Imma tell on myself for a bit.
Two weeks ago, I realized that I spent three months back and forthing with a friend about a critical decision. I took great pains to ensure we were both aligned and happy with the direction we were going. That was important!
How I went about that went against my stewardship values, mentally strained my friendship and raised feelings of unfairness. Throughout the process, I unwittingly placed myself in a people-pleasing loop because I wanted everyone to be happy.
The loop looked like this:
- My friend would make a recommendation and share the information I needed to review and make a decision.
- I’d ponder the information, make the decision, and then communicate it.
- But my friend would suggest something new, add a new element to the conversation, or recommend something totally different.
Each new element meant restarting the conversation from scratch. But instead of putting my foot down and drawing the line in the sand, I kept facilitating the conversation and the changing direction.
Weeks in, I started getting irritated. The back and forth took up a lot of my time. It infringed on my peace of mind.
Why was my friend doing this? Why can’t my friend see that we are wasting time?
A month in, the open decision loop and constant back and forth became extremely frustrating. My resentment grew. I found it harder to see my friend in a good light. I started to see my friend as the “enemy”. I no longer felt like we were on the same team. It became me against “my friend”. I wanted to interact with my friend less and less. I found our interactions and communications draining. I delayed my responses. I started avoiding their emails, text messages, and calls.
That’s a horrible approach when you are trying to make a critical decision. It gets worse when you are someone who is committed to living life in truth. It gets worse when you are someone who loves your friend and hates the feeling of a rift in that intimacy. It left me feeling gross, uncomfortable, and guilty. I vented a lot but couldn’t seem to figure out how to stop the cycle without affecting the relationship.
Two months. Three months passed with no resolution in sight.
I spent more time complaining about my friend’s actions instead of delighting in our relationship and moving forward with the work we were doing together. Trust flew through the window. I imagined awkwardness and hidden agendas where there were none.
I did not notice the pattern until my fiancé pointed it out: “Chanel, you are both wasting time when you keep asking each other “what do you want to do” versus deciding and saying this is the path forward.”
Thank God for the people who cut you to save you! His comment hit hard. I felt slapped and immediately wanted to deny his statement. But I stopped. The truth of his statement rang in my head. Here was a blindspot behavior I could not see. God was using this situation to bring it to light. It had already cost me three months of discomfort and lack of consensus. I would not waste another three months because my pride and need for growth in this area prevented me from seeing the writing on the wall. Even when someone who loves me pointed it out. Honestly, I dreaded looking closer to see the other areas of my life it had infiltrated.
I started to reflect on what to do next.
Since it was evident that my current set of tools needed refining, I asked for advice and leaned on the expertise of someone I knew I could trust to give me Godly counsel. It got the ball moving immediately!
Once the ball got moving again, I pondered why the situation felt so hard in the first place. I recognized two core things.
Feeling like you are being treated unfairly
CORE THING #1: I felt like my friend was being unfair.
It did not feel like my friend found the situation as urgent as I did. It felt like my friend was wasting my time. It felt like I was handling things that were my friend’s responsibility.
But the truth is, we had not collectively defined the scope of what needed to be done and what fairness looked like in this situation. We each had a different picture of what was acceptable, and the timelines associated with getting things done. My friend had a view of what was fair, and I had a view of what was fair. It so happened that I hit my limit of fairness about this situation first.
Have you ever heard this argument, “How can God love us and yet allow certain things to happen to us?” In essence that saying accuses God of treating us like the enemy because He dared to set boundaries for us. And yet that accusation is false for God but held true for me because I treated my friend like the enemy. I did not love my friend and value the decision and relationship enough to set a solid boundary and scope. I let things run free for all, then got upset and felt treated unfairly when things did not work out.
God loves us enough to define the scope of the environment that He places us in. Imagine He created the world and then created the Garden of Eden where He placed man! He created a place with scope parameters that allowed us to thrive. A part of that scope includes setting clear limits around that environment so that we know the limits at which we can thrive and honor Him.
Boundaries are an expression of love for us and our neighbors! Can you imagine what would happen if the morning or night did not have boundaries? I cannot imagine having daylight or night all the time all year round! Can you imagine what would happen if the seas and rivers did not have limits? What if the rain fell constantly because it did not have limits? Earth would be flooded. We’d probably be people who lived in trees, always afraid of the creatures of the deep. Or, we’d become like Noah and his family, except we lived in boats forever!
Boundaries are lifesavers! Boundaries are life-givers. Boundaries are peace and joy bringers. That’s why I struggled in this situation with my friend. I neglected the one thing that gave our relationship and work together life.
I cringe and then forgive myself when I think about situations from my past that played out like this one with my friend. I spent years in situationships because I did not dare to set the scope of the relationship. I spent years feeling burnt out from working with clients and as an employee because I did not have the guts to clearly define the scope of the engagement.
I overcame those things. Yet, this situation is a great reminder that I am still learning. The big things are not the only foxes that can ruin my vineyard. The small unsuspected ones, like the cute little minks that eat flamingo eggs and young, are very dangerous. They can damage my future. They were damaging my present.
Feeling like it’s unfair to hold your boundary
CORE THING #2: It felt unfair to uphold my boundary.
I did not feel safe voicing my concerns. I felt guilty for having those concerns because my friend was trying to help me, and I had already placed us in a difficult and unexpected situation. I felt like I did not have the right to speak up and that speaking up may hurt our relationship. Every single approach I considered felt wrong. So, I held back.
The truth was holding back did not help the situation. It made things worse. It placed me in a prison of my own making. It created a wedge where there was none. It left me feeling resentful and feeling unable to voice my needs. I fear that if this had continued for much longer, I would have found myself battling a desire to end the relationship.
