Menlo Church 950 Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025 650-323-8600 Series: This Is Us April 30, 2017 Boundaries John Ortberg and Dr. Henry Cloud John Ortberg: I want to say hi to everybody at all of our campuses. I'm so glad you're joining us for this series This Is Us. There's no us I'd rather talk to than this guy right here. You know, there's nothing in the world that brings greater joy than relationships when they're working right, and nothing brings greater pain than relationships when they're not working right. Dr. Henry Cloud: Now wait a minute. Which one of those did you? That does not sound good. "Here we're going to illustrate pain." John: It's the before and after. This is Henry Cloud, and he is kind of a friend at our church. There's nobody (seriously) I know who has thought more deeply about the Bible, about life, about how human beings work. He is a clinical psychologist. His book Boundaries that we gave away for Easter has sold like 7 million copies. He has talked with people about every kind of problem you can imagine. Most of whatever sanity I have is due to this person. I'm thrilled he is willing to be with us for this weekend. The book we gave away (Boundaries) is what we're going to talk about. Henry, thank you for being with us. Henry: It's great to be with you. Hi to you guys. I've been there several times, love being there. It's a great place. John: Let's talk about boundaries. Let's start with, what is a boundary? Henry: Well, a boundary is basically a property line. I mean, if you think of your house (whether you rent or own) or an apartment, there's a property line that's the boundary that separates what you own (or at least you rented the rights to it). You control it. You own it, you control it, and you're responsible for it. That's what a boundary is. Relationships are, you know, as we're people Right? It's easy to see in the physical world where those boundaries are. You might have a fence. But in the interpersonal world, there's you and there's me. We're separate. We're in relationship, but you are your own person, and I am my own person. We have to respect each other's boundaries. In fact, the Bible says when we kind of step over the line in some way and hurt each other, that's called trespassing. "Forgive us our trespasses." Interesting. Boundaries are really about freedom. I always think of a handful of words. Boundaries are about self-control. We control what's on our property. You can't reach over and start to say, "You know, John, I think you ought to dye your hair." You know? John: You always say that to me! - 1 -
Henry: Your theology. Can anybody say in-laws, right? Some people have that problem. It's about freedom. In Galatians 5, I think it's one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It says it is for freedom that Christ has died. God sets us free to be responsible for my feelings, my emotions, handle that lovingly with you. If I'm bugged, I have to take responsibility for that. I have to set limits. We talk about it. They're very important in relationships, but what we do is I want to get over and control you. Or sometimes I want to blame you for my own behavior. "Well, you just make me so " No, you don't. I mean, you can be John, and if there's something that gets to me, I'm really responsible for my reactions. That's what the Bible calls self-control. They're very important, especially important if you're dealing with somebody who is hurtful or irresponsible. They're not tending to their yard, and they're not watching their tree, not taking care of it. Well, now it's throwing trash, leaves, and stuff over in your yard. We have this collateral damage that happens when somebody is not responsible for themselves. John: Let's talk about that a little bit. Pretty much everybody watching us is a healthy, godly person, so they probably don't have boundary problems. For people who do have boundary problems Henry: "At other churches, people have " "I have a friend who " John: Yeah, yeah. When somebody is having boundary problems, how do they know? How do they show up? Henry: Well, it's going to show up in one of three areas. It's going to show up clinically, relationally, or in your performance. So clinically. You know, if you look at things like depression, for example, a lot of depression comes from people feeling like they don't have choices. They develop the psychological term "learned helplessness." Some people grow up in an environment where they have no options. You know, "No matter what I do, Dad doesn't approve." Or, "No matter what I do, they won't stop yelling at me." Right? Basically, they kind of give up, and they don't feel like they have choices. They get in adult relationships, and they don't make choices. Whatever comes their way happens to them. Depression is a big one. Anxiety is a big one. Behind every panic disorder, there's going to be some sort of portion of it where somebody has felt like they've lost empowerment and the ability to be purposeful. You have addictions. You have loss of energy, all these clinical problems. Then the relational. How many people have an addict in their family? The person is out of control. We know when you're dealing with a person in a relationship that's hurtful and out of control, they are not going to get better just because you're talking to them, just because you're nagging them. They only get better, first, when there are some sort of limits and boundaries and you stop enabling them. Second, you're only going to feel free from them if you can have the boundaries to say, "Do you know what? You can still use heroin, and I can't change that. I can't control you, but I can control whether or not I'm going to be exposed to this. As long as you're abusive or as long as you're on drugs, then I will live somewhere else." - 2 -
