Boundaries

[rva_jeremy]

Hey everybody, been thinking about a few things and wanted to get some feedback.

I've been asking for guidance on how to love myself more and be the kind of person I know I'm capable of being.  A lot of things under the surface of the water are changing for me, I feel, but I can't necessarily look directly at them easily.  My questions to myself hinge on things like desire, where my blockages are, my worthiness and giving me some sort of mental frame for becoming a more realized person.

Basically, at least one potential answer came in the form of some reading materials I found that kind of tend in the pick-up artist / men's rights activist / anti-feminist direction.  I always considered that stuff pretty puerile and/or psycho, and I still think that.  However, I think in getting men to be more assertive and the specific ways they suggest it there's something there.

Much of my take away of what I consider positive is exactly the kind of self-love I think is important.  You see, positive entities give so freely that they can often find themselves tapped out--Q'uo and others have talked about this before.  It's easy to say one should just be more loving and generous when challenging situations present themselves and you feel manipulated, cowed, and intimidated into doing something other than what you would otherwise do.  This turns service, especially positive service, from something cheerful and earnest into a source of frustration and resentment.  I'd feel like I was giving but never receiving, and nobody can sustain that in a normal frame of mind.  How to serve, then?

Anyway, I've been asserting my boundaries more.  When people cross my boundaries in some way, I tend more towards letting them know than letting it slide now.  I do not get angry with them for this: it is their choice to behave however they wish, and in the material illusion they owe me nothing that they don't wish to give freely.  It's as silly to resent my wife (for example) for nagging or boring me with drama as it would be to resent a dog for peeing on a fire hydrant.  This is their nature, it's what they do, and holding it against them only hurts you.

But I do realize that it goes both ways.  If I want to serve, I have to have something to give.  I have to look after myself, understand my limitations and strengths and problems, get clear on who I am and what this third density construct's lessons are.  I can't necessarily do that if I always feel like I'm under somebody's thumb or have to walk on eggshells around them. I have to be able to maintain my own frame, my own energy, my own judgment and discernment.

If I want to serve, it has to be my choice to render the service.  Otherwise it's just a duty I'm performing, devoid of virtue, and something that doesn't build my character but saps my will.  This is an important lesson I feel I've received, because it at once (A) teaches me how to value myself in a material way (obviously, there's more to the spiritual maintenance here, and I'm only discussing one aspect) and (B) gives me a platform of self-esteem from which I can then choose my expressions of love and service honestly and as my true self.

So I'm trying out being less unthinkingly helpful and generous in favor of saying "no" more, of being willing to endlessly discuss things less, of caring so much about other people's concerns.  I don't get swept up in emotional arguments and instead maintain a neutral, unattached demeanor.  If somebody has a problem with me, I do not apologize if I feel I'm not in the wrong.  And I don't stick around to be harangued by those who disapprove.

If I were you and reading this I'd think this is selfish, and it is.  I think it's more like dangerous, in fact, because I could get swept away in just looking out for number one.  But every time I dive deep on thinking about this, I come to the same conclusion: how else would one balance? What the heck is wrong with saying "no"? What could possibly be problematic about a person denying the pressure to behave a certain way because he or she does not feel it suits them? And yet our relationships are chock full of these traps were we express a stunted but unchallenging version of our personality.

I wish to give of myself purely, but until I know myself purely and understand whom I want to become, I have to set up boundaries on this third density personality construct.  I have to understand what I desire in order to know whether or not I choose to sacrifice that at a given moment for another.  I have to be free to tell somebody else to go to hell in order to forgive them.  This is really about empowering oneself and feeling fully adult.

I dunno, thoughts?  Sorry if some of this is vague, but I don't want to get too personal.