103. Integrating your Boundaries, Somatic Therapy, Art for Pain

 “You can be a thousand different women. It is your choice which one you want to be. It's about freedom and sovereignty. Celebrate who you are. Say, this is my kingdom.” 
-Salma Hayek 

Transcript

 “You can be a thousand different women. It is your choice which one you want to be. It's about freedom and sovereignty. Celebrate who you are. Say, this is my kingdom.” This quote from Salma Hayek starts us off today as we talk about integrating our boundaries, the inside and the outside to be in full alignment with who we truly, truly are. 

Welcome in. I'm Dr. Amy Backos. I am your hostess on this audio creativity journey. We are exploring the art and science of creativity and all the evidence based facets of what it means to live a truly creative life. It's hard to put our finger on what exactly it means to be a creative woman. Sometimes we think we just know it when we feel it. Other times there is science and evidence and creativity to support us becoming the woman that we always wanted to be. So let's get into this. Let's get this started. Today, we're taking a deep dive into how integrating our inner and outer boundaries offers us an opportunity to have a little somatic relief. And what I mean by that is somatic is your bodily experience. In acceptance and commitment we talk about private inner bodily experiences. They are thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations. All of these are somatic processes. Our heart beats. Our stomach might churn when we're anxious, perhaps butterflies when we're excited or in love. Our brain thinks happy thoughts. Judgmental thoughts. Fearful thoughts. Our body vibrates with emotions. There's seven basic emotions and thousand variations on those. Together we have private inner behavior. Thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations. Have you ever wondered why you have a particular bodily sensation when you feel guilty? If something is not going the way you want it to and you feel frustrated, you have a different bodily sensation. When you're so happy and excited or being leisurely and luxuriating on the sofa. All of those bring up a different bodily sensation. What your body becomes aware of and experiences is an incredible source of information for you to use in making those external behaviors. These private inner experiences help guide us by just giving us information. We don't have to be dictated by our thoughts and feelings. If we're frustrated, we can still behave with patience with our children or at work. It's unnecessary to snap. It's completely possible to feel frustrated on the inside and still behave according to our values and what's most important to us. This is the premises for acceptance and commitment therapy. The emphasis on what's important to us. Our values might be parenting, education, work, spirituality, health, community. What's important is the ultimate test or judge for how we want to act. We can still participate in our community even if we're feeling guilty or ashamed. We can still parent in a way that feels good to us, even when we feel exhausted. Artists have long used the body as a mode of expression. And our therapists in particular use body drawings as this incredible way to understand feelings and behaviors. My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Lewis, was an incredible woman, and one of our first projects was to draw our full body, and she had all the kids lay down on a piece of large butcher block paper. She would trace our bodies, and then we spent weeks filling in the bodies, adding the color of hair that we wanted, or the shade of eyes or lips. We put ourselves in our clothes that we most enjoyed wearing, and when the project was done, she hung them all in the school hallway. And I will always remember stepping out and looking at these representations of us. I knew the kids in the class and I felt like I was having a little peep inside. What people wanted to be seen as or how they saw themselves. And I certainly didn't have that language in kindergarten, but we all somehow knew that there was this expression of how we wanted to be seen. And they were really, really beautiful. Artists, of course, use bodies to depict emotions. They use the self-portrait as a means of understanding the self and broadening our own willingness to see ourselves. If you've ever done a self-portrait, you begin to catch a piece of yourself in a way or through a lens that you've never looked before. When I worked as a research associate as the San Francisco VA, I worked in the PTSD research clinic, and we did a study related to pain and pain management. And the doctors and researchers used these cookie cutter body outlines and asked the participants in the study, who were experiencing ongoing pain, to depict their pain using colors. And they were presented with a stack of, um, cookie cutter pages, cookie cutter body pages, and a handful of colored pencils. And we would ask the participants to show what their pain looked like. And this is extremely important. The idea that we experience pain in a certain part of our body is only partially true. We experience the pain in our brain, and our brain is understanding what's happening