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Consent, Boundaries, & Trauma :: Boundaries

January 19, 2017 By gwynn

When we talk about consent, we also need to talk about boundaries. These two things go hand-in-hand. When we talk about our consent being disregarded we are also talking about our boundaries being crossed (and disregarded). When we give or deny our consent we are lowering or raising our boundaries with another.

And like consent, our boundaries can feel complex. However, I would argue that our boundaries are actually something that is very clear. The issue I believe that comes in is two fold :: 1. that we often assume our boundaries are static when they are in fact fluid and 2. that our disconnection from our body leads to a disconnection from our boundaries and knowing and understanding our boundaries.

When I say our boundaries are fluid, what I mean is that they are movable. For example one day or moment I may feel extra physical and want to be close to my husband. Then on another day or in another moment I may not want to close at all and want to be left alone in solitude. This boundary of physical closeness ebbs and flows based on any number of circumstances or reasons. This doesn’t mean I love my husband less on the days I don’t want to be close, it simply means I don’t want to be touched.

This fluidity also applies to our emotional boundaries. Have you ever had, what Brene Brown calls, a “vulnerability hangover”? That feeling when we have shared too much of ourselves with perhaps the wrong, or at least not the right, people? That is a crossing of our own emotional boundaries. Or when a friend or family member gives us advice and one day we can hear it and know it’s coming from a good space and on another day it is simply too much and we want them to STFU? That is another example of how our boundaries can shift. Or, there are days when I want to sit down and tell my husband All The Things and there are others that I don’t. Days when I want to talk about past hurts or traumas and days that I don’t. These are all examples of how our emotional boundaries can ebb and flow.

The other piece of our boundary work, is body connection. The reality is that we have a very physical response when our boundaries are being encroached, whether physically or emotionally or psychologically. Our body responds in any number of ways from a sense of agitation to an elevated heart rate to shortness of breath to headaches to our stomach tying itself in knots to many other varied responses. These responses become more intense the more we ignore them, as it seems our body is very clear on wanting to be heard and to keep us safe.

Often our response to these sensations is to ignore them, because they may not make conscious or logical sense in the moment. And truly, because we are trained to ignore them, to not listen to our body, or our intuition or our knowing.

And.

When we start to connect to our body, to truly feel her, which includes a lot of uncomfortable sensations as well as pleasurable ones, and when we acknowledge the sensations of our boundaries being crossed and honor those sensations by stepping away or demanding that our boundaries be respected, then these sensations become less intense.

Embodiment, I deeply believe, is a key to our own liberation. It is a key in understanding our own inner workings, which includes knowing our often fluid boundaries and the complexities of our consent.

Embodiment, like knowing and honoring our boundaries, like knowing and honoring our consent, is truly an act of rebellion. We live in a culture that encourages us to be disconnected from our physical self and teaches us to mute all pain by any and all means possible.

This issue of course being, that when we mute the pain, we mute all the other sensations too, including our “spidey sense” or those sensations we get when our boundaries are slowly (or quickly!) being disregarded.

This does not mean that being present in our body is all sunshine and roses. Many of us live with chronic pain. Many of us have auto-immune issues that also cause physical pain. Many of us get migraines or menstrual cramps or both.

And.

The truth is, even with the pain, I would rather be present in my body, to hear her whispers that are trying to keep me safe, than to continue living disassociated and disconnected.

I would rather be aware of my boundaries and have the opportunity to defend them (and my Self) than allow others to continue to trample them, and me.

I talk even more about boundaries in this 20-minute video below. I hope you enjoy it.

This essay and video series is in part to share with you the topics we’ll be unearthing, examining, dislodging and embracing in the six month circle Body of Consent. We begin on March 1 (the video says February, we changed the start date to March). If you are interested, you can learn more and register right over here. xoxo

Or if you enjoyed this and would like to read more of my essays, you can subscribe for my weekly love letter right over here.

Boundaries of Consent

January 17, 2017 By gwynn

We all have days or weeks or months or years or moments where life simply isn’t going as we had planned or wanted or hoped. Days where the actions of others impact us in big and small ways that either we couldn’t anticipate or didn’t expect. Their actions may not be intentionally hurtful or the hurt you feel may not be their fault or issue. And still, here we are, sitting in frustration or confusion or fear or any other number of emotions and needing to re-calibrate and change our own course.

