How Do You Set Strong Boundaries for Yourself to Have a Happy Life?
What is the connection between boundaries and happiness? When are we comfortable within certain boundaries, and when do those boundaries begin to feel restrictive? How do we create the right balance between ourselves and those around us?
Without boundaries, we are unable to feel who we are. Even a cell in the body has a boundary that separates it from what lies outside it, and our skin separates our body from the environment. In addition, we have personal space that we protect, emotional and mental boundaries, and boundaries that depend on our mood or the quality of our relationships with other people.
In general, we can say that our entire perception of reality operates through boundaries. For example, we live within the limitations of time, space, and motion, and every measurement we make is relative to some boundary. Around us are still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature, things we consider good and want to bring closer, and things we consider bad and want to push away. Our lives consist of constantly shifting boundaries one way or another in order to feel, at every moment, that we are in an optimal, balanced state.
When we delve into human nature, we discover that the fundamental substance driving every action is the desire to receive pleasure and enjoyment, or in other words, the desire to enjoy, to exist in a state that feels good. Shifting the position of our boundaries arranges the desire for pleasure in such a way that it can feel comfortable in the world, so that the boundary feels neither too close nor too far away, but exactly where it should be.
The desire for pleasure grows and develops both quantitatively and qualitatively, from one generation to the next, and from one day to the next. In accordance with the internal changes this desire undergoes, human beings try to change their environment, society, and the conditions of existence in the world.
To illustrate this phenomenon: We want something and feel that something is uncomfortable, that certain boundaries are pressing upon us. Perhaps these are debts or financial losses. Perhaps they are poor relationships with our partners, children, colleagues, or friends. Troubling thoughts and constant tension, and eventually we are driven to make changes. We try to change the boundaries if we can, and if we cannot, we try to change something within ourselves so that we no longer experience those boundaries as threatening. This is where psychological treatments and personal coaching come in, alongside anti-anxiety medications and other substances. At the level of society as a whole, we change our scale of values so that things that once made us feel bad come to be regarded as normal.
Today, however, we are approaching some kind of edge, some kind of boundary. A person is no longer succeeding in balancing themselves with their environment. Not only are we failing to develop in a positive direction, but pressures from every side are also increasing. This manifests in many different ways, from the breakdown of the family unit, through social and international conflicts, to the intensification of the climate crisis. Rising tensions lead to eruptions of various kinds and threaten our future as a human species.
Ultimately, we will discover that in an interconnected world there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. We must learn how to balance the boundary between ourselves and everything around us. Nature gives us a clue about what lies ahead, in that the safest and most comfortable place we ever experienced was our mother’s womb. It is no coincidence that when small children are frightened, they run to their mother, almost as though they want to return inside her. This natural impulse remains with us throughout our lives, and within it lies a clue to a happy life.
We will experience the greatest happiness when we reach a state in which the entire world is ready to serve us and do good to us, while we too relate to others with love. This is a state of integral connection, like the connection between the organs of a healthy body, a state of balance and mutual connection. The entire universe will then feel like a womb surrounding us, and we will feel as though we are immersed in an ocean of kindness.
The means that can help us advance to such a level of connection is the integral approach to education, which is studied and practiced in a group setting. Broadly speaking, this approach examines human nature, the nature of the world, and the general direction of development. Through it, a person learns not only how to feel comfortable and well, but also how to understand the evolutionary forces at work. They begin to see where these forces are leading and understand how to adapt themselves internally to changing environmental conditions.
Gradually, a person develops the ability to expand their boundaries of perception and remove the egoistic barriers between themselves and others. Through integral connection with others, they penetrate deeper into nature and discover within it a higher thought that governs the development of reality and their own development within it. Discovering this thought advances a person to a new level of existence, beyond time, space, and motion, in the wholeness and eternity of creation.
Based on "New Life 235 – Happiness and Limits" with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.