441 - Multiamory Presents: The Art of Boundaries (Dedeker's Interview on Help Existing)

Full transcript available

Head on over to the Help Existing podcast!

This week, in lieu of a regular episode, we’re showcasing an interview Dedeker did on our good friend Rachel Krantz’s podcast, Help Existing. In addition to podcast host, Rachel is also the author of Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy.

Rachel and Dedeker have a fantastic conversation about one of our favorite subjects: boundaries, and cover a wide array of ground with ideas such as:

• What boundaries are and how to figure out your own.

• Communicating boundaries in a way that’s both firm and compassionate.

• How to remain flexible and open to change without having porous boundaries.

• Whether or not the same strategies apply in familial versus romantic boundaries.

Be sure to check out Rachel’s show, Help Existing, and find out more about Rachel on her website.

Transcript

This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Dedeker: Hello Multiamory listeners, this week we are doing something a little different. We are going to be featuring an interview that I did on the podcast Help Existing, which is hosted by my friend and longtime friend of the show, Rachel Krantz. Krantz is also the author of Open, an uncensored memoir of love, liberation, and non-monogamy. Rachel and I had a great conversation about boundaries, figuring out what your boundaries are. How do you communicate boundaries in a way that's both firm and compassionate? How can you be both flexible and open to change while also having good boundaries that aren't too porous? Like do your strategies with boundaries apply the same way with familial and romantic relationships? Boundaries is a topic that's near and dear to us on Multiamory, so we hope that you enjoy. Please go check out Rachel's show, Help Existing. You can go check out her book, and you can also check out the interview that we did with Rachel on Multiamory in episode 356.

Jase: Rachel is also the person who wrote the foreword to our book, Multiamory Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy that at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold. Also, you can check out the first nine episodes of this podcast where we also go over some of our most commonly referenced communication tools, if you hear us bring those up on the show. With that, please enjoy this interview with Rachel and Dedeker.

Rachel: Hey, I'm Rachel Krantz, and this is Help Existing. Today I'm talking with a dear friend who definitely helps me exist. Her name's Dedeker Winston. She's a relationship coach and also one of the co-hosts of the excellent podcast, Multiamory. She's also the author of The Smart Girls Guide to Polyamory. You'll recognize her name, perhaps, if you read my book, Open, where she's quoted several times. That's just because she's such a wise person when it comes to communication in relationships, be they non-monogamous, monogamous, familial, or otherwise.

I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of Multiamory's book that's coming out next March, Multiamory. One chapter in particular was about boundaries, and boundaries are definitely a hot topic. Some people think the word and concept is overused. Some people think that they are the solution to everything. I wanted to have an in-depth conversation with Dedeker about boundaries and how to sort out what they are, how would you go about figuring that out, how do you go about communicating them.

I wanted to talk about this in a way that was inclusive of romantic relationships, parental relationships, friendships, whatever else. We had a great conversation that I found personally very helpful in distinguishing the way I could express my boundaries, the way I can continue to figure out what they are, and how I can stay both firm and flexible in them. I started out by asking Dedeker how she would define a boundary.

Dedeker: Oh, what isn't a boundary these days? I say that only half-jokingly because boundaries are such a hot topic. I think they really have become more and more popular. I think when people encounter the concept of boundaries and especially millennials, it can be very exciting. I think it's very exciting to feel like, ooh, we've been given the thing to point to that's going to be the solution to the problem. I can point to this thing in myself, like aha, if I just fix this one area, then everything else is going to fall into place or we can even point to this in other people of, oh, look, like this person clearly has such poor boundaries.

Now, if they just fix that, then everything would fall into place. I do think there's a little bit of a contradiction within the concept of boundaries of on the one hand, I really don't believe that they're this one size fits all multipurpose magic bullet that can solve absolutely everything. I don't think that they're just fundamentally airtight at the end of the day. Also at the same time, I do think that one's personal boundaries can really be a linchpin and a really important focus point that can affect the quality of your life and your relationships with any other human being that you come across.

All that being said, I guess the textbook definition that I would give is that a boundary refers to any kind of guideline or a limit or a standard that you establish for yourself and that you apply to yourself, and then also enforce upon yourself for the purpose of protecting you, yourself, your energy, your space, your time, and also preserving your personal values.

Rachel: That's a great definition. You make the distinction between a boundary and a rule not being the same thing. How is a rule different from what you just described?

Dedeker: The thing that I come back to all the time is thinking about boundaries within the realm of this only applies to myself. Then when we're thinking about a rule, that's when I start to think about, I know I'm trying to restrict other people's behavior or control other people. Rules don't necessarily have to be bad. I don't think all rules are evil or that all rules are inappropriate, but I do think that the reason why I make that joke about what isn’t a boundary is what I've seen in the last five years or so is this sense that whatever the behavior is, or whatever it is that I'm asking of someone or just whatever it is that I'm that I'm pushing back against my relationship, if I slap the label boundary on it that means it's good.

