CIIS Public Programs Podcast

transcript

[Cheerful theme music begins] 
 

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 
 
This episode was recorded during a live online event on March 31st, 2021. It features licensed counselor and relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab in conversation with licensed psychologist Elizabeth Markle. They discuss Nedra’s book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace in which she shares techniques to identify and express our needs clearly and without apology while unravelling the root problems behind codependency, power struggles, anxiety, depression, burnout, and more. 

A transcript of this episode is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 

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Elizabeth: Well, hi Nedra. Thank you so, so much for being here with us today. 

Nedra: Yes, thank you for having me, such a pleasure.  

Elizabeth: Yeah, and I want to say congratulations on the publication of your forthcoming book. How exciting. 

Nedra: Yes, yes. I'm so excited for it to be in the hands and before so many people.  

Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, Setting Boundaries to Find Peace is sort of the launching point for our conversation today and I thought we would dive right in with the topic that is the source of confusion for many. So, if you'd be willing to dive right in, what the heck are boundaries actually?  

Nedra: [laughs gently] Well, boundaries are parameters that we set in our relationships. They are verbal and they are behavioral. Sometimes that looks like saying no and sometimes that looks like telling people what we need, but it's really a way for us to create healthy relationships with ourselves and with others. 

Elizabeth: Wow, well, there's a whole lot in those few sentences for us to unpack, but maybe we can start with how you got so interested in this work that you have really sort of made it your opus these days.  

Nedra: Well, you know, I think for many of us we try to do things and we don't necessarily know the thing that we're trying to do is set boundaries. And that's how it started for me when I was in grad school, one of the professors mentioned that we could go to college counseling for you know, for free you get twelve free sessions and if you want to be a therapist, you should try it. And I said, “okay, I'll give it a shot”.  

No clue what I was going to talk about of course and so I went and apparently, I ended up talking about boundary issues and I had no clue I was talking about boundary issues. I was talking about my relationships with people and how I was trying to set certain expectations and they were pushing back. And the word boundaries came up and I'm like “huh, I've never heard that before” and from there I started to do a lot of my own research on like what is this concept of boundaries?  

And just so you know, my first client was a client who was dealing with enmeshment in their family of origin, and they were trying to break away from the family and be a little more autonomous and I got to talk to them about boundaries and just as I've been practicing for 14 years now, I've talked to so many people about boundaries. Couples setting boundaries in their relationships, people with work-life balance issues, anxiety and how boundaries impact our ability to stand up for ourselves and our relationships and really advocate for what we want.  

With anxiety, I find it really interesting that we don't look at the boundaries that could really help us with anxiety or depression such as advocating for ourselves in relationships. I’ve had so many clients who would like replay scenarios of interactions that they had, you know years ago, earlier that day, things that were coming up in the future and setting boundaries became a really beautiful way to kind of subdue all of that anxiety because it was like, you know, “what can you say? What can you do?” And they're like, “oh I never thought about that. I thought I just had to be really anxious about this interaction”. It's like, “well you have some power here and you know, maybe the next time this happens we can you know, come up with a plan for what you could say or do” and I found that that helped, that helped to calm some folks’ anxiety. And so just thinking about boundaries in this very broad way and how it can help us in so many different areas. It just sort of floats naturally. 

Elizabeth: Wow, but what you say about people not necessarily coming to therapy saying, “I have boundary issues” or people being taught in their families, “hey, these are healthy boundaries”, we really lack the language and the education to know about this. You've made some incredible lists on your Instagram and in your book about, you know, the signs that, and so I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about the signs that you struggle with boundaries or that you need stronger boundaries.  

Nedra: Well, enmeshment is one, you know codependency is another, resentment -your feelings really are huge indicators that you need boundaries. When we find ourselves feeling resentful, frustrated, anxious, because of upcoming interactions, past interactions, it can be an indicator that you are in need of some boundaries, also burn out. These things are happening because something is needed, often we just bypass what we feel, we try to dismiss it and say “oh, well, I'm just a little worried about this thing”. But why? It's so important for us to know why we're upset about things, why we're worried about things, why we are avoiding certain things is so important to know and with boundaries we can better understand those things. 

Elizabeth: Got it. If I'm getting you right, part of what you're saying is that people come in saying “I'm in pain”, right? “I feel anxious. I feel depressed. My relationships are in chaos. My work is overwhelming, I'm burnt out” and that while often we just want the pain to go away that the pain or the feelings are actually telling us that we are in situations where our boundaries are being trampled whether we have the language for that or not.  

Nedra: Yes. 

Elizabeth: Sounds like what you do is help people understand boundaries, get language for what their needs and their boundaries actually are, and then learn to enact them in their relationships.  

Nedra: Yes, you said that so well Liz. 

Elizabeth: Well, I love thinking about these things and what occurs to me is that it's easier said than done right? 

