Boundaries can be firm, like a wall, or flexible, like a veil. They can be a place for safe exploration like a de-militarized zone (DMZ). Moderate boundaries are best, in most cases. It's ok to let in the people who have your best in mind and at heart.
However, sometimes even the strongest "No." is not enough to stop someone from trying to cross a boundary you have. So I want to talk about spiritual boundaries and how these can add to the practical every-day boundaries we use in our lives.
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1. Grounding and Shielding - Techniques for protecting your energy body
First step - Drawing your boundary between you and the rest of the world involves knowing where you begin and end. How do you differ from the earth under your feet or the air you breathe? What makes you, uniquely You? Is your home an extension of your body? Is your skin the limit of your self, or is it the hairs that stand on end and reach away from the skin? Or maybe the warmth that your body generates?
On the other hand, are you identifying strongly as "us" with the people you have relationships with? If you are doing something like having sex, or making music, or dancing, does it temporarily change where you begin and end? Consider who you are and who you are not. Decide what is important about you that you want to protect.
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Second step - Ask yourself, what serves you and what doesn't? Grounding is a way to discard what you don't want to let in or what you don't want to keep any more. Shielding is a way to block out the stuff that isn't helpful to you.
Some techniques for grounding are: eating something hearty, putting your hands and feet literally on the soil, grass, or sand, and/or using breath in meditation to reach down energetically into water, soil and stone below and pull up some of that deep, calm, soothing energy and cycle back the excess active or toxic energy for the earth to transform and re-use for the best possible outcome.
The more you know about how somebody shields, the better you might understand how to get around it... Part of shielding is keeping it a mystery :)
There are techniques like visualizing putting the shield up and down around you as it is needed, or keeping a constant reminder like a ring on your finger that you can touch to trigger your shield like in NLP.* Or you could use another form of body language like crossed arms to demonstrate that you are shielding while physically triggering your mental awareness of self-protection.
*(Neuro-linguistic Programming) is basically where the person links a word to a sensation to make the brain connect the two states).
There are different shapes of shields, like an egg or a suit of armor, there are materials you might make a shield out of, like the classical elements, or layers of brick and metal and so on, or something that's pure white light to you but invisible to others. There are symbols, crystals, herbs, and chants that can help you create a shield for yourself.
You want to personalize your shield like it's a password. It can be clever or simple, as long as you remember it completely and exactly, change it to something more suitable if it isn't working, and can access it at a moment's notice.
I recommend that you avoid mirrors as a shield material simply because you'd be participating in or even amplifying the negative energy if you returned an attack, and sometimes people don't even know they are sending out bad vibes to others, not everyone is sensitive or aware of how these things work.
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2. Binding and Cutting Cords - Enforcing psychic boundaries through ritual.
First of all, binding means literally to tie something up. The point is to make it unable to continue doing harm. It's like putting a cast on a broken leg, and ensuring that the person stops walking around for a couple months. You can bind a couple of ways. I like using sympathetic magic, or in other words, using other objects with properties that correspond to my intention.
Sometimes binding is as simple as using a piece of bandage (the kind that comes in a roll) and wrapping up something that represents the harm that is being done. I choose bandage instead of rope so that it is more for healing than just restraint. You can use ribbon too, if you want to charge the ribbon with an intention or bless it in a ceremony.
Sometimes you want to add in a distraction to your binding, something helpful to occupy the person causing harm, or figuratively "tie them up", so that they forget about the attack they are sending in favor of other things. You might give them a blessing of creative inspiration or wish for them that, whatever their unmet need is, that caused them to act out, will be met in a good way. You can bind that helpful healing symbol to the representation of the attack to make them inseparable, that way the next time they have a need, the outcome is no longer attack.
Another way to do it is simply tying knots in a string, and making a positive intention for each knot, for the best possible outcome. Then you can do something with that string to further empower the magic. I'll get into that a little below.
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Cutting cords... There are various kinds of psychic attack and severing ties is kind of a cure-all for most of them. Maybe someone has put a binding spell on you for one reason or another. This is one way that might get you out of it. It can be as easy as imagining scissors snipping through a wire that runs from you to the other.