We know that boundaries equals good and important and you have to respect them, and so whatever it is if I just say this is my boundary that's my boundary then it's going to be okay. It's not that I want to come in and police people's language necessarily, I'm more thinking about are there better ways for us to think about this that just make this feel simpler, more accomplishable, and just a little bit more clear? Unfortunately, I think like a lot of pop psychology tools or relationship tools, anything can be misused and also turned abusive in relationship.

Just as a tangential example, I've heard a lot of stories within my own community of the nonviolent communication model is a fantastic model. I highly recommend everyone goes out and Googles it if they're if they're not familiar with it already, really, really fantastic tool. Great place to start from, especially if you're struggling with the way that conflict goes in your relationships, or the way that communication around uncomfortable topics, difficult topics goes in your relationships. Also, people have been in relationships where NVC as a tool they've had their heads bludgeoned in with it essentially, where a partner has used it to really dictate the way that they converse in the way that they talk and telling them, "Oh, you don't talk this particular way, then I can't listen to you” or “Your feelings are not valid” or things like that.

I think the same thing applies with the concept of boundaries is that I do just think that we need to be careful to make sure that we're not trying to ride this wave of, "I know that this concept has so much social capital behind it of it's infallible and perfect and has to be respected, and therefore I can pack into it a lot of maybe not so great behavior or really not kind behavior, not kind communication at the same time."

Rachel: Right. That's a great point and I want to get into untangling the subtleties of that throughout this conversation. One thing I get stuck on in the distinction between rules and boundaries, it makes sense that a rule is something you impose on someone else. A boundary is something you are responsible for enforcing but sometimes I feel like it is a little bit confusing semantically to me. For example, if your boundary with your ex is like, “I don't want to talk to you anymore.” If they are trying to call you, then you might say like, "I don't want you to call me anymore."

Right, but isn't that then enforcing something on them to express I don't want you to like, what about when you're directly asking people to not do something? It seems that it's never just you responsible for enforcing it because it's always going to be a two-way dynamic of is the person willing to do or not do the thing you're saying is your balance.

Dedeker: Yes, 100%. I do think that's where people get a little bit hung up because, as you point out, we're not

in a vacuum. We're not in this weird anarchist vacuum where we're all these little sovereign planets floating around just responsible for ourselves. We do live affecting each other, and especially when we're in close personal relationship. The way that I tend to think about these things is I think that you can make any request that you want of any human being. Now, that's a big broad statement, and so of course, I don't want people to come along and poke holes in it, I don't want to encourage really unethical or violent behavior, things like that.

When you think about it in the context of negotiating, let's say a relationship with an ex, you can make a request. You can say, "I don't want to talk anymore, my request of you is that you don't try to contact me." In human relationships when we make a request, the other person can say yes, or they can say no, or maybe they can say, actually how about this? Then when the responsibility comes back on us is when we have to sit with, if they say yes, how does that change things? If they say no to this request, how does that change things?

If I say to my ex, "I don't want you to contact me anymore, please don't text me and don't call me." If they either say straight out no, or with their actions say no in still choosing to call into text, that's where my boundaries come into play. Essentially at the end of the day, my own boundaries are like my last line of defense that prevent me from just being a doormat of being taken advantage of, of living in a way that doesn't live up to my values. That's where my boundary is like this person said no to this request and so that means blocking them, or it means maybe I reiterate the request is like, "Hey, I don't want to talk to you. I need some time. I need some space from you, and so I'm going to reiterate my request."

I think another important piece here is that the way that you enforce your boundaries doesn't always have to look this one particular way. It doesn't have to look the same way that it looks for your friend or for anybody else. That it can be scalable depending on what you're receiving in the situation. Again, if your ex still contacts you maybe it doesn't have to be the way that I enforce my boundary is that I block you. Maybe it is just that of like I'm just going to reiterate, “Hey, I made this request, please respect that request.” Then if they continue to essentially say no to that request, then you can scale up the boundary as necessary.

It is a little bit of that weird thing of, it does require a little bit of participation and reception from the other person. I think the important moving piece there is that if I put a little too much emphasis on the other person's participation, or if I put a little too much emphasis on, the only way that this protects me is if this person gives or does not give me X, Y, Z. Then I'm just starting to shift the locus of control and the locus of power a little further away from me than I think is maybe the most empowering place to be. I think that's the name of the game here, is it's all about how can I step into my own empowerment into my own ability to make choices here?

I realize that depending on the context you're in, your choices and your own empowerment may be more expansive, or it may be more limited, but within your circumstances how can I step into a little bit more empowerment here? As opposed to when I think about maybe the not so great version of this would be, I have a boundary about not talking to my ex, but instead of me doing anything about it, I'm just going to ask them, "Hey, don't contact me. Hey, don't contact me. Hey, don't contact me. Hey, don't contact me." I'm going to keep getting more angry, more upset, more destabilized because they keep contacting me, but I'm not literally doing anything to protect myself in this situation.