Nedra: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think you know, the hardest part about setting boundaries is really our assumption that people won't like them. And so, we have a really hard time doing it because we're worried about what will this other person say? What will they think what will they do? How will the interactions be in the future? And that's a really tough place to be in your relationships from and so for us to really feel comfortable setting boundaries, we have to be okay with, perhaps someone pushing back, perhaps someone getting upset about it. And that's really uncomfortable, but I will say most often what happens when we have boundaries is that someone actually accepts them and they say, “okay”. We just have to practice it, and the more we practice it, the better we get.  

Elizabeth: Yeah, you quote another of my heroes Brené Brown as saying that we need to get comfortable choosing our own discomfort over resentment. Which I think is such a powerful thing that we are going to be uncomfortable in the conversation about a boundary even possibly our guilt and our fear afterwards, but if we don't, the cost is resentment and burn out in the long haul. 

Nedra: Yeah, we pay a huge price for not advocating for ourselves and sometimes that price is our mental health. Sometimes that price is our emotional well-being. Sometimes it's a financial price because we are unwilling to experience the discomfort of saying no or setting a boundary and it really does cost us, you know, so often I'm asked, “what boundaries do I need?” and I think that's a question that we all have to answer for ourselves because my boundaries are not your boundaries, and your boundaries are not my boundaries. It’s really based on what I'm able to give and do for other people and that's different for all of us and so it’s so important that we cater our boundaries to our lives not to “well this person has this boundary, or this is a boundary that I heard is good”. What boundaries do you need? And what boundaries work for you. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, it's a pity there isn't a manual that we could all go by. You wrote-  

Nedra: Well, yeah -no, no, no I was just going to say well, I think in the book there are tons of examples of potential boundaries that you could have with family, friends, romantic partners, in- laws, but there are also lots of things that you'll have to come up with on your own and I give you a beautiful blueprint of what those things could be but because every situation is so unique you will find yourself having to like come up with certain boundaries on the spot. Right? Like wow. I've never experienced this before what could the boundary be? So, it's a constant evolution of boundaries, in fact with the pandemic.  

I started writing this book before the pandemic and as we were editing it, we were like trying to throw in these things like “here's-here's something for the pandemic”. But you know the pandemic brought on new types of boundaries needed. One of the really early ones was, you know, just because I'm home doesn't mean that I'm available because there were people, I don't know about you but for me, who started to call more and you know wanted to be in contact more and it’s like, I am working but it is at home. I'm not like watching TV all day. I'm actually working and so having to say set those boundaries even in the pandemic which were newer boundaries. I didn't you know; I hadn't practiced those. It was just something that I started to experience, and I said “hey, this is you know, this is a new issue”. We've never experienced a pandemic, but certainly we need new boundaries. 

Elizabeth: Absolutely. Wow, so you wrote so beautifully. You said people don't know what you want, it's your job to make it clear. And that clarity saves relationships, and you also wrote boundaries are not unspoken rules, like “they should have known better” or “common sense would say” and I wonder if you could speak a little bit about sort of the pull of implicit or unstated or assumed boundaries versus doing the hard work of actually articulating them.  

Nedra: There is no such thing as a assumed boundary. There is no such thing as an unspoken boundary and that's what I was speaking to in the book, that boundaries are clearly stated because when we expect people to know something, what we are really relying on is this cultural belief of common sense, but as we all know, common sense what’s the quote? “Common sense is not common”, right? [Elizabeth: Right.] What we know is not what other people know, even the people we were raised with, because sometimes people will get hung up on “but it's my brother they should know” and it's like “even your brother has different experiences from you. They have a different personality. They have a different way of understanding things”.  

So even if it is someone you've known forever and they should know better, you may still have to tell them. I have a doormat that says, “kick off your shoes”, you know like the Xscape song, “kickoff your shoes and relax your feet”. So, my doormat says, “kick off your shoes”. There's two baskets at the door, right? So, I -you know, if I really wanted to say, “why didn’t they get that?” I still say to people when they come in, “hey, do you mind taking your shoes off?” Sometimes people get it, and they say “I saw the doormat” you know, and then other times people will say “oh, okay, okay” you know because it's not something that I should assume that other people know. How would they? If you don't even know that song, you don't even know the reference. So, you're just looking at a mat and you're like, “okay” you know, so it is up to me to really execute a boundary if it is important to me.  

Elizabeth: What's striking me now is how generous it actually is, an act of generosity to speak and refresh and reiterate your boundary, rather than assuming that someone should have it and just should behave the way you need them to. You also brilliantly say there's two steps to a boundary one is speaking it and the second is backing it up with action, and I'm wondering if you'd share more about that part.  

Nedra: So, for years boundaries have been spoken about in the way of say no, just say no, just say no. Then it evolved a little bit to tell people what you need and say no, tell people what you need and say no. I'm saying that it's say no if you need to, say yes if you need to, tell people what you need. Tell them what you like. Tell them what you don't like. Also just make a statement about who you are. You know, those are all ways to verbalize the boundary.  

