Realising Capacity

“Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.”

C.G. Jung

The more I meet myself in all my nuances, experiences, emotions, and needs, the more I realize my capacity to be in relationship with others; and at the same time to sense and hold my boundaries.

Herein lies the beauty of identity development: it’s neither a quick fix nor a technique that changes you over night.  

Rather it’s a realization that gently and slowly emerges from within, like fog disappearing and unhastily revealing the shapes and forms it has covered up. 

Identity development offers what no technique or training could ever teach me: feeling and sensing where I begin and others end. It’s the capacity of deeply understanding myself, my own boundaries, my own rhythm and dynamics; and to likewise see with clarity how all has been perpetrated for so many years, by others as much as by myself. 

I’ve tried –knowingly and unknowingly – to push back on what violated my boundaries. Sometimes that has resulted in defensive behavior; sometimes it was just a conversation playing out in my head as I’d never dared to push back in reality. 

What happens these days instead is that I become very aware and experience a felt sense of where my boundaries actually lie, their dynamics, and the dynamics of their infringement. 

For the time being I’m not sure how I’ll communicate them skillfully and from a place of inner safety. At the same time though I know that neither skill nor safety emerges without this phase of realization, of slowly clearing the fog, and gifting myself the acknowledgment for what has made my boundaries so porous. 

It’s also a phase of truly understanding how a sense of inner authority and clarity can inform how I want to be in relationship, with other human beings as much as with the world around me. 

Increasingly relating to myself in all my nuances, experiences, and needs continues to equip me with the capacity to relate to others in exactly that way. 

It’s the process of seeing the ebb and flows of life, its beautiful perpetual core amidst its ever-changing nature.