Children do not have the authority to enforce healthy boundaries.
A child has to adapt and just try to avoid painful consequences. Any breaches of a child’s experience of safety can create a psychic wound that we often still carry as adults — under our confident grown-up persona.
But our grown-up self continues to live out what we learned in childhood. That’s what happened to me…
Performance Intoxication
My poor boundaries were rooted in very deep-seated beliefs about who I was and who I was supposed to be. I thought I had to continually prove myself worthy with accomplishments. This resulted in a life of intense, seemingly nonstop activity.
Which brings up my second socially approved — but personally costly —behavior: my lifelong all-out drive to achieve and win. As one of my daughters observed to be our family motto, “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!”
Of course, the drive for success in and of itself is not a bad thing. But it can come at a high price to us and those we love.
What Recovery Looks Like
I understand that there are no quick fixes for untangling habits of codependency and overwork. These are long-term projects that require change. In fact, I’ll never become someone else.
But as healthy adults, we can learn not to lose ourselves in the rescue of others or sacrifice our most important relationships in our dash for success.
Self-awareness is good, but it doesn’t bring instant results. It does mean that we choose every day to get honest about the pain our “bent” behaviors cause, then commit to an ongoing process of regaining what we’ve lost.
Pause to Reflect
- What relationships in your life might suffer from unhealthy boundaries?
- What kind of relationship do you have with your drive for success?
- Have you ever experienced unconditional grace in a relationship or a group? What happened and how did it affect you?
You can find much more to this story in Chapter 4 of my book, All In! I’d love to journey with you.