Also, boundary is a behavior. It's for you and for other people. Really with the behavior portion of it, the only person we can control is ourselves. So, if we say to someone “hey, I'm working from nine to five. I'm not available to answer my phone. Please don't call during that time” and then they call, here's where the behavior comes in. You have to let the call go to voicemail. That is the behavioral piece and for many of us we just hope that they listen to the boundary and they just don't call but as we know people have their own boundaries they may call anyway, even when we asked them not to and so we have to modify our behavior sometimes and sometimes we're requesting that someone else modifies their behavior. 

Elizabeth: So important and so tricky. So, can I bring in a devil's advocate question here? 

Nedra: Sure.  

Elizabeth: I shared some of this with friends and colleagues and asked for the most pressing or challenging questions about boundaries. And so, part of what comes up is confusion about where boundaries meet controller violation, right? So, if somebody says “I have a boundary that you have to do this” or that you know, you have to say this, or can't say, this etcetera. How do you hold or discern what's boundary and what's infringement?  

Nedra: That's a very good question. There is a such thing as a healthy boundary. All boundaries are not healthy. Sometimes we are setting really rigid boundaries with people where we are building a wall. We're trying to control them. We're telling them what to do. We're making unhealthy requests sometimes… that's not healthy. But for healthy boundaries that are healthy for you and potentially healthy for the relationship, that is not controlling of another person.  

When we think about our, you know, our homes if we're asking someone “hey, you know, we have someone here with a peanut allergy, please don't bring any peanuts” and guests, depending on who you're talking to, is like “you're trying to control my behavior of bringing peanuts” it’s like no, I'm trying to prevent an allergy outbreak. It's so you know, I think it's one of those things like your home your rules. You know your event, your rules, your person your rules. And so, you really have to think about like what is my intention here, is my intention to control who can eat peanuts and who can't or is my intention here to control a visit to the ER? Like, you know, like what's really being questioned here because sometimes you know people can see that as control. You know, you have some situations where people will do it just because you ask them not to. Everybody's not agreeable. And so, some people say, “well I did it anyway, it's not going to hurt anything” and then that's when you get to exercise your boundary. You can say “well, this is my home, and you know, I asked you not to do this thing and so this is the consequence for you know, not honoring my boundary in a particular way”.  

So, you know, there is a such thing as healthy boundaries and there is a such thing as controlling people but in relationships both people have the opportunity to have boundaries. It's not just you know Nedra with all the boundaries. It's also Liz placing boundaries like, you know, “put your coat in the closet when you come over” and then I'll say, “take your shoes off when you come over” and then look at us! [Elizabeth laughs] We're just in this big old happy boundary relationship. And so, you know, we both have expectations of each other and also, you know, it's very important that I don't make your boundaries my boundaries and I'm not saying like well, “since you asked me to put my coat…” you know, like I don't have to take on your boundary if that's not my thing. You could throw your coat right there on the chair. I don't care. That's not my thing, this other thing is. 

Elizabeth:  Got it. So, it's not about symmetry or reciprocal boundaries necessarily. It's about authentic healthy boundaries to what we need to be in relationship. [Nedra: Mhm] Beautiful.  

Well, you mentioned COVID and all the boundaries that suddenly became pertinent and I can share personally I live in a community of eight adults, if you can imagine that. And so suddenly things that were previously totally my business. Like who I see, where I go, became everybody's business because my behavior impacted their safety and their behavior impacted mine and it was a profound experiment in suddenly needing to negotiate boundaries that we had never never, never needed to navigate before and I think we learned a lot about the levels of boundaries that you described.  

So, I think you say porous boundaries or weak boundaries and healthy boundaries and rigid boundaries on the other side, and it sounds like you sort of help people discern where they are and which direction they might want to flex. Do I have that right? 

Nedra: Yeah, porous boundaries are really loose boundaries that are unstated. They are the unspoken rules. And sometimes that comes from a space of us not recognizing what we need. Rigid boundaries are walls that we buid to keep people out. We create expectations that are unreasonable. We may place those expectations on ourselves or on other people. For example, a rigid boundary could be I never become friends with my co-workers and that excludes a lot of people you may meet some really nice people, but you're not open to those relationships because you have this hard rule of never creating relationships.  

So healthy boundaries are the ones we spoke about, the ones that are clearly stated, we actively practice them, they are healthy for our relationships. They are not aggressive, but they are assertive. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, so I'm imagining you've spoken with hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people both online and in person about the journey from what I'm lightly calling boundary-clueless to boundary-competent or something like that, and I'm wondering if you could speak to the arc of people's experience from sort of recognizing and awakening and then building the muscles of setting boundaries. What does that trajectory tend to look like? 

Nedra: Well, I think in the very beginning as we start with anything we're just not very good at things that were beginning, you know, think riding a bike, think learning how to swim, think anything, right? It's not very easy at first but the more we practice it, we can't even remember not knowing it like I can't even remember learning how to ride a bike. That's how good I am at riding a bike. Right? And I sort of feel that way about boundaries, like that guilty piece, I don't feel that necessarily anymore because now I was like, no I need to tell them this if it's like it feels like this is something so pressing that I have to say it. I don't you know it I have practiced it for so long that it feels reasonable to make a request or shift of behavior and to do so very assertively with people not…I think doing it earlier is really beneficial to the relationship rather than waiting for someone to offend me ten times and saying something so, you know as soon as you know, something new comes up just letting someone know like “oh my gosh, like this is something that I noticed as we were, you know going through this process and in the future could we blank”, you know, just letting people know right away has been really helpful.  

