Breaking Free from Limiting Boundaries: A Dog's Lesson for Christians
0TLDR:
Discover how our dog Phaedra's experience with her invisible fence teaches a powerful lesson about identifying which boundaries keep us safe and which limiting beliefs we need to break through with community support.
What?
Yesterday morning, Liz and I experienced something surprising with our dog Phaedra. As we were heading down our driveway a bit later than usual, and Phaedra ran ahead of us - right past the boundary of her invisible fence! We were amazed and quickly called her back, grabbed her collar, rushed to get her leash, and removed her invisible fence collar before heading to the bus stop.
This morning, Liz reflected on the incident, saying, "I'm glad she didn't run away. She must know that we love her and she must love us too." I agreed, and added that Phaedra is a social animal just like we are. She wants to be with us, and probably didn't even realize she was off-leash - she was simply following her usual pattern of walking with us, ahead of us to the bus stop.
What made this interesting was that Phaedra's collar batteries had died, but she had stayed within her boundaries until she saw us heading toward that boundary line in our routine manner. Only then did she cross it, following us rather than staying confined by a limitation that wasn't actually functioning anymore.
Why?
This story makes me think about boundaries - both the kind that keep us safe and the kind that unnecessarily limit us. Phaedra had a belief about her boundary that kept her confined to our property, even though the batteries in her collar were dead and she wasn't actually being restrained. This is like a limiting belief. She wasn't truly bound to our property anymore, but she believed she was until the context changed when she saw us heading past that line.
Lesson
We need boundaries - some boundaries keep us safe and protect us. When someone hurts us, we're called to forgive, but we might need boundaries for safety. These boundaries create containers for ourselves and others so we can maintain safety, thrive, and succeed.
However, other boundaries need to be crushed and collapsed because they aren't true. They come from our stories and conditioning. These boundaries restrain us, hold us back, and place us in a zone of believing Satan's lies. They cause us to create less, be less, and do less. They put us in a place of fear.
When we're in community, in a connected environment, we can identify which boundaries protect us and which ones we need to break through. Just like Phaedra, who was able to move past her invisible fence when she was with us, we often need others to help us recognize and move beyond our limiting beliefs.
Apply
Take a moment to reflect and write down two types of boundaries in your life:
1. A boundary you have in place (or need in place) that's appropriate - one that keeps you safe, protects you or others, and helps things thrive, work or function. Maybe it's a system or process that makes things work better or more efficiently.
2. A boundary you're struggling against - one you know (or suspect) isn't true but is holding you back.
Share these in the comments below.
This is where mastermind groups and coaching can be powerful - they give us the humility to explore with others what our boundaries are, whether they're appropriate, real, or just products of our conditioning, stories and beliefs.
Be blessed.
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Looking to explore your boundaries with other Kingdom-minded men? Our mastermind groups and coaching provide opportunities to identify limiting beliefs and create new paradigms for your life. This is part of the Kingdom Family Leader process to "expand your territory." If you're ready to push out those boundaries and discover what's possible, let's connect.
https://brian.chat/
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