To describe it that way sounds a little bit ridiculous, but I've seen it play out all the time when people are in that weird gray area of negotiating, how do I want to stay in contact with my ex? Sometimes people don't want to be the one to put in the boundary. They think that, oh, if I'm the one to block, that's going to make me look like I am upset or that I "lost the breakup" or that I'm hurting. There's a lot of things that do hold us back from actually having boundaries, and then that does mean that we put ourselves in a position where we're a little bit beholden to the other person.

Rachel: That's a really good distinction. I think that that is where sometimes that initial feeling of when you start asserting boundaries or figuring out your boundaries, you can thank it first oh, this is the solution that I've certainly felt that myself, because I think where there is truth in that is that when you don't know what your boundaries are and you're consistently eroded, you lose self-respect. That, for me, I think I haven't always realized that that's what's happening until the boundary is up and then I realize, oh, I don't feel as emotionally all over the place.

Or, oh, it's easier to maintain a healthy friendship or a healthy relationship, or I have more energy to do other things. I think people turn to these boundaries maybe in some cases manipulation, but also because really it's been pushed so far for so long that they have to finally do that in order to just even figure out who they are are apart from a relationship that is very unhealthy.

Dedeker: Yes. That's so interesting to talk about the relationship between self-respect and boundaries, because I do think that something that's very easy for many of us to do is there's this term that I've seen floating around called concession creep. Which is this idea that, like you referred to, that sometimes we can be in a relationship where our sense of self, our sense of boundaries, our sense of our standards, of what we will and will not tolerate, is just really slowly eroded over time like that. It happens so slowly that we don't even realize what's going on.

I even had a client just this last week talk about how, I know if I had a friend in this same exact situation I would tell her, "That's bullshit, don't put up with that, you need to stand up for yourself" but when it's myself going through this situation, it's a lot easier to do a little bit of this. I guess an indirect calculus of like, but it's okay for me, I can be lenient here, I can back off. I understand we give up these little bits and pieces of ourselves slowly over time until you do sometimes wake up one day and you're like, “Who the heck am I? How am I doing this?”

I have 100% been there where you find yourself doing things or agreeing to things that you never ever thought that you would. Now to talk about the self-respect piece specifically, this is a little bit hard because it's quite subjective and it's very context dependent. Also, we live in a culture where different people are encouraged to partake in more of that concession creep than others, I would say.

Rachel: Women you mean?

Dedeker: Yes. Usually women, often people of different marginalized identities just like the people who have not necessarily held the power. I mean, it's all the same that we've seen of you're encouraged to be quiet, to not take up space, to make yourself smaller, to allow to be dominated, to go with the flow, to not stand up. That does trickle over into our personal relationships as well. It echoes the same things that happen on this grander scale. The self-respect piece, I think that sometimes in the past that's been weaponized against people of like, "Oh, you just have such low self-worth or such low self-respect, that's why you're in this bad relationship, or that's why you're being abused."

Sometimes that may be the case. Someone can have some low self-worth or low self-respect, but also I think that there's these bigger systems that plan off in a bigger context that just makes it easier to do. Honestly, even if we're taking out that context, and if we're just going to zoom right into looking at just a relationship between two people, the reality is that we're human and we have these human nervous systems where we do just want to get along and we want to be safe. Even more tragically, we want to hope that this other person has our best interests at heart and will take care of us, and won't put us in a situation where we have to push back a little bit or maintain some distance or say no.

Again, even if we completely scrub out any socio-historical context on this, it's like, on this very human level, it's like we just want to feel like we're safe in relationships, and so we hope that we're safe in relationships. That's why it becomes just even harder to have to say no to somebody or to even negotiate what somebody's offering you.

Rachel: Absolutely. Yes, and I think that people

struggle with this, I see the most with my friends and with me in terms of family when you know all the context of the inter-generational trauma, and also in terms of their most intimate relationships, romantic or otherwise that it makes sense that-- Of course, people have problems with boundaries in the workplace and other things too. I just have noticed that it seems like it's the closest relationships where you have the most love for them, and also the most context for why are they like this, why are they doing this?

Especially the better you know them, you know they don't mean to be necessarily a lot of the times pushing your limits or mistreating you in any way. That this is just their particular trauma playing out. Sometimes they have very good reasons for not being better at handling things. It's very hard because you empathize. I think that's where that concession creep is a really good term because it's so easy to keep saying, "Yes, well this doesn't mean as much to me as it does to them” or “I can handle this and I just can just bite my tongue in this situation” or “I can just put up with it because I'm the one who's more stable” or whatever else.

Dedeker: I think the tricky thing is that quality of flexibility isn't always a terrible thing in our relationships. Something that I have seen especially among millennials is I think that there can be a tendency to become hyper-boundaried, which is a term that I think is starting to pick up traction. Which is basically I'm excited about boundaries that I'm completely rigid and inflexible. Often there is a trauma background to that as well. Sometimes when your boundaries have been eroded either slowly or in really terrible and sudden and violent ways, sometimes the way that we respond to that is to put up really extreme harsh boundaries often in situations where maybe it's not exactly merited.