John: Can we just pause there for a moment and say a little bit more about the nagging option? Because I think for most of us, we may kind of know, "Yeah, I probably shouldn't do that." Do you ever have people you work with who go to nag as the solution? Henry: Oh my gosh! I think we talked about this one time if I remember. If I were a king, if I had won the last election, what I would tweet I would abolish the phrase "you need" from the English language. I would just make it illegal, because that's the kernel of nagging. Mom or Dad walk in the house, and Johnny is on the couch playing video games. All of a sudden, Mom goes, "You need to get up in your room, and you need to do your homework. You need to get off the couch." Johnny is feeling no need no need to do those things. John: He has no need at all! Henry: He has no need at all. His only need is to get this psycho woman out of his face, right? Now that's trying to control another person. See, nagging is trying to control somebody who we never can control. It's only going to frustrate everybody. But if Mom took control of herself, controlled the things she could control, went in, and said, "So, Johnny, here's the deal. Tomorrow we're going to go to the NFL game. Your dad is going to go, I'm going to go, and your sister is going to go. We're going to have a great time. We want you to go, but here's the way it works. Everybody is going to get to go who has done their chores by six o'clock today. We're going to have an inspection. If your homework is done and this stuff I asked you to do in the backyard is done, you're going to get to go with us. It's going to be great. Now you can choose to not do that. That's fine. That's up to you. We want you to come, but if you don't want to or you don't want to do that, then you can do that. Remember Mabel? Remember her, the babysitter from hell? Do you remember Mabel? I called her, and she is available tomorrow. She'll be glad to come over. If you choose option B, then you'll spend the day with Mabel while we go to the game." Then she says, "Well, I have to run. I have to do my chores." She walks out. All of a sudden, Johnny has a thought go through his head that has never been there. The thought is, "I need to do my homework." Now Johnny has a need. But it was the limit, the boundary, and the freedom that caused him to have to take ownership of his life. It's a huge deal. John: You said a word in there where the mom has to take control of her own life. Henry: Yeah. She is out of control. John: I never thought about this till right now as you said that how boundaries are connected to in the Bible the idea of kingdom language. Dallas Willard used to say the kingdom of God is the range of God's effective will. It's the sphere in which things are as God wants them to be. Everybody has a kingdom, so when God creates human beings, he says, "I want you to exercise dominion so you have a kingdom. Your will is to reign in your little kingdom." Henry: That's right. That's right! And have control over it. John: The problem is when I don't take responsibility for my little kingdom but I want to take over your kingdom. - 3 -
Henry: You know, think back to the days You probably did a lot of marriage counseling as a pastor. You come in, "So what's the problem?" "Well, she is just so angry all the time. She is so controlling." Then you turn to her. "Why are you so angry and controlling?" "Because he is so irresponsible!" "Why are you irresponsible?" "I would do it if she weren't getting in my face." "Why do you get in his face?" You're at a Wimbledon match. You're watching this thing. Each one of them is not taking control of their own side of the equation, and they're trying to control each other. Basically, all humans are born The thing I love about theology is it always explains life, I think. As you're saying, God created us in his image. Right? God is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is omnipresent. He is all these "omnis." Well, what he gave us was all of those things without the "omnis." John: That's great. Henry: So he is omnipotent. He can control everything, but we're supposed to be potent. We're supposed to have control of one kind: self-control. The Bible talks about self-control, not "other-control." John: "Other control." That's fascinating. Henry: You know, it's interesting, John. You're talking about this freedom, boundaries, and control thing. If we took a poll of all the Christians Now I've done this in big audiences, and I've asked them, "Okay, guys, you know your Bibles. What's Joshua's most famous verse?" Someone will say, "Be courageous," but most of them will say, "But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Everybody kind of knows that verse. Then I'll say, "What's the verse right before it?" You get blank stares. The verse right before it says, "If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." "So Johnny, if it's disagreeable for you to do your chores, that's fine. I'm just not going to pay for it." "If you don't want to get off heroin and you don't want to go to treatment, that's fine. But you can't live here." That's freedom. This is kind of the theoretical part, but let's get practical. Boundary problems in relationships, one of the biggest ones we see As a psychologist, 90 percent of the boundary problems that walk in the door are people who are dealing with somebody in their life. It could be somebody who works for them. It could be a family member. It could be extended family. That person has not taken responsibility for their own life, so it's falling over the fence. Their wishes to control are coming into the marriage from the extended family, or they're not taking responsibility for their lives in other ways, and the family is having to keep paying for them. You know, they're 43 and still on the couch watching video games. Those are the pain points. Or somebody is abusive. That's where you see this stuff getting really, really practical. - 4 -
