Brene Brown, researcher, story-teller and vulnerability expert, recently said this:
I love how life comes together like this. Just as we are presenting to the public our Comprehensive Defense Course, one that is revolutionary because of this very idea, I stumble upon an amazing woman who explains it better than I think I ever have.
The Comprehensive Defense Course is revolutionary not actually because we discuss how setting boundaries is about compassion, but that we talk about compassion, period. This is, after all, a self defense course. But it’s one that at its core is about inner strength, peaceful relationships, health and wholeness. It’s about using what comes naturally to get what we need. And for many of us compassion is a natural trait. We try to understand people, see the other side of things. That’s a great tendency and there is no need to push that aside so we can live defensively.
That’s why this course is not really about “us vs. them”. The world isn’t really like that. Things are more complicated, and we know it. If we gloss over the compassion that we are naturally drawn to, and train ourselves to separate everyone into good guy/bad guy, we are likely to get caught off guard some day when we need our training most.
Most of us know that attacks are more likely to occur from someone we know, most likely someone we thought of as a “good person.” This has thrown off woman after woman who is simply in shock, who had never considered this person would violate her boundaries like this. In this moment, it’s very difficult to decide, “okay, this is actually a bad guy, so now I have to use those self defense moves I learned for ‘bad guys’.”
What if we consider Brown’s research as a jumping off point for a new framework for self defense? What if instead of a set of moves to use against “bad guys”, we have a set of moves to use to uphold our boundaries? The first move is, simply, making our boundary very obvious, making sure we walk it, talk it, live it, breath it, and don’t budge on it. What if our boundaries were woven into our lives, as a way to help us live more compassionately, even with our closest friends? After all, as Brown explains, when we don’t uphold our boundaries and allow others to push past what we are personally okay with, we end up resentful.
What if we made a decision within ourselves that we will do whatever it takes to uphold these boundaries, no matter where the violation comes from? What if we saw that upholding our boundaries was the path to living in our compassionate nature? What if setting and keeping boundaries meant keeping the peace?
When I think of putting up boundaries, I think of taking away drama. And when I think of taking away drama, I think of safety and peace. What do you think of? Does the thought of setting boundaries seem empowering for you, or exhausting? Come share your thoughts and explore boundary setting with us as part of the upcoming Comprehensive Women’s Self Defense courses! Sign Up Here!
I also highly recommend checking out this interview with Brene Brown (5 min watch time!)