That's often a clue that there's some trauma or PTSD going on is if your reaction to something doesn't quite fit what the stimulus is or what the situation is. I think that it's also important for us to be mindful of that and to not just become hyper-boundaried. Where it's just like, "I have no flexibility, I have no compassion, I'm not going to make any concessions for you whatsoever." That quality of like, "Well, this thing is more important to them than it is to me” or “I think that I'm more stable right now” or “At least I'm maybe less emotionally activated right now and I'm going to bring things down."

It's like that's not a terrible quality to have. Again, it cuts right to our human hearts of just wanting things to be good and things to be safe and things to be okay. I love that you bring up the inter-generational piece of this as well. This is something that I've thought about for ages, and I have polled many of my friends about their moms specifically and how their moms deal with the concept of boundaries. Again, this is just some armchair sociology. I've not done any empirical research on this, but overwhelmingly what I hear from people and this is my own experience as well.

They're like, "My mom doesn't respect any boundaries and she doesn't have any boundaries herself and no one else in the world does according to her either." I can definitely say that applies to my own mom. My sister and I have been saying for years, you put up a boundary, she digs underneath that fence. Finds a way to dig underneath it. For me again, just doing armchair analysis on this, I think about the generational differences where I think about the generation that my mom grew up in both thinking about what things were like when she was a kid, what things were like when she was a teenager, when she was in her 20s, going through first marriages and stuff like that.

I'm like, "That's a pretty long history of never being told that you're allowed to have a boundary, especially as a woman." That's a really long history of this, for all intents and purposes, this concept not really existing and this concept of you being able to say no or to negotiate, really not existing. For me, that's where the compassion piece comes in of you just grew up in such different context. Honestly, it's going to happen to us too when us millennials are that age, the next generation is also going to be saying the same things of, "Oh my God, they don't get the super fundamental thing." That I think is going to be the same thing. I think about that a lot. I think it goes beyond gender. It goes beyond just moms.

It is interesting to track just generational differences, thinking about what are the things that we have rights to? What is autonomy? Who gets to have autonomy and how does that get to be expressed? That I think is all stuff that is shifting and changing over time. Sometimes we bump heads over that because of that.

Rachel: That's really well put. It's interesting that you talk about boundaries, this very millennial concept. Millennials right now are basically figuring out or in the middle of figuring out how to have fully adult relationships with their parents. A lot of them maybe are learning more about emotional abuse and gas lighting and other things where they're like, "I don't want to be talked to in certain ways anymore." Then I can see how there's maybe also potentially that's being wielded as a weapon or becoming rigid or over-corrected and becoming like, "This is just now my boundary."

There's such a uneven power dynamic of the parent doesn't want to lose the relationship with the child. I was curious to hear your thoughts on that critique from maybe especially a parent but also just someone in general who just feels like, "They're saying they have a boundary but I feel like what they're basically saying is, I only want to have a relationship with you on my own terms."

Dedeker: Sure. I think that's a totally valid critique. It does remind me of a client of mine sent me this song that was apparently in a musical episode of the show Transparent. The song is about a mom and a daughter. The title of the song is Your Boundaries, My Trigger, which I feel it just encapsulates the whole issue right there. Again, not just with parents and children but I think that that's where people run into conflict with all this stuff. Is that someone puts up a boundary and that really triggers me in some way or the way that they put up a boundary or they-- I don't know.

They made a demand or an ultimatum or created a rule and called that a boundary. That's really triggering and upsetting and abandoning for me or things like that. It's definitely, I think a fundamental part of the way that we bump into each other with these things.

Rachel: Just reverse of that too, I would just jump in and add your trigger is my boundary is often the case. It's obvious they're acting out of their emotional triggers usually when someone's doing something that's violating your boundary. It's clearly their own abandonment issues or their own anger or their whatever else.

Dedeker: Yes. You're right. I had interesting unintentional lesson in this. Last year I started going to couples therapy with my mom, actually which I'll call it awesome. No, really though, after spending a year in, we were going to therapy together every other week or so. I will call it awesome. Genuinely, it really transformed our relationship. I never in a million years thought that my mom would go to therapy with me or therapy at all. That side of the family is very conservative Republican, poor working class, not really the demographic that you think would jump straight into therapy as a mother and daughter as soon as they're getting into any kind of conflict.

I was totally amazed that she even took me up on it. When I started talking to some of my friends and my peers about, "Hey, I'm doing this or I'm going to do this with my mom." The overwhelming sentiment was your parents are just your parents. You don't have the option to negotiate that or to change that relationship. You're stuck with them the way that they are. Part of that is true. I think that if we had the ability to wave a magic wand and change something about our parents, 100% of us would. That was really interesting to me. I was like, "That's fascinating."

I could definitely relate to that. This sense that this is all carved in stone. There's no changing this relationship. For most of us, it's literally the oldest relationship you have. That's why it can feel so intractable and just totally fixed and like these patterns are well worn that there's no getting out of it. I do think that sense of not feeling empowered at all in the relationship or to change the relationship is what does inspire people to be like, "I need to do this super harsh boundary." Again, there's situations where that's totally appropriate. People have some horrible family relationships, parental relationships, extremely abusive, extremely toxic and

there are situations where I do think it's 100% appropriate to go as far as you possibly can with the boundaries to protect yourself.

