Developing Good Boundaries

What a child needs most is a firm but understanding caretaker, who needs to be getting her own needs met through her spouse. Such a caretaker needs to have resolved the issues in her own source relationships, and needs to have a sense of self-responsibility. When this is the case, such a caretaker can be available to the child and provide what the child needs.

For those who grew up without a father, the family balance was distorted from the beginning.  This is what I call "the logic behind the insanity."  If you hang in there, a huge weight will be released you have been carrying for so long!  

The child needs good modeling of healthy shame and other emotions. The child needs the caretaker's time and attention. Above all the child needs good boundaries. A child needs to have a caretaker available to set limits. Outer control must be firmly reassuring. The child needs to know that the interpersonal bridge will not be destroyed by his new urge for doing things his own way — his new urge toward autonomy.

This might be a good time to pause, and ask what support system you have in your life right now?  This is where a "Higher Power" is important.  I will discuss this more later, but in order to look honestly, most of us need support.  Al Anon, church, close friend, any support group helps.  Also, for those who are now parents, you might feel guilt.  The hope is the more healthy you become, the more healthy everyone becomes.  The temptation is to try to "fix" another.  We need to clean our own yard first!  Ideally, both partners come together here, but that is rare.  We all grow in our own time.

What if you feel all alone?  Can you Google a support group where you feel you "bleed the most?"  If there was one area of your life you hurt the most, that is where to start.  Join an online support group.

If a child can be protected by firm but compassionate limits; if he can explore, test and have tantrums without the caregiver's withdrawal of love, i.e., withdrawal of the interpersonal bridge, then the child can develop a healthy sense of shame. It may come as a moment of embarrassment over one's normal human failures or as timidity and shyness in the presence of strangers. This sense of shame is crucial and necessary as a balance and limit for one's new found autonomy and independence. Healthy shame signals us that we are not omnipotent.

Shame that is healthy within good boundaries:
Blushing
Blushing is the manifestation of our human limits. The ability to blush is the metaphor of our essentially limited humanity. With blushing comes the impulse to "cover one's face", "bury one's face", "save face", or "sink into the ground". With blushing we know we've made a mistake. Why would we have such a capacity, if mistakes were not part of our essential nature. Blushing as a manifestation of the healthy feeling of shame keeps us grounded. It reminds us of our core human boundary. It is a signal for us not to get carried away with our own excellence.

Shyness
Shyness is a natural boundary which guards us from being exposed or wounded by a stranger. Many of us feel shy when we are faced with the prospect of walking up to a stranger. We feel self-conscious, we stammer in speech or speak in an awkward manner. This may trigger embarrassment. Contained in the experience of shyness is the healthy feeling of shame, of a reluctance to expose oneself.

The stranger, by definition, is one who is un-family-iar. The stranger is not of our family. The stranger poses the threat of the unknown. Our shyness is our healthy shame in the presence of a stranger. Like all emotions shyness signals us to be cautious, to take heed lest we be wounded or exposed. Shyness is a boundary which guards our inner core in the presence of the unfamiliar stranger.

Community
No one of us could have made it without someone being there for us. We human beings need help. No one of us is so strong that he does not need love, intimacy and dialogue in community. At birth we are symbiotically bonded to our mother. We are we before we are I. A great deal depends on that source relationship. After a year and a half of establishing the bond of mutual trust, we start to move out to test our autonomy. We need a sense of shame to remind us of our limits. We need our shame and doubt to balance our newly found autonomy.

We will need our parents for another decade before we are ready to leave home. We cannot get our needs met without depending on our primary caregivers. Our healthy feeling of shame is there to remind us that we need help. We cannot make it alone. No human beings can. Even after we have achieved some sense of mastery, even when we are not dependent, we will still have needs. We will need to love and grow. We will need to care for another and we will need to be needed. Our shame functions as a healthy signal that we need help, and that we need to love and be in caring relationships with others.  Without the healthy signal of shame, we would not be in touch with our core dependency needs. 

This sense of community was a large part of the elementary school years of life. Going back to your old report cards if you can get them and reading the teacher's comments will open your eyes to what you were dealing with.  You might be surprised how much of that time period still remains with you today.

