Compassion and boundaries are not opposites; sometimes one makes the other possible.
STILLNESS
WHAT THIS MEANS
A limit is not the withdrawal of care. Often it is what makes care sustainable, because the person offering it can keep offering rather than depleting themselves into resentment or collapse. Endless availability is not more compassionate than a clear boundary; it is just a shorter-lived version of the same thing, and its ending is usually worse for everyone.
If you are running out around someone you love, look for the limit that would let you keep showing up. Say what you can do and what you cannot, warmly and specifically. A reliable smaller offer is usually worth more to the other person than an unlimited one you cannot sustain.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Which limit would let you keep caring about someone difficult?
MORE IN PEACE, BOUNDARIES & INDEPENDENCE
- The first ten minutes after you wake up are you picking the glasses you’ll see the whole day through.
- You spend childhood wanting independence and adulthood discovering how many responsibilities were hiding inside it.
- Getting older makes peace increasingly attractive and drama increasingly expensive.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.