Empowered Boundaries

by Cristien Storm

  One practice is to link pauses with breath, with taking a long, deep breath to help you slow down or remind you to be present. This involves taking a breath and bringing attention completely to your breath before focusing on what is happening in the moment and deciding on any action or response. It is helpful in the beginning to practice this stop-breathe-pause tactic in neutral or low stakes situations. The more practice people have in remembering to stop, breathe, pause, and then respond in less intense moments, the easier it will be to do it in more intense situations. The pause is not simply a moment to think about what you are going to say or do; it is about intentionally slowing down and bringing oneself into the present moment in order to respond more effectively. There is a lot happening in interpersonal interactions, including what is being said, nonverbal communication, thoughts, feelings, and sensations; being able to direct attention enables people to be more in the present moment and respond to what is actually happening rather than react to what is anticipated, feared, or hoped for.

  Radical Acceptance

  Radical acceptance is another tool that helps people stay present and respond rather than react. Radical acceptance is not a passive that’s just the way it is, there’s nothing I can do kind of acceptance. It is a very active and participatory stance, rooted in reality. It’s accepting things as they are, rather than getting stuck in how you wish things were. Wishing things were different is an easy place to go. There are things in life that suck. There are things that are unfair, painful, and devastating. Accepting them does not mean we don’t work to change or avoid what we are able to. It means accepting things as they are now, which is not always a pleasant endeavor. But not doing so adds suffering to the very real pain that is already present, which inevitably makes things worse. There are numerous research studies on how mindfulness practices reduce stress, anxiety, and physical and emotional pain. The Mayo Clinic has done extensive research studies on the effects of mindfulness on pain and stress reduction. Mindfulness is the act of being aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and action urges, without judging, meaning-making, or interpreting. Radical acceptance extends mindfulness to the world around us and is the acceptance of what is, in this very moment, without getting mired in how something is unfair or unjust—even if it is. Radical acceptance is rooted in the here and now, in the present moment, not the future or the past. When one accepts (radically) an unfair or unjust situation, the acceptance is not about accepting that it will be this way forever (sometimes it may be, sometimes it may not), but about accepting the reality of how things are now, in this moment. This type of acceptance offers a grounded place from which one can decide how to respond and enact whatever change is possible. Radical acceptance of painful, unjust, unforgivable, prejudiced, oppressive, or undesired events or circumstances allows one to be more responsive and less reactive, which supports rather than demarks possibilities for change.

  A client came to me expressing his desire to stop feeling stuck. His father died before they had a chance to reconcile. He felt guilty, ashamed, angry, and trapped. He had hoped for an opportunity to talk with his father and see if it would be possible to forgive him, but now that opportunity was gone forever. Unsure how to live with his resentment, anger, and guilt, my client was suffering a great deal. His relationship had recently ended, and badly at that, and he was at risk of losing his job. He was miserable but saw no way out. As we discussed his feelings and possible options it became clear that he was ensnared in emotional turmoil: he couldn’t undo the past and he couldn’t forgive himself or his father; he could not tolerate his guilt but he felt like he deserved it so he could not let go of it. He was angry with his father but since he was gone, my client felt stuck with his anger; he was resentful toward his father for dying and guilty about feeling resentful. As we spent time together, we began to explore the idea of radical acceptance. The goal was not forgiveness but to reduce his suffering somewhat so that he could be more engaged in his life. In this case, radical acceptance involved my client accepting the reality that the possibility of him reconciling with his father before his father died was gone. Forever. He could engage in various healing practices, but he would never be able to reconcile with his dad in “real life” as he put it. The grief and loss he experienced in accepting this was overwhelming, as grief often is, and we spent a great deal of time doing grief work together in the process of him grappling with the concept of radical acceptance. As he came to accept the painful concreteness of his father’s passing and the certainty that “real life” reconciliation was not possible, he was able to feel other emotions, make room for other memories of him and his father, and this in turn allowed him to be more present in his current life. No factual things changed during our work together. His father was still gone and the reconciliation had still not occurred, but my client was no longer stuck in the suffering of wanting things to be different—he accepted with a great deal of pain that things were the way the were and the only thing he could do was either choose to accept them and decide how to move forward, or to not accept them and be wed to his guilt and shame forever. It was not a great choice and either way my client would feel painful and distressing emotions, but not accepting things as they were only would only add more agony to an already difficult situation.

  Radical acceptance asks people to feel emotions that they are often desperate to not feel, and no matter the intellectual understanding that refusing to accept things as they are won’t actually change things, people may still cling to the hope that nonacceptance will stop or dull the pain. It does not. Facing a painful reality is difficult so it is understandable that people do not want to or sometimes refuse to. But not facing reality prevents one from being present and fully engaged with life, which, while extraordinarily painful at times, can also be amazingly wonderful and glorious.