Sometimes in relationships we have to do a lot of boundary clean up though. And that's going back to these older relationships mainly with family and long-term friends where there have been very porous boundaries and now, we have to really lay on the boundaries. It’s like, wow. I actually need 700 boundaries with you, let me start with number one today, you know, and so you have to, you know start to bring them up to speed on this new world of boundaries that you discovered. And I always suggest doing that really slowly and not just jumping in and you know going 700 boundaries at one time, but maybe one and then allowing some time for people to adjust and get acquainted, and then two, allowing some time to adjust and for folks to get acquainted… and really building from there and you'll be surprised in how people will advocate for your boundaries just because they know how important those are to you so the consistency piece is very, very important. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, you mentioned that that as people embark on this journey often what comes up is tremendous fear. Fear that if they set a boundary, they will lose the relationship, they'll be abandoned, something horrible will happen. Can you share more about what's common in that process?  

Nedra: Well, that is the anxiety that comes up when we were setting boundaries the anxiety around the worst-case scenario, they'll stop talking to me. They'll be upset at me. They'll be mad at me. The future interactions will be so awkward. That is what anxiety tells us. None of that is typically rooted in fact. It's just the stories that we tell ourselves and those stories really talk us out of being able to set boundaries with people now if this is a difficult person and you've had these experiences, then there are some very particular ways that you will need to set boundaries. But if this is a new experience and you just assume that it will go a certain way, it is very important to talk yourself off the ledge, affirm yourself and state the boundary and allow it to really happen without having all of those bad stories on rotation. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, so there are those horrible catastrophic stories about what might happen and then for many of us there are the internalized, equally awful stories about what it means if I set a boundary, right? I am bad. I'm not nice. I should be more generous. I should be accommodating. There's sort of a whole inner world to navigate even once a boundary has been set.  

Nedra: Yes, yes and a lot of it is, you know shifting your mindset away from boundaries are made. Because they're not, it's not a made thing. And when I think about, you know, all of the boundaries that people have had with me and how those boundaries didn't destroy our relationships. It really gives me some courage to go forward with setting boundaries and then tons of people have boundaries with me, my friends, people at work, you know, all sorts of folks and mostly we just listen to the boundary and we say “okay”, and we adhere to the boundary. We don't really push back when you know, when there's a traffic light and the light is saying you need to stop here for traffic reasons. We don't get out our car and yell “we hate traffic lights”, it's like no, like this is a thing that we do, this is safe. It is a boundary it is, you know, controlling the flow of traffic and so there are tons of boundaries that we're already respecting and so we have to believe that there are people who can also respect our boundaries in that very same way without the pushback. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, you know, it occurs to me that there may be times when pushback is essential. Right? If there is a defined relationship, maybe two people are partners or they work together and one person says, “I have a boundary that I will not do this” and the other person says, “good gracious, I have a boundary that you need to do this”. My partner needs to do this, or my employee needs to do this. And then we have a challenge and a negotiation and possibly even a separation.  

Nedra: Yeah, but that's that control you're talking about I think sometimes, hm…the difference to me, like they need to do that. I think even using that language, it doesn't mean that it's a boundary. You are still trying to inappropriately control someone's behavior and it's not for the health of you or the health of the relationship, you know in relationships typically a certain level of acceptance of differences is a boundary, right like we're not going to be the same. We don't want to go to bed at the same time and that's okay and really figuring out what those things are for you. In the book, I have an area where I talk about like questions you should ask in the phase of dating like there are so many important questions that we missed out on and then we have like these unspoken expectations. We have these assumed roles and we're like “I don't know how I got into cooking every day”. And it's like yeah, you never talked about who would cook the meals and you started doing it. It seems like you hate it. This is an important conversation to have because through our behaviors we can make certain agreements without verbalizing what those agreements are. So, it's very important that we verbally communicate. 

Elizabeth: Right, to really drag those unconscious entitlements out from the shadows and get them on the table and say is this something I stand by? Is this who I want to be and what I need or not. Yeah, you also write so beautifully about setting boundaries with ourselves and that feels like a whole wild wonderful area to explore. 

Nedra: Yeah. Yeah the story I told in that chapter, to start the chapter off was about financial boundaries and so often we live in a society where when people make more money, they spend more money. They make more money. They spend more money. They make more money. They spend more money and eventually the spending has grown bigger than the making and what happens is we're like we need more money and it's like, no you need boundaries, you need boundaries because you know, there is a such thing as poverty and there is a such thing as low income. Some people are not that and we are you know, living beyond what we need to and there's been you know, a lot of talk around sustainability and being more essential and minimalistic in how we operate because this is you know, for the people who have the ability to have more there are some of us who are just consuming, consuming, consuming, even when we can't afford it, even when we can't afford it, and so some self-boundaries in those cases might be a budget.  