We didn’t “consent” to this other person’s actions that have such a huge impact on us. And, their actions weren’t actually up for us to give permission about.

Often there is a line between my autonomy and right to happiness and yours. And what may bring you happiness may not do the same for me and vice versa. I’m not talking about rape or physical violence or even gaslighting or psychological abuse here – I’m talking about things like canceling dinner plans or not calling when someone says they will or not following through on a promise, either explicitly stated or implied.

So when we talk about boundaries and consent, we also need to talk about resilience and accepting that others may make choices about their own lives that directly impact us and our lives, and how we respond, how we bounce back (or don’t), how we allow space for others to have their boundaries and consent about their own lives even when it may impact, in big or small ways, us.

I don’t have an answer here of when it’s okay and when it’s not or a specific point at which we need to draw our own lines and say “hey this hurts and it’s not okay”. Those answers are as varied as we each are and each of the situations that are in question.

What I do know however, at least for me in my younger years, is that my response to even the slightest “betrayal” would be extreme. That betrayal could have been a friend got sick and had to cancel plans, and I would spin into stories of how she was a selfish bitch (and then often go to the other extreme of how I’m such a shitty person that she just didn’t want to hang out with me in the first place). This reaction is not resilient. This reaction did not gain me more friends (or help me keep the ones I did have). This reaction of everything in the world being about me was not helpful or healthy in any way.

So how do we come to that place of ebb and flow and trust and allowing and knowing and feeling our own boundaries and accepting the same for others?

Work. A lot of fucking work. Coming into our body is part of the work. Developing resilience is part of the work. Maturing emotionally is part of the work. Dealing with our trauma and pain is part of the work. Learning to deeply self reflect and self analyze and being able to pick apart situations to see the Venn diagram of our lives and the lives of others and see how they are separate and how they intersect and coming to terms with the truth that sometimes that intersection isn’t always going to be pleasant or comfortable.

And that that discomfort is OKAY. That we will survive it. That sometimes our discomfort isn’t important in regard to the larger picture. That sometimes our own consent isn’t actually relevant or what we think is a boundary maybe isn’t.

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Consent, Boundaries, & Trauma :: Consent

January 12, 2017 By gwynn

On a good day, at our most stable mentally, emotionally, and physically, consent is a complex topic. And when we add in the realities of the stress of our day to day lives, the impact of trauma, and the truth of living in a misogynist patriarchal culture… well the topic of consent can become mind boggling to say the least.

Often we think of consent in very dualistic terms: either it is yes or no, it is given or not given. Yet life isn’t so simplistic as that neither is our consent. Our consent is a living entity that can shift and morph and change given any variety of circumstances. Add to this parts of us can give consent while other parts of us may not. This is often the case, for example, when we choose to have surgery, a surgery that may even be necessary for our survival. Our mind consents to this surgery and perhaps even our spirit, and yet all our body knows is that it is frozen (thanks to anesthesia) being cut open and likely having metal implements stuck inside it and pieces of it, our body, being torn away and taken out. And so, even after having given consent with our mind and spirit, our body may have a trauma reaction post surgery, as a response to what it just went through and doesn’t understand was okay.

For these reasons, the very complexity of consent, it can be challenging to fully understand it. When we add to this that we are raised in a culture that tells women our consent isn’t relevant, it is no wonder that we are often left wondering if we didn’t indeed ask for it or feeling like it doesn’t matter if we say no so why bother?

And yet.

The truth is that our bodies, our beings, our minds, our spirits are OURS, and ours alone. These bodies we each walk around it, these bodies we live and love and grieve and rejoice in, are our birthright. And as such it is our right to say yes or no or maybe or to change our minds a million times in the process.

Yet often we are so disconnected from what we want, from our boundaries, from our bodies that we don’t fully understand what consent even means on any given day.

This disconnection isn’t by accident or any sort of indication of our own character. This disconnection is by design. It is intentional. It is the way our culture controls us, keeps us obedient, compliant and complicit. It is how the patriarchy gets away with treating us as less than human, as objects.

And so. I deeply believe that part of our own journey to understanding our consent is coming home to our body. To moving from a place of disassociation to a place of embodiment. To learn to sit in the discomfort and pleasure of being present in our body, in each moment.

