Empowered Boundaries

by Cristien Storm

  Snap judgments are typically rapid assessments of people, events, and situations. A client shared an example of his awareness of making a snap judgment, which, in this case, also helped him understand where the judgment originated. He realized that he assumed his coworker would be resentful if he left early, and in anticipating her reaction, he became preemptively defensive. When she was not resentful in reality but rather both understanding and accepting, my client realized he made a snap judgment based on how her mannerisms reminded him of an ex-girlfriend.

  An example of cultivating awareness for habitual or adaptive patterns comes from another client. Together we explored new ways she could navigate her relationship with her mother, which held a complex set of patterns and reactions. My client explained that she felt as if she were a handball being whacked around by her mother and her mother’s emotions whenever they interacted, and she was having difficulty understanding what was happening in the interactions that made her feel this way. We decided to approach our exploration using both curiosity and compassion. This process involved examining an interaction and exploring the answers to the following questions (without judgment):

  What happened? A moment-to-moment look at events as they unfold—like watching a play and stating what each performer is doing and saying scene-by-scene.

  What was my experience (including thoughts, sensations, and feelings) during each “freeze frame” moment?

  What was my perspective of the other person’s experience?

  What did I want and need in those moments?

  What context was this happening in (including external events, time, and place)?

  How was I impacted? How was the other person impacted?

  What am I feeling in this moment as I recall what happened?

  What do I currently want as I recall what happened?

  How do I feel about this want/need?

  By exploring questions like these, my client came to the decision to discontinue contact with her mother without being consumed with guilt or defensiveness about her needs and boundaries. She was, in fact, able to feel an intense range of feelings about her relationship with her mother more acutely as a result of viewing the events with compassionate curiosity. This allowed her to tend to her guilt, anger, and pain in new ways that promoted her own healing.

  Clients have also let me know that focusing on self-compassion and forgiveness feels like they are letting themselves off the hook for harmful things they have done. Forgiving themselves, they inform me, would minimize the damage of what they did and diminish the punishment they deserve. Compassion and forgiveness do not in any way equate to not being accountable; they are not a means to avoid feeling the guilt and pain of having caused harm. Self-directed compassion and reflecting on forgiveness (without rushing the process) actually help people experience feelings more intensely, not less, and this aids in making decisions about how to address the harm that has occurred.

  A client who was struggling with the concept of compassion and reflecting on forgiveness when thinking about the damage he had caused in his relationship told me about his “light bulb moment.” He came to session one day and shared that once he was finally able to be a little compassionate with himself about having engaged in behaviors that made his partner feel threatened and afraid, he was able to really listen to her. When she talked about feeling frightened and the pain that it caused her, he didn’t “crumple up in a big guilt ball,” as he put it. In other words, his capacity to be self-compassionate actually allowed him to be more present to the pain he caused, which made it easier for him to validate her experience and be held accountable.

  Revenge and Accountability

  Guilt, fear, and helplessness are distressing emotions. Sometimes anger, resentment, and desire for revenge feel more powerful. Revenge, like the checklists from the previous chapter discussed, is an understandable reaction to intense and painful feelings and is an attempt to mitigate fear and helplessness. The problem is that revenge does not reduce fear or distress and actually prolongs suffering, because it circumvents our capacity to feel the pain necessary to heal. While it is normal for some people to feel vengeful after an incident of harm or abuse, getting stuck in those feelings makes people less resilient and fuels a culture of fear. Wanting revenge is not the same as seeking accountability. Revenge is the desire to inflict hurt because you have been hurt. There will be situations in which it will be appropriate for someone to inflict pain as result of being hurt. Punching back when someone hits you may be the best choice in a given situation. Countering a hurtful comment with a witty retort that stings can also be effective. Asking someone to imagine your pain by recalling hurtful times in his or her own life can be a powerful way to evoke empathy. The intent is to increase available strategies across situations rather than demarcate choices by getting mired in revenge or stuck in feeling angry. Compassionate curiosity broadens possibilities without precluding emotions, negative or positive, by not judging them preemptively.

  Let’s say Maria’s supervisor sexually harassed her. She is angry that her supervisor, an older white man with a lot of privilege, a lot of money, and a lot of stinky cologne, did this. She is pissed that she didn’t respond the way she imagined she would and is upset that he got away with it, that he is still the supervisor, and because he has the resources, will likely remain so. She is conflicted about whether or not to fight him in court and has quit her job to look for other work. She is aware that this was her decision, but she is angry at her boss and hates him for making her have to make this choice. Not cool. Maria is aware that she is angry with men right now, and with white rich men with stinky cologne in particular. She can no longer be touched in certain ways and is having somatic reactions when people approach her, including flinching, anxiety, tensing up, and feelings of panic and rage. At first, her anger propels her to action, which feels good, positive, and empowering. Then she realizes the boundaries she initially set out of anger are no longer serving her. She no longer wants to automatically yank away from any touch by a man, be it a friend, coworker, peer, or family member, and put up an angry, defensive wall. The hope is that Maria could be gentle and forgiving with herself for having been angry and needing to put up walls; she would hope that her male friends, peers, coworkers, and family members could understand and forgive her defenses, rather than take her boundaries personally, and find compassionate ways to engage with her. Maria hopes that any hurt her friends or family are feeling can be handled with compassion no matter what her boundaries were, and that they can remain compassionate throughout the process as Maria navigates through and changes them. Compassion and reflecting on the possibility of forgiveness soften the healing process and allow boundaries to be different at different times with different people. They allow accountability for the impact of a boundary to be upheld within the complexity of why the boundary may have been necessary.

