DG's work on beginning to define Values/Boundaries

[DharmaGate]

DG’s work in progress on operationalizing my values (boundaries) before my break is up from Dad in two weeks.
 
Below random notes i took from the site article on boundaries that i want as reminders of what the heck i am aiming for! 
Writing and posting for me really helps sort stuff out too and most important keeps me accountable.
 
 i am off to work on defining my values. No small task.  Intention is to post them this afternoon.  I need to get moving, two weeks is going to go quick and i do not want to give up my peace. 

“This is the life skill of openly communicating, asserting, and defending personal values.

When we speak of the boundaries we are really speaking about our personal values and our need to get them in focus and live with more conviction. This is a lifestyle, not a quick fix to an interpersonal squabble.
This is an important point that is often overlooked.
This life skill has three pillars: defining personal values to ourselves, communicating and asserting what is in-bounds and out-of-bounds to others, and being committed to make hard choices, when necessary, to honor and  defend when necessary.

Peace upon us all as Cheryl Crow sings!

[DharmaGate]

After a lifetime of drama and trauma i am not interested.  I was fortunate enough to be able to camp for three years around the United States with my dog.  I used the time to learn skills, do healing, learning groups of many sorts. I learned to be mindful most of the time. Just started living in a house four months ago, weird not to be outside i miss it.  This is my first value

EQUANIMITY
mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.
"she accepted both the good and the bad with equanimity"
synonyms:
composure, calmness, calm, level-headedness, self-possession, self-control, even-temperedness, coolness, coolheadedness, presence of mind; More

In Buddhism, equanimity (Pali: upekkhā; Sanskrit: upekṣā) is one of the four sublime attitudes and is considered: Neither a thought nor an emotion, it is rather the steady conscious realization of reality's transience. It is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion and love.

[DharmaGate]

  Compassion The Great Heart of Sadness .  This is the best understanding of the word for me. 

Disclaimer: Absolutely not advocating this path for anyone else.  We all have our own paths.  Just feel it is easier to get help and give it if people know what is behind things, the motivation.  As i say to my daughter if you can find an easier way than this do it by all means!
Also this is going to be my vision plan, what guides my behavior, what defines my interactions so it is important to really say what i believe. I usually keep this stuff to myself and in most cases that is the wise thing to do.  We have enough strife naturally don't need to stir it up.

I started my day for about a year reading this page of Pema Chodron's book,
‘When I was about six years old I received the essential bodhichitta teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun. I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved and mad, kicking anything I could find. Laughing, she said to me, “Little girl, don’t you go letting life harden your heart.”
Right there, I received this pith instruction: we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.
Chitta means “mind” and also “heart” or “attitude.” Bodhi means “awake,” “enlightened,” or “completely open.” Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bodhichitta is called the soft spot, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound. It is equated, in part, with our ability to love. Even the cruelest people have this soft spot. …...
Bodhichitta is also equated, in part, with compassion—our ability to feel the pain that we share with others. Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. We put up protective walls made of opinions, prejudices and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt. These walls are further fortified by emotions of all kinds: anger, craving, indifference, jealousy and envy, arrogance and pride. But fortunately for us, the soft spot—our innate ability to love and to care about things—is like a crack in these walls we erect. It’s a natural opening in the barriers we create when we’re afraid. With practice we can learn to find this opening. We can learn to seize that vulnerable moment—love, gratitude, loneliness, embarrassment, inadequacy—to awaken bodhichitta.
An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic; sometimes to anger, resentment and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all."

So being in a state of compassion, tapping into my own great heart of sadness, as often as possible when interacting with others is important to me. along with... .
Being there for my daughters
Simplicity
Being in nature
Learning
Joy   
Will decide on five more values then move to next step.

 

[Harri]

Hi DharmaG.  I have been sitting with this thread, just thinking about it.  I find the things you discuss here very interesting and, to be honest, a bit intimidating.

Specifically opening my heart to more pain.  At the same time, what you wrote here has me hooked a bit: 

Right there, I received this pith instruction: we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

(I am a bit familiar with Pema Chodron!)  How I would love to soften my heart from the damage of the past.  I think I have in a lot of ways, and parts of my heart were not affected by the past, but I wish I could get to the point where my heart was all open... .and then the fear hits.  Lets face it, my heart and spirit were damaged.  Part of me still feel like I am ruined. 

Do you struggle with that too?

About boundaries... .the way we talk about them here was a revelation to me.  Previously, boundaries were always about the right to say no, set limits, draw hard lines, know where i began and ended in relation to others.  And they are that but they are much more too.  Since I have been here I am more open to new ways of looking at boundaries.  Having them related to my personal values and having them become a lifestyle rather than a rote "I have to do this" has been freeing.   Boundaries are the path to respect, personal value, self care, and now, thanks to you, equanimity. 

Thank you.