Dreaming of boundaries

I had a dream this night.

In the dream, I was visiting a restaurant with a friend. There were mineral water bottles hanging from a rack, some of them had mould on it.

I then received cutlery which was not clean, as sometimes the automatic dishwasher fails to clean it.

I requested for new cutlery to be brought – the waitress brought me new cutlery, but again it was not clean. I then asked her to switch it once again (“I’m sorry, … can you please switch this again?”).

This time she brought the new cutlery and stuck them, handles first it into my dish. They were now sticking out, like antlers. With the handles of the cutlery now having become dirty because of the dish. It was clearly a way of showing her irritation with my repeated requests, and not actually solving the issue.

“There”, she said, with a grin in her face.

I told her: “I am sure you are a very nice person in your private life. Can you see that I feel uncomfortable eating food with dirty cutlery, which feels unhygienic to me? I don’t mind cleaning the cutlery myself, if you give me an opportunity to do it.”

In my mind I was OK with washing the cutlery myself, at that point. I was not upset at the waitress’ reaction, but I also knew that I wanted to eat with clean cutlery. And I knew that I had to continue to ask for that need.

This dream shows to me that I have grown tremendously with boundaries, and that looking out for my needs is a default setting now.

Going from “zero” boundaries (as I felt it was unsafe to set boundaries / boundaries were frowned upon and mocked) to setting boundaries in a calm manner, even when the other person (in my dream the waitress) overreacts is a huge deal. It shows that it was possible for me to reach this, through consistent work (often using the emotional processing tool, and also belief reprogramming).

If you’re reading this, and feel that more boundaries in your life would be a good thing – it’s like a muscle, you work it out slowly by less intensive exercises first (so that it won’t cramp up), and can gradually increase the intensity.

I’m here to help with my coaching, if you are interested.