One of the first questions people ask when they begin to understand Unity Consciousness is, “Does this mean I have to accept whatever other people do?” The answer is no.
Seeing the best in someone does not mean overlooking harmful behaviour, avoiding difficult conversations or staying in situations that are unhealthy. In fact, I have found the opposite. The more I stopped confusing people with their behaviour, the easier it became to deal with that behaviour calmly and directly.
That is because a boundary is not a judgement about another person’s worth. Once we stop using boundaries as punishment or rejection, they become much easier to set and keep.
What a Boundary Really Is
A boundary is simply a decision about what we will do if a situation arises. It is not a judgement about another person’s character, nor is it a way of punishing them. “If the shouting starts, I will leave the room” is a boundary. “You’re impossible to talk to” is a judgement. We often mix the two together, but they are very different.
When we see ourselves as separate, it is easy to believe we have to justify our boundaries. We explain why the other person is wrong, list all the times they have behaved badly and build a case to prove we are entitled to say no. Before long, the conversation is no longer about the boundary at all. It has become an argument about who is right.
Unity Consciousness offers a simpler approach. I do not need you to agree that my boundary is reasonable before I keep it. I only need to be clear about what I will and will not do. That takes far less energy because I am no longer trying to change your mind. I am simply taking responsibility for my own actions.
When We Put Our Walls Up
There is another consequence of living from separation that took me a long time to notice. When we do not feel safe, we can stop protecting ourselves from one particular person or situation and start protecting ourselves from everyone.
We become more guarded, less trusting and quicker to assume the worst. We tell ourselves we are just being careful, but over time those protective walls become our normal way of relating to people.
The problem is that walls do not get to choose who they keep out. They shut out the person who would hurt us, but they also shut out the person who would understand us. They block criticism we do not need, but they can also block kindness, encouragement and genuine connection. Before we know it, we are protected from much of what we were hoping to find.
A boundary works very differently. A boundary is specific. It is about one behaviour, one relationship or one situation. It allows us to say no where we need to without closing ourselves off from everyone else. That is why healthy boundaries create more connection, not less.
Why Boundaries Get Easier
Once we stop needing the other person to be wrong, three things can change, and all of them make the boundary easier to hold.
There is no case to build. We do not need evidence that somebody is a bad person, only clarity about what we are willing to do. That removes most of the preparation and nearly all of the dread.
There is no argument to win. The boundary does not depend on the other person agreeing with it, which is fortunate, because they often will not. We can say what we will do and let them think whatever they think about it.
There is often far less guilt afterwards. Some of the guilt that follows a boundary does not come from the boundary itself. It comes from what we said to justify it, because to make ourselves reasonable we made somebody else unreasonable, and some part of us knew that was not the whole truth.
None of this necessarily makes the conversation pleasant. It can make it shorter, clearer and easier to survive.
Forgiveness Is Not Excusing
This is where people often get confused, and the confusion can do real harm, so I want to be clear about it.
A Course in Miracles takes forgiveness much further than our usual understanding of it. At its metaphysical level, it teaches that the world of separation is an illusion, rather like a dream, and that nothing which happens within it can change or damage who we truly are. From that perspective, there is ultimately nothing real to forgive.
That idea needs much more explanation than I can give it here. It is not about denying what somebody experienced, pretending it did not hurt or dismissing the consequences of another person’s behaviour. It is a different level of understanding, and usually one we reach gradually rather than something we can simply decide to believe.
For now, I am using forgiveness at the practical level most of us can work with in everyday life. It begins with a willingness to release the resentment we carry and to stop defining another person entirely by what they have done. That may be the beginning of forgiveness rather than its fullest meaning, but it can still free us from carrying the experience into everything that follows.
Forgiveness does not mean saying that what happened was acceptable. It does not mean trusting someone again or giving them another opportunity to hurt us. Forgiveness is about what we choose to release within ourselves. A boundary is about what we choose to do next. They are different things, and we often need both.
We can understand why someone behaved as they did and still choose not to have them in our lives. We can feel compassion for the experiences that shaped them while being completely clear that their behaviour is not something we are willing to accept. Unity Consciousness does not ask us to abandon our boundaries. It asks us to see the person behind the behaviour, even when we decide that the behaviour cannot continue.
Setting Boundaries Around Personal Values
I mentioned earlier the colleague who noticed a sudden change in my mood after someone said something that clashed with values I hold very strongly. What stayed with me was not only the reaction itself, but what it showed me. I had been expecting other people to share my values, and I became frustrated when they did not.
Over time, I learned to be much clearer about what I would accept, what I could tolerate occasionally and what simply had no place in my life. I have close friends whose values are very similar to mine, and I also have friends who see some things quite differently. Those relationships work because neither of us is trying to convince the other that we are right. We can disagree, respect one another and move on.
Some values matter so much to me that I choose not to build close relationships with people who consistently disregard them. I do not need to judge their worth to recognise that we are unlikely to fit comfortably in each other’s lives. I can understand why people see the world differently, wish them well, and still decide they are not people I want to share my life with.
The Danger of the Yo-Yo Effect
A client once came to me because she was struggling with stress at work. After a couple of sessions, it became clear that her biggest source of stress was actually her on-and-off relationship.
Her relationship with her partner was a constant roller coaster. His behaviour was often disrespectful and selfish, and whenever it reached a breaking point, she would ask him to leave. After a while, he would always apologise and promise that things would be different. Wanting to believe him, she would take him back, only for the cycle to repeat all over again. It was exhausting her.
The problem was not that she loved him. It was that she believed loving him meant she should keep giving him another chance. What we explored was that love and boundaries are not opposites. We can love someone, understand why they behave as they do, and still decide that their behaviour is not something we are willing to live with.
Once she became clear about what she would and would not accept, she calmly explained her boundaries. The choice was then his. He could respect them or accept that the relationship would end. In her case, his behaviour did change. That is not always the outcome, of course, but the boundary still gave her a healthier place to stand because it depended on what she would do, not on another promise from him.
We can understand why someone behaved as they did and still choose not to have them in our lives
Try This: Say the Second Half Only
Think of a boundary you have been meaning to set and have not yet managed.
Write down what you would say, in full, exactly as you have been rehearsing it. Most of us have rehearsed it many times.
Now go through it and cross out every sentence that explains why the other person is at fault. Cross out the examples, the history and the part where you prove it. What remains will be one or two sentences describing what you are going to do.
Read what is left. It will look thin, and it will feel as though it is missing the important part. It is not. The part you crossed out was never the boundary. It was the case you thought you needed in order to be allowed one.
Then try saying the shorter version, without returning to the case you had prepared.
Separation does not only run between individuals. If we are all connected, why does the world look the way it does, and what can any one of us realistically do about it?
Articles In Unity Consciousness
What Is Unity Consciousness? How Seeing Beyond Separation Changes Everything
- How Unity Consciousness Changes Our View of Connection
- The World of Separation
- Living From Unity Consciousness: What Changes When You See People Differently
- Why Boundaries Get Easier When You Stop Blaming
- If Everyone Is Connected, Why Is the World Like This?
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