How social were you in elementary school?
Did you have close friends?
We you a loner?
Did you always want a close buddy or friend?
When it came time to sitting down at lunch, were you self-conscious of who to sit with or feel unaccepted?
Was there something you felt very self-conscious about during this time?
Any other strong memories?
Does this time period draw a blank for you?

Creativity and Learning
One of the greatest human strengths is creative power.  One of the major blocks to creativity was the feeling of knowing you are right. When we think we are absolutely right, we stop seeking new information. To be right is to be certain, and to be certain stops us from being curious. Curiosity and wonder are at the heart of all learning. The feeling of absolute certainty and righteousness causes us to stop seeking and to stop learning. Our healthy shame, which is a feeling of our core boundary and limited-ness, never allows us to believe we know it all. Our healthy shame is nourishing in that it moves us to seek new information and to learn new things.

How much does unhealthy shame cause a student to detach from the learning process? If this is true, and I believe it contributes significantly, than the child took on tremendous shame for being something that was a family issue. That is too much weight to carry. Almost all of the "help" for the child was individualized rather than seen as a family based concern. This will be discussed and make more sense when we understand multi-generational shame patterns.

Spirituality
What is spirituality? This is a controversial subject. I have strong beliefs here, but do not want to distract from understanding the dynamics of shame, so I will generalize without specifics.

Spirituality has to do with our life-style. Life is ever-unfolding and growing, about expansion and growth. It is about love, truth, goodness, beauty, giving and caring. It is about wholeness and completion. It is our ultimate human need. It pushes us to transcend ourselves, and to become grounded in the ultimate source of reality called God.

Our healthy shame is essential as the ground of our spirituality. By signaling us of our essential limitations, our healthy shame lets us know that we are not God. Our healthy shame points us in the direction of some larger meaning. It lets us know that there is something or someone greater than ourselves. Our healthy shame is the psychological ground of our humility. 

It is no wonder that many atheists that are male have a hatred towards their own fathers.  It makes sense when we understand toxic shame.  If one came from a shame-based family where the father was rigid, or from a religious system that values rules over relationships, the child might either take on the same role as the family or totally reject this and go off on their own seeking "truth" and "understanding" in philosophy, psychology, theology or another discipline to satisfy this craving.  Haven't we all run into a family where one child holds tightly to the "family values" while the other child, usually seen as a the rebellious one, goes off in their own direction?  Many a parent will say they are praying for their "lost sheep" when in fact the child who rebelled might have been the most honest.  Usually, this is the more sensitive and artistic child.  

Sadly, some might reject a faith and throw the "baby out with the bathwater" when they are really rejecting their shame-based family and now associate "religion" with their family because this triggers their "death by a thousand paper cuts" of the year in and out experience of having to put up with rituals that seemed meaningless.  When the child questioned this, they were shamed, "How dare you question our faith!"  The child was forced to participate, but inside was angry or played the game until they were free to pursue their own values.  Shame-based parents try to force their values to the next generation because these values give them the security they need in their own lives, but the child sees through this at an early age and if they question these values, are deeply shamed and rejected.  

No wonder they rebel when they have their own autonomy.  Truth is, they rebelled long before they turned eighteen.  Many times a child will "get back" at the parent by having sex or taking drugs.  This satisfies their anger and hurt.  They feel empowered!  The child internally reasons, "You shamed me, so now I'll shame you!"  All of this is fueled by toxic shame and usually spirals out of control.  The shame-based parents are usually clueless to this rebellion, blaming the child and seeing no responsibility towards the external behavior.  The child then becomes the external object of shame.

Years ago, this was the pregnant teen shipped off to the relative in another city.  Now, the baby of this teen is born in shame and the multi-generational pattern continues.  The parent cannot face the shame of the community, lies to cover their shame while the daughter feels abandoned, disowned, and rejected.  The people who should have loved her the most, hurt her the deepest  Many times, the parents (usually the father) will reject the new baby.  Then the mother will sneak visits to see the baby and try to juggle life both in and out of the family.  The complexity becomes overwhelming.  This complexity is illustrated in the story of Max.