Your Heart Is Like A Flower Bulb; It Needs A Greenhouse

Excerpt from The Boundaries Handbook

In the first few installations from The Boundary Handbook, we’ve reviewed the #1 and #2 most important issues related to boundaries, talked about the difference between love, sex, intimacy, and enmeshment, unpacked how having better boundaries can backfire, discussed the boundary you may not even know you’re missing, and broke down what real trust requires so you can safely keep your heart open.

Now, let’s dig into some basic definitions. What is a healthy boundary? Put simply, a boundary is a way to communicate what’s okay and what’s not okay- to someone else or even to yourself. It’s a kind of gate which uses discernment to let blessings in and keep toxicity out. Boundaries are not the same thing as walls. Protective walls are not discriminating. They keep both blessings and toxicity out, and if you take them down, you let both blessings and toxicity in. Boundaries are like a nurturing green house sheltering a vulnerable flower bulb. You wouldn’t put that sweet little flower bulb in the middle of Times Square and let it get trampled. You also wouldn’t house it in a cement box, where it wouldn’t get sunlight. The greenhouse lets the sun in and keeps the tramplers who might harm the bulb out.

Your precious, mighty, strong, and also vulnerable heart is like that flower bulb. If you want to keep it safe and let blessings in while keeping toxicity out, you’ll need your boundaries to be your greenhouse. That way, you’re not walking around with a vulnerable unguarded heart, wondering why all of New York City is trampling all over you, and you’re not stone-hearted and frozen behind protective walls that keep love out. Your heart is free to be unguarded and open with safe enough people because the boundaries function as your greenhouse and your discernment functions to figure out who is allowed to get close to your heart and who isn’t.

Some people get so hurt and brokenhearted that they just give up risking letting anybody get close to their heart- and that’s understandable. But if you’ve had your boundaries wounded and you’re still willing to try to let someone else take a chance with your heart, you’re going to have to heal your wounded boundaries and educate yourself about how to protect yourself differently than you might have in the past.

Your heart will never be 100% safe- because daring to attach to another person always comes with risk. Even if that other person was 100% safe to have close to your heart, that other person could die, and your heart could still get hurt. But let’s say you’re willing to take that risk- to try to attach to someone at the risk of getting hurt. Your boundaries can help keep your heart safe inside your greenhouse, but now you’re trying to relate to someone else whose is trying to keep their own heart safe inside their own greenhouse. How does this work? How can two people risk getting close while also keeping their hearts reasonably safe while they get to know each other?