  Accepting things as they are so that we can work to make the changes we want to and are able of making is challenging. Sometimes it involves painful grief work, as in the above example. Other times, radical acceptance involves a subtler shift in our perspective or paradigm. This shift is not always easy. There is a story in the book The Song of the Bird by spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello. It’s a story shared by many Zen teachers, and Martha Linehan uses it in her workbook for facilitating Dialectical Behavioral Therapy groups. The story is helpful and bears repeating. The following excerpt is an adapted version:

  A man bought a new house and decided that he wanted a beautiful and perfect lawn. He worked on it every week, doing everything the gardening books told him to do. The big problem was the lawn had dandelions that didn’t seem to ever go away. The first time he found dandelions, he pulled them out. They grew back. He went to a gardening store and bought weed killer. The dandelions shriveled and died. He thought he was done with this dilemma, but to his dismay the dandelions grew back. He pulled them all out again, working very hard every weekend. The next summer he thought he would finally be free of his dandelions since none grew back during the winter. But alas, the summer came and dandelions popped up all over his lawn! He then decided it must be the type of grass he had. He spent a fortune and had all new grass put down. This worked for some time and the man was very happy. Just as he started to relax, however, the dandelions came back. A friend told him this was due to the dandelions in the lawn next door. The man went on a campaign to get all of his neighbors to kill all their dandelions. By the third year he was exhausted and he still had dandelions. After consulting every expert and book he could find he decided to write the U.S. Department of Agriculture for advice. Surely they could help. After several months he finally received a reply. He was very excited. He tore the letter open and read the following: “Dear Sir: We have considered your problem and have consulted all of our experts. After careful consideration, we think we can give you very good advice. Sir, our advice is that you learn to love those dandelions.

  Exploring what we want often means finding love, contentment, and happiness in places we may have never thought poss
ible. It involves paying attention inwardly as well as externally, outside ourselves. If we are so focused on weeds, we miss the joy of being outside in the sun working on our lawn (or even enjoying lovely yellow dandelions). If we only focus on the imperfect or the painful, trying desperately to make it go away, it sabotages our joy. When we are feeling happy, we worry about when it will be over. When the lawn is free from dandelions, we are happy, but as soon as one pops up, we are frustrated. This is expecting our life, like the lawn, to be perfect and basing our happiness on achieving perfection. It is easy to look to an idea of what it is to be happy or perfect (we are bombarded by advertising and branding messages relentlessly) and then cling desperately to it—like a perfect lawn. It is not difficult to become lured into thinking happiness exists outside of ourselves. Happiness then becomes confused with a state of emotion obtained by external things like the perfect lawn, a pair of shoes, a specific relationship, or the right job. None of these things are bad. They are also not good. They are, in fact, neutral. Rather, it is our belief that they are connected to happiness and the meaning assigned to them that causes so much suffering. When we get what we want, we fear losing it. When we don’t get what we want, we are upset and long for it. This locates joy outside of ourselves and places responsibility for happiness on external things rather than on our perspective or beliefs, which in turn distances us from our internal landscape of feelings and experience. This also makes setting and negotiating boundaries more about trying to achieve and maintain an ideal of happiness or perfection, rather than about grappling with the messy reality of confusing and sometimes conflicting wants and needs. It can also make us equate “good” boundaries with “perfect” boundaries. That is, with boundaries that are set exactly how we want them and are responded to in the precise way we imagined.

  Over time, an externally focused ideal of happiness can result in people being out of tune with their own feelings and bodies—what they need and want—and the ability to direct attention, focus, and experience in the service of what they need. In this outwardly focused paradigm, turning inward, listening to one’s self, and locating happiness inside one’s self becomes a radical act.

  Radical Acceptance and Boundary Setting

  How do boundaries fit into the struggle to have a perfect lawn, let go of unrealistic expectations, or accept a painful circumstance? Boundaries are a means to ask for or negotiate wants and needs, to accept things, and to change things. When boundaries are set or negotiated from a place of radical acceptance, they are rooted in the reality of what is and what is possible. This, in turn, means that they are more likely to be based on what people really want and need rather than what people think they should or shouldn’t want (which results in happier, healthier, and more resilient people, environments, and relationships). Trying to negotiate a need that cannot be met or that a person feels they shouldn’t have can quickly become a tangle of emotions, desires, beliefs, values, thoughts, and judgments. Radical acceptance helps untangle the knots because it involves naming or noticing and accepting each element before deciding what to do. When someone can accept a need as well as the various (and sometimes contradictory) feelings, thoughts, values, beliefs, and action urges that accompany the need, they will be better equipped to explore how they want to respond. For example, if someone wants to ask for support but believes they should be able to handle things themselves, they often position these two as oppositional: either I ask for support or do things myself. Meaning is also typically assigned to each approach: asking for help is bad. Getting support means I am weak. Doing things on my own is how I let people know I won’t be a burden. Radical acceptance of both of these beliefs and desires as well as thoughts, judgments, meanings, values, beliefs, and action urges, offers a way out of the contradictory loop (either I ask for support and am weak or I go at it alone and am not a burden). Radical acceptance opens up possibilities that collapse when people are unable or unwilling to accept the circumstances at hand. In the above example, radical acceptance helps the person decide what they want to do in response to a situation where they want help but also want to go at it alone. Radical acceptance also helps them accept the reality that either decision will result in feeling some distressing emotions. Using radical acceptance, they can explore additional feelings or aspects of the particular circumstances and then decide in that moment what the best next step for them is. Radical acceptance creates a path through seemingly contradictory stances, disentangles them from one another, and asks that responses be based on what is possible given the reality of that particular moment. This allows people to navigate difficult emotional, psychological, and environmental circumstances more skillfully. In this way, radical acceptance supports more effective boundary setting. If you are dealing with things as they really are rather than how you wish things would be, or think they should be, responses are more connected to what is actually happening in the moment. Through acceptance, like learning to love dandelions, people will find new ways of setting boundaries and even discover new boundaries themselves.