  Shame and Guilt

  When we talk about responsibility, accountability, and forgiveness, we must distinguish between our behaviors and ourselves, and between shame and guilt. There are important psychological, cognitive, and experiential differences between guilt and shame. The experience of shame is about the self, who we are as a person, the deepest part of who we believe we are. Shame encompasses our self-awareness and wraps the self in negative self-consciousness. There is evidence that the experience of shame involves more somatic sensations than experiences of guilt. That is, we seem to feel shame more in our bodies, internally, because the sense of shame is about us. The experience of guilt, in contrast, is less (even if only slightly) of a somatic experience and contains critique and negative evaluation in connection with a behavior, an action, or event—something outside the self. There are cognitive differences as well:

  Those experiencing shame tended to see themselves as worthless and powerless—unable to make changes in the environment or themselves. By contrast, those experiencing guilt saw themselves as able to take some sort of corrective action either towards the conse
quences of their behavior or toward future behavior …. In shame, the source of blame or negative valuation of the self was localized as “out there” originating in the “other.” This externalizing of blame was one of the chief markers of shame. Even as an internal experience, shame involved judgment of an internalized disapproving other. With guilt, by contrast, the internal evaluation system was felt to originate more from within a person’s own sense of self.9

  9Parker, Stephen, and Rebecca Thomas. “Psychological Differences in Shame vs. Guilt: Implications for Mental Health Counselors.” Journal of Mental Health Counseling, Vol 31(3), July 2009: 213-24.

  The experience of shame signals that there is something irreparably wrong with the self, and it causes people to either blame themselves with a sense of hopelessness, or shift the blame onto others, neither of which create space for repair, taking responsibility, accountability, or forgiveness. Shame involves a withdrawal from people, experiences, and incidents either by lashing out or turning inward; guilt motivates attempts to repair, which, even if unimaginable to achieve, remains a significant possibility. It is important to distinguish between guilt and shame. If someone is experiencing shame, there may be work to be done to strengthen the ego-self or internal self before moving on to exploring forgiveness and accountability. If someone is experiencing guilt and repair seems possible, they may already have the emotional resiliency to move toward taking responsibility and being accountable. Sometimes the experience of guilt can be overwhelming and incapacitating, making repair a tiny and distant hope on a very bleak horizon. In this case, as in the case of experiencing shame, before moving toward accountability, work may need to be done in first strengthening the core self, increasing self-confidence, and developing self-directed kindness and empathy (which are achieved through compassionate curiosity).

  Accountability and Responsibility

  According to our dear friend Webster, the word “accountable” means being subject to explain one’s actions, inactions, choices, behaviors, or decisions. “Responsibility,” according to our same friend, includes blame, blameworthiness, being at fault or guilty. Assigning responsibility implies seeking out who or what to blame, while accountability seeks to understand what happened and why in order to construct a framework for responsibility. Taking responsibility is a component of accountability, one that comes after the challenging work of developing a comprehensive understanding of the situation. This takes time, energy, and commitment and can feel uncomfortably slow in our current fast-paced, reactive culture. Responsibility is often positioned as something to be assigned immediately so that things can be fixed and everyone can move on. This is how we have been taught to think about forgiveness as well. We ask for forgiveness, we get it, and things go back to normal. Forgiveness in this context relies solely on responsibility and not on accountability: You take responsibility for your actions, then seek and hopefully receive forgiveness. If you do not receive forgiveness, well, you did what you could. This approach tends to be individual-focused and is designed to make someone feel better while restoring the relationship. It does not typically address the conditions under which the incident occurred or how to change those conditions to prevent it from happening in the future. Accountability, even when focused on what one person can do to address the harm they have caused, involves the painful process of examining what happened, exploring the complexity of why, and seeking to understand the complicated and social conditions in which the event(s) occurred, all while grappling with questions about what is necessary in order for someone to take responsibility. A great place to begin your exploration of accountability and to learn how to start on the accountability process is by contacting a local Transformative Justice Project.