I also think there's a lot of situations where that's not necessarily the case. For me, what inspired me to even pitch this idea to my mom was, I've been on this personal journey the last 10 years of figuring out my personal relationships and started working then as a coach and working one-on-one on clients, and then starting to work with couples and doing all this couples therapy training, and really learning about the ways that I can help empower people to feel more empowered to affect change in their relationships, or to affect change in communication patterns.

Of course, started applying that to my own life and absolutely loving it, loving the ways that I could communicate with the people who are closest to me the way that I can negotiate, and just really directly express the things that I needed. Then looking at my relationship with my mom and realize I have none of that. There's none of that there. I realized there's no collaboration in how this relationship is and how it functions. Where there's collaboration a lot of the other relationships I have in my life are my romantic ones, sexual ones, friendships.

I do think that there's something about this collaborative energy that I do think is an ideal in relationships that, again, ideal, which doesn't always match up with reality. I do think the ideal is that we, as two people, we can come together and we can co-create our relationship and collaborate on how we want this to function. Maybe it won't work out because maybe our needs and wants are just a little bit too on opposite ends of the spectrum. Ideally, we can find ways to negotiate and collaborate and just find what works for us. I think in my situation, working on all this stuff with my mom finally started to unlock at least some sense of that collaboration.

It's definitely not 100% perfect, and it never will be 100% perfect, but at least there's this sense of we can both see how we're contributing to this relationship, and can make requests of each other and also can take ownership of our own behavior and how we want to show up. I do think that in parent-child relationship, even if we could dial up the sense of collaboration by 10% would help a lot.

Rachel: For people listening and wondering on the practical end, was that something you were able to get covered with insurance? How does that work? If you want to go with your mom and she has different insurance, no. That's something you have to pay out of pocket.

Dedeker: Yes, we were also living in different states, so it was a complicated thing. I did a bunch of research and found a practice of therapists who all specialize in mothers and daughters. Then we basically just had to negotiate a special rate that would make sense for both of us. Fortunately, the practice was open to giving us a sliding scale. We were fortunate enough in that the practice that we went to was willing to work with us. I know that's definitely not the case for everybody. I mean, yes, insurance coverage for these things is so fraught. I mean, there's very little couples therapy that's actually covered by insurance, even for people in romantic relationships. That's also just one piece of, again, a bigger systemic issue here.

Jase: Hey, everybody, we hope you're enjoying this episode. We're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways that you can support this show. We love being part of a community of people like Rachel Krantz who are making content and putting it out there into the world for free. The way that we're able to do that is through our sponsorships and through support from listeners like you. Please take a moment, check them out, see if any are interesting to you. You can also go to multiamory. com/join and learn how to support the show and join our private communities there.

Rachel: I want to get the language clear in a way that might be helpful for the listeners. What are some ways that you found are particularly good for phrasing boundaries?

Dedeker: From my perspective, boundaries are all about what's my behavior, what are my choices, what are my actions, what am I going to do in this situation. What that means is, depending on the situation, I may not even need to express my boundary to someone verbally because if it's really just about me, I'm really the only one who needs to know what the boundary is. There are some situations where, of course, there needs to be a buy-in or it is going to be the most ethical thing to let someone know, "Hey, this is my boundary," rather than letting them just trump all over you and then you get mad at them or things like that.

I just want to back up and say that we're not always going to be in a situation where we're having to verbally express our boundary. I can give a personal example of this where a few years ago I did have a particular family member from my dad's side of the family who does not have great opinions about my mom's side of the family necessarily. Every time this person would ask me when I was on a visit like, "Oh, how's your mom doing?" Or things like that. For many years, I would just be honest of like, "Oh, yes, this is going on." and pretty much whatever I said, this particular family member would have something negative to say, would have some criticism or some judgment.

Then, of course, that would put me in a weird position of like, I don't know, I feel caught between two sides of the family. All my divorced child baggage is coming up, and I don't know how to deal with this. I didn't feel like I could make a request without it causing a ton of conflict. I put a boundary on myself of if this family member asks any of those type of questions, I'm just going to say, "Oh, yes, she's fine. Everyone's great. Thanks for asking." Then I'm going to change the subject. I didn't have to walk up to this family member and be like, "By the way, this is my boundary. If you do X, Y, and Z, I'm going to leave or I'm going to change the subject, or I'm just going to say this."

I didn't have to say anything, but the end result was I've been doing that for years now and it's been great because this person doesn't have the opportunity to rattle off something critical or judgmental, or put me in a position where I'm having to weirdly defend one side of the family. It's been a victory in the sense that it's protected me, it's protected my time, it's protected my energy, and it's protected my values of not wanting to trash talk one side of the family to the other side of the family. I could do all that without needing to have this big, serious, dramatic conversation of, "You need to know what my boundary is."