  Radical acceptance helps us negotiate boundaries that are rooted in both the reality of the world we live in and in the truth of which needs and wants are important and possible. This supports stronger, more vibrant, and resilient relationships and communities. The reality is that inequities, injustices, prejudices, and malfeasance hurt people at an individual and social level on a daily basis. We live in a world where rich people live longer, white people still have better access to health care, men continue to dominate financially and politically, gay, lesbian, trans and genderqueer people are bullied, people of color are targets of racism and discrimination, domestic violence persists, sexual abuse is still a pervasive reality, and prisons are a business market niche. Our little planet is warming with a fever that those in power (in the United States) are ignoring with disastrous implications. We have a lot of work to do. That doesn’t let us off the hook for finding and creating our own happiness. An important aspect of this kind of boundary work is that it helps people be happier, calmer, more confident, compassionate, and grounded in how to advocate for their wants and needs.

  Eleven

  Community Care and Social Change

  That’s (Not) Just the Way It Is

  “That’s just the way it is.” In my mind, this phrase is a way to justify giving up. It’s a verbal version of palms extended in the air in a surrendering gesture. Boundaries are about self-care. Self-care is connected to relationship care, community care, neighborhood care, neighbor care, global-neighbor care, and planetary care. It is critical that we all participate in taking care of the earth and the people that inhabit our precious planet. If I believe that women should not be coerced, manipulated, or beaten into having sex then it is important for me to not only learn how to stand up for my own boundaries as a woman, but also to promote, encourage, and participate in creating environments, conditions, and relationships that do not perpetuate violence against women. When someone responds to incidents of harm or abuse with an equivalent of “That’s just the way it is,” in essence they are saying that there is nothing to be done to change things and are, perhaps more importantly, allowing themselves a way to not feel guilty about their inaction. We not only need to do something, it is imperative that we feel like we need to do something. Our ability to adapt to unhealthy environments and oppressive systems can numb us and limit imaginative and creative alternatives to current conditions. To not be numb is to feel an urgent need to do something to change things.

  If I want to numb out with television, booze, shopping, prescription or nonprescription drugs, food, or any of the other things we can use to divert our attention away from deep and meaningful self-care and the work required to change the conditions in which violence and abuse occur, that’s a choice I get to make. Too often we don’t view a lack of participation as an active choice. We throw up our hands and say, “That’s just the way it is.” This excuses us quite neatly from having to do anything. In order to change things,
we have to choose to participate, which is not always easy, as participation can be extraordinarily painful. Participation means grappling with how deeply entrenched victim blaming is in many of our social (and individual) responses to harm. It also involves looking at all the various and complicated factors that contribute to violence, abuse, and harm. Participation means looking at the privilege of being able to choose to not participate. Victim blaming, or “pathologizing” and criminalizing, those who engage in certain kinds of harm does not call for a deep investigation of the conditions that contribute to violence and how we in the United States respond to it.

  From Self-Care to Community Care

  Mainstream concepts around meeting needs or setting boundaries tend to be rooted in the individual self (I want to feel safe, I want to be loved, I want to feel secure, I need you to listen more, I need a hug, I need to be respected). In reality, the whole point of getting what we want, of negotiating our boundaries, is about being more connected to other people and the world. Boundaries occur in connection to other people. Even when we are setting boundaries located only within ourselves (I will limit myself to one sweet treat a week, I will bike to work most days, I will try to smile more), we are doing so in social and relational contexts. We depend on one another in very deep and complex ways, yet most boundary discussions are focused on how to cut off or distance ourselves from unwanted behaviors or people. In chapter two, we looked at how boundary work is just as much about negotiating and asking for what we want and need as what we don’t want and don’t need. To this end, if we are working toward not just our own individual safety but toward changing the conditions in which people are not safe or are being harmed, then boundaries are about imagining radical possibilities as much as responding to events in the present.