John: I never thought before this about that notion of trespass (like "Forgive us our trespasses") meaning any time I have trespassed I have violated somebody else's boundary or violated God's boundaries. Henry: Oh gosh! You see this in parenting. You see it in marriages. Somebody should be free. You know, a kid grows up. God made him a certain way. Parents have input and all this. But when they get to be an adult and they're launched under God, they should be the ones who decide what they want to be when they grow up. But how many times do we reach over and try to manipulate, control, and steer? That's a violation. We should have input, and we should give feedback. If we see destruction, we But we can't control it. John: What would be an example of that happening in a family (like a boundary violation in a family)? Henry: Well, my favorite one If you've ever heard me talk about boundaries, you've heard me tell this story. I was in a hospital one day, and I was doing rounds. I came to the nurses' station, and the nurse said, "There's a family who would like to talk to you." It was a mom, a dad, and two adult children. That's an oxymoron, right? There were a young man and a young woman they had reared. They were sitting there, and I said, "So how can I help you?" The father said, "Well, I want you to fix my son." I turned to the young man. I said, "So what's wrong with you?" He said, "Well, it's not me. It's my brother." I said, "Where's your brother?" The father said, "Well, he didn't want to come." I said, "Well, where is he?" "Well, he didn't want to come." "But why didn't he want to come?" "Well, he doesn't think he has any problems." "Perhaps he doesn't. After all, he didn't want to come." "Oh yes, he does." Well, maybe he does." The father was getting mad at me. I said, "All right. Tell me about his problems." He said, "Well, we know he has a drug problem." "Well, that can be serious. What is he on?" "He has been smoking dope since he was about 15." "How old is he now?" "He is 23." "Okay, so he is mellow. What are the other problems?" "He has flunked out of three colleges." - 5 -
Now my first thought was, "How do you do that?" I mean, I know how to flunk out of one, but how do you get in the second one right after you've flunked? I said, "How do you do that? How do you flunk?" He goes, "Well, he didn't have the grades to get in the first one. I'm on the board of trustees, and I got him in. Then he flunked out of that one, and we got him in the second one. Doctor, I've tried everything. The first time he flunked out because he was partying and the dorm life and all that. In the second one, I bought him a nice condo off campus so the partying wouldn't interfere. We didn't want work to get in the way of having a good time, so we made sure he had plenty of money. He flunked out again." I said, "Imagine that. Kids!" John: Who knew? Henry: Then I asked him, "Well, what other problems?" You could see the father's heart at this point. He said, "Well, I think the thing that bothers me the most is he is 23 years old, and he doesn't even have a college major. When I was 23, I had started three companies." I thought for a second, and I said, "Where is he?" "Well, he didn't want to come." "No, but if we had a GPS, where might we find him?" "He is in Vail." "Colorado?" This is a true story! "What is he doing in Vail?" "He is skiing." I thought for a second, and I said, "You know, I'm sorry, but I can't help your son." "Why not?" "Because I'm a psychologist, and I help people with problems. Frankly, I agree with him. He doesn't have a problem in the world." "What are you talking about?" "Sir, he is in Vail skiing. He has a new home. He has plenty of money. He has obviously time away to get to do I can't help him, because he has no problems. You, on the other hand, I can help because you have a lot of problems!" "What problems do I have?" "You have a flunk-out-of-school problem, an 'I'm on drugs' problem." "That's not me. That's my son." - 6 -
