In the first video of this 30 Day Video Challenge, I briefly mentioned that I was being challenged to take down any and all walls I may have left. As I went through that process, however, I bumped up against a little problem: how could I release all defensive and protective mechanisms and still keep my boundaries? I knew it was possible, but how, exactly, was that supposed to work in the real world?
Well, I received the answer through a series of experiences, and in today’s video, I share what I learned.
You can be completely open, vulnerable, authentic and still have boundaries that are completely intact.
Watch today’s video to find out how.
This is an area where I still have a lot of work to do, despite having taking numerous steps in the right direction. The Universe has had my back all the way; two years ago when I found myself in a sort of a crossroad situation between continuing to push through my social fears and sinking back into the old way of thinking, I got offered a job in a bar. I imagined myself working with drunken and occasionally violent people, and the thought horrified me. I took the job because I saw an immense opportunity for growth, and a year later I was bored out of my wits because there was no challenge anymore 😀 I’m still not entirely stable in this, though, and especially recently when a huge chunk of not-so-pleasant childhood memories resurfaced I’ve been feeling that I have to re-learn stuff I had already dealt with. But big leaps always create momentary instability. That’s when I get the biggest epiphanies and make the most progress so I’m trying to stay positive about this.
‘Completely trust the creation of my reality’. Oh yes, it’s definitely all about self love :). Yet whilst I’ve learnt to trust quite well, at times I forget to remember 😉 to completely trust. It takes a beautiful reminder like this to cause me to reflect, the beauty being that
I realise how far Ive come :). Thank you SO much. Your daily videos rock!
Hi! Melody, I’m glad you discovered that boundaries are ok & don’t need to be taken down when you remove all defenses, and that your stability is better than a defence. It makes me happy for you to be at such a place on your vibrational ladder, as well happy that you’re sharing this with all of us! But I need some help:
– At the beginning of the video, you mention that you were wondering if boundaries needed to be let go of as a part of removing all walls of defense. By the end of the video I realized you felt boundaries aren’t the same as defensive walls or defensive actions. Although I think I see what you mean by a boundary, I don’t know what a defensive wall is so I’m losing a big part of the message. The best I can guess is that a defensive wall might be the very same thing as a boundary but it’s created out of fear to protect ourselves, whereas a boundary is created to protect ourselves out of a sense of practical necessity and completely without fear. But I’m just guessing. Can you tell us what you mean by a “defensive wall”? In any case, thanks! The part I got from the message is great!
This is very timely that you chose this topic today. I’ve been doing this lately without realizing it. I no longer allow myself to be around negative talk or arguing or anything. Either I instantly shut down and tune it out or I leave the room. I’ve also been allowing myself to have more fun in my life and not shut myself down with past limiting beliefs or feel obligated to do something that wasn’t fun to me.
Once again, thanks for your wonderful and inspiring videos.
This was a big one !! Really very helpful (as all the other videos too btw).
“Completely trust the creation of my reality” this is a really big one, it’s so powerful !
Slowly but surely i’m moving in that direction with your help !
Thank you Melody, big hug !
Melody, is there a chance you could talk with your sister in one of these videos? Or some other person (maybe a neighbor, or a colleague)? 🙂
I think it would add a nice flavor to a video. Maybe you could also do that tour around your house (or neighborhood), or just talk about what usually happens during a normal day for you.
I love this. I had an experience this week with my boss and we had a difference of perception regarding something that happened at work. At the time, I was a tad surprised it came into my reality, but almost immediately realised it was just an energetic mismatch. I very much admire her and she’s just come back from a Tony Robbins seminar. He’s someone who was my guiding light when I was a teenager, but I realised I’ve moved on from that thinking. I found Abraham hicks around 5 years ago and it helped slip into place my thinking about efforting verses letting energy do the forming of my reality and impulses. My reaction to our disagreement showed me I have a new definition of boundaries. Whereas there was a time I’d have tried to justify myself, try to make myself understood, I had a different understanding. A desire to just remove myself from the situation, realise she’s doing the best she can to fulfill her needs and desires in this moment and just realise we’re in different places and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s room for both of us here and we’re both worthy, right and justified in our opinions. It felt good to realise that. Freeing.
Love it! Thank you!!!
I enjoyed your video and its timing is amazing (thank you Universe!). I have been guided to a problem area for me and you touched upon it with this. However, my problem is deeper and I was hoping to get some more guidance. I have a resistance to receiving. i don’t mean to have it and am working to remove it but this is a long embedded wall, i think. i want to cry just thinking about it. i dont know howto make it go away. i have done so much work and have so much to give. Any help/advice is super appreciated.