A self-boundary could be saying no to yourself when you're trying to go above the budget, a self-boundary could be not buying more things because you made five more dollars, you know, making sure that you are honoring yourself in a way that fits into your income and that situation was particularly for people who have the means to afford things and they find themselves in debt and all of these things and they're like, “it's the money's fault!” and it's like “no, it's not the money's fault it's you know, your new car fault” and so we have to be very careful and set limits with ourselves and that's not a bad thing. We can't have everything. I can't eat all the candy I want; I can't stay up as long as I want, you know, this isn't Home Alone, and even little Kevin got tired of doing everything in excess and seem like day three he started missing his family because he's like I stayed up. I watched all the movies. I used shaving cream, you know all of the fun stuff now, I need some boundaries. Where are my parents? You know? It's like bring me back to reality. He started to set them for himself. He started to have sensible dinners. He started to you know, because it's like how long can we operate in this space of like I can do anything, I don't have to listen to anything. It's not healthy for us, we have to have a bedtime we have to be willing to say no to ourselves and other people, we have to take time for ourselves to take care of ourselves. Those things are very important. And those are the boundaries that you have with yourself.  

And within those self-boundaries, as we are operating in our relationships and we are moving in this space of they are doing this to me. We have to think about what can we do to manage these interactions on our end. Sometimes that is this disconnecting, detaching with love, you know, reshaping the relationship, maybe even re-stating your boundaries, there are so many things that you can do to improve the way that you feel about your relationship. Sometimes it's accepting people as they are and not changing them. That's you know, that's one of my favorite boundaries in relationships with people, is just allowing them to be because we can't change people. And when I understand like, wow…this person is…we've been doing this 32 years like they, you know, they really aren't going to get this. [laughs a bit] The freedom in saying like this is something they can't get now. What do I do? Now I have some choices to make, do I want to continue in a way that I existed in the relationship. Do I want to step back? So those are the boundaries that you can set with yourself. 

Elizabeth: Beautiful, and there are times when saying no to someone else offers the opportunity to say yes to oneself or to manage your boundaries both internally and externally in a sympathetic way. [Nedra: Mhm] Yeah. Okay, new topic?  

Nedra: Sure.  

Elizabeth: Okay. I wanted to ask about culture and boundaries and from your experience what appears to be culturally universal and what appears to be culture-specific, both in how we are raised around boundaries and about appropriate expression of boundaries.  

Nedra: So, I think all cultures have boundaries, right? And those boundaries look differently, and in American culture, what I have found is we have these different cultural groups, and we have…you know, there are some families where you feel comfortable like telling your parents I don't want to wear this or I want to do this or I don't want to do that and there are other cultures where it is not comfortable to be disagreeable and there's a lot of consequences for even doing that, right?  

One of the questions I'm asked most often is “how can I have boundaries as a Black person?” Right, and I'm a Black person and they're asking me but they're asking as if I'm not and I say that, you know, I think that culturally respect is a really big thing as it is with you know, lots of cultures it's a very big thing and we can respectfully set boundaries with our parents and still honor our culture. You can set boundaries in a very respectful way and I think that sometimes that's really scary. When you have been taught that kids are to be seen and not heard. Kids don't have any feelings. You know, I'll tell you how to feel and these sorts of things that can be cultural messages that you receive, those messages sometimes are just not good for your mental health because it is important for you to be heard. It is important for you to be seen, it is important for you to have a voice and in most cases, parents want you to have that they just don't want you to have it with them at that moment. So, once they release you into the world, they want you to be assertive. They want you to stand up for yourself. They don't want you to do it in the grocery store. They don't want you to do it when you're in ninth grade. They want you to do it, you know, when you are in your own space and all of those sorts of things, but for parents is really important that we learn to honor kids’ boundaries because it'll really help them grow up to be boundary people and we are really, you know people without boundaries because we had them along the way, but we have been talked out of them, we have been moved away from them. We have our preferences, but we're afraid to show them because of the pushback. And so, I would say, you know in terms of culture it's very important to honor your culture and it is very important to honor your boundaries. 

Elizabeth: That’s so well said. I work with a lot of students who are becoming therapists in the community mental health program, and these are individuals who are very, very devoted to anti-oppressive practices in psychotherapy and honoring diversity and a question that comes up often is, you know, these labels like enmeshed or codependent come from a particular cultural paradigm and really deserve careful thought before sort of applying them out of the box, to families from cultural backgrounds that we don't come from and we don't know and I wonder how you hold that with all of your work around boundaries.  

Nedra: Well, yeah enmeshment is okay as long as no one on is uncomfortable with enmeshment. 

Elizabeth: Got it. 

