I’ve been reading through the book “Boundaries.” I downloaded Amazon’s Kindle app for the iPhone. It’s really nice and convenient, so I have a good book when I’m working out.
One part of chapter 6 impacted me. It was the Myth # 5: Boundaries mean I’m angry.
When I came off my heart failure in January of 2008, I made a conscious decision to say “no” to more things. I wanted my time to be available for my family–and I generally didn’t want to be involved in a lot of other things. A strange occurrence started happening to me, though. I found myself getting angry at things and situations more quickly than I had before the illness. I thought something was wrong with me since, as one who had been given new life, I should be relishing every moment–not getting angry at it. But anger was there.
Cloud and Townsend make the argument that boundary setting tends to initially raise the emotional stakes rather than settling them. They claim this is because you are finally dealing with emotions you’ve suppressed for many years. Perhaps this was the truth for me.
I don’t find myself nearly as angry as I was a year ago, but the entire episode left me a bit dazed and confused. Reading chapter six turned a needed spotlight onto the issue.