Love and light to all
Suzi
Hi Suzi! I’m in a similar situation. The thing I want to work on causes so much sadness that I can’t see any clues for getting to a higher vibration when I just sit with the feelings. But that’s only one way to get where we want to be. Melody’s archives are chock full of alternatives. I couldn’t recall where I’d read about this one (the poke & run technique) but I searched her archives and found it just now! Easily! It’s in this blog:”Tips To Drastically Raise Your Vibration Without Having To Hire A Coach” and I think it might help you like it’s helping me. If not, there is so much more to explore in those archives, as well as in her book. I recently realized that sitting with my feelings about something was repeatedly just ending up with sadness and no clues as to what to do. Just stopping doing that and finding things to cheer me up til I could feel more happy shiny puppy-ish was the answer. In my happy state I could do those quick pokes and I saw the clues. Best wishes! -from another happy shiny puppy in training!
Oops! The punch line of what I wrote was actually the opposite of what I meant! I don’t mean that I also stopped finding ways to cheer me up! I meant “I just stopped doing that and INSTEAD, I STARTED finding things to cheer me up!”) And, by the way, this might be helpful to be more specific. I don’t know that I did it the best way but the way I started finding ways to be happier included distracting myself from thinking about a whole bunch of unhappy thoughts that were hard to avoid! So I watched funny movies, sought my cheeriest friends, got more active, you name it, with happiness being my goal. And of course my happiness is putting smiles on the faces of those who love me, which increased my happiness, and my smiles get reflected back from total strangers. So my happiness grows and I poke and run with the thing that makes me so sad. Believe me, LOA is telling me I desperately need to find a way to let go of the resistances that are connected to it! I still haven’t let go completely! But it seems like it’s got lots of parts and I let go of something, some part of my resistance & I feel I’m getting closer than I ever have been before to letting go completely, so I’d say the Poke & Run method is working for me with this particular thing. Other methods worked great for other things. I hope you find the best way for you soon!
Thank you. Keep going.
x
You are amazing! Oops, YOU know that. I needed to hear this. Working my way back to being me is sometimes a long hard trip. You continue to open my mind and more importantly, my heart, which was shriveling, a cold black lump where the sun shined all the time at one point. Anyway, your wisdom reminded me of a conversation with a friend one day. We went to get donuts for all the folks helping to paint and renovate a neighborhood in a not so wonderful part of this particular city. She was raised Christian Scientist and her mother kept her wrapped in cotton to prevent any injuries or other harm. Anyhow, when we got back in the car, she said, You have no fear and I looked at her and said of what didn’t you see that guy and this and that and Nope, I didn’t I’m not careless, I just don’t expect badness to touch me…..or I did and with your generosity, I am making strides to return to my little surfer girl mentality.
I can never say thank you enough for all you have done for my tiny little mind and ignorance. Much more effective than medication, or any other alternative I haven’t tried cause I just knew I could do this. I was thinking I couldn’t and you popped in and the Peter Pan puppy in on her way back.
Thank you a quadrillion times.
Gosh Melody, these are really good. I think you have a second book here! You look so happy giving these messages too.
Hi Melody
Very inspiring once again , I do have barriers and thanks to you , its brought it to my attention to sort out .
My boundaries are OK , don’t need to worry about them as I bounce of bad energy like yourself etc but my barriers ,which I think is all about trust , will be taken down which I do believe will open up so much to me and maybe sort out what I mentioned in yesterdays post
You are helping as well as teaching just by being you thank you Melody
Loving life
Interesting how this post resonated with me..i always feel the urge to help..even though i may not be equipped or stabilized enough to do so..going to follow this from now..thanks for the reminder Melody..have a nice day 🙂
Fearlessness, safety, security and trust. You just named the emotions I need to feel (and fill) the most. I loved C.J.’s comment too, that when there’s (true and deep) self-love, there’s no need for defensive mechanisms. I’m in the midst of doing just that, loving myself (ALL the sides of me, and all levels) and also taking full responsibility, because, even though I’m a pretty happy person and probably the clearest (energetically) of almost everyone I know, I can fall into the trap of not “practicing what I preach”. Which, for me, means: knowing I create my reality, but then indulging in negative expectations; knowing what to do energy wise to clear my stuff, but then procrastinate; knowing everything that comes to me is attracted, but then feel that there are things I “don’t know how” to control or manifest. Lots of contradictions and I need a lot of self-love and awareness to bring all power back to me and create and live from that place of wholeness and being a FREE happy shiny kitty in the world too! 😉
Thank you for being you. For being more open and vulnerable. I can feel your truth more and it touches my heart. ????????????