Nedra: You know and so it's one of those things that it’s only an issue if someone has an issue with it. If everyone in the culture is doing the same thing, there's no term for it. It’s this is how we live; you know, I've heard people say well I come from a loud family and that's fine as long as everybody remains loud. But the moment that someone is like, oh my gosh we're too loud. It's like now, now we are identified as the loud family and there is something to be done about it. So, you're right. There are certain terms like enmeshment, and you know narcissism and you know, just all of these terms that we sort of throw around that in some cultures is normal for a person to feel like they're powerful it’s normal for a family to do most things together. And it doesn't mean that it's again, we can't have boundary problems that we don't really have…like if somebody is in a close-knit relationship and it's okay with them, I don't have a boundary problem. I can't set boundaries for them. The only time that becomes an issue is if they find it challenging. And that's the only time we need to address it. We don't need to address things that are not a problem to other people unless it's just you know, unhealthy or harmful in some sort of illegal, sexual, like some way that's like this is a crime type thing. But if it's just like, all right, so this is what you do when your culture, then we do have to accept that. I think that's one of those things we can't put labels on something that people don't have an issue with. 

Elizabeth: Got it. So, it's not up to the therapist to assess, diagnose, label, problematize something that's working. But perhaps to help give language and distinction when something isn't working to what might be some of the cause of the suffering. [Nedra: Correct.] It's such tricky terrain. [Nedra: It is.] Yeah. Yeah, but you started to talk about kids and families and you wrote beautifully “parents who don't healthy boundaries inadvertently teach kids unhealthy boundaries”, and I wonder what you would offer to parents or parents to be about how to both keep kids safe. Right? It's not like do whatever you want whenever you want and to teach and model and support emerging boundaries.  

Nedra: Well as parents, it's very important that we allow kids to have a voice and we help them to use their voice. Sometimes with kids as we know the way that they say things is it can be an appropriate. It can be hurtful to other people and so in the parenting role helping them to understand the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness is very important and so as they are coming across with their boundaries, you know, it's appropriate for you to say “I'm full. I don't want to eat anymore”. It's not okay for you to throw your plate on the floor, you know and so really showing them how they can set the boundary, appropriate ways to set the boundary because we get really upset when they are being aggressive and a lot of that is they don't know, they just don't know they think you know…I remember, I have two kids, and I remember maybe around the 9-month mark when they're tired of eating something they literally just throw it on the floor. Like in their brain, it's like no don't want peas. It's like done, and it's like they don't know and so you have to teach them like, “oh baby just leave your peas here”, you know like you have to talk to them and once they have some understanding they start to pile their peas over to the side, you know, but to assume that the baby knows, you know not to not to put the peas here. They haven't been here before and that is our job to kind of step in and help them understand, it's okay for you to not like peas, but also don't throw them on the floor set them here.  

Elizabeth: Yeah. There's a there's a philosopher named Alain De Botton and he writes about how generous we are in our interpretations of children's intentions when they do things that are inappropriate, as you said you say, “oh honey, we don't do it this way. We do it this way.” And that often with adults. When they don't meet our expectations or they step on our boundaries, we are incensed, enraged, offended that they have violated what we assume to be universal and so I read your book in many ways as a call to be willing to say it multiple times as though it were the first time. Nope. This is not how we do with me. We do it a different way and with the same sort of spirit of generosity and firmness that we would with somebody who's young.  

Nedra: Yeah, I think that often we forget the patience that we can have with children when we are interacting with adults because our perception is like they should know better about everything. We don't know what kind of childhood they've had in some cases. We don't know, you know their level of functioning mentally. We don't know much but we're like “What?! That person should know better!” But it's like maybe they don't maybe, maybe they shouldn't know better. Like how will they know better? Like there's so many questions and so to really keep your stress down, it's important just to tell people and to be really clearly honest with them about the things that you want, not assuming that they know and being as gentle with them as you would be with a child and how you teach them and how you kind of check back and make sure that they understand because truly many of us we have that little part of our selves that still can understand the little voice of nurture from an adult. And so it’s really important to continue to have that same compassion as you know, as you would a one or two year old like perhaps, they don't know this could be their first time, or at least it's their first time with you.  

Elizabeth: Yeah, of course thinking about teenagers comes to mind and teenagers are sort of known for challenging boundaries perhaps in a perfectly developmentally appropriate way. I'm curious about guidance you might have for parents and/or in a perfect world how might we embed education in our school systems in other social structures that help teenagers to really gain some wisdom and practice around boundaries. 

Nedra: Teenagers are such a special bunch. You know, one of the most important things I think about when working with teenagers really honoring their desire to become more of themselves because teenagers are really learning about who they are, they're learning how to think about the world because they have a little more understanding of “oh, when this person say that it means this” and really having those conversations and allowing them to be self-thinkers as far as that can go and be safe, right like we want to again make sure they're not going too far with it. But certainly, allowing them to come up to come up with their own conclusion sometimes and really express who they are is really important and that doesn't mean you have to let your you know, your kids dye their hair, or you know do whatever they want to because you have boundaries.  