in our body. The pain messages are sent to the brain. They don't exist in the pain site. They're directed to the brain. Which is why there's so much complexity around pain management. It's complex because the experience of pain involves the brain, not merely an injured part of the body. And pain signals are very complex. But the idea of expressing this through art has long been used in the medical profession. So let's talk about how inner and outer boundaries are connected and integrated. I want to remind you that there is no brain body connection. There's not some magical link that we suddenly can connect our thoughts to our body. Your brain is in your body. There is no connection because they are one unit where one animal, and all of these parts function together in harmony, and neglecting aspects of our body could be a symptom of internal or external boundaries. Perhaps both. The last few weeks on the podcast, I've been talking about both inner and outer boundaries and the the ability to talk about them separately is slightly artificial because they are integrated. And let me tell you why integration is really moving from just understanding of these two separate parts to embodying them, experiencing both inner and outer boundaries at the same time, in the same moment, but also in yourself as a human being. Integration of your boundaries gives you a sense of alignment. It also gives you the ability to be resilient and bounce back from uncomfortable emotions, uncomfortable external situations, and allow you to reset much more easily. And finally, healthy boundaries support your own relationship to yourself gives you a sense of self-esteem and pride. It also helps you connect to others. And it really supports clear communication and authenticity. I learned a lot from my son, who's very good at language, and there's been a few times where he asked me a question and I say what I think is the answer, and he'll say, you didn't answer my question. Why is child knows not to accept an answer that didn't make sense or was unrelated to the initial question? And I really strive to be clear, and so I encourage him to ask further questions if I am unclear or off track. And if you've ever talked with someone who has given an unclear answer, you have a choice. Should you ask for clarification? Ask a few more questions or try and figure out what they meant and guess the sort of obviously correct answers to get some clarification. But more often than not, we assume that they've given the appropriate answer, and we go off and try and guess what it is that they were explaining. So remember, kind of a quick recap here about these inner and outer Boundaries. I want to contextualize them for you. The inner boundaries relate to emotions your energetic experience, your intuitive knowing, your inner limits. All of these are about those private inner experiences. And then contextually, those outer boundaries relate to verbal limits, physical space, time relationships, our material boundaries. All of these are integrated with our emotional, energetic inner boundaries. They simply can't exist without the other. Both are interconnected and they influence each other. I hope you're starting to see the interconnectedness of these inner and outer boundaries. I taught them first to you separately, and now I want you to see the big picture. There's three reasons that I can think of why someone would struggle with aligning their boundaries. And I want to say upfront, we all can struggle at certain points. There's nothing that's terrible about this. It means that it's time to. Do some aligning, grow some different relationship with ourselves or our boundaries doesn't mean anything's gone terribly wrong. It just means we have a little work to do. So here's three things that I think can interfere with our ability to have clear, integrated boundaries. One is people pleasing and the socially conditioned experience that women have of often existing for others, or to serve others to please others. We're conditioned to place the needs of others before us in many circumstances. And on top of that, sometimes people develop a people pleasing strategy. It's a survival mechanism. It's self-protection. The second reason that we can struggle to align our inner and outer boundaries is related to trauma and our own nervous system dysregulation. For people who grew up in families where there was not clear boundaries or the family was enmeshed, the need for clear, strong boundaries is not at all apparent. And what it ends up Meaning is that we have to do a little bit of work. The third reason that there are times when we might struggle to align our inner and outer boundaries is we start to over develop our over function in one area of our life. We start to have perhaps very strong outer limits, self preservation, self protection, but then the psychic energy it takes to build up these walls on the outside often leads to these collapsed inner boundaries. It's very hard to reserve energy for yourself if you're putting all this energy into building walls on the outside. Conversely, over pleasing on the outside also leads to these collapsed inner boundaries, where it's very difficult to even notice what you want. And I've worked with