To learn how to be in our body so that then we can actually choose if we want to be in it or not. So we can have the power of decision. So we can be fully informed and take back our consent instead of having it taken from us.

I talk about consent even more in this 18-minute video below. I hope you enjoy it.

Or if you enjoyed this and would like to read more of my essays, you can subscribe for my weekly love letter right over here.

Dare, Jaguars, Pink Hair & Wonder Woman

March 9, 2015 By gwynn

Since I began dreaming up the Being & Unbecoming circle four things keep appearing to me, declaring a piece of this next iteration of my work circling with women, this next iteration my own soul work: the word Dare, women with Pink Hair, images of jaguars, and Wonder Women (and other super heroines, but mostly WW). Over and over the images came up or the word makes itself known to me. Over and over I get a small thrill, a chill that runs through my bones and womb and heart, when these images and word appear.

Dare.

Dare to do this work.

Dare to dive into the depths of who I am.

Dare to shed all that has been holding me back.

Dare to rebel against those myths and stories that have tried to box me in, to define me in ways that aren’t at all me.

Dare to circle with other women, ready to do this deep work, ready to reconnect with their own power and strength and embodied knowing.

Dare to take myself to this next level.

Jaguars. Every where jaguars appear to me. In the magazines. On mailers. On TV. In books for the kids and for me. In my social media feeds. Again and again, they step out of their dens, inviting me in, to do this shadow work, to embrace my own power, to release this layer of fear, to connect to my own embodied knowing.

Dare.

Dare to release fears. Dare to connect to my own power. Dare to awaken that inner sight, that embodied knowing.

Women with pink hair. Everywhere again. In the same yet different places the jaguars have been beckoning me. I’ve had pink hair on and off since I was a teen. For me it represents both rebelling against social norms and embracing my “traditional” femininity, my “girlness.” Pink hair both declares: I’m not going to play by your rules, and I love all things traditionally female. Pink hair is bold. It’s brazen. It makes a statement. It says fuck you to the status quo while giving it a nod and knowing wink. Yes, I’m female and I’ll wear pink, but only on my terms, only in my way.

Ironically, since leaving engineering I have shied away from my pink hair. Stories of what a “proper therapist” looks like swirling in my head, wanting to be taken seriously, not wanting to work so fucking hard for respect and understanding from those in power, those in authority. “Real” therapists have natural colored hair, my inner shamer says. It was okay to be so daring in the corporate world, but honey, you’re going to have your own business, you need to calm down and grow up.

What??!!! Because having pink hair as an electrical engineer… what? It made me stand out. It made me both noticeable and memorable. It added to my glow, not detracted from it. It made me different from the rest of the pack and my clients loved that. It added to my image of thinking outside of the box, of giving them something fresh and new and unique. Because, tell me, how many pink haired electrical engineers do you know?

Exactly.

And why would this be any different for me as a therapist? Why would it not make me stand out. Why would it not add to what I have to offer those who come to see me? Wouldn’t it only add to my image of writer, rebel and guide? Wouldn’t it add to me being uniquely and authentically me? Isn’t that what I want to model for women, for my kids? To be unapologetically yourself, rainbow hair or clothes or whatever and all?

(Because, tell me, how many pink haired therapists do you know?)

Dare.

Dare to have pink hair.

Dare to take that next step of releasing those stories that aren’t true.

Dare to let go of my need for approval from those in “authority.”

Dare to allow myself to be seen, noticed, remembered.

Dare to allow myself to glow right on through.

Dare to be wholly and holy me and set this world on fire, pink hair and all.

Wonder Woman. Oh Wonder Woman. How I have worshiped her since childhood. How I wanted to be her. I so desperately wanted WW under-roos, but never got them. I did have a WW swimsuit though. And my WW Barbie. Who I loved so much. So very, very much. I watched Linda Carter portray WW each week, and practiced my spin to turn into her myself. I made my own golden lasso out of some rope and my bullet bracelets out of some old costume jewelry.

Wonder Woman loved animals, was kind and strong and knew how and when to kick ass and when words alone would do the trick. She had the lasso of truth that would make the bad guys admit just how bad they were. She was a gentle mother figure and protector, both things I so desperately needed and wanted as a child. She was both who I wanted to become and who I wanted to save me.

