I Walk the Line, or How to Ask Provocative, Disruptive Questions
Have you ever looked at something so long that you stop seeing it? You know what I’m talking about—that pile of unread books on the shelf, the bags in your garage that need to go to donation, those items in your backlog that are good ideas but remain stuck in the good idea phase. We all have them in one form or another, and generally, whatever “it” is has been there so long that we stop seeing it. How do we get from “Everything is fine” to “housecleaning of the soul” to examining the unexamined?
Answer? Disruptive questions, questions so brazen that they are a shock to the system. They are that just-above-freezing, open-water winter swim. They are the thing that pulls you up short and suddenly, you can’t stop seeing what has been right there all along.
The Radical Kindness of Good Boundaries
Boundaries are a marker, a line. On one side of the line, you feel safe, secure, but on the other side, you might feel unmoored, violated, unsafe. Boundaries exist to keep us safe, be it physically or psychologically. Brene Brown has a line that I love and repeat often: “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” When we are clear about our boundaries and our values, we feel secure. When we are unclear, it is all too easy for that line to be crossed, and we then feel ignored, unseen, of no value to others. Boundaries are a reflection of our values. When our values are threatened, who we are as a human is threatened, too.