many women who are so overly focused on what others want and need that they aren't even sure what they want. Sometimes women will dissociate from their body and dissociation is a trauma response. It's one of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Just because you do it doesn't mean you have that. But dissociating from one's body is setting up ourselves for a lot of physical and emotional difficulty. If we ignore hunger single signals or satisfaction signals, if we ignore the wish to not be around someone, we start to get a stomach ache. Ulcers. Gastrointestinal distress. There are severe consequences for ignoring the body. And I want to remind you, if you're experiencing any of these difficulties, it means it's time to do a little evaluation. It does not mean that something's wrong with you or anything is hopeless. I promise you can build on your boundaries with a sense of compassion and self-respect that allows you to get the inner and outer aligned. Now, let me give you some examples of what integrated boundaries look like. If you are saying no to something or you're saying yes to something. You feel congruent in your body and your mind. Have you ever wondered about a decision and you you were moving towards it. You were interested in making a choice, and then you backed up because it didn't feel right in your gut. We don't know why. Sometimes we don't do something, just our gut told us not to. And later we found out. I'm glad I didn't make that choice. That's an integrated response to inner and outer boundaries. And if you've been in the habit of not trusting yourself or having poor boundaries in one area or the other, or you're experiencing a lot of anxiety, we have to listen a little more carefully to our bodies and our minds, so that we can start to discern between, is that anxiety speaking or is that intuition speaking? So if you say no to something and you're able to feel okay with maybe feeling a little guilty, but maybe not the less guilty you feel when you say no. The more integrated you are the next one. If you can stay connected to yourself, even when there's some relationship tension happening, that's a sign of good integrated boundaries. If you've ever been in a disagreement with someone and you said or did something that later you regret, that's a sign of not so good integrated boundaries. But if you're able to stay connected to yourself, reflect on your values. Take pauses. Stay true to yourself. Even when you're in a disagreement at work or with your partner. That's a good sign of boundaries. A little tension in a relationship is not a bad thing. We have to resolve disagreements, but when we do it, feeling good about ourselves and about the conversation, that's integration. Another example of when you are using your integrated boundaries is when you're responding. Instead of knee jerk reacting to a situation. When you respond with your values in mind, with your personal integrity in mind, that's responding. And it feels good if you're reacting. It's usually reacting to a level of discomfort that you're experiencing. Do you ever have the sense of urgency? I have to go tell this person right now. I have to say this thing that's much more like a reaction, that anytime there's urgency to say something or get it out of your head, that's not necessarily value based. And in fact, it's usually not. So if you're responding instead of reacting, you've got a little better balance on your inner and outer boundaries. And finally, you have a good sense of your boundaries. When you understand when an internal boundary needs some external expression. In other words, if something is bothering you, a behavior that someone else is doing, or a situation that's happening and you need to express it. You understand, now is the time to express it. Then you're talking about integrated boundaries. Knowing when an internal boundary needs that external expression can be something simple, like you move too close to someone while you're standing in line, and so you take a little step back. Really simple external boundary that you recognized on the inside, and you just took a step back. The expression can be much more complicated. You may have tolerated unacceptable behavior from someone for a very long time. And you might think, oh, it's kind of late to say something now. I promise it's not too late. You can bring it up with your values in the forefront. There's other times when an internal boundary needs external expression, and it might be that you write a letter to your representative in Congress. It might be that you speak with your neighbors about how you can come together for acts of support and social justice. I have an idea for you around an alignment check in. So I think every modern creative woman needs to check in. And the more we can do it with art and writing. The more quickly it becomes very clear to us how to proceed. So imagine a situation where you have pushed your own button, or a behavior of someone else has upset you. Or in the case of people who've experienced trauma as a trigger, where a situation triggers them to feel like they're re-experiencing a past situation. So I don't use trigger lightly. I use it in the case of trauma. In the other examples, I'm saying