Recovering from a Boundary Invasion

Healing is messy sometimes. Parts of this piece aren’t pretty. But moving through ugliness and getting your life back is so worth it. 

If you want abundance or real connection, you have to let them in.

For a long time, I was terrible at receiving.

I’ve never talked publicly about this before. It touches on some raw childhood experiences around boundary and privacy invasions. I'm sharing it to offer hope and healing to the many who have difficulty receiving. 

I was straightening up the house one morning after mentally preparing for a presentation I was scheduled to give. I wanted to deliver a fantastic talk, but more than that, I wanted to genuinely connect with people. Yet every time I imagined looking into the audience, I felt a familiar grab in my chest—an unconscious instinct to keep a wall up.

Mid-dusting, an 'aha” hit me with visceral clarity.

My mind drifted back to when I was five years old. My mom stayed home with us and she was lying on the couch watching soaps. She had hurt her toe and was convinced she had developed gangrene. She made me smell her toe to determine whether it was rotten. I remember feeling deeply disgusted. Completely mortified.

When I was eleven and my body started changing, she made me lift my shirt in the middle of the living room—in front of my brother—to inspect whether I needed a training bra.

When I started menstruating, she wouldn’t give me my own box of pads. Instead, I had to report to her each time so she could dole them out. 

To avoid that humiliation, I concocted my own makeshift pads from toilet paper. Naturally, they leaked and stained. To keep from having to deal with her, I hid my soiled underwear deep inside a drawer of an old dollhouse in the back of my closet.

I came home from school one day to find her dangling those panties from her index finger. She had gone into my room, dug through my closet, and found them.

"I have a bone to pick with you," she threatened.

I was a good kid. I gave her no reason to distrust me. Yet, she constantly snooped through my drawers and wastebaskets, and read my diaries. 

Once, while loading the washer, she picked up a pair of my underwear, examined the discharge, and accused me of "having my times with boys"—with my dad and brother sitting next to me at the table.

I didn’t even understand what that meant, but I was mortified.

Even though we had plenty of shampoo and running water, she restricted me to washing my hair only once a week and forbade me from shaving my legs. 

After my classmates commented on my greasy bangs and spider legs, I shampooed and shaved anyway. When she noticed, she raged an inferno.

Her version of "love" repelled me.

To protect myself from her rage and icky invasions of my body and personal space, I built a fortress. I became hypervigilant, guarded, constantly on alert for whatever wackiness was coming at me. 

My system adopted one primary rule: Shut down, brace yourself, keep that crazy sh*t out at all costs.

No wonder I struggled to open up to receiving later in life.

I had forgiven my mother long before she transitioned. We had reconciled and healed our relationship, but my body and emotions were still holding onto the armor. My energy was still operating from self-protection.

I finally realized that to truly receive, I first needed to build an unshakeable trust in the universe.

I also needed to honor the wisdom I had cultivated as an adult: I could instantly read energy and recognize who was safe to open up to. I was no longer a helpless child trapped in an unpredictable household.

Through awareness, the old dissociation habit started dissolving. My energy became spacious, my body relaxed. 

Instead of bracing for an invasion I felt secure.

For so long I’d struggled to navigate around an obstacle I couldn’t even grasp. Clearing it brought freedom.

When you no longer have to expend energy to keep the world out, you open an extraordinary capacity to let life in.

Peace isn’t an intellectual concept; it becomes a physical reality. Your heart opens, confidence returns, and you profoundly trust your ability to welcome love, prosperity, and authentic connection without losing yourself.

A Moment of Self-Reflection: 

Take a moment to check in with your body.

• Is there an area in your life where you’re working hard to invite in love, prosperity, or deeper connection, yet sensing a wall holding you back?
  

• What are your emotions trying to protect you from?
  

To dissolve old protective patterns you have to feel safe enough to put down the armor. 

If you’re feeling drawn to healing these blocks at the root so you can safely open to receive, I invite you to explore Foundations Sessions. You don't have to go it alone.