Learning How to Draw a Line

I recently began reading a book called Boundaries by Henry Cloud. This book changed my mind about how we as Christians are called to help people, as well as teaching me that I don’t have to give up my own life in order to help others with theirs. Something I’ve struggled with understanding throughout my life, as I assume other people have as well, is discerning the difference between helping and doing something for someone else. Growing up I was taught some core, Christian values and these included that we are called to help others and put them before ourselves. This is something that is true, but is tricky to teach as well as understand, especially as a kid. The perspective that this book brings has changed my opinion on exactly how much I can give to the world.

Throughout my life I’ve been growing in my understanding of how to practice this form of humility in my own life, because I tend to put more into helping others than I can handle. What typically happens is that I see pain in the life of someone who I’m close to and seeing that makes me want to do something to make it go away. I’m sure many of us see and struggle with this, because in these situations there’s only so much you can do. I tend to take this person’s problems on as if they were my own problems and I put extra stress on myself by doing this. These situations usually end in me struggling to keep up with my own life and ultimately having a moment where I break down and blame myself for what happened. This pattern is not healthy, and I know that it is not part of what Christians are supposed to do. I’ve been struggling for a few years with understanding why I can’t help others like I thought I was called to do as well as keep up with my own life. The book Boundaries is all about this exact thought process and examines the bible and what it says about the matter. The conclusion that the author comes to it that we need to set boundaries for ourselves so that we don’t feel pressure to try and control/ “fix” everyone else’s life. These healthy boundaries prevent us from getting overly involved in the lives of others to the point that we end up hurting ourselves.

This book helped me start to understand that putting too much into others is not only bad for me, but it ultimately also hurts them. If I give too much to them, it will be easier for them to become dependent on this help to the point where if I suddenly realize that the relationship is hurting me and I have to back out, they will be more hurt than they would have been had I never stepped in at all. This perspective really got my attention because I didn’t realize that I could be hurting others trough my destructive behavior of over involvement. For example, if one friend was struggling with school because of their home life, a healthy help from another friend would be to offer suggestions to friend one such as, “maybe you should seek help from an organization of adults who know what they are doing,” or, “try to get all of your homework done at school.” Another way of helping would be offering to stay after school for a few minutes to help this person with any questions they have about a specific piece of homework. Getting overly involved would be doing something like staying up later than usual to FaceTime this friend for three hours to help them do all their homework. This scenario isn’t healthy, because the helping friend is trying to solve the problem for the other friend. Through this process, the helping friend could get less sleep and become more stressed about getting their own homework done, because they don’t have as much time. When the helping friend starts to struggle it brings both people down, ultimately hurting both more than they would have been hurt if the helping friend had helped in a healthier way.

Reading this book has led me to many realizations that have changed how I help others. Now, when I’m in these types of situations, I step back and look at it from an outside perspective, therefore not letting myself get in the middle of the situation too early. This helps me to make a clearer decision about what the best plan of action is. In the moment it is very hard to tell someone no and not immediately step in to solve their problem for them, but I’ve realized through this book and now through my own experience that having boundaries about how much to help someone is healthier and usually more beneficial for both people. I plan to continue to use what I’ve learned from this book in my life, since it has changed my viewpoint on what it really means to help someone.