BOUNDARIES & MONEY

This is a journey of stepping out of our comfort zones, opening new relationships, removing extraordinary barriers in our community and unlocking guarded parts of our hearts. So it might feel odd to talk about boundaries now. We have found there’s a vital difference between societal barriers and healthy relational boundaries. Let’s talk about some of them this month.

CODEPENDENCY

There’s a lot of people out there like me, Chris, whose early life experiences formed us into a pattern of relationships sometimes called “codependency.” We can be super compassionate, responsible, and able to quickly create human connections. But there’s a tragic confusion of boundaries just beneath the surface that can really get us into painful tangles as adults with those we want to love, and be loved by.

Basically, when we were little, there was enough chaos in the lives of our caretakers that they weren’t able to see—nor help us recognize—our own needs. Instead, we learned how to become caretakers in our homes at a very early age, often tangibly or emotionally supporting our own caretakers. This is where the boundaries and roles first went askew. Without really being aware of it, we learned that making sure everyone else was okay . . . was the best way to make sure we would be okay. Does this sound familiar to any of you?

Unlike other coping mechanisms young people learn (aggression, withdrawing, addiction, risky behavior), kids like us gained trust and praise from adults as we grew up. We can sense another person’s need, or what a group requires, before it’s named. We’re on it. Which is a relief to many people around us. They can lean back a little, do a bit less. But we end up taking on too much—both the tasks and the emotional sense of responsibility for others. We don’t have healthy clarity about different people’s roles.

We often don’t know it’s too much (we really think we’re fine, since we have a hard time even knowing what we need) until it’s too late. When accompanying someone in great need (like our releasing friends), maybe we’ve done far too much of their work for them. We can feel burnt out, suddenly resentful, and increasingly controlling—not trusting others will do their part.

A tragic cycle begins. This kind of energy understandably leads those around us to back away. Teamwork collapses. We become lone rangers. This is when we are the most vulnerable: left to only our own judgment, unsupported, desperate to fix situations beyond our control, we can make really bad decisions.

Sadly, our unconscious hope is that the person we are caretaking will love us in return, meet our needs (remember, this pattern was set as kids, hoping to stabilize some of our own caregivers). We can become nearly enmeshed with our friend who’s now become a sort personal rescue project. We can get into a mix of controlling others and situation while also being manipulated by people who have their own unhealthy relational patterns.

This is usually what’s going on when something’s gone off track with our OPOP teams. And the rest of the team has already backed away.

The solution is not to point fingers or diagnose each other. The solution is to come back together as a team. The remedy is to reclaim our shared roles and responsibilities. In these situations, please: lean back in. Let this team member know you all see their big heart and struggle, and that they don’t have to carry the load alone. Healthy boundaries are much easier when there is balance and shared belonging.

These team members, like me, can step back from poor boundary patterns when we have a team around us, holding us, all holding our roles and our releasing friend together.

STICK TOGETHER

Whether there’s codependent patterns in your team makeup or not, sticking together is the solution to just about any challenge you’ll face. Don’t split up. Don’t go rogue. Also, don’t let some members drift from participation. Those are just different coping mechanisms when our wounds start opening: fight (go into overdrive), flight (back away, disengage), or freeze (team members who go silent, do nothing, just a body in the room). So what do we do when our wounds tremble inside? We stay. We re-learn trust. We face it and name it and feel it.

We stick together. This is the foundation for trauma repair. “I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment, because I trust it can be part of my healing.”

NO SECRETS FROM THE TEAM

If the stuff above is true for some of you reading—whether you’re on the outside team or releasing from incarceration—there’s no shame. I learned these boundaries the hard way. We are really vulnerable when people we care for tell us we are . . . special. When we are asked to keep secrets, “the others wouldn’t understand,” etc. Red flag, friends. If that’s true, bring it to the team and help everyone understand.

If we can’t loop the rest of the team in about something, that should tell us something is off. Take the risk: come clean with your team. We are healing together

CONFIDENTIALITY

We went over this in your Kickoff Orientation. But just a reminder, as we’re talking boundaries. We only share things outside the team about our releasing friend with their permission. Yes, even with our spouses. Including their last name. (We’ve had worried spouses Google the releasing friend, see only the worst about them in courtroom print, and spread waves of panic and gossip. That’s bad boundaries. It damages trust all around.)

If you want to process with others, talk about what you’re learning. What’s happening inside you. What the larger story is, what your team is sharing with the wider congregation/community. What kind of questions your team is exploring. And what new questions you want to ask of others. Tell them about this journey, and how they can get started, themselves.

NO ONE WANTS TO FEEL USED

Our incarcerated friends are wary of folks on the outside using them for a feel-good project, an ego boost, a story to tell—then leave them hanging when it’s no longer convenient. And our released friends warn us of how common it is inside prison for folks to tell pen pals what they want to hear, in order to get money on their books or have a proxy or personal secretary doing their bidding on the outs.

None of us signed up for this journey with bad intentions, on either side of the prison walls. But there are these longstanding patterns of using people, on both sides. We want to be aware of these and avoid such temptations to take us off course. Such healthy boundaries are part of this ongoing art of building trusting relationships.

NO SWITCHBOARDING

That said, we on the outside aren’t a switchboard to relay messages, texts, social media accounts, to all sorts of people on the outside. Nor to relay communication to others in prison. That’s a messy role to be in. We are here for focusing on our own relationships with each other, primarily, not being proxies or relays. If there’s a housing lead, a reentry resource or office locally, a family or loved one for the team to reach out to together, wonderful. Reentry planning is the goal.