February 12, 2008This Week in the World ~ poetry ~ undefended

Filed under: This Week in the World by merylrunion |

Love can’t last without boundaries. And boundaries are vital for the workplace too. Many of the questions I receive these days deal directly with the difficulty sensitive people have in setting boundaries. But if they don’t, the insensitive will set the tone of the relationships.

This week I wrote a poem for a woman who asked me a boundary question. She put her own words in it and created her own version. This is my version.

I wrote it for “Jane,” but I also wrote it for myself.

Undefended
If you tell the truth and no one cares, is it still true?
If you feel shock that no one shares, what should you do?
     If there’s a bull inside your china shop that has you quite alarmed
    And there are precious fragile items that can easily be harmed,
     And if the guards that should protect you have come to work unarmed,
Then it’s up to you to give what’s true its due.

Otis taught me how I could change a relationship by holding others to a higher standard. Otis is the neighbor’s dog. He would bark at me and jump on me. I started ignoring him when he acted out and he stopped acting out. This dog that I did not like has become my hiking buddy, and we are the best of friends – simply because I stopped feeding into his bad behavior. There’s a poem in that story too, but I haven’t written it yet.

This week, care enough to hold others to a higher standard. If you tolerate behavior that limits love, you just might be missing fabulous possibilities.