However, it might be having those conversations about why they want to do it and those sorts of things and still expressing your boundary. But with teenagers it’s very important to remember that teenagers and kids are people, they have feelings, their issues are really big problems. I think sometimes adults forget that. We get so in adult mode and you know paying bills and having real problems that when a kid or a teenager comes to us with a problem. It's like “why do you care about what they say to you” and it's like oh my gosh to be 15. You do care. Oh my God, it's everything, it's everything they should care about that. Yeah, you don't care about you know the big problems I have but what you have is a really big problem. So, listening to teenagers is a wonderful way to find out what their boundaries are and really to help them think about boundaries in a new way like, you know with their bodies, what people say to them, how to address their peers. Those are all really important things and conversations that we can have with teenagers. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. I know someone who quoted someone as saying “all you have to do with teenagers is get really curious about who they are becoming” but you really express that spirit beautifully. I'm curious, you know, we've been speaking about how parents and caregivers can be with children and I'm curious about the education system or broader social structures. Perhaps the question is if somebody said “Nedra, your booked rocked my world and I'm going to write you a billion-dollar check to fix the issues of boundaries in our society”. What are some of the things you might do or implement?  

Nedra: You know, one thing and I've seen this happening some, is kids need to be taught to understand and react to their feelings. And when I say react, I don't mean like, you know punch a teddy bear but to self-soothe in healthy ways, to ground themselves, those are very important things that kids need to be taught. I think that would be a cure for so many things because we are just uncomfortable feeling anything, but if we could teach them how to feel and help them think of ways to ground themselves and talk about what might make them feel better. They will already have the boundaries and then it will be our job to really listen to them because in lots of cases, kids already have the boundaries and it's the adults around them telling them push your boundary down push your boundary down, kids know, “oh my gosh, I hate wearing this, it makes my stomach whatever”. “Oh, I hate going over so-and-so's house.” They know a lot of these things, but they are pushed into these situations because it's more comfortable for the adults.  

So, if we could do some parent education with this billion-dollar grant that you're giving me, that would be really helpful for kids because I think they already got it. I think if you just you just nurture what’s naturally there and help them, you know talk more about their feelings and then we help the parents understand it's okay for them to feel. They are not threatening you by saying “I don't want you to kiss me on the mouth” or something, you know, like these are this is their personal space and for whatever reason it doesn't feel comfortable to them. How can we go about honoring it. 

Elizabeth: Wow. Part of what I hear you saying is that first of all kids do have all the preferences, all the desires and the actually the will and the boundaries built-in but we, they get socialized out of expressing them freely and I find myself wondering about gender and how gender gets socialized into people and boundaries get socialized out of people. I wonder if that's something you want to reflect on. 

Nedra: Well certainly, I think from a young age, kids are given very particular roles, you know, if it's a girl you get all the pink, you get a baby doll, you get this like they're telling you right away nurture, wear these colors, do that and the moment that there is some you know, some girls like “my favorite color is black”. It's like “your favorite color can't be black”. You know, there is this like reshaping of who they are if they want to play with trucks or you know, like it's like no this is the only way to be this thing. This is the only way to be this other thing and it's society that's why we have so many conversations about well, it's not masculine to do this or he's too feminine or this is to that because we have these very strong ideas around if you do this, then it means that. And sometimes it's just like, you know humans are nurturing humans. It's not you know, it’s not a gender thing. It is a human thing that you know any human who sees another human suffering most of us would kind of jump in and help and so it's just really important that we neutralize some of these things that we're just giving these like, this is that role, this is that role that we neutralize some of those things.  

And you're right like in terms of boundaries, yeah, we are talking kids out of their boundaries because it's just not comfortable for the adult and sometimes you know, it makes sense to because kids can't be eating, you know, some parents have kids who will eat macaroni every single day for dinner if they could and so it's like yeah, you can't like there are some days you just have to have a little broccoli and asparagus to go with your macaroni and maybe you could just take two bites and eat the rest of you know, your macaroni however there needs to be some variety here for you to grow up and be strong and healthy. And so, there are some things that you can do as a parent to kind of implement some other things but still honoring you know, who they are as a person when reasonable.  

Elizabeth: Yeah, and so if we’re not socializing or training kids out of their innate boundaries, I wonder if we raise kids who are less vulnerable to trauma or to having their boundaries trampled or ignoring impending warning signs of major boundary infringement that is really quite prevalent in our society today and wonder if you want to speak at all about trauma and what you see.  

Nedra: Yeah, you know Oprah had a recent episode on her podcast where she talked about people who were…their intuition was telling them that this situation was unsafe, but they thought no this person is being really nice. You know, people aren't that mean, they bypassed their intuition, their gut feeling and they got themselves into some pretty dangerous situations. I am saying that to say our feelings are telling us something and we can't ignore them.  

