Q&A 16 – If reality is created from Thought, how do we create boundaries?

How can we draw clear boundaries with people in our lives if everything we’re seeing and experiencing comes via the gift of Thought? Today we explore the difference between circumstances and experiences and how this awareness can inform us and help us to understand when a healthy boundary might be appropriate.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Transcript of episode

Hello, explorers, and welcome to Q&A; Episode 16 of Unbroken podcast. I’m your host, Alexandra Amor. 

And today I wanted to examine the question: 

If our reality is created by thought, then how do we deal with boundaries?

So this really has to do with relationships and situations in our life where we’re dealing with and interacting with other human beings. And I’m specifically thinking about personal, intimate relationships, partnerships, that kind of thing.

When I first started exploring this understanding, I noticed a lot of confusion and I still do occasionally from people. When we start to understand that our life is an inside out experience and that thought is being created through us, coming through us from the formless into the form. And the idea that what we experience is based on that thinking rather than based on the actual events that are going on outside ourselves.

The concise way to say that is we live in the world of our thinking, not in the world of our circumstances.

Occasionally I see people exploring this, and then we get to the place where we realize that or we start to question how does that apply to intimate relationships? So, for example, if someone is feeling like they’re in a relationship that is unhealthy, that is whatever shade of that it that it could be, like, manipulative, or they’re dealing with a narcissist, or someone who’s maybe abusive, that kind of thing, verbally or otherwise.

The question becomes, if I’m creating that experience via thought, or, in other words, if I’m having that experience, and my understanding of it is always through thought, then how do I draw boundaries? And I see people ask, should they even draw boundaries in a situation like that? And it’s such a valid question. And it’s so important.

When I was in Portland a couple of months ago with Michael Neal and Barbara Patterson, Michael drew this diagram on the whiteboard at the front of the room. And he wasn’t talking about relationships at all. But I came away realizing this was the perfect way to explain this conundrum that people get into when they’re exploring this understanding.

The diagram looked like this:

His point was that in our lives, there are always these two different things going on. There’s the circumstance that’s happening. And I’ll give some examples in a second. And then there’s the experience that we have of that circumstance. The experience is our thinking, that’s where Thought comes into play.

Let’s say you had a circumstance where you stubbed your toe.

That’s just a hard fact. You ran into the foot of the couch, and stubbed your toe. That’s the circumstance.

The experience, then, is how you experience that circumstance, via your thinking. So let’s say you’re in a rush to get to work,