CONTENTS
Title Page
Praise for Empowered Boundaries
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction
Part I One: What Is a Boundary?
Two: Learning to Set Boundaries Name the Behavior
Victim Blaming
Freeze Framing
Give a Directive
Broken Record
End an Interaction
Wrapping It Up
Three: Challenges and Doubts Challenges as Growth
Dealing with Doubts
Myths, Challenges, and Cheerleading Statements
Directing Attention Elsewhere
Befriending Your Inner Demon
When and How to Listen to Doubts
Four: Intuition and the Reflective Loop Intuition
Social Conditioning Affects Intuition
The Intuition Myth of Prevention
The Reflective Loop
Checking Intuition
Being Aware of Judgment
Reflection and Reality Checks
In Closing
Five: Goals and Challenges in Setting, Defending, or Negotiating Boundaries Clarifying Goals
Aspects to Consider
Challenges: Boundaries, Reactions, and Feelings
Challenges: The Myth of “Good” Boundary Setting
Power and Intention
Changing the Lens
The Role of Thoughts, Emotions, and Interpretations in Boundary Setting
Navigating Negative Responses
Six: Compassion and Boundaries To Suffer With
When We Cause Suffering
The Art of Negotiation
Part II Seven: Safety in a Culture of Fear The Box
Fear-Based Checklists
Reframing the Skills We Use
Fear and the Reactive Mindset
Unpacking The Box
Giving Up the Checklist
Eight: Setting Boundaries with Intention Forgiveness and Compassion
Developing Compassionate Curiosity
Revenge and Accountability
Shame and Guilt
Accountability and Responsibility
Changing Boundaries, Changing Society
Solidarity
Nine: Creating and Understanding Supports for Boundary Setting Creating a Support System
Nurturing a Support System
Using the Reflective Loop
The Advice Trap
The Agreement Trap
The Tyranny of “Shoulds”
Letting People Know How to Support You
Giving Support
How the Reflective Loop Helps Support Strategies for Boundary Setting
Ten: Learning Self-Care and Self-Acceptance Skillfulness Is Not a Formula
Power Cannot Be Communicated Away
Cultural Norms
Holding vs. Defending Your Boundary
Radical Acceptance
Radical Acceptance and Boundary Setting
Eleven: Community Care and Social Change That’s (Not) Just the Way It Is
From Self-Care to Community Care
Reflecting on Safety as an Individual Right
We Shouldn’t Always Want to Feel Comfortable
Connections and Intersections of Individual and Community Safety
Rooting Boundaries in Our Needs and the Larger World We Live In
Twelve: Wrapping It All Up
Exercises The Relationship Solar System
Setting Up the Solar System
Boundary-Setting Writing Exercises
Moving from Judgment to Non-Judgment Exercise
Resources and Resiliency
About the Author
Empowered Boundaries
Speaking Truth, Setting Boundaries, and Inspiring Social Change
Cristien Storm
Praise for Empowered Boundaries
“Storm outlines—quite comprehensively—what it means to have a dynamic self in relationship to others that is both honoring of ourselves and conscious of our coexistence with others. Empowered Boundaries is practical and soulful and an impressive contribution to many different lineages of thought—psychology, social movements, and social justice education.”
—Liz Goodwin, coauthor with Leticia Nieto of Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment: A Developmental Strategy to Liberate Everyone
“With a history steeped in self-defense, decades’ worth of de-escalation skills, and a lifelong interest in the nefarious workings of white nationalists, Cristien Storm is the absolute perfect person to write this timely and important book.”
—Inga Muscio, author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist Imperialist Society, and Rose: Love in Violent Times
“Cristien Storm’s Empowered Boundaries couldn’t come at a better time. In an era of bully culture, when decisions often get made by those who don’t hesitate to take what they want, while the rest of us keep worrying whether pushing back might make it worse, Storm shows us how to say, ‘Enough!’ We are lucky to have such a ferocious fighter and such a loving listener in our midst and even luckier that she has shared her hard-won wisdom to help us train our minds, our hearts, and our fists to claim the space for lives worth living.”
—Shon Meckfessel, author of Nonviolence Ain’t What It Used to Be: Unarmed Insurrection and the Rhetoric of Resistance
“This hands-on guide to setting and upholding strong boundaries belongs on everyone’s bookshelf. It brings together Cristien Storm’s experience teaching women’s self-defense, organizing against white nationalism, creating art, and supporting people in their personal healing to create an eminently readable resource to developing the skills and tools we need to be happy, whole, and safe. This is an inviting, practical, and essential book.”
