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 seeing boundaries as punishment or rejection, they become much easier to set and much easier to 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 often 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 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 far less guilt afterwards. Most of the guilt that follows a boundary does not come from the boundary. It comes from what we said to justify it, because to make ourselves reasonable we had to make somebody else unreasonable, and some part of us knew that was not quite true.
None of this makes the conversation pleasant. It makes it shorter, and it makes it survivable.
Forgiveness Is Not Excusing
This is where people most often get confused, and the confusion does real harm, so I want to be clear about it.
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 letting go of the resentment we carry. A boundary is about what happens next. They are two different things, and we often need both.
That means 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 behaviour cannot continue.
Setting Boundaries Around Personal Values
I mentioned in an earlier article that a colleague once noticed a sudden change in my mood and asked what had happened. What had happened was that someone had said something that clashed with values I hold very strongly. It made me realise how often I was expecting other people to share my values, and how frustrated I became when they didn’t.
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.
There are also values that matter so much to me that I choose not to build close relationships with people who consistently disregard them. That is not judgement. It is simply a boundary. I have learned that 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 Yoyo 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.
The pattern was always the same. Her partner would behave in a way that left her feeling disrespected; they would separate, he would apologise and promise things would be different, and she would take him back. For a while everything improved, until the same behaviour returned and the cycle started again.
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, he chose to respect them. That is not always the outcome, but it is still a healthier place to stand, because our boundaries no longer depend on somebody else’s promises.
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 been rehearsing.
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 say the short version, and say nothing else.
Where We Go Next
All of this is about two people. But separation does not only run between individuals, and by now a larger question has probably formed. 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? That is what the last article in this cornerstone takes up.
What Is Unity Consciousness? How Seeing Beyond Separation Changes Everything
Articles In Unity Consciousness