RELATIONSHIP BOUNDARIES AND POTTERY
The first phase of creating a piece of pottery on a potter's wheel is called centering. This means using your hands to guide the clay, which is typically wobbling as it spins, to the absolute center of the wheel — making it symmetrical. It takes a firm, steady force. While centering the clay, the clay's wobbling movements move the potter's hands around. The potter then pushes, using a constant force, towards the center of the wheel. The potter has to guide the clay as it changes shape to the potter's hands. The clay then stops moving the potter's hands around with it's wobbling motions. Pushing too hard and too quickly can result in the clay becoming even more off-center. This first phase is essential, should you move on to the other stages of making pottery with an off-center piece of clay it will become almost impossible to have a centered, balanced, symmetrical piece of pottery. Often you cannot move onto the next phase without a centered piece of clay. In other words, wobbly clay negatively affects the pottery piece throughout the whole process.
Relationships are difficult to navigate. Emotional needs/wants, expectations, personalities, relationship history, and cultural/family norms create depth and complications in maintaining healthy, fulfilling relationships. We all have different experiences that have led to how we individually behave and seek needs/wants in relationships. When attending counseling, we are often challenged to set and hold boundaries with people in their lives. Boundaries are expectations, rules, limits, or guidelines for how we ask others to behave towards us and how we will behave towards them. What can we learn from pottery about relationship boundaries?
Holding relationship boundaries is like centering a piece of clay on the pottery wheel. To be more successful at maintaining boundaries, we must be slow, steady, firm, and patient like the potter. When we expect a behavior change from someone, a boundary, we may feel entitled to perfect obedience to this new rule, limit, or guideline and often become upset upon the first violation. This would be the equivalent of the quick, jerking motion of shoving the clay to the center. Our unthoughtful, impatient, emotionally driven reaction often leaves the "clay" even more wobbly and off-center than it was before you started. When a potter is guiding the clay towards the center, their hands are still moved around by the clay's wobbles. We can also have some give or "wobble" for boundary violations. It is unrealistic to expect perfect obedience to a boundary, and we must be firm and patiently guide the clay towards the center. There is some give. However, a steady, firm force of guidance towards the center will produce the desired effects of a boundary. We must allow for mistakes from loved ones, as long as you feel that the "clay" is progressively moving towards the "center" and not getting more "wobbly." It is important to be forgiving when there is a wobble in our loved one's behaviors.
Should you feel that your friends, family, or loved ones are not responding to your steady, firm boundary holding, it is recommended that you seek help from a counselor to navigate your next steps in getting your needs met.