And in some ways, both have happened: I have become her in many ways, and in many ways she has saved my life by giving me a role model to look up to, by allowing me to honor my own softness and strength and kick-assness and diplomacy. By reminding me, over and over, that the Truth will always come out, and that the bad guys will be stopped.

Dare.

Dare to find strength in softness.

Dare to have the wisdom to know when to kick ass and when diplomacy will do.

Dare to know the truth, my own truth, of my own power.

Dare to unbind myself from the chains of the myths and stories that hold me down.

Dare.

Jaguars.

Pink Hair.

Wonder Woman.

….

I feel the power of these images, these words, what they speak to me, how they are speaking through me. I get a literal zing in my body each time a woman steps forward to join this quest to unbecoming and being. Thinking about the program, the energy it holds, brings the biggest smile to my face. I feel it, the magic, the power, the energy, of this next iteration.

For me. For the women who have gathered. For the women who are finding their way to this work.

The power of women joining together. In love, support and witnessing.

….

One of the questions on the check-in questionnaire is if you agree to follow the three guidelines for this circle: 1. No comparing or judging; 2. What we share in the circle stays in the circle; and 3. No giving advice (unless specifically requested).

One and three are particularly tough for most of us. Not comparing ourselves, or our experiences, with others. We sit and think of where we “should” be or what we “should” have accomplished by now and can get lost and sucked so deeply into that downward spiral of guilt and shame. Comparing only serves to make us feel less than, not enough, not good. Here’s the truth: our experience is our experience. It is neither good nor bad. It should not have been any other way, because it is part of what brought you to where you are today. It is part of what will get you to where you are going tomorrow, next week, next year and next decade. It is your journey, the one you needed to find your way home to you. Each step, each experience, vitally important. Each journey has unique details, and if we listen and honor each other we’ll see our common threads and how they have played out in our unique lives. We’ll see what brings us together, what links us in sisterhood. It’s not about comparing. It’s about knowing, deep in our bones, that regardless of what another has (or has not) experienced, we are all in this together.

Number three is the one I have received several comments on. Not giving advice. We’re fixers, us women. We see a problem, see a person we love in pain, and we want to heal it. We want to make the issue go away, and honestly if the person would just take our advice, it would all be so simple. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). I’m a chronic advice giver. Seriously the worst. I’m admitting this as a therapist in training: sitting and listening to another person’s pain, holding the space, not interjecting, not trying to fix—hardest thing ever. It doesn’t come naturally for me. I want to wrap my clients up in warm blankets and hold them and rock them and (here’s the bad part) tell them exactly what they need to do to feel better. I’m getting better at not giving advice in my professional realm. And I’m very much a work in progress in my personal world.

Here’s the thing about giving advice though: when we give advice, we aren’t honoring the person who just spilled their guts all over the floor for us. We are, unintentionally, telling this person, who is in his or her most vulnerable place, that hey, that’s nice, and really if you only did this thing I’m going to tell you, you’d totally be out of this mess (or would have never been in it in the first place). It’s telling the person we don’t have time for their pain, to shut up and fix the problem already. It’s showing the person that it certainly is not safe to share intimate pieces of themselves. And here’s the truth: it’s judging. Because if the person were only wise enough to do what you tell them, well, it would all be okay. And clearly there is something wrong with the person if they don’t take your advice, if they don’t just “fix it.”

Advice giving comes from a place of discomfort. Being a fixer comes from being uncomfortable with what is “broken” or messy or raw. Part of not giving advice is learning to sit with this discomfort, to allow our own messiness to bubble up. To be as okay with those icky parts of ourselves or our stories as we claim to be with that of others. Not giving advice means honoring and truly seeing the other person, allowing ourselves to give the space for another person to simply be, to find her way in her own time, to uncover and reveal her truths not only to everyone else in the circle, but most importantly to herself.

So.

Dare.

Jaguars.

Pink Hair.

Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman never gave advice, by the way. She listened empathically and then acted appropriately (either by kicking ass or continuing to listen, to hold space).

Dare to sit with the discomfort.

Dare to witness other women. Dare to be witnessed.

Dare to be okay with the messy, the raw, the “broken.”

Dare to listen, and not only that, but to hear others and their experience.

Dare to be heard. Dare to speak of your life without comparing, without shame.

Dare to show up, just as you are.

Dare to shed the stories that no longer serve you.

