In this episode, we're discussing Boundaries!
This is part 2 of 2. The next episodes will be about Power.
The Co-Host is Jenna Bowers and here's where you can find her work (and another cameo of her familiar Willoughby): TheWayWitch • Instagram • TikTok • Facebook
- 0:00:00 Intro Credits
- 0:01:06 Introduction Chat with Content Warnings: swearing; all sorts of descriptions for boundary crossings and violations. Just, so many.
- 0:04:29 Grounding Prayer
- 0:05:24 Jenna Intro
- 0:06:10 The biggest barrier to "setting boundaries" in our American Culture is the false idea of individualism - Boundaries require collaboration or at least acknowledgment, and discovering you didn't have as strong boundaries as you thought is painful no matter the other intersectional privilege
- 0:09:38 Exercise: step 1 - where is ME, where are my current boundaries, where do I want them to be, where do other people have them?
- 0:11:34 Interjection: in cases of long-term coercive control, especially with children, there might not be a bastion in their mind; Victor Frankl went into the holocaust already a trained psychologist
- 0:13:11 Interjection: Anne of Green Gables used imagination to survive trauma, but she is depicted as having a secure family for her first 3 years of life
- 0:14:20 Exercise: Step 2 - how rigid or flexible do I need my boundary in this realm with this person to be?
- 0:15:33 Exercise: Step 3 - In what realm(s) are the boundaries you are setting? and, over what span? and again, research/investigate how others are managing boundaries even in overwhelming situations.
- 0:17:30 Exercise: Step 4 - Boundary versus Ultimatum or "empty threat"
- 0:22:51 The way you set boundaries is (1) where can I set them now (2) how rigid or flexible right now (3) What realm do I need to set them in (4) What can I do if they are crossed or violated? and (5)1234 evaluate-circle back around
- 0:23:42 Reflections? important clarifier for steps 1-3: what is it I need here? and self-contained ways to enact No. 4 of What Can I Do If...
- 0:27:32 Interlude into Dissociation and Freeze as valid and necessary responses as Step 4 if that's what power you have. All human responses have times when they are the appropriate response, and maybe a lot of times they aren't.
- 0:30:10 Considering that what you have access to is what you have access to, how do you start experimenting with establishing and expanding on responses for Step 4 and revisiting steps 1-4?
- 0:31:09 Interjection: sometimes boundaries are further crossed and violated and so the next step is distance or estrangement if that is possible; that usually comes only after many iterations of the experiment are done. Full estrangement or "canceling" almost always occurs because something in the interactions or the environment has already shown copious evidence of an inability to trust that boundaries will be respected.
- 0:37:27 Summary of self-based resources for Step 4... Is it only removal of self? You may have community and society to rely on, and have more power and influence than you think. If you don't have power up and down the current hierarchy, that's why Trickster Gods gave us models for lateral moves. Again, it needs experimentation.
- 0:43:57 Inaccurately told story of musician Afroman whose house was invaded by police so he made a music video, accurate details in show notes below