Boundary or shadow work needed?

Hi there,
thank you for this opportunity – it’s just so amazing that you’re offering this!

A few words on the background:

A few weeks ago I received a message from an old university friend. Back then we’ve had some great times together, but I always had the subtle feeling that she was kind of nosy about my life in a way that she kept asking very personal questions, digging very deep and I had the impression that she took mental notes on how I did everything, on what I’m doing so she could copy me. It often made me very uncomfortable and I remember various occasions, when I just kept things for myself on purpose because I did not want to share.

Now, she has reached out to me again and went straight into “I saw you have a husband, where have you met, what is he doing, how did you meet, I want to know everything” – even though we haven’t spoken in years. Again I felt intruded on and I fell into a pattern that I’ve been following for some time I noticed. I did not respond – until now.

But for one of the first times I am reflecting about it. Do I need to set a boundary here, instead of ghosting here, or do I need to do some shadow work because this is more about me than about her?

Because I noticed that I also have a hard time sharing things about me in general. I’m very strategic with what I tell people about me, the path that I pursue, the goals I have because I feel like I can’t trust them. And I worry they might take advantage of that information and overtake me, take that thing from me, take my idea and do it better. This way I have ghosted a lot of people in my life. When I think back, every place I lived in and I moved away, I just disappeared on the people I left there.

With this particular case I wonder if my intuition is right and it is okay to set a boundary and say “thank you for reaching out! We’re good, I hope you’re doing well too. I know we’ve been friends back then but I don’t feel comfortable sharing such personal things with someone I haven’t felt connected with in a long time.” – on the other hand there is still this habit of ghosting people when they made me feel uncomfortable and I don’t know how to break this cycle since it often makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about sharing more about me and my life with them and I don’t know if it isn’t valid too to keep myself private as well. But I also lose a lot of good people in my life through this behavior (I basically have no network I could rely on, because I always leave everyone behind).

I hope this is not too all over the place. I acknowledge that this has several components to it but I hope you can still make some sense of this 🙂
Thank you so, so much for your support – I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

 

Answer:

Let’s look at the general model.

C: Person asks about you
T: They are going to take advantage of the information
F: Distrust
A: Limit what I share about myself, my plans, what I do
A: Imagine them taking the thing away from me or taking my idea and doing it better
A: Ghost them
R: I don’t give myself the advantage of connection.

When you look at the model, notice how it is not the questions a person asks you that causes you to feel distrust or to not connect. It is what you think about the questions you are asked. This is true of you old university friend. She does not make you uncomfortable. You are uncomfortable from what you make her questions mean. In order to break the discomfort of the cycle, she does not have to change. Your thoughts do, or you have to accept that you are a person who gets uncomfortable when you are asked personal questions. It is not because of her. It is how you think and feel about them. That has nothing to do with her.

A boundary is set when we feel unsafe. We see that it is how we think about something else somebody does, and we understand that we feel unsafe. If you look at the model above, and you like it and what it creates, then you may want to set a boundary for yourself around personal questions. A boundary is not made to change somebody else’ behavior. It is to take care of yourself. So a boundary here would be understanding that people may ask what they want; however, if they ask a questions about these topics (your goals, certain things about yourself, etc) then you are going to end the conversation, change the subject, or let them know that you won’t answer those questions. That is a boundary.

So looking at your model, understanding boundaries, what do you want to do for you?