I can push my own button by getting myself upset, or there's a something happening on the outside that I need to address. Here's the formula that I think is really helpful. First, starting on the inside, ask yourself what am I feeling right now? Am I feeling sad or upset or disrespected or scared? Am I feeling uncomfortable? Worried? Uncertain? The second question is also internal and it's what do I need or want? For example, if you're at work, what do I need to know from this person to clarify what my next steps are? Is there anything I need to ask before I go home for the weekend? So those are the inner questions. What am I feeling? What do I need and what do I want? Then we go to the outside. How can I express or protect my boundary on the outside? And finally doing a little brainstorm. What small action or phrase can I try right now to see if I can get a little closer to alignment? So next time you're facing a situation where you feel uncomfortable, either your memories have kind of pushed your own button, or someone outside of you has done something that you need to address. What am I feeling? What do I need or want? How can I express or protect? And then what can I do right now? Another strategy you can use is to ask yourself, what does my body know? What am I saying or not saying? What would integration look like in the moment? So all of these are places where you can do a little journaling. You can do some writing. I also want to give you a couple mini practices for integration that I think are extremely powerful. They involve your inner and outer boundaries, they involve your somatic experience. And the first one is to just pause before you say yes. Just try it every time you say yes. Would you like a cup of coffee? Pause. Yes. I always want coffee If someone offers me coffee, I'm always going to say yes, but I don't let that tumble out of my mouth before they're finished with their sentence. I pause and say, do I want coffee? Yes, of course I do. You can also do a body scan. Especially in challenging conversations. It might be at a meeting, at work. It might be in conversation with someone. Just check in with your body. It can just take a few seconds. You can excuse yourself for a moment if you need more time. Or you. You feel like your body is upset and you can't connect with yourself. Ask for a little time. My third suggestion is identifying one boundary setting phrase that you can keep in your back pocket. Here's my favorite. Let me think about this for a moment and I say it in conversation with people. I say it in therapy. I say it all the time. Let me think for a moment, and I'm asking them to be patient while I mull it over. And I do think it allows me the opportunity to think something through very carefully, not make a reactive kind of judgment in the moment. And it also sets up a space where other people can ask for a moment. In fact, my husband and I say this to each other quite often. Give me a moment or can I tell you tomorrow and we'll even offer it to one another. I'll say, can you let me know by next Thursday? There's so many ways that giving someone else space for their own boundary helps you as well. So now we try not to rush things or make snap decisions. And I want to leave you with an affirmation that I think you will love. I honour what I feel and I act in alignment with it. I honour what I feel and I act in alignment with it. I'm going to say it one more time. I honour what I feel and I act in alignment with it. This is the kind of affirmation that allows me to trust myself a little bit more and get in a little bit better alignment. If you're feeling a little anxious, you can honor that feeling even though you don't want it. I don't want to feel anxious, but I do. Okay, I'm going to honor that this is what's happening right now and then act in alignment. And that means let me check in. What do I need to do to feel a little better? Do I need to pause this conversation? Do I need to go for a walk, etc.? I really hope this episode helped you see how boundaries are not separate things. That inner and outer is not separate at all, and in fact they are one set of systems. You can jump in and take action on inner or outer boundaries, and you'll see benefits in the other direction. Here's what I want you to avoid though. Don't wait till you feel better. Till you feel confident. Till you feel more, quote unquote, ready to take action on your boundaries. That's just not going to happen. It's about taking action on your boundaries, and then you're going to feel incrementally a little better each time that you do it. I would love if you reached out. You can message me in the show notes. You can find me on Instagram. Let me know how this work is informing any of your decisions around inner and outer boundaries. And I hope you see this bigger picture and the wider context of how the inner and outer boundaries all work together. It is such a worthwhile investment to take an inventory of your present boundaries, your present behavior, and see where you might want to get more in alignment. Again, it doesn't mean anything's wrong. It just means it might be time for an update. Have a wonderful rest of your week. 

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