"No. Your son is in Vail skiing. I don't know how to break this to you, but sir, you are in a psychiatric hospital. He is skiing; you're in a psych hospital. Do you know what kinds of people come to psychiatric hospitals? Pretty much people with problems. So that's you." "Well, I don't " "You're the one who owns these problems. See a basic law the Bible calls sowing and reaping has been violated here. He sows to partying, and you reap the bills." John: What's that biblical law? Henry: Sowing and reaping. Each yard has to sow its own yard, and they're going to reap the benefits or the destruction in that. I said, "I can't help him, because he doesn't have any problems. I can help you because you own these problems. I mean, y'all worry about this all the time. You're carrying the load of this. I can't help him because he doesn't have any problems, but here's how I can help you. I can help you to help him to have some problems." He said, "Say that again?" It was sort of like my German Shepherd would look at me. "I can't help him because he doesn't have any problems. I can help you because you have a lot of problems. Here's how I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you to help him to have some problems. I'm going to teach you about something called boundaries. What we have to do here is you have to get back in control of yourself, because you're out of control with the giving, the anger, and all this chaos. He is out of control because he is not taking responsibility for his life. I want you to be in control and start to say, 'Do you know what, Joey? You can party, and you can not study. You can do all this stuff. That's fine, but I'm going to choose how I give. I'm in control of that. I want to give, and I want to help you through school. But I'm only going to help you if every six weeks I get a report, and you're making your grades and this, that, and the other. Then the next check will come.'" He had to learn about boundaries. He had to learn how to require responsibility. That's where it got really interesting, because I said, "You may have to cut him off." The father got mad! He said, "I will never do that to my son." I could tell I had touched something. I said, "Do what?" He said, "What was done to me." I said, "What was done to you?" I got the story. His father died when he was 7, and he was on the streets. He said, "I will never have my son on the streets or on his own without the help of a father." I said, "Sir, with all due respect, if your son were 7 and never had had a father, I would not suggest some of the things I'm going to suggest. But your son is 23, and he has had way more fathering than he has used. We're going to do this a little differently. Back to boundaries, you're kind of confusing your life with his. You're the one with that story, and I don't think you've really owned how painful that is and totally resolved that yet, because now you're acting it out in his yard." That's boundaries. I have one that relates to that. I'll try to make this short, but it was painful. I go to college. I was from Mississippi, and I went to SMU. It's in Dallas, so I went a couple of states over floating along as a college student. One day I look up, and there is this amazing girl. I go fall in love. She was awesome, and she was my girlfriend for a long time there. Nobody told me when I first fell in love with her that she was the governor's daughter. In Texas, now that's a big deal. In California, not so much. In Texas, I mean, I'm going, "I'm 18 years old, and I have to go meet the governor!" - 7 -
Guys, you remember when you were 18. You had to go meet the father. That summer, they invite me over to come spend a week with the family down on their ranch. I drive to Austin. I go to the governor's mansion to pick her up. The parents had already gone. I pick her up, and we're about to leave. She said, "Why don't we take my car? It has more room, and I can put a bunch of stuff in it." So we take her car. I hop in, and I'm driving. I pull out of the governor's mansion in Texas going to meet the governor, and I'm like already scared. I pull out of the governor's mansion. I realize I'm going the wrong way and do an illegal U-turn, and I hit a truck head-on. The car is gone. It's up in flames. It's gone. It's totaled. Totaled! I see my life flash before me. It's like, "Oh my gosh!" I'm just thinking, "Who do you call in that situation? Do I call my insurance, or do I call hers?" I call my father. I'm 18 or 19. I call my father in Mississippi. I said, "Dad, I just had a wreck." He said, "Are you okay?" "Yeah." "Is she okay?" "Yeah, we're fine, but the car is gone. It's like burning to crisp over there. Who do I call? Is it our insurance?" I still remember saying, "Do I call Mr. Wilkinson? Is it her insurance? Wait a minute. It's not her insurance because it's not even her car. It's her father's car. Dad, what do I do?" "Son, just calm down. Calm down. Let me get the facts straight. You totaled your girlfriend's car." "Yes." "It belongs to her father." "Yes." "He is the governor of Texas." "Yes." "This is the first time you've ever met the man. You have to extend your hand and say, 'I'm the boyfriend who just totaled your car.'" "Yes." "And you have to stay with him for a week?" "That's right. Dad, who do I call?" "Son, you know, if you're old enough to get yourself in a mess like this, you're old enough to get yourself out. But call me and tell me how you did it." He hung up the phone. It's a little different than helicopter, right? John: Oh, man. - 8 -
