Pillar V: Boundaries & Difficult Conversations
Our guiding spirit for our work on boundaries and difficult conversations is Ishtar, a goddess who represents boundaries and differentiation (what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is yours). She stands between owls, the great figures of wisdom, holding the tools of many traditions (much like the High Priestess in fact!).
It’s important to consider the connotations of the words we choose as priestesses and keepers of the old wisdoms. The word “boundary” creates boundaries in an interesting way and begins to set up a rigid parameter around the energies of this work – so much so that I find myself more drawn to the word “border”, which retains the essence of the idea of separation but without the connotation of exclusion. There is a me separate from you; but that separation of me doesn’t require the exclusion of you, if that makes sense.
Border or boundary work is about integrity of energy – yours, within you and others’, returning to them. Think of energy as information that moves. It moves in three ways:
1) through channels (both people and portals)
2) through centers (like meridians and chakras)
3) through the field (that surrounds people, objects, and places)
All objects possess and energy field. You must carefully observe, monitor, and protect yours. That’s what boundaries or borders are for. They facilitate the enforcement of a protected space, which for an empath or healer is the difference between life and death. When your borders are too porous, harmful energies can leak and penetrate, which can affect not only your spiritual but your physical and emotional health. Serious business.
I notice that energies around me which cause me to feel a need for protection appear red in color, while energies that require me to filter or purify them appear carbon or gray. You may not notice a color as much as a feeling, or a scent, or a sound depending on whether you are clairvoyant (clear seeing), clairsentient (clear sensing), or clairaudient (clear hearing). But this is all reactive, meaning that what I’m talking about here is happening after you engage with energies that stand in violation of you, your aura, or your field. One question I like to ask is, how can I be more proactive in setting intentions for the kinds of energies that are welcome in my space, in my field, in my life?
I like to set my energy rather than set my boundary. One is declarative, affirmative and proactive; the other is defensive, protective, and reactive. What is welcome in your life? Only you can decide. I’ll tell you a story.
A few people in my life have shown themselves to be supremely untrustworthy. Downright scary, in fact, and are no longer welcome in my world. It’s unfortunate, but it happens – part of the lesson that no all is light and rainbows. There is darkness, and it manifests in the world, in people. I don’t spend any time thinking about, engaging with, or sending energy to those folks. Not a single second. What I do instead is focus on what is allowed. Goodness, compassion, integrity, honesty, balance, humor, candor, truth are welcome. All the time. 24/7. The more I focus on what is welcome, the more of the welcome things arrive. The less I focus on what is excluded (back to the issues with boundaries I articulated above) the less energy is expended in that negative direction, and the less I feel compelled to even consider borders. They become the exception, not the rule.
And that’s how I live my life. That’s how I manage communities that total hundreds of thousands of people online. I set energetic intentions for engagement. I manage borders as needed. And I make very clear to the Universe what is welcome. I’m not afraid to be very articulate about what I need and will allow. Which makes difficult conversations less difficult, even unneeded.
A mantra that helps me a great deal in this context is: “I am a complete, powerful, and loving being. I send energy through the higher realms and channels to Source and ask that it be sent on my behalf where it is needed, to whom it is needed, and for what it is needed, in the interest of All. And so it is.”
JOURNAL PROMPTS
1) What do my existing energetic borders look like? If I had tighter borders, how would I feel differently or interact differently? With whom?
2) Where or with whom do you notice the most profound need for tighter borders? What emotions surface even as you read that question?
