Lately I’ve been thinking about emotional boundaries and how much they can affect our relationships. In its simplest form, an emotional boundary is the way that we allow others to treat us. For example, what behavior makes someone a friend? And what will they expect from a friendship in return?

Many of us don’t spend much time thinking about the kinds of behavior that we expect and accept from others. But our emotional boundaries can literally determine the path of every relationship in life.

Our friends have described my husband David and I as having strong boundaries, which makes perfect sense to me. As an empath, my boundaries are a huge form of energy management for myself. I have no trouble declining a dinner or social obligation if I don’t feel up to it. I try to have awareness of what situations might feel out of balance, or where I might be giving too much. If I begin to feel drained by a specific relationship, I will take a look at my boundaries to see if it’s time for an adjustment.

It may seem odd that anyone would choose to get into draining emotional situations. I mean, how hard can it be to honor our own energy? But in my experience, those of us with strong empathy must be reminded of this.

In our effort to connect with others, empaths can be so wide open that we exhaust ourselves and then must hibernate or cocoon to recover.

When it comes to feeling the energy of others, it’s common for it to (mistakenly) feel like an all-or-nothing scenario. What I mean is, we may be offering loyalty that is not earned, all because of our desire to support others. I recently learned this lesson from my gardener (It’ll make sense shortly).

When we first moved into our house, David and I hired landscapers to maintain our yard. A dad and his two sons ran the company, although we never knew who would show up. We spent almost ten years working with them, but things just got more and more neglected. A neighbor jokingly asked if we were going for a Grey Gardens vibe.

The older son is a talented landscaper, and we know that things will be taken care of when he’s around. The issue is, he disappears for months at a time with no explanation. When he resurfaced one day in our yard, we were delighted.

“Brian! You’re back!” I exclaimed from the driveway. He gave me a friendly wave and came over to chat. Brian looked around for a few moments moment and said, “Your yard looks terrible. My brother and dad are neglecting you guys as customers. Honestly, if I were you I would fire us.”

I did a double take, and was truly shocked that he said that. First of all, I hate the idea of taking work away from people. As an empath I start to think of their families who they support. (Just to clarify, it’s not like we live on an estate with acres of land. I don’t think our business is keeping the lights on for them, but it is an exchange of energy.)

After I told him about my hesitation, Brian asked us to give them a month to get the landscaping back into shape. If not, he encouraged us once again to part ways with their family business.

That month passed without any change. In fact, two more years passed and there was no change at all. Hey, you can’t say I’m not loyal!

David and I would spend hours talking about moving on and hiring someone else, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to support them.

Then one day the Dad called me stupid (under his breath) after we asked them to pull some of the very tall weeds that had taken over our front yard.

This is such a perfect example of not having clear boundaries. How could certain elements of my life be so strong and well mapped out, yet I am paying a landscaper who is not doing his job, and even calling me names? Their actions were clearly saying that they didn’t want this job, and it was time to finally listen.

That night while walking our dog Bernie, David and I decided enough was enough. We were going to let our gardeners know that we were moving on and wanted to start working with someone new.

We passed a house on our block with a garden that we often admire. Through the vine covered gates we could see lovely fruit trees, and plump grapes climbing a wrought iron trellis. Bright pink Bougainvillea was growing happily in an arch above the front door.

It was breathtaking. David looked at me and exclaimed “Wow it looks like an ashram in there!”

Suddenly a man holding clippers walked out of the gate. He was wearing a wide brimmed hat, and hummed happily as he started trimming some branches.

David and I looked at each other, then decided to walk over and ask if he was taking new clients. Ten minutes later Alex was in our yard, giving suggestions about what he would do differently. He knew the names of each plant, talking about their individual needs as he looked around. It was so obvious that he was passionate about his work and it showed. We hired him immediately.

The only thing left to do was for us to break up with our old gardeners. I was certain they were going to be upset, and would ask if they could change our minds. Well, it turns out, they couldn’t have cared less! We had to reach out twice just to find out the final payment that we owed them.

You may be reading this and thinking, you decided to work with someone else. So what?

But this is an example of how strong empathy, combined with good intentions can result in messy boundaries that really don’t serve us. Although I pride myself on being clear with my boundaries in certain areas, this example made me realize that there are times when I am too rigid, and also times when I am too passive in my energy exchange with others.

Here I was worrying about our energy exchange for years, not realizing that my boundaries with the landscaper were totally out of whack. I’m grateful to have finally asserted healthy boundaries here, and I’m reminded of it every time I look into our new-and-improved yard.

It’s always easier to avoid thinking about our boundaries, but this can ultimately result in the garden of your life becoming sloppy.

Are there any areas in your life where boundaries are an issue? Let me know in the comments below so I can support you!

Much Love,

P.S. My Spiritual Vision Training Program Level Two starts next week! Learn to perceive and interpret energy around others, using the same techniques that I use with clients. Learn more here