How to Find Your Boundaries #3 | Girl Pursuing God

This series is a guide I’m writing on allowing God to re-define your identity in Christ, as I go through the process myself. Part 3 talks about making God your refuge.

In Part 2, I left off saying I wasn’t yet sure what the next step was.

I’m back because I think I know now.

Over the past few days, I’ve been hit with a lot that’s made me face some ugly truths.

First.

The other day, a video about boundaries popped up on my YouTube feed.

It’s this one.

In the video, a podcaster I’ve started listening to, Emy Moore, says:

“There’s a huge difference between setting boundaries and not trusting people for NO absolute reason.”

That STUNG, bro.

Second.

Then, I came across another video on my feed. This one, if you want to click on it again. It’s titled Living in SURVIVAL vs. Living in CREATION, so I thought it would mostly be about accessing your creativity. It turned out to be more so about the human fear response and the science behind it. It touched on the flight vs. fight response.

I’ve struggled for a long time with freezing up when anxious. This isn’t something I like to talk about openly with a lot of people, but for me, this often appears when I’m engaging in conversation with others.

Third.

Last night, I couldn’t fall asleep.

Weird, because it’s been awhile since I’ve faced any major sleep issues.

I felt called to open YouTube. Again. I know.

And the first video that popped up on my feed was another one from Emmy Moore: sorry, another link here. It’s all to provide context for y’all. You don’t have to click if you be pressed for time.

The video is titled The Addiction of Hiding.

So, let’s get to the point I’m trying to make already.

All of this felt like a slap to the face. If you’ve read Part 2, you’ll know that I explained that the first stage is basically allowing God to remove a lot of the things in your life and allowing the silence to reveal your boundaries.

But God knows I’ve been getting reeeaaaaaal comfortable with the silence.

At first, it was hard to let go of my former “socially active,” busy lifestyle. It almost felt like I was grieving some kind of death.

But now, the calm and quiet feels good, and I have to admit to myself that I’m quite cautious about who and what I let into my life now. Maybe too much.

The last video I referred to, The Addiction of Hiding, essentially talks about how we, as humans, hide ourselves in things to avoid whatever it is we are insecure about.

This can be anything from an affected, loud personality (for example) to drugs and alcohol to isolation. We could be hiding from anything from uncomfortable feelings to fear of abandonment.

It explains that we have legitimate needs. Such as rest and a sense of security. That is why we hide ourselves in things in order to fulfill those needs.

But it is precisely the hiding that is slowly killing us inside.

The only one who can truly provide for our needs, who will never change, who actually knows what’s best for us and knows exactly where we are hiding, is God.

Throughout the video, the viewer is encouraged to ask God and themselves what they hide themselves in.

I realized that isolation may have started to become my hiding place.

But more than that, I realized that everything that I was trying to heal from — people-pleasing, trouble enforcing boundaries, faking my personality, fear of showing my true self, fear of letting people in, fear of intimacy, all of these things — were my hiding places.

Then, I realized that my biggest hiding place was not even being myself with myself. As in not really acknowledging and accepting my own thoughts and emotions. My own flaws just felt too hard to face sometimes, when in reality, that’s what comes with being human and, by Christian logic, that’s what we’ve already been saved from.

By the way, I’ve practiced meditation and mindfulness for over 5 years, and STILL I wasn’t aware of my true thoughts and feelings until I started this boundary-setting journey with God, I kid you not, maybe 2 weeks ago. (OK yes a lot has happened from before then but the whole stripping my life thing really became apparent starting 2 weeks ago.)

I would hide how I truly felt from God while thinking I wasn’t.

Turns out, it’s possible to open up to God about how I truly am before I open up to myself. And it’s easier, because He can take it even when I can’t.

So finally, here comes the next step in How to Find Your Boundaries. Thank you for bearing with the extremely long prologue.

MAKE GOD YOUR HIDING PLACE & LIVE IN THIS WORLD

5. Figure out what your hiding place is and what you’re hiding from

Your hiding place and the things you’re hiding from may seem obvious, but they really aren’t until they are, if you know what I mean.

6. Make God your hiding place

Make God your hiding place. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to do this. I think that’s up to you and God.

But to give you an idea, here’s what it looks like for me:

It looks like being honest with God about how I’m feeling whenever something pops up. There are so many ways to deal with uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, like plugging in some earphones, switching to positive thinking, whatever it is. Seemingly innocuous ways of coping can alienate us from ourselves. It’s important to accept first, and then deal with things.

Then, I give it to God. I trust Him with it. Instead of jumping to work or coming up with a plan, I actually give it to Him and reinforce my switch toward putting my life in His hands.

It’s crazy. It’s basically the antithesis of me for the past 23 years.

7. Opening up yourself to others and the world while making God your hiding place

Now, you step back into the world.

Some of the things and people from your past may reappear.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence, again, that all of the sudden this is happening in my life. God is good and His timing is right.

But this time, it’s different.

If in the past, you related to the things in your life out of a place of unhealthy attachment, insecurity, whatever it is — now, it needs to be a place of true love.

It’s time to stop seeing the world through a lens the past trauma and insecurities that trap you and block your happiness.

It’s time to see them exactly as they are.

Circling back to what I said about freezing up when anxious.

I believe now that my body was trying to protect myself because it knew that I wasn’t protecting my own boundaries.

Then, once I started becoming more aware of and protective of my boundaries, suspicion against other people and the outside world prevented me from truly opening up.

That may have been needed for awhile.

But not when you have your safety and security in God already.

I believe we’re supposed to accept each other as we are. As human beings, we all have flaws. But we crave, at a deep level, to know that we are accepted despite our flaws.

That does not mean allowing people to overstep our boundaries.

That means accepting them AND expressing your disagreement, when it’s present, at the same time.

That, I believe, is true love.

Let’s not open ourselves up to the outside world while placing our security in money, another person, our looks, our job, or anything that can crumble at any single second and actually doesn’t have inherent value.

Place your security in God instead and watch everything change.

Love you all.

Xoxo,

Kristen