So, when children say I don't like so and so this makes me uncomfortable allow them to really have those preferences and figure out something else, whether it's a sitter, a aunt, a uncle or whatever. Figure out something else if you can and I know in some instances, we just can’t, right? But there are real times where people are having problems, now there are sometimes where kids are just not liking people because they can't play all day at so-and-so house, right? But there are other times where there is nothing that you could see going on, but maybe there is something going on with this kid where they are uncomfortable in a situation and we really have to allow them to have that discomfort and we have to show them that we honor that, I honor that you know, when something is uncomfortable for you, you know particularly with physical space people are you know, they are very shocking even with like babies people will like touch strangers kids and you know, they'll touch kids’ faces and it's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Energy exchange, energy exchange! Like don't touch my kid, you know, it's like, you know, it's there are so many things where it's like because I'm an adult, I am entitled to your space. Even if you're a stranger because I'm an adult, I'm entitled to pinch your cheek, pinching hurts! And so, you know, like there are these things that we do that we so like not even thinking about and how we're teaching people to bypass what feels uncomfortable to them to be nice to other people, isn't it? I mean you had oh, she pinched my cheek, you know, it's like that really hurt me. And so, we have to allow them to have like a voice, some autonomy, some space, and when they say it if we can do something about it, we should try. 

Elizabeth: So well said so Nedra, I've asked you about a hundred and one questions, and I wonder what we have not talked about that you might want to address whether its current events or you know, the whole range of your wisdom. Where should we go?  

Nedra: You know, I think one of the biggest things I want to share is that boundaries get better with practice. And at any time, you can shift your boundaries, I think for so many of us we’re like, well, I've been this way for x amount of time until today, until today. You can be something different. You can want something different you can do something different. You don't have to continue to function in a way just because you've done it and that sometimes when we are in relationships that are long-term, and we have porous boundaries, and we continue to show up a certain way that doesn't make us feel really good.  

One of the things I've been talking about as you know, people are becoming more vaccinated and restrictions are you know being opened up in some spaces that whatever boundaries you enjoyed in the pandemic, you can continue to enjoy those boundaries, even though the governor has said whatever, right? So, if you enjoyed not going to Christmas dinner or you've enjoyed not going to 72 happy hours and birthday parties you can continue whatever you want to. Like you don't have to, you know now go “oh, everything's back to normal. I can't have boundaries again”. It's like no you can. You found the boundary that you like, stick with it, seems like you've been doing pretty good for a whole year. Keep it going keep the habit of the boundary and create the life that you want and sometimes you know, that's not going to be appealing to other people, but it makes you feel comfortable. You know I'm passionate about this word because as a therapist you do see people who suffer, suffer with mental health issues. I mean on medication because they don't want to set boundaries. Especially around the holidays. It's like, oh I got to go get me some you know, whatever because I have to be able to survive this encounter with people I don't want to be around. And so it’s really important to talk about the need, the need for boundaries in our relationships and how not having them physically, mentally, and spiritually makes us unwell. 

Elizabeth: Well, amen. There's such a there's a profound and fundamental communication here, which is that you can do what you want to do and that while obligation and should and I have to is going to come up and perhaps merits investigation, right? We don't just eat ice cream all day because that's what we feel like it. We are fundamentally liberated to do what helps us thrive. [Nedra: Mhm.] Yeah. I'm not sure everybody grows up with that as the core message about welcome to life.  

Nedra: Yeah, you know, I'm not sure if I grew up with that for messaging from other people, but I certainly felt it. I certainly felt it and I was you know, a pretty assertive probably aggressive kid and saying, you know, like this is my preference and in some respects it was honor and I completely appreciate you know, my mother for doing that and in some regards and I think that is so important to allow kids to just you know have a voice because they do have a choice and you know back to the pandemic thing. I think it's going to be very interesting for folks who are in spaces with people who have different boundaries with them around the pandemic as we're moving forward because there are some people who will have boundaries that we don't like because we do want to hang out on holidays, or we do want them to come to our birthday party. And so, it'll be a really interesting experiment in respecting, you know, other people's boundaries and how the pandemic has reshaped the narrative for some people and how they'll engage in the future.  

Elizabeth: Wow Nedra I'm so grateful that you have done the work to tease this apart and to articulate it so clearly, I know you've been of service to so many through your social media work and very shortly via your book. Do you want to tell anybody about how they could get their hands on your book?  

Nedra: Yes, so my book is available right now everywhere that books are sold. It has become a New York Times bestseller just in two weeks, which I am just blown away by. The book really is everything I needed to know about 20 years ago about boundaries and everything that we need to know currently about boundaries because it's a continuous practice. And so I see it as something that you will read and reread as you need to I will certainly have some books that I reread every year because it's like I need my refresher and I hope that this will be a book for many of us because boundaries are constantly changing and shifting as we move in and out of relationships or into different situations. So this book is a detailed illustration from start to finish of the importance of boundaries and how they could look in your life.  

Elizabeth: I will second that recommendation and I enjoyed it so much. Nedra is there anything else you want to share with us before we close tonight?  

Nedra: Yeah, so I have an active Instagram account. So, if you don't follow me there, please do I am @nedratawwab, it is where I'm most present on the internet and on social media, so please follow me there. I talk about relationships and mental health. 

Elizabeth: Wonderful, well, thank you so, so much for your time and your presence and your heart with us tonight.  

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Jason McArthur, and Patty Pforte. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
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