Henry: So I had to figure it out. John: That brings this kind of full circle. Here's what I'd like for you to Henry: It's not in just parenting. John: Yes. Henry: These are employees. These are extended family members. These are spouses. You know, you have to figure out, "Who owns what in this conflict?" This is hard stuff. John: What do you say to somebody right now where they're thinking of, "I have a coworker who is a really difficult person," or, "I have a spouse who is really angry. The idea of boundaries sounds fine in the abstract, but they push all the buttons inside me so strongly that I can't pretend like I'm fine in my kingdom with them over there"? Henry: Yeah, it's interesting. You know, we hear the phrase all the time, "He is making me miserable," or, "She is making me miserable." Somebody has an affair, and what do they say? "Well, he wasn't meeting my needs," or, "She wasn't meeting my needs." There's always this externalization. As hard as it sounds, the Bible calls us Any mental health professional worth their license would say, "You're going to be in some hard situations, but you can't let those situations have the power to dictate how you're going to respond." That's self-control. It really gets incumbent upon our getting healthy enough, and that only comes in community (our getting healthy enough to where someone can be dysfunctional and we love them and we are able to be in a relationship where their dysfunction is not regressing us to their level of maturity). The Bible says, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." What happens is people get in to good spiritual growth, and they get strong enough to where, "No matter what you do, I'm going to be okay. But I'm also going to be okay in a way that I hope I can respond to you in a redemptive way instead of exploding, controlling, reacting, all of this squabble. I want to act in a redemptive way that gives you the best opportunity. I want to help you, but I can't do it for you. I have to require this from you, and if you don't, then all I can control is myself. I'm going to do that, and there are going to be some consequences." When we learn to communicate that way This isn't exactly right, but a great degree of anger As the Bible says, " the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God." We get angry, and we try to push and control people. But Proverbs says an angry person is like a city without walls. John: Oh wow! Henry: Talk about boundaries! John: Wow! Henry: If you don't have good boundaries, anybody can make you mad, and you get reactive. - 9 -
John: I'm thinking about people who are listening to this and thinking, "Boy, this is great, but I've messed it up. I grew up in a family with bad boundaries. I have violated boundaries." Henry: By the way, John, that's all of us. You know? We all came from a dysfunctional family. It's called the family of Adam, the human race. John: That takes us to God. I was thinking when you were talking about your phone call to your father and your dad said, "I'd be really interested to see how you get yourself out of this one." People are thinking, "I've blown it with my heavenly Father. I hear about the law of sowing and reaping. You reap what you sow. I know I've sown trespass. I know I've sown greed. I've sown selfishness. I've sown anger. 'God, have I trespassed too far?' What hope is there for somebody like me?" Could you just give a word of hope to people who are feeling hopeless right now? Henry: Yeah, because that's what we have. You know, it's interesting. When you read God's story about his kids, it's such an amazing love story about how God wanted us to have self-control. I mean, he gave us this garden, and he gave us the resources. He gives us talents, and then we flip him off and go our own way. We just sort of screw it up. Basically, the difference in our faith and every other faith is every other faith has these standards. "You have to be good enough, and if you screw up too much, you're not going to make it." God just says, "Look. You're all not up here with me." He doesn't say, "Come up here." He says, "I'll come down to where you are. Now I'm not going to do away with the requirements, but I'm going to come down where you are and help you reach them. I'm going to help you become a person with boundaries. I'm going to help you become a person that no matter what you've done " He literally says this. There is nothing you can do that will cause you to get outside of his grace. The only thing it actually says you can do is to choose to not step into that grace. There's a particular group of pastors who said, "That's it!" Sometimes people will say, "Well, you believe in this God who sends people to hell." God does not send anybody to hell. This is the true story he tells. If you have a party, he says, "Anybody can come. Please come!" Some people say, "I don't want to go to the party." So they end up wherever he isn't. Wherever God isn't God is love. God is light. God is compassionate. The universe is organized in some way we don't understand metaphysically and all of that. There is a place where he isn't because people choose to go away from him, and ultimately that's what's called hell. There's nothing I'm going to tell you. I mean, I didn't know what a boundary was when I first started trying to negotiate adulthood, and I'm going to tell you John, you know this as a PhD in psychology. John has talked to y'all about neuroplasticity, how we can grow, and how we change. I have seen codependents with no boundaries who get run over by everybody in life. But they get reconnected to God, and God says, "I will empower you to have the strength to start to have boundaries so your relationships become relationships of peace. Not only that, I'm going to put you " A Navy SEAL never became a Navy SEAL by themselves. "I'm going to put you in this new family, the new Adam ( who was Jesus)." This new family is going to come around you. It doesn't matter how boundary-less you've been, this family, this church, can help you, support you, heal you, as God does his - 10 -
work. I'm telling you, I've been doing this for a long time. I get more amazed every day at the change people can make. John: Thank God! Thank you, Henry. Henry: Thank God. Thank you, guys. - 11 -