When I examined why I felt it was unfair to uphold my boundary, I realized the truth of this statement:
“Boundaries are hard to uphold when they feel unfair to enforce. They are even harder to uphold when they were never set.”
The first level of feeling unfair stemmed from core reason #1! I never set boundaries! We never got on the same page. It was no wonder my friend’s actions felt unfair to me. It was no wonder I felt like it was unfair to hold my friend to something we never agreed to. I had my idea of fair. My friend has theirs.
Has that ever happened to you? You are busy stewing over someone’s actions when you leave it up to them to do what they feel is fair. Or because you feel like they should know better or worse read your mind? You may have even turned them into the enemy and made yourself the victim. Let me raise my hand and confess. I’ve done that a thousand times! It is hard to stand on a foundation that was never laid together.
Failing to set a boundary without consequences
The second level doesn’t get any better. Not only had I not defined a boundary, but I had also neglected to set associated consequences.
That’s why it felt so hard to figure out a way to approach my friend. That’s why raising my concerns felt unfair! That’s why it felt scary! I felt crippled because I never got around to the second part of creating my boundary scope: defining clear consequences for “remaining within the scope” or “setting outside the scope” of the environment.
That creates the foundation we need to uphold and enforce our boundaries.
A boundary without consequences is just a suggestion. If God hadn’t set the boundary and established the consequence of eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden, it would have been icky to toss Adam and Eve from the Garden, after they disobeyed and stepped beyond the scope He had established. It would have been downright unfair for them and their descendants to “die”.
In Deuteronomy 28, Moses gave the Israelites the Laws and stated the blessings associated with remaining within the limits and the curses associated with stepping outside the limits. We see those consequences throughout the Bible. We experience some of those consequences even today!
Decisions… decisions… decisions
As I wrapped up this post, I found myself reflecting on the decisions we make on a daily basis and how hard it can feel to navigate those decisions as someone who loves people.
Decisions in romantic relationships.
Decisions in friendships.
Decisions in business.
Decisions within our families.
Decisions within ourselves.
Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. And the fact is, they all involve human beings makes it easy for feelings of unfairness to make their appearance. And when we are just learning to love people in a way that honors God, ourselves and people, it can get hard and murky.
Instead of avoiding people or becoming resentful due to feelings of unfairness, lean into the situation. Allow the Lord to show you how He is using the person and situation to grow you. Allow Him to point you to people you can give you wise and souund advice about yourself and how to approach the situation.
In the words of Dharius Daniels, people are God’s best provision for you. Don’t miss it because of a decision loop that is meant to trigger you and grow you and them. Don’t miss it because you are stuck at “this feels unfair” and you cannot see a way forward.
The Point? I assure you there is one…
Feelings of unfairness are bound to come up when you don’t have a foundation that establishes fairness. That’s why you need boundaries. They are foundational to fairness.
God, our Father, and Creator saw it fit to not just create boundaries but to also associate consequences to them and enforce them. I don’t know about you, but it gives me such great comfort and confidence when it comes to setting boundaries in my life. It is definitely one of the ways to maintain my pink flamingo pinkness.
As I was reminded by this situation, boundaries are foundational to your pinkness, no matter who you are interacting with. Failing to set boundaries creates cycles that rob you of your pinkness. Setting boundaries without establishing consequences creates cycles that rob us of our pinkness. Failing to enforce those boundaries or trying to enforce boundaries that you didn’t communicate leaves you without a leg to stand on.
Flamingo Resource(s)
RESOURCE 1: If you feel like dealing with people is hard and unfair, check out Dharius Daniels’ book, Relational Intelligence: The People Skills You Need for the Life of Purpose You Want. This is my go-to book when it comes to dealing with relationships and putting people in the right boxes in my life. I’ve read this book four times and will probably read it again this year.
RESOURCE 2: If you are in a rut in your prayer life…or have no idea how to build a consistent prayer life so you hear God’s directions for you, I recommend Confessions of a Prayer Slacker by Diane Moody. This book helped me to sit with and hear God consistently. That habit changed my life and continues to change my life! In Search of the Pink Flamingo came from me using the book’s principles to sit with and listen to God. I just finished my third read and I still walked away with so many revelations. You can supplement it with the Encouraged Growth Devotional. Dee Kelly designed this devotional to help you get intimate with God.
RESOURCE 3: If you are struggling with people dynamics and feelings of unfairness within your romantic relationships, check out this blog by Dream Silas Omans. Dream gave me so much clarity about how to stay in my domain as a woman and give my man the space to lead without dishonoring God and my needs. God used her work mightily to prepare my for marriage (well her work and the spiritual wisdom of my mentor and therapist).
Things I Am Grateful For (What We’ve Been Up To)
Doing the final edits for my new book “Lean In To Your Pink Flamingo“. There is no doubt in my mind that this book will change lives. God changed how I showed up in life emotionally as a recovering people-pleaser so I could pass on the lessons I learned to you and others. You can donate here if you’d like to contribute to bringing it through the final stages of release!
Getting engaged. I’m blessed to have two engagement stories (well three stories). In the words of my friend, nothing happens linearly with me. That’s the beauty of releasing control to Our Heavenly Father.
Spending time with my friend who drove down to spend time with us on her day off. We spent an enjoyable afternoon chasing waterfalls and singing about God’s goodness. I love it when God uses nature and the people around me to land the godly cheat sheet lessons He wants to teach me about living on purpose with life-long joy & peace.
Speaking about the Pink Flamingo Way for individuals and business owners on Steve Wright’s podcast. Just a reminder that your flamingo pinkness is needed in this world. God did not create you to be a clone. Check out the episode.
