Protecting our Hearts and Sanity with Healthy Boundaries
For many of us, a core issue in life is fear. Fear of pain, hurt, or rejection can leave us frozen and not sure how to reach freedom. Therefore, we want to explore the role of healthy boundaries after the relationship is damaged from rejection or betrayal.
There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear,
1 John 4:18
This is God’s love we are talking about, not ours. His love. His love for me, His love for you. In us and flowing through us.
When dealing with the aftermath of rejection or betrayal, we can find ourselves living in fear. Scared to look at our memories, scared of the pain they will bring up. However, if you maintain healthy boundaries, the fear subsides, and you can look at the memories with more honesty. You may even find places where you can rework your thought process on specific memories to the point of clarity that you may not have possessed previously.
This is not easy or always pleasant work, but it is necessary for healthy boundaries in relationships of all sorts. Growth requires discomfort and there is no quick easy fix.
Moving Towards Healthy Relationships
The work of detoxifying our minds from past hurts is akin to casting toxic mountains into the sea. This is where missing ‘them’, fear, hurt, bitterness, pain, anger, and rejection make way for love, forgiveness, and fresh boundaries.
Visualize these mountains fading away, dissolving, burning up. Keep growing in His love. Let God do the heavy lifting required.
The thoughts you have about your memories- are how you perceive what happened. While you cannot change what happened, you can change how you perceive it. Bear in mind whatever you think about the most is what will grow.
You can’t set good boundaries if you’re unsure of where you stand. So identify your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits, … Consider what you can tolerate and accept and what makes you feel uncomfortable
PsychCentral, 10 Ways to Build and Preserve Better Boundaries
Toxic thoughts can lead to a wildfire in your mind, the damage we want to contain. Recovering from emotional trauma like the severe rejection of betrayal can lead to a strong desire to never trust again. You may be determined to keep the door tightly shut against any new friendships or relationships.
Time to Heal and Establish Healthy Boundaries
While you will not want to stay cocooned forever, it is good and healthy to re-evaluate your current relationships and feel gratitude for them. It is okay to wrap yourself in a soft blanket of family or true friend‘s love. To want that and nothing else for a time.
Allow yourself this time to first heal and second work on what you need your new boundaries to be with those who have hurt you. And how to establish them.
Be Open to Where God Leads You
The goal: to abide in Yahshua/Jesus and not get ahead (or behind) from where He leads you. To have an open and loving heart for His will to be done in your relationships and friendships.
Your God-given intuition is needed in your recovery from hurt and in the establishing of healthy boundaries.
How Healthy Boundaries Embody Forgiveness
Often when one has been deeply wounded it is desired to cut off all contact with the one(s) that hurt you. However, while this may be a necessity in some situations, in many cases, once you have been able to reach a place of genuine forgiveness – the right thing to do is establish new boundaries and live in peace with the offender(s).
This can feel terrifying to even consider. But let’s talk it through for a moment.
What would be the possible harm? Further rejection. More pain? That’s where your newfound boundaries protect you. You can love those who have hurt you, with His love. But, that in no way implies you give them your heart to trample on again.
You will find true closure and learn to walk in the forgiveness you have found.
Perfect love (YHVH’s) casts out fear. Food for thought. A life well lived where they have no power to reject you again because you are no longer interested in their acceptance. Your healthy boundaries are in place.
Please note that this article contains affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure at the bottom of the page.
Additional Resources for Processing
- Uninvited by Lisa Terkuerst
- The Intimate God by Tricia Martin
- Getting to Yes with Yourself by William Ury
- Rejection Proof by Jia Jiang
- Books on Self-Discipline by Martin Meadows
- Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend
- Embodying Forgiveness by L. Gregory Jones
- #blessedtoberejected
- #blessedreject
- #healthyboundaries
