short toes
in keeping with the theme of asking more questions, I’ll share some thoughts on a question I’ve been asking lately: how do you determine other people’s level of access in your life while loving them well?
this wrestling began long before I can recall - as a classic recovering people-pleaser with a long history of boundary work and a core value of serving with excellence, a complicated cocktail to say the least. but recently more layers have both been uncovered and pieced together. nuggets of learning from great sources (more articulate than me, so let this serve simply as a flashing neon beacon to the experts listed below) have collided to a fun concept I’m stewing on:
short toes.
short toes = generous assumptions + boundaries.
yes, coming from the phrase “stepping on your toes”. the line of thinking for evaluating “length of toes” goes something like this:
am I easily offended or hurt? do I find myself in bitterness or resentment easily?
or do I believe everyone is doing the best they can with the tools they have?
do I know where my control/responsibility starts and stops?
does the structural integrity of what I stand on lie on my side of the boundary or out?
are my thoughts and feelings firm footed on my property or outside?
I think the call to healthy toes is one of grounded identity in who I am, whose I am, my values and principles. then, only from that firm footing, can I be open-handed to bridge the thresholds to love and serve others. if my identity depends on something outside my boundaries, then it’s up to those circumstances, people, or things to uphold it - which is shaky territory. and at the same time, if I’m grounded and “standing firm”, then other’s actions, hurts or gifts, approval or disapproval, winds and waves of emotions, all don’t have the power to rattle me - because I haven’t given them that power.
they can’t step on my toes that easily.
I know where my toes start and stop.
what’s in my control and what’s not.
what’s my responsibility and not.
and i can bookend my property lines with generous assumptions that everyone else is doing the best they can with their own property management.
as much as my calling and command is to lay my life down for another and take up my cross - the call to peacemaking is “as long as it pertains to [me]” (it is MY cross I’m asked to take up after all, not everyone else’s).
I can hear Jesus saying, “what’s that to you?”
or God patiently inquiring of Moses, “what’s in your hand?”
at the end of the day, I’m not the savior. and I very much need one.
I want to learn how best to lead with generous assumptions.
generous with grace.
generous with encouragement.
generous with forgiveness.
to be a need-meeter, but also, i’m not the one others need in the end. Jesus is.
references:
podcast: Whole New Level, by Levels Health - organizational values discussion
podcast: Unlocking Us, by Brene Brown - https://brenebrown.com/podcast/living-big-part-1-of-2/ - are people doing the best they can?
book: Boundaries, by Cloud & Townsend
book: Good Boundaries and Goodbyes, by Lysa TerKeurst