Safrianna: Oh, goodness. Okay. So today we're gonna talk about social media upleveling, and
Ikenna: what boundaries mean in boundaries, media, because boundaries are a concept that we've already talked about in episodes. I'm gonna say three and four. And those. Are already, it's already a concept. That's one, it's a word that everyone is throwing around these days.
, not necessarily understanding what that means. And of course people are taking the word boundary and skewing it into a concept of being able to blame somebody or it like people don't really understand how boundaries work. So they just learned about the concept of boundaries and then they're throwing around the word boundary.
And since it's this key word, if someone breaks a boundary, it's this Cardinal sin. And you and I are people who set boundaries a lot. And also have, even after they've been set, have accidentally broken set boundaries or come across it or set boundaries. and then realized that the boundary was not set in a way that we ended up needing it to be like it needed to be more strict or less strict or anything like that.
Safrianna: Our boundaries do shift we might come into more information or deeper relationship with ourselves or just some kind of trauma processing
Ikenna: or might notice ourselves being more regulated one day versus more dysregulated another day. So it's like based off of our window of tolerance, we might have more requests around boundaries.
Safrianna: And I know that in our new RISE program, whatever the full name ends up being our "rise from the soil" program. We're definitely gonna have a course all about boundaries. Yeah. Because. Boundaries are essential to mental health and it has really dawned on me how little people understand what boundaries mean.
Ikenna: Because when we interpret someone setting a boundary, a lot of times the rejection part of us. Comes to the forefront and we become very offended. Like we assume that boundaries are in place to keep us farther away, whereas boundaries exist so that we can stay close to people.
If you don't want someone to flinch and be uncomfortable around you all the time, because they haven't set any boundaries around you and you're. going full force sort of thing. And they're, you can just tell that they're not comfortable and then they might end up just ghosting you. Cause they don't really know what to do, cuz they will just be so uncomfortable.
Whereas someone who is like "Hi" I have these boundaries and in order for us to, I wanna be friends with you. I wanna be close friends with you. And in order for us to be close friends, I need you to respect these things about me and. Providing you with that information and you respecting them allows you to stay in relationship with them.
Yeah. So it's not saying here's this boundary. I hate you. It's here's this boundary because I love you.
Safrianna: And the other thing that I think is so important to remember as well is that boundaries are technically. Us, not the person that we're sharing them with. Yeah. We're protecting ourselves. We're not actually saying to the other person, you're never allowed to do this thing.
We're just saying you're not allowed to do that thing in my space. So that's where I wanna get into the digital boundaries, but I really wanna make sure
that
Safrianna: that point is understood that we place boundaries around ourselves. so that if people. Accept them and respect them. They can come into our space, they can come into our bubble and if they can't, then it's on us to keep them out.
Ikenna: Yeah. And I wanna give an example related to our polyamorous situation. So I fully believe in, autonomy and I, and that's, how boundaries exist. If you believe in someone's autonomy, you're not going. Requests for them to do something like not do something ever, even when they're not in your space sort of thing.
So for example, you and your boyfriend are intimate, but I'm not saying Hi, due to me, not really wanting to exist around a ton of PDA in myspace, you're not allowed to be intimate, even when I'm not around. The idea of PDA makes me uncomfortable. And since I'm putting it in my head, you're not allowed to do it ever.
Safrianna: That's, that would be control.
Ikenna: That's controlling. That is a, yeah. That's not a, that's not a boundary at all. You could consider that a request, a very controlling request. But if someone says no to that. A lot of sense, why they're saying no to that because you're controlling them.
Versus if I'm saying hi, I notice feelings of discomfort when you're being this level of intimate and touchy, feely and affectionate in front of me. Could we keep it to like hand holding and a quick Peck or a hug or whatever, like those things are fine, but then anything past. I'll let you know on the days that I'm more regulated to say, Hey you all can be more affectionate.
Yeah. Be more affectionate around me, but it's because I'm there. But if you're, if I'm not there, you guys can do.