—Dan Berger, associate professor of comparative ethnic studies at the University of Washington at Bothell, coauthor with Toussaint Losier of Rethinking the American Prison Movement, and author of The Struggle Within: Prisons, Political Prisoners, and Mass Movements in the United States
Copyright © 2018 by Cristien Storm. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information, contact North Atlantic Books.
Published by
North Atlantic Books
Berkeley, California 94712
Cover design by Jasmine Hromjak
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Printed in the United States of America
Empowered Boundaries: Speaking Truth, Setting Boundaries, and Inspiring Social Change is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.
North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data is available from the publisher upon request.
Acknowledgments
It is with the love, support, and commitment of so many people that projects such as this are brought into the world. I would like to thank some of those people here. I want to thank Alison Knowles for reaching out and believing in this book and Ebonie Ledbetter a
nd Julia Sadowski, as well as everyone at North Atlantic Books for making Empowered Boundaries happen. Barbara Sjoholm, thanks so much for your support, insight, suggestions, and editing. Deborah May Wilk, thank you for walking with me on my most challenging journeys; you are one fantastic mentor. Steve Payne, thank you for being a solid support beam in the early days of Home Alive.
Home Alive founders Julie Hasse, Gretta Harley, Stacey Wescott, Valerie Agnew, Zoe Bermet, Lara Kidoguchi, Jessica Lawless, and Mich Levy—you all helped create an organization, a mindset, and nurtured the seeds for this book. Thank you also to each and every Home Alive staff member, volunteer, collective member, instructor, board member, and supporter—thank you for showing up and doing the work. Ajax, thank you for always being there. Thank you to all the people who have supported me over the years in so many ways. I am grateful to those of you who have challenged me, loved me, pushed me, hugged me, performed with me, and taught me things I may or may not have wanted to know. Thank you to all the trainers, organizers, activists, writers, dreamers, and each and every one of you who work to make this world a better place.
Prologue
As this book comes to print, mainstream America is being introduced to white nationalism, a dangerous social movement whose genocidal vision is the creation of a white homeland through the removal of all people of color, all Jewish people, and any dissenters. Its attempted ascension is focused on occupying the State in order to build a white ethnic nation state.1 Mainstream America is also grappling with understanding the difference between white supremacy and the social movement of white nationalism. As Eric K. Ward, a social justice educator, puts it, “White nationalism is always white supremacist but white supremacy is not always white nationalist.”2
1If You Don’t They Will: A Pocket Guide to Fighting White Nationalism, www.racefiles.com/2017/10/03/put-some-knowledge-in-your-pocket/.
2Erik K. Ward, "As White Supremacy Falls Down, White Nationalism Stands Up," Pop Collab, October 31, 2017, http://popcollab.org/white-supremacy-falls-white-nationalism-stands/.
What does this have to do with boundaries?
Our boundaries are political whether we want them to be or not. Our boundaries, whether they are set via action or inaction, whether they are proactive or reactive, establish the culture and sensibilities of our relationships and the spaces we move through. When we do not respond to a sexist comment, for example, the space becomes one in which sexism can expand, which in turn creates conditions where escalating sexist behaviors are more possible. However, if we can assert a clear boundary in the face of a sexist comment, we demark that space as one where sexism is not tolerated. Boundaries then, are not just individual and interpersonal but social as well. What this means is that boundaries are important, not only for how we move through the world as individuals but also for how we create, nurture, respond to, and shape the spaces we inhabit. Therefore, our boundaries are not just about responding to individual interactions, but also about envisioning and creating the kinds of communities we want to live in. This may involve responding to a discriminatory comment, agitating for systemic change in a work environment, promoting underrepresented leadership, building solidarity between grassroots organizing projects, supporting local community-based groups, becoming active in neighborhood actions, and/or joining political movements for social justice. This is not in any way an attempt to blame those who are experiencing oppressions for not responding “the right way” or an attempt to blame the cause of sexism on a lack of “good” boundaries. Let me be clear: sexism, like racism, homophobia, and gender bias, is systemic and rooted in both white nationalism and white supremacy. In addition, I do not want to imply that everyone has to respond to every hateful or oppressive comment or behavior. We must all pick and choose our battles, which are informed by our resources, abilities, accessibilities, safety, family history, support networks, and a million other aspects that contribute to who and how we are in the world.