  Given the choice between turning to face the pain—to move through it and find peace within the storm—and finding a quick fix, we often choose the latter. The former seems more complicated. And indeed it most often is. Accountability asks that people sit with, or really feel and grapple with, the painful reality of what occurred and makes visible the conditions in which it happened. This is challenging and made even more so when we do not have the skills, tools, capacity, or the role models needed for engaging in the process. A punitive approach to harm that does not involve the hard work of addressing conditions; the complicated factors that inform the context; and the difficult work of imaging what accountability and repair might look like can, at times, end up being more harmful than helpful. If someone crosses a boundary and is punished for it but left with no understanding of what happened or why, not only is repair limited, but the conditions under which the boundary was crossed remain unexamined. Taking responsibility means being capable of realizing what you are at fault for and at which point you are the one to blame. Accountability goes a step further and answers the following questions:

  What happened and why?

  What conditions are necessary to take responsibility?

  What would that look like?

  Is forgiveness possible? Why or why not?

  What does the person harmed need and want to have happen?

  Is that possible and if not, what steps can be taken?

  Are there conditions, social, systemic, interpersonal, and historical, that contributed to or allowed the harm to happen that need to be understood, addressed or changed?

  Are there community members, witnesses, bystanders, support systems, social systems that are important to consider or include in the process of accountability?

  When we take responsibility within the context of accountability, the conditions required for healing, transformation, and resiliency are more possible. The road to accountability can seem long in a world of quick fixes and punitive reactions, but the journey itself is part of the process.

  Changing Boundaries, Changing Society

  Traditionally, approaches to boundary setting focus on individual boundaries, primarily between two people. For example, saying no to an unwanted request, or asking a friend to be supportive in a particular way. While important, this is only one aspect of boundaries. Negotiating wants and needs is also social as well as interpersonal, and boundaries are an important part of building, nurturing, sustaining, and changing the community. Safety, self-defense and boundary setting are not just individual issues; they are community and social concerns, too. Standing up to a sexist, homophobic, and/or racist manager may involve setting a boundary with them. It can also be a way to change workplace protocol, interrupt a culture of silence, bring to light systems of oppression, and even act as a catalyst for labor organizing, engaging community members, and creating local social transformation. While it is not critical that you always consider the social conditions in which boundaries are being set, context is important.

  Home Alive, the organization whose methods inform much of this book, was originally established in 1993 by a group of Seattle artists and musicians in response to the many forms of violence, abuse, and harm our community was grappling with, including the horrifying rape and murder of Mia Zapata. Because Home Alive was founded and supported by so many artists and musicians, we organized events in clubs and bars on a regular basis. These events included art, music, speakers, and information booths. I was often asked to speak at these shows, and over time I noticed that the culture in the venues was shifting in response to community dialogues that occurred naturally because of and in response to the events. I overheard men who were in no way political and would never identify as an activist or feminist talk about how to respond to friends who are emotionally or physical abusive to their girlfriends. Bartenders pulled money for cab fare at the end of the night so that no one had to walk home alone. There was a shift in thinking about how people can take care of one another and keep each other safe that was a direct response to community conversations about self-care, self-defense, and boundary setting. The shift was by no means perfect, but it reflected a spirit of solidarity that allowed people who would not otherwise participate in any formal community organizing or anti-violence wo
rk to engage in a form of social change.

  Home Alive events encouraged people to consider safety a community issue while supporting a wide range of self- and community-directed responses: bands asked for information to hand out on tours; artists organized shows; writers wrote and performed; audience members collected cab fare for people or organized systems for rides home; bartenders gave out referrals to domestic violence shelters and asked us to provide informal trainings for staff on responding to interpersonal violence; Mothers Against Police Brutality educated us about the historical roots of self-defense in the black community and about how Home Alive could support their work; drag queens doing late night patrols on Seattle’s Capitol Hill to stop gay bashings asked for trainings––and trained us on teaching self-defense skills in high heels; activists organized workshops on understanding consent and accountability for people who have crossed boundaries; anarchists made zines; tech workers organized booths at job fairs; women in the sex industry coordinated classes designed for and by them; queer youth clubs ran panels on bullying and self-defense.

  At Home Alive, I worked to support these various events that encouraged critical dialogue about community safety, self-defense, and how to support radically different groups and communities whose approach to and even concept of safety and self-defense were different at different times based on social context. What are the connections and avenues for solidarity between a rock band asking audience members to support local self-defense classes, a homeless youth group hosting workshops to address sexual assault in their community, artists organizing a benefit auction to raise awareness of domestic violence, and a round table on police brutality? For me, working at Home Alive, it was important to build bridges between the various ways communities approached safety, boundary setting and self-defense in order to increase social solidarity and community support directed at changing the multitude of conditions in which violence occurs. To me, this was a reflection of the complexity of claiming that self-defense is a community issue because safety and self-defense are important to different communities in different ways. Self-defense became a conduit for cultivating a sense of solidarity.