Can You Be Ok With This?

Enmeshment says that we must feel the same way as those closest to us feel, or we really don't care about them, or we are not even a caring person at all.

This distortion is based in the truth that we are empathic beings, that we feel others feeling.

But enmeshment comes from a top-down cognitive process of learning and believing that you are supposed to feel bad when someone else feels bad. In accordance, you also learn that good feelings in yourself come from producing good feelings in others--you might call this "earning love."

In enmeshment such as this, what is your default state?

You don't have one! That's what makes this non-reality. You're constantly seeking a person whose emotional state you can mirror. You're constantly considering how you SHOULD feel, and as a result abandoning how you DO feel.

In reality, you do have a default state, and it's likely serenity and bliss. That's what is so insidious about the enmeshment that tells us we should look outside of ourselves for the right way to feel. We reject how we do feel--serenity and bliss--in favor of something other than that. We develop a durable pattern of actively turning away from contentment, to the point that even when those around us are radiating contentment, we are looking for somewhere else to turn to.

I invite you to ask yourself this:

Are you allowed to feel great?

Are you allowed to feel great while you disappoint someone else?

Are you allowed to feel great while there is suffering in the world?

This isn't about answering correctly, it's about owning your answer and taking full responsibility for what your answer is.

Your great-feeling relationships rest on your ability to feel great. That is the real boundary work.