Now, if things had gone differently, or maybe if I decide that's my boundary and I tell that person, "Oh, yes, everyone's fine, they're doing great," and then I change the subject and maybe they keep coming back to it, really keep prying or really keep wanting to know, then maybe it's a phase two deployment of boundaries where then maybe I do need to say something of like, "Hey, actually, I don't want to talk about this." It didn't reach that point. I don't think I have any guidelines that will apply to any and all situations, but I do think if we want to get to the spirit of this, it's about protecting yourself, and I suppose ideally also preserving your relationships or at least making your relationships go smoothly or feel more at ease in your relationships, but I do think it is important to just be clear with yourself about what's the end goal here.

This is when it can get really sticky because when we're activated and when we're hurt or when someone's activating some of our attachment trauma or stuff like that, these desires to hurt the other person can come up or to control the other person, or to make the other person feel just as guilty as they're making you feel guilty, can really color how we approach these things and how we choose to enforce the boundary. That's where it starts to get a little bit sticky. I've definitely been in situations in romantic relationships where I put up a boundary.

The lesson that I'm trying to learn, the lesson that I feel like I've had to learn three times now is the, I need to take space boundary, which is maybe someone's really f-ed up real bad in relationship, at least by my standards, or they've really hurt me. I decide like, "I need to take some time and space away from this." I put in that boundary, but still have the hope of, "I'm going to put in this boundary, and then during this time away from me, they're going to be so sorry and so sad." I've taken myself out of their life, and they're just going to be like, "Oh, my God, what did I ever do without her?" That means when we end this period of no contact or space, then their behavior is going to be fixed, or their mind is going to be changed, or I'm going to get exactly what I want. Again, it's that weird way around our motivation-

Rachel: It's like boundaries, manipulation.

Dedeker: Yes. Of course, I wouldn't call myself manipulative, but if I'm honest with myself at the end of the day, I'm like, "There is that hope."

Rachel: Or hope that the boundary will change the other person's behavior, which I mean it does sometimes work. Maybe less often in romantic relationships, but I've seen that work for people with their parents quite well or siblings or things like that, where it does seem to radically change things when they have those boundaries.

Dedeker: Yes. Then the tricky thing is and what I've had to learn so many times, is then when it “doesn't work” where they didn't change their behavior or they didn't change their mind or I'm not getting what I want, can I still maintain that boundary? Is it still a boundary or was it really just me trying to change them and control them? Because this is when things start to really fall apart is, let's say, I'm like, "I'm not going to talk to you for a week." That's my boundary.

I need this space.

Then I come back after a week and you still haven't changed your mind or you're not giving me what I want. Do I then try to whip out a different tactic? It's like ultimately still trying to get what I want out of you or is it more about protecting myself? That's really, really hard. We really hope for the people that are close to us, the people who love us, to care for us and to want the same things that we want and to give us the things that we want and that we need in a relationship. Then when we're not getting those things, it is so hard to come to that conclusion of-- I need to protect myself or I need to take myself out of the relationship.

I think the thing that I'm circling around is the fact that when you put up a boundary or enforce a boundary, especially in a place where you have not before. Chances are good that it may cause some conflict, or cause some reaction. Conflict isn't necessarily the defining characteristic of a boundary. Sometimes I do think folks feel like boundaries are like a weapon. This is my only weapon on me. Of course I have to clobber people with it, or of course I have to be extremely harsh or intense with it. Again, sometimes that's appropriate, but I don't think it is the defining characteristic of a boundary.

I think these examples that I've talked about where I'm just telling this boundary to myself. I don't need to tell anybody else about it as long as that's working and it's preserving the relationship, which is something that I want and it's also preserving myself and my energy and my autonomy, then it's good. I didn't have to clobber anybody with it.

Rachel: Then in terms of the phrasing, let's say you've realized. It's not working as an internal boundary. I'm going to need to articulate this clearly, but I don't want to do it in a way that's rigid. I guess I'm curious how you think, when we have to have these difficult conversations, frame it in a compassionate and clear way.

Dedeker: Yes, totally. Again, I think this is assuming we've already tried to go the route of making a request to try to go the route of collaborating and then now we need to go the route of no, I just need to put a boundary in. We just need to check ourselves of. Am I hoping that by telling this person that this is my boundary, that that's going to solve everything about their behavior? Can I still follow through with this even if their behavior doesn't change, or if they've said no to all of my requests. The request formula that I give people is just starting with, I feel X, about Y situation, I need Z or I would like Z or I would appreciate Z, right?

We can start with, I feel confused, overwhelmed, unsure about staying in contact with each other during this time. I would appreciate if we could agree to not contact each other for the next 30 days or so. Then they say yes, or they say no, or they say, oh, but what about this, or what about that? We have that conversation. Then if they keep bothering you even after you've made that request, then maybe it is like. Hey, I made this request and it's not being honored and so I'm going to do X. I've decided that I'm going to block you on my phone for the next 30 days or whatever.