If you are experiencing drain, like from an energy vampire, you can cut the connection you have to that person. If you are experiencing a bombardment of ideas or images that you don't identify with, you can cut ties to the source of those thought insertions, or sever from the person who is rifling through your memories without your consent. If you are experiencing addictive behaviour, or a toxic attraction, you can sever your bond to the object of your desire. And so on.
But sometimes there is that last fibre that resists, or the cord ties itself back together, or somehow you are still bound. It might take a bit of creativity, or repetition to do the job. You might have to use the elements in your visualization, freeze the chain, burn the cord, blow the other end away in a storm, or bury it. In a sympathetic magic context, you could actually do this with a piece of string and a knife, cut it and put one end in a hole in the ground and burn the other end, or stick one end in the freezer and tie a stone to the other one and drop it in the lake.
Just know that your preferred method of separating the cords has it's own symbolic meanings, and you should be aware of what you are planting in the soil, for example, or sending up in the smoke as a prayer, and so on. Each of us has different connections to the powers that be, but some things are universal. I repeat, make sure you have the best possible outcome in your heart.
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3. Reading others for their boundaries, and reading others for your own.
How do you know what's real and what's a glamour or a projection? Glamours are little physical appearance changes that make us more attractive or sometimes less appealing to others. It is sometimes because they are gossiping and want us to hate the named person as much as they do. Some people tell sad stories about themselves, and why we should pity them, so that we want to help. People have motives.
But also, we see in others what we are not addressing in ourselves. As sacred mirrors, sometimes we are actually just projecting our own experience onto someone else, and it is something that is not theirs at all. So how do we know when to open up and when to shut down? Take the time. Observe. Reflect. Breathe. Feel.
Body language reveals others' boundaries. If you're doing healing work with someone, be aware of their boundaries with you and your boundaries with them. Try to find a middle ground that is safe to explore. Do you really want to share with someone who is too guarded, or totally wide open? A little sharing can help someone open up to you, but too much and it can shut them down. Similarly, if they are open to you about others, you can believe they will be open to others about you. So make sure your impression comes from your intuition in addition to your physical observations.
Look at the way people point their feet, it tells you what they want as their next move. Look at their eyes, are they present or distant when you are with them? Are their shoulders relaxed or tense? Do they fidget? What does their face express? Is it a poker face? What we can do is take cues, without assuming. But it is sometimes ok to just ask "Hey, how is your energy level?" to give them, and you, a little self reflection time.
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Sampling the energy, without letting it in. We all react to the energy we walk into. But you don't have to own the emotions or atmospheric feelings you encounter. You can feel it out with your gut instead of using your heart and mind to experience it in detail. You can let it flow through your filters and out again into the Earth, instead of allowing it to affect or change you. Then you can respond appropriately without being "under its spell" or direct influence.
One way to do this is literally to put your hands on your belly and listen to your intuition. If it's stirred up, you can find out why. If it's at ease, even better. Notice how you feel when you can't find your cell phone, or you have to brake for the bad driver ahead of you, or other moments of small panic. That's your body's self-protective response, and you should recognize it so that when you walk into a room and you feel that specific feeling, you aren't going to mistake it for nervous excitement or indigestion.
Notice how you feel also, when your best friend or lover gets you laughing, and where you feel that in your body, and what it's like to be in that state of love and bliss. Follow your heart. If you follow what makes you most confident and comfortable and even if it's a challenge, if you feel like it serves you somehow, great.
Do the same reading of yourself when you encounter someone who is trying to make an impression on you. Do the same when you meet someone new. Do the same when someone gives you a word of advice. How does it make you feel? if your brain says yes that makes sense, or yes that is the same as my expectations, don't be so quick to agree and accept... Maybe your neck and shoulders are tense or you get shivers or your hair stands on end, or you are reminded of a past situation where something happened.... go with your intuition, not just your mind.
There is much more to be said about boundaries, from a place of openness, love, and positivity. I hope to post soon with a part two!
♥ Jacki
P.S. thank you to those who helped inspire this post! You know who you are.