When Dale and I travel, we stay in hotels, and frequently don the "Do Not Disturb" door hanger on the knob. While this may be good for a hotel stay, it is certainly not good for people to wear like a permanent label, displayed across their chests. Yet many do.
For the last several weeks, I have posted a little about boundaries. As with everything, when boundaries are misused, they are no longer beneficial, but rather harmful.
Boundaries are a means to protect ourselves from someone who continually threatens or harms us verbally, emotionally, sexually, and physically.
However, sometimes, people will completely isolate themselves from all people in the name of “needing to set a boundary”. This is an over protection of self that can be extremely detrimental to your growth and your mental stability.
The Bible says that those who isolate themselves, break out against sound judgement. (Proverbs 18:1) In other words, when you get isolated, you stop thinking clearly. You have an enemy who begins to wreak havoc on your thoughts. Before you know it, you have boarded the crazy train in your mind, leading you to make crazy decisions.
Boundaries were never meant for you to totally step away from all relationships. Some of the greatest times of growth is when you have a conflict or experience differences with other people. God uses those differences to develop you, not divide you. And yet, with the whole cancel culture and ghosting of others, if we don’t like how someone acts or what they say, we just write them off and move on. That was NEVER God’s intentions for relationships.
God uses differences to develop you, not divide you.
So, make sure that the boundaries you set are truly necessary, and not a facade that avoids people, putting you in an isolated cocoon. Self-imposed isolation is not a boundary, but a self-sabotaging of your own personal growth.
Self-imposed isolation is not a boundary, but a self-sabotaging of your own personal growth.
Strip yourself of that "Do Not Disturb" sign. We actually need to be disturbed sometimes, so we can grow!!!
You are loved,
Jena