Take Them Off the Pedestal

to make your authentic boundaries clear

When I am putting someone on a pedestal, I have a harder time accessing my authenticity, values and boundaries.

Maybe you do too?

You ever notice how it can be so hard to practice boundaries with “authority” figures like elders, bosses, teachers, and generally people with influence through money and/or power?

In the last Boundaries support group, we uncovered an interesting aspect of the work related to who we consciously or subconsciously put on pedestals.

Today, I’d like to share an inspiring story from one of our beautiful group members.

In our discussion about the nuances of boundaries and pedestalization, a group member realized the impact of her putting her boss on a pedestal, thereby mistaking this boss as the source of her stability and security. With this realization, all this excess pressure she was putting on herself to please, appease and maintain a status quo with her boss and in her work became glaringly apparent.

This pedestalization (I’ma keep using this made-up word because it’s a thing!) caused her to stay in this misaligned job for longer than she needed to while compromising her needs of autonomy and spaciousness.

Now, of course, this pedestalization of authority figures like bosses is TOTALLY JUSTIFIED in a society that pedestalizes money, work and man-made hierarchies. 

YES, there is a degree of very real security and stability that comes from our work, in the material world. 

YES, we need money and acceptance from people in power to the degree that we may to survive.

YET, when we are buying into the conditioning that our security and stability largely come from our work, we are going to allow people like our bosses to occupy far too much of our power (and our sanity).

Pedestalizing is giving power to someone or something. And when we pedestalize someone or something, we are also diminishing our own power in relation to it.

When we put someone or something on a PEDESTAL, we are likely overvaluing economical systems, cultural traditions and/or colonial frameworks that DEVALUE our essential EQUALITY.

Through our discussion and excavation of this nugget of nuance in boundary work (pedestalizing), she and we remembered that our bosses and our jobs are not actually the source of our security and stability…

We (specifically what we believe is divine, universal and sacred) are the source of our security and stability, both in the material and the supernatural worlds.

In the container of the support group, she was able to identify her underlying needs of autonomy and spaciousness which helped her define the hours of work that she was willing to show up for and the responsibilities she was willing to hold. 

She was also able to communicate these boundaries courageously and candidly with her boss. She did cry, and it was very uncomfortable, yet she showed up for it. I love this so much because our boundary conversations don’t have to be clear, neat, or invulnerable. They are often messy and stretchy in unfamiliar ways, though ultimately honest, authentic and realigning for us.

At the end of it, it was clear that her needs could not be met within the container of this job. And she was anticipating being let go because of this conversation she has with her boss, as equals!

NOW THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC UNFOLDS!!!… ✨

She had a feeling that she was going to be let go because with her needs now out in the open, there weren’t any other clear paths. Though, her boss was not saying anything that indicated that she would be fired.

By divine happenstance one morning, she accidentally found her exit letter in the shared Google drive! Alas, she was going to be fired!

This made her laugh more than anything, releasing the tension that she was feeling in the uncertainty of whether she was actually going to be fired.

She considered this a nod from the universe that she should prepare to be let go. 

About two weeks later, her boss let her go with a severance package and benefits for a month.

By then, she had already had an affirming conversation with another hiring manager that opened up new possibilities and hope for her.

Taking her boss off the pedestal and engaging in an honest conversation CATALYZED her re-alignment with space for work that fits her life, while making her transition as smooth and supported as possible.

Without that honest boundary conversation, she admits that she may still have been at that job, resentfully working hours she didn’t want to work, dealing with the anxiety and insecurity of pleasing and appeasing to what she had on that pedestal.

This act of identifying her boundaries, speaking them out and discovering how divinely supported she was in the unfolding of it gave her freedom, peace and affirmation of her real stability and security.

A 4-month Boundaries for Peace group starts in October.

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