Dare to glow.

Dare to embrace your inner jaguar. Dare to don pink hair. Dare to be Wonder Woman.

Dare to come home to you. Dare to be exactly who you were meant to be. You may have taken the long way, and you have known your destination all along.

You.

Dare to be you. Fully. Unapologetically. Unashamedly. You.

There is still time to join the next iteration, the circle-quest to you. Click here to request a short check-in questionnaire so we can get to know each other. Space is limited. Dare to join us, dare to come home to yourself, dare to explore the power of you.

Beginnings, endings

December 17, 2014 By gwynn

As the northern hemisphere entered the fall season in late September, I embarked on a 13 week journey guiding a circle of women to explore who they were, who they are, who they dream of becoming. We gathered together as the northern half of the planet began its descent into darkness. As the days grew shorter we dug into our own shadow work, learning more about who we were and are, our true strengths and beauty becoming unearthed. The journey has been intense and sometimes painful, as we shed layers and connected more deeply with ourselves. We have each struggled with resistance and our own shadows. We have each dug deep to excavate our own beauty and light.

I do this work along side the women I guide, quietly. I rarely share with them my own process because it seems inappropriate, it is their space and I hold it for them; I do not want my journey to taint theirs. And yet while I hold the space for them, they unwittingly hold the space for me. Each prompt was written only a day or two before it was sent out, giving me and the circle the space to be exactly as it needs.

The program shifted and transformed during our time together and at some point I threw away the outline I had for the course and simply allowed it to flow, letting my gut and heart guide me to offering these beautiful women, and myself, what we needed in those moments. It was a new experience for me to throw out my road map and rely entirely on my instincts. New and terrifying and amazing.

I tend to like to have a plan, and while I am open to the plan shifting and changing, I feel a safety in having a plan that I can lean back on. The problem with this, for me, is it can become a crutch and I have felt myself become stagnant and not flowing or shifting at times; sticking to a plan because it was The Plan. I have often felt stuck and not right in my own skin, yet fear of the unknown kept me attached to The Plan. Old voices would insert doubt when I first started to consider ditching the outline for the program; voices that tried to convince me not to trust my gut, not to trust my heart, not to trust my womb and my own inner wisdom.

At some point during the this journey however I came to a crossroads. My skin wasn’t fitting, it felt like it was crawling around me and I knew it was time to shed, time to release the fear and the stories the voices tried to convince me of, the stories that weren’t true or real. Still fearful, nervous, but knowing I truly had no choice if I wanted to feel good in my own skin again, I took that next step and opened myself to the possibilities.

I was inspired by the women in the circle who were doing the same. Sharing with us all the brave small and huge changes that were happening during our time together. I witnessed them as they faced fears, released stories, gained new perspectives. I saw each of them start to glow a little brighter, their presence becoming stronger, more solid, more tangible.

And because they were doing the work of moving into their next iterations, I had to step up and do the same. That is the power of the circle: the conscious and intentional and the unconscious and unintentional support and strength that grows from a group of women gathered to do their own work, to be witnessed and to witness, to guide and be guided along this journey of becoming.

The constant evolving and shifting can be tiring, exhausting. There are days I feel it deep in my bones. Yet staying the same for too long does not feel right. I start to choke and my skin no longer feels comfortable, and I know this is true of the women who gathered together this fall for this work.

We began our work as the our parts of the world entered into darkness. We are now closing our circle as the northern half of the earth begins its ascension into the light.

I felt sadness today as I recorded our final video, and then wrote and scheduled the final prompt. I felt the desire to cling and not let go. I felt a poignancy about our journey together and a melancholy about the work that there is still to do. I want to stay with these women, in the safety of our circle. Not really hiding, but then not really allowing myself to be seen outside either. They brought so much to me through their journeys, allowing me to continue on mine and while shedding of layers is never easy, these women have done it with so much grace and beauty I am left feeling a bit awed by them.

So no, I do now want our time together to end. And yet, it is time for the circle to close.

Now is the time for the settling and resting. It is a time of allowing space for the final shiftings of this transformation. It is the final days of descending into the darkness, before we begin our ascension into the light. Perhaps this looks a bit like hibernation. Perhaps it looks a bit like doing nothing. Yet now, after the intentional work is complete, now in the quiet being is when the becoming truly starts to form.