Safrianna: Yeah. And for you monogamous folks who might be over there the fact that you're even quote unquote, letting them have another relationship in the first place is.
boundary stuff too. No. Okay. So let's be very clear if you don't wanna be in a polyamorous relationship, you're not required to, that could be a relationship boundary that you have, but if your partner absolutely wanted to be polyamorous and you don't want to be with someone who's polyamorous, then the boundary is again, it's your boundary.
You cannot place it around them. It gets placed around you. So you would probably have to leave the relationship
Ikenna: which is a really tough truth,
Safrianna: which is a really tough truth. But I think it's so important that we, again, we really focus on distinguishing boundaries are around ourselves. They do not control other people.
So if someone else is unwilling to exist within our boundary, therefore be welcomed into our bubble. It falls on us to. separate ourselves. And to protect ourselves and to protect our integrity.
Ikenna: And that's very hard. Yeah. Because, we want to hold the responsibility on other people, ultimately and we wanna be like it's your fault. And it. We're all of us as a society are still learning what boundaries are and how we need. Respect boundaries. Yeah. And how to place them. So we're still in this learning process. So Safrianna, tell us more about how this translate into a media social media setting.
Safrianna: Yeah. So I ran into a situation. I don't need to say it was like two weeks ago now or so, but somebody had posted. basically saying I have a new criteria for unfriending people. And they shared that criteria basically. If I see someone talking bad about their kids , I'm unfriending them.
And I was like, awesome boundaries! That's their boundary. If they don't wanna see that and they don't wanna socialize with those people, they don't freaking have to so I commented that I was like, yeah, I completely understand that. And that's a great boundary. And basically I went on to say, I have been unfriending or unfollowing people who use their social media walls to just like pain dump.
Because I don't wanna see that right. If you wanna come to me personally and you wanna say, Hey I'm going through a really rough time right now. Like I could really use a friend. Can you hear me out? And it's very clear what the intention of the communication is and whatnot, then I'm probably gonna say, yeah, I would be happy to listen to you, but for me, social media, with all the detoxing I've done from social media and like the periods of time where I've just experimented by.
Taking extended breaks or completely deleting certain apps from my phone or experimenting with only doing 15 minutes a day. Like I've done all these different experiments and I've just noticed social media is really only a positive contributor to my life or a meaningful contributor, cuz I don't even wanna say positive, just meaningful contributor in my life when I was not being bombarded with
constant bad news. , political climate stuff when I'm not in a mindset to be able to digest it.
Ikenna: If we wanted to digest that sort of information, we would go to a news source. Sort of thing. Like we're not going to social media. That's my mindset with that intention.
Safrianna: Yeah. Yeah. And so we're allowed not to come into social media with any intention we want. So I was just, sharing in the comments yeah. I don't like people pain dumping and that's something. I'm gonna disengage from on social media. And then two people came in and tried to tried to get in an argument.
That's what it felt based on their language the first person came in, I don't and said something to the effect of and it wa and I didn't even understand why it was like a response to me, cuz half of it was to me and half of it was to their original poster. It was very accusatory and basically the response was like everybody has a bad day.
And social media, shouldn't be used to pretend that we have perfect lives. And it sounds like you're holding people to too high of standard kind of thing. And I noticed the the defensive response come up at first. I was like, right from being misunderstood. So blatantly. . And so I took a few moments.
I think I actually stepped away from it for a few minutes and then I decided, okay, maybe her in their intention was just to gain clarity on my point. Maybe the misunderstanding, they didn't know how to word. Could you clarify for me? Do you expect people to be held to this standard?
Et cetera. So I came in and I explained, and I wrote three very calm paragraphs and, was like, Hey, thanks for the reply. Let me try to clarify my point a little bit just in case it wasn't fully understood. And I basically explained it's my stance that we're all allowed to have.
Around what we engage with and where we spend our time and our energy, et cetera. And yeah, people absolutely have bad days. And I think it's very important to be human and acknowledge that we're human. But if I don't want to look at that during my time on social media, then that's my right. Yeah.
And just it's the original poster's right. To unfriend people who talk bad about their kids. And I thought that it was very clear and like a couple people hearted