Again, like that phrasing, just that example that I pulled off the top of my head, you can deliver that in a really way and painful way and you can deliver that in a really compassionate way. In my definition of boundary, I talk about preserving your values. I do think some of this exercise does come down to figuring out what those values are. Sometimes our values are uncomfortable. For instance, I just went through a breakup at the beginning of the year, like a really painful, intense one. Communicating with him, figuring out logistics of getting my stuff back and all the wrap up stuff that you unfortunately have to do at the end of a relationship.

It was really hard not to be nasty or not to be passive aggressive. I think that I've done a lot of work over the years of knowing that at the end of the day, a fundamental value of mine is to treat someone like a human being, and to offer as much compassion and kindness and empathy that I can within my own limits. It was really uncomfortable, but I felt good that at least I lived up to my values in that regard. I think this is the same thing, like if you're negotiating with an ex or in a personal relationship of just figuring out what actually motivates you here.

I needed a lot of help from my therapist constantly reminding me, yes, that is a good choice. It's a good choice for you to not say something nasty. I guess what I'm saying there is just the fact that this stuff is not comfortable most of the time, and it's especially not comfortable if not only are you working through painful feelings, but you're also trying to be a decent human being at the same time to maybe someone that you don't feel deserves it even even harder. This is another area where it is important, I think, to get support around if you're having trouble putting up a boundary in a way that you think matches your values. Whether that's support through a therapist or a professional or just through a friend that you trust or a family member or a partner or things like that.

Rachel: I think where a lot of people struggle, particularly in relationships where maybe there's been the most boundary erosion consistently over a long time or they are part of one of those marginalized groups that is supposed to just keep taking it. The problem is I've lost touch with like, I don't even know what my boundaries are and I'm not even sure like what my values are apart from this other person's values. I'm wondering suggestions do you have for figuring that out?

Dedeker: Yes. The way that I distinguish these things is I think about values are about what you do want in your life and in your relationships, and boundaries are more there to protect you from the things that you don't want. It's important to be clear on both, right? A few years ago, I believe I stumbled across this exercise for figuring out your own values. Again, this is just a starting point. I think this is a lifelong investigation for all of us. It was basically a writing exercise where you sit down and you think about a time in your life when you felt the most proud.

You get specific about what was going on, what was going on in my life, what was going on in my work, what was going on in my relationships at that time. Then you think about a time in your life where you felt the happiest. Same thing, what was going on in my life, work, relationships, whatever's important. Just really getting a snapshot of what was going on at that time and thinking about what was the time in my life when I felt the most fulfilled and satisfied. What was going on in work, relationships, life, all these things. From there you can start to piece together what is the goodness that I seek in my life, or what are the good things in my life or the good things that I have experienced that?

This is beyond just, I don't know, memories of a fun trip or a fun date or whatever it was. It gets to the heart of really what's the juice there for you as a human being? I think connecting to the feeling proud and also the feeling fulfilled and satisfied gets there beyond just when you felt happier when you're having fun. It gets to really what you feel like again, just like fulfills you the most. There I think is a really, really powerful exercise. Ever since I did it just a couple of years ago, I think about it all the time. I ended up coming up with these three words essentially. It can be helpful.

You can Google lists of values or examples of values. Sometimes it's helpful to have just like a word list to pick from to start getting that ball rolling. All the time now when I'm in situations where I'm not sure what to do next, or I feel a little bit lost or a little bit confused, I will pull up that list of those three values and think about, well with these values in mind, does that influence my decision? It's never a crystal ball of this is exactly what you can do, but it more often than not really, really helps with decision making, or really helps me to clarify what I should be focusing on in that particular situation.

I do think connecting to that for folks can be really, really helpful almost to connect to a sense of an ideal self or more fulfilled self. Then you can think about what are the ways that my relationship, my life context, are chipping away at that, or where I feel like I need to shrink away that part of myself, or where I feel like there's things blocking me from actually living to this particular value. That can be a really important place to start. The other side of this that I think is really helpful for folks, again, thinking more about through this lens of what I don't want as opposed to what I do want is to think about if this is happening to your best friend, what would you tell, right?

If they're experiencing the same behavior or they're suffering in this particular way, what would you tell them? What boundary do you think that your friend needs to have? Sometimes that is all the clarification that we need to understand the ways that we can be shifting or the ways that we can protecting ourselves in a better way.

Rachel: The book you have coming out soon, you just delve into so much around communication in this book that is so, so helpful and there's an entire

chapter on boundaries. Something I learned that I was hoping you could maybe explain is the SELF acronym as a way of remembering, summarizing some of the boundary things we talked about.

Dedeker: Yes, the SELF acronym. SELF, so that stands for Search, Evaluate, Live it and Follow through. What that means with boundaries, so we start with the search. Thinking about what is going on in my life currently that feels like it's running counter to my values, or what has gone in my life in the past that I feel like has run counter to my values. Where are the places that I'm hurting? Where are the places where I feel like there's friction especially in particular relationships. What behaviors from others are clashing with my own standards of behavior?

That's the searching phase, and it can be really helpful for people to journal, maybe talk to a therapist or talk to a friend, just sort of throwing spaghetti against the wall just trying to figure out what is there? Are there any patterns? Like have I noticed that like, "Oh yes, always in my working situations I end up totally over-committed and resentful.” Or “Yes, I get really upset, because my dad is constantly interrupting me when we're having conversations." It's just taking stock and maybe even writing some things down. Then we move on to E, the evaluate step which is thinking about what are some boundaries that I could put in here? Let me evaluate what are the self-protective measures that I might try.

It could be things like if someone interrupts me I'm going to stop the conversation, I'm going to walk away. Or it could be if I'm at work and my manager asks me to take on this particular task at 4:45 PM on a Friday I'm just going to say no, or I'm going to say, “Great, I'll do that on Monday,” or whatever it is. Then it's also evaluating whether or not I can maintain that. Again, is it actually possible for me to enforce this boundary in the way that I'm envisioning? Would I actually do it? Can I consistently enforce this across all situations? Can I enforce this even if I don't have the other person's buy-in, or the other person doesn't change their behavior in the way that I wish that they would.

This is like your R&D, your development phase with the boundary. Then we move on to L, the live it phase which is the now we put it into practice. Again, like we talked about earlier this can look so many different ways. The reason why we just called it live it as opposed to go tell someone about it, or verbalize it or things like that is that maybe it doesn't get verbalized. Maybe that's the most appropriate thing for this situation, or maybe it is. Maybe there is a couple people on the short list of people who need to know that this boundary is going to be in place.

Then the F is the follow through, which again is sometimes the hardest part, is the I can consistently use it, I can consistently communicate it if I have to, and then I also can consistently enforce it. If there's issues enforcing it which can be either external, like maybe you are in a situation or in a relationship where actually enforcing boundaries is punished or makes life way more difficult for you, or you put up a boundary and this person just tunnels under it in some particular way. Or there could be something internal of, I feel too guilty to say anything, or I feel too conflict averse to change my behavior, or to walk out of the room or whatever it is. Then you can go back to the drawing board a little bit of like, "Let me think about a version of this that I actually can do, or how I might tweak this or change this."

Yes, that's our SELF acronym. I do think that this is a process where as we grow and change as human beings our boundaries also grow and change over time, and as our relationships shift and our needs shift our boundaries are also going to shift. I think it's just important that in addition to having boundaries at all we also have maybe even a little bit of a recursive process where we're checking in with ourselves on how well is this working. How could it work better? How can I actually enforce this? How can I make it so that this actually gets me the things that I want in life? The was the whole purpose of creating the acronym, is to make that a little bit easier for folks to come back to on a more regular basis instead of just having this floating amorphous sense of boundaries that I picked up from an Instagram post that I'm trying to wrap my mind around.

Rachel: Yes. You also write about in the book beware of porous boundaries. I want to talk about digging into the subtleties of that line of on the one hand being flexible and open to the fact that your boundaries can shift, and just because you don't want to be doing something now doesn't mean it always has to be that way in the future without falling into and all my boundaries are porous.

Dedeker: Yes. I think that requires some regular temperature checks of your own. This is going to sound corny, but regular temperature checks of your own heart really of when I'm in this particular relationship, or when I'm interacting with this particular person do I feel full of resentment? Or do I find myself preemptively bracing all the time, or is there a particular obligation or a particular person where I'm always just dreading to interact with them? That could be a sign, again could be a sign of some porous boundaries. Like, I think it's just a temperature check of what's the quality of your relationships? What's the quality of your life? What's the quality of your heart.

If it feels like I am just a doormat or people take advantage of me, or I make requests and then no one honors those requests or things like that could be a sign of some porous boundaries. Again, this starts to get into this weird territory where we don't want to be victim blaming anybody, because what creates a successful boundary is not just your willpower as an individual, but again, if it's something that you're concerned about I think that's the place to start. It’s just taking the inventory of where are the areas where I feel resentment or dread in my life, and is there any way that I could be better protecting myself against that?

Rachel: That's great. I really love that as a barometer and resentment in general, is a really good thing to listen to that I think sometimes people just think that's just the way the relationship is. It just makes me feel resentful, and that's just being alive. It's like, no, actually remembering that we're not actually doing the other person any favors in the ultimate sense if our interactions with them are secretly filled or not so secretly filled with resentment and dread that often there's probably some good reasons for that of their misbehaving in some way, then maybe they need to address in themselves or work on.

I think that can be helpful sometimes to remember that there's a way you can do it in a spirit of compassion, even if the other person can't hear that yet, that it's not in itself a mean thing to be doing even though it really feels like it sometimes that it can actually in the ultimate sense be something you're doing in a compassionate way first and foremost for yourself, but also for the other person, because you don't want to interact with them in a negative way. Or you don't want to reinforce patterns in them that you know are actually them hurting themselves as well.

Dedeker: Yes. I couldn't have said it better. That was a great sum up.

Rachel: All right. Thank you so much for doing this. It's been helpful for sure for me.