Peace Is Born Through Boundaries

And thresholds are meant to be crossed.

It is between those two directives, where I get stuck.

A boundary is where one area ends and another begins. The word has been co-opted to mean the psychological distinction between behavior that is acceptable vs. emotionally harmful.

Without healthy boundaries, our inner peace is pulverized.

A threshold on the other hand, has an inherent call to adventure. It suggests we cross over. It is both the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

Whether it’s about entering a new stage of life, such as parenthood or leaving one, as in divorce or simply breaking through into a deeper understanding of self, it seems to be something we earn through our life choices.

Whatever the threshold, it beckons us into a brave new world.

It begs us to leap forward, boldly, into our destiny.

The opposite approach is necessary with situations that require boundaries. We must pull back and exercise caution in order to protect our destiny.

Occasionally life offers circumstances in which the appropriate course of action is unclear. I usually attempt to analyze whether what I am facing is a boundary or a threshold. But sometimes, it’s hard to know.

Often the clues are complicated.

In these situations I respond in one of two ways.

If it is an on-the-spot decision, I err on the side of compromising my boundaries in honor of a possible threshold and because I have trouble saying no.

If I have time and distance with which to make a decision, paralysis by analysis usually follows.

Here’s what I recently learned, again.

Clues may prove indecisive and be argued either way, but intuition does not lie.

And I can clearly say, if I think back to any of these murky decisions, my gut was always crystal clear.

Crossing a threshold makes me lean in. Violating a boundary makes me pull back. And my body wisdom is never unclear as to which I want to do. It is me who gets in my way.

Vow for 2016: Intuition first.