One of the personally beneficial thoughts from the book, “Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, was the concept of what is “me” and “not me”. A lot of times stress can come on from mentally and emotionally taking on someone’s issues or drama. One example is in the area of work schedule and family schedule. If you are a person who struggles in this area, you might say to yourself “Everything at work will fall apart if I don’t …” Another example, is where one family member tries to pull you in the middle of an argument with another family member. And another example could be, when you face the temptation to commit at church to help with a ministry that requires a bit of time each week?
Each of these situations can be taken on by someone who means well but if it comes at the neglect of higher priority than one of two things will likely happen: 1) You will be overstretched trying to manage your responsibilities (family, self, property, etc.) and outside responsibilities 2) when this happens one (or both) sides will suffer.
An image to consider taken from the book is:
Let’s say you have a yard with a sprinkler and your neighbor never does anything to care for his own yard. If your sprinkler is consistently aimed on your neighbor’s yard and failed to hit your own yard, what would you imagine the two yards becoming? The neighbor’s yard would look healthy and lush, while your own yard would become brown and very dried out, with ground becoming very hard.
A better way, to first define what “is mine and not mine”, is
Setting emotional/mental/personal property lines to identify limits. Then, focus on what is yours.
Where do you start & end? Are you and the “neighbor” clear on “property lines”? Is your sprinkler aimed at “your yard” or is it landing “in a neighbor’s yard”?
(Cloud, Henry, and John Townsend, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. Kindle Expanded Ed. (2017). Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No To Take Control of Your Life. Kindle expanded Ed. Zondervan Publishers.)