I grew into young adulthood going to punk rock shows in the Bay Area. The music and the music scene helped me deal with the trauma I was trying to survive and gave a subcultural sanction to express the rage and pain I felt. The music spaces also allowed me to use and move my body in ways that felt empowering. An embodied sense of empowerment is important for everybody to feel, but is especially true for survivors of trauma since trauma overwhelms the body and can make one feel small, helpless, and ineffective. I also learned important lessons about boundaries. Nazi punks, racist skinheads, white power bands, and people who would later be identified as white nationalists were all not allowed in our music community. While racism, sexism, and homophobia are of course present in every scene, I learned the importance of setting different kinds of boundaries early on. The kinds of boundaries we used when someone in our community said something oppressive out of ignorance were very different than the boundaries we used when someone was clearly advocating a position based in heteronormative white supremacy or white nationalism. Being hurt and defensive is common when people are called out (or in) for oppressive language and behaviors. Defensiveness, however, is very different from promoting white supremacist values and beliefs; it entails being unwilling to change one’s viewpoint and actually trying to change other people’s values and beliefs to the hateful ones being espoused. It is important to remember that white nationalism is a social movement that seeks to create a white ethnic nation state; this means white nationalists are organizing for their version of “social change,” just as those of us fighting for collective liberation are organizing. It is not always easy to distinguish someone attempting to organize in a space from someone repeating oppressive rhetoric yet also open to change when confronted. It is important, however, to find ways to differentiate these positions because they require different kinds of boundaries. Setting these very different kinds of boundaries was often a messy and complicated process. But it became clear to me how critical it was to be able to navigate and set these types of boundaries in order to create the kinds of spaces we wanted. If someone was trying to organize in our community by promoting white supremacy, no matter what the language (“We just want our own safe space too, it’s just a different opinion. It’s not hateful to be proud of being white” or, “Reverse racism is real and hurts white people …”), the boundary needed to clearly and in no uncertain terms identify our space as anti-racist. If someone was open to conversation and committed to nurturing and supporting vibrant anti-racist spaces, they were welcome. Our music community was, of course, imperfect, but theses kinds of boundaries were important attempts at building the kinds of relationships and communities we dared to envision and fight for. In this current moment of rising white nationalism and emboldened white supremacy, we need these kinds of boundaries more than ever.
When racist skinheads or those espousing white supremacy or nazi ideology claimed they had a right to be at a show, or that kicking them out was censorship or intolerance, our response was a clear and resounding “No. You don’t have a right to be here.” Further, we asserted, “You have a right to your ideology but you do not have the right to spew it here. Not in my house, not in my show, not in my classroom, not in my bar, not in my book club. Because if you are here asserting the inhumanity of certain people, the space is no longer accessible or safe for them and that is unacceptable.” This lesson in boundaries showed me the power of saying no so that I could also say yes. We kicked hardcore nazis out so that we could have generative discussions about how to address racism, sexism, and homophobia in our spaces without having to constantly defend the need to do that work. This was not always easy. Learning how to grapple with these issues and set boundaries around them was challenging to be sure, but absolutely necessary. We must contend with the complexities of this kind of boundary work in order to move toward collective liberation.3
3For more on countering white nationalism, please check out “If You Don’t They Will: A Pocket Guide to Fighting White Nationalism.”
One thing I learned through my e
xperiences of kicking organized nazis out of our music communities was how often asserting something in the form of “my opinion” could effectively shut down opposition to whatever was being espoused. My friends and I struggled with how to respond to claims of free speech and a right to state one’s opinion. It was assumed that every opinion held the same weight (as if some opinions are not more legitimized through historical legacies of privilege and power), and that everyone was equally entitled to his or her opinion (as if the social, political, and economic playing field was level—it is not). While it is true that everyone is entitled to their opinion, it is also true that people do not have the right to share it in any space at any time. You will not be allowed to spew racist rhetoric in my house, for example. All the collectives and nonprofits I’ve worked with had clear mission and values statements demarking what language and behaviors were permissible. Clubs and bars often have signs about what behaviors and language will get someone kicked out, and businesses of all kinds have codes of conduct. Using this logic, we learned to cut clear boundaries in our spaces—just because you have a right to your opinion does not mean you get to share it when you want to and however you want to. In addition, there are things that are not opinions, such as the idea that white people are superior to people of color, that trans people deserve to die, that Jewish people control the media, or that women are inferior to men. When these violent beliefs are transmuted into “just a different opinion” it is an attempt to flatten power differences, ignore historical realities and inequities, create false moral equivalencies, and advocate for oppression and subjugation under the guise of “opinion.” Fascism, like white nationalism, white supremacy, and heteropatriarchy, is not just an opinion; it is a dangerous and violent ideology that must be countered. Boundaries are essential to this work.