We see this in all sorts of ways. People who don’t clean up their relationships with their parents after marriage find themselves in the midst of turf wars and drama because boundaries are being violated all over the place and both sides are demanding clarifications and reparations. We don’t need to cut ourselves off from family, but cleaning things up to reflect our new status and connections is a must. The same can be seen when dealing with ex’s and blended families. It doesn’t matter how amicable things are, making sure that old boundaries get tidied up, channels of communication get rinsed out and made clear, and new ways of interacting become available can make the process positive rather than a minefield.
Even if the creation process is one that is internal, at some point the changes going on inside us are going to become evident in our actions and our words. It is going to be noted and going to affect those we interact with. We can clean up as we go along, proactively setting new boundaries, being clear and honest about our process. We can clean up after things are done, producing a new version of ourselves as a fait accompli and introducing ourselves to the world with a flourish and allowing the cleaning up process to be part of our coming out. Allowing for the new connections and the falling away of others as we experience our new life. The one thing we can’t do is not clean up after ourselves because it doesn’t matter how much we run or how hard we try to avoid it, the consequences will catch up to us with interest accrued for emphasis.