Thanks for doing this challenge of daily posts. I really look forward to them and to reading other insights in the comments 🙂
Very inspiring food for thought.
I loved the insight… “Why would anything go wrong? It would only go wrong as a reflection.”, “Once the boundaries are really set, you don’t have the manifestation of someone crossing that boundary anymore.” Thanks 🙂
“Once the boundaries are really set, you don’t have the manifestation of someone crossing that boundary anymore.”
My experience is that people will cross you (or attempt to) so long as you don’t like yourself. Every workplace has a ‘boundary setter’! They are the uptight ones – very difficult to be around. They are constantly enforcing rules so that no one accidentally says or does something to upset them. The boundary effectively cuts them off from other people, so you don’t feel warmth or connection around them.
I know of people like that. That’s not my idea of boundary. Like you said, those people don’t particularly like themselves, and they try to avoid negative interactions of any kind so they won’t feel insecure. To me, a boundary is just a reasonable idea of what’s acceptable or not to you… It’s not based on insecurity or trying to control people. For example, people are allowed to be open and honest with me, I invite that, but what isn’t cool with me is when someone’s idea of honesty is slinging a bunch of insults, being passive aggressive and lashing out at me if I’ve tried to be respectful and mature with them.
Hi April, I completely agree with you. Boundaries, to me, aren’t some kind of restrictions I put on other people, since other peoples’ opinions of me are none of my business. My boundaries are what I do, or what I don’t want in my experience. I think a lot of people are still putting boundaries on others, thus focusing on and inviting those low-vibe people and circumstances.
I think I agree with you CJ. Nice Insite on not to keep boundaries. Even though I feel moving away from a stupid conversation is a boundary in itself.
That was so cute at the end Melody! I look forward to these every day, and this one especially got me excited because I remember you mentioning the topic on the first video of your challenge and I’d been waiting for it.
And you are so right. Right around the time I began identifying my own boundaries and becoming more aware of what’s healthy/unhealthy for me (trusting my intuition and avoiding energy vampires instead of giving them positivity), I also had this fear of others not respecting them. Initially I had assert my boundaries out loud a few times to those who knew the ‘old’ me, but just as you said in the video, it’s really about the energy I’m giving off. If it’s an energy of I-deeply-respect-myself then people will subconsciously pick up on it and automatically adjust their behavior towards me… and yes, I’ve noticed it actually happening! That means I don’t have to worry about them stepping over my boundaries, because even IF they do, I trust myself to speak up and be done with it. Sooner or later, it just won’t manifest anymore because I’ll be operating less from the ego and more from my true self.
Awesome video.
This was so inspiring!
PS, you look so beautiful in this video! Your hair is perfect. The perfect color and so bouncy, like a shampoo commercial. 😉
Hi Mel,
I found that the concept of boundaries and ‘walls of defense’ become a non-issue when there’s self love. The self love provides the protection and the feeling of safety.
I see so many psychologists talk about ‘setting boundaries’ and it’s completely screwy. Psychologists must spend their whole day analyzing who is and who isn’t respecting them sufficiently, and then letting everyone know “it’s not ok… it’s not cool… I need space… back off”. If people are ‘in your grill’ or ‘overstepping the mark’ it’s always because you have no self love.
So… boundaries shmoundaries. I hate the word. It confuses and misleads people into thinking that “those people out there” will victimize you if you’re not careful. Well, that’s sort of true – they will, but not for the reason they think. Victims attract their own misfortune through lack of self love.
So very well said. Thanks CJ. I am loving the knowledge I’m gaining from all of this and how true it all is from our experiences.
Thanks for your beautiful insights CJ..something to ponder on.
Your idea of what a boundary is is very different than mine! I don’t think of a boundary as an attempt to control other people and certainly not as something about ‘respect’. It’s just your own definition of what you’re willing to experience. If my boundary is that I don’t like restaurants that play loud music, I’m not going to try to control the restaurant into changing its music policy, I’m just going to eat somewhere else. If my boundary is that I don’t want to be around crazy misogyny, I’m not going to try to control people who want to talk about women in those ways, I’m just going to leave the conversation.
Behaving according personal preference is definitely the way to build self love (versus controlling everything and everyone around you in an attempt to remove risk of feeling unloved). So I agree with you.
Almost everything that is written on boundaries has a victim/controlling/uptight feel about it. I’m suggesting people not buy into that.