

  I have a need and right to love myself, respect myself and to stand up for myself.

  I have a right to be who I am and to harmlessly live my own life regardless of whether others don't like it.

  I don't have to feel guilty for not behaving as others might want me to or for not giving other what they
expect of me.

  I accept myself just as I am in the moment with whatever thoughts and feelings I have.

  I accept my right to my imperfection and shortcomings and don't feel guilty for not being perfect.

  I believe that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us - to treated with love and
respect.

  I believe that if I am true to myself and live by the highest truth I know, that things will turn out for the best
in the long run.

 


  "When one has faith that the spring thaw will arrive, the winter winds seem to
lose some of their punch."    - Robert L. Veninga
 

[Lupita]

TARA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.heart-2-heart.ca/men/page14.html

You can deduct that I am feeling very well today. I feel great. I love my son, I praise the Lord everyday for the son I have. I like what I see in the mirror.

I love you guys. Hope I am not having a small mania crisis, hope that this is a very true good feeling about my self. You have never seen me like this. I have never felt like this in many many years.

I am not sick, no, no. Just joking.

[lighter]

YAY! YAY!

Lupita!

This post was so wonderful to find.... it snuck up on me just when I was getting so much out of all the information you posted!

Seeing you progress is about the best thing that's happened to me all day!  ::sniff::

You're going to be a force to be reckoned with in this world.... and you'll dance well too!