“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” – Prentis Hemphill
A lack of boundaries isn’t loving yourself or others well. We are often either allowing bad behavior or behaving badly ourselves depending on whether we’re crossing other people’s boundaries or letting them walk all over us because we don’t have any. Unfortunately you can’t have boundaries in a cult where everyone is often acting out either a narcissist or codependent role. You can’t allow people that you’re controlling as a cult leader to have boundaries or an identity.
Boundaries are tough. For many of us we have to figure out who we are first in order to know where to even set our own boundaries. We were actively discouraged from having an identity of our own but most of us either simply lacked one or took on a very harsh and judgmental one that was given us by the cult. How can we love others well or be loved well by them when we don’t even know who we are or feel that we have any value?
I want to encourage you to work hard at finding yourself, at self-love instead of self-loathing, and at finding your own voice to speak up for the boundaries you would like to hold while recognizing those of others and loving them well too.
You teach people how to treat you. What is the message you’re sending? What does that show as a reflection of yourself? What is the belief inside you that allows you to send that message? Is that belief actually true, or is it as true as 607BCE or that a Smurf doll ran out of a Kingdom Hall once in defiance of Jehovah? Jehovah’s Witnesses lied to us in so many ways, and if we can change our beliefs about ourselves the way we did with the cult, we can start to adopt new tools like boundaries and to have more love in our lives, like the quote references.