I hate conflict; thus, my boundaries have frequently gone unguarded.
When someone else is uncomfortable—whether or not I caused their discomfort—I’ve quickly self-sacrificed. Afterward, I feel a tinge of burning resentment because beneath my automatic response, I didn’t really want to help: I had to help. My actions weren’t compassionate; they were compulsive, not to mention they denied the other person a vital chance to help themselves.
In adulthood, I’ve had to grasp that I’m more than a salve for people’s discomfort, more than a nice guy, and more than someone’s opinion of me, positive or negative.
We must renunciate our “have to”s. We must be selfish. We must hold our line. That is… if we want to protect our most prized possession: self-integrity.
Then, when the moment appears to help someone who really needs us, we’ll be free to serve selflessly, protected and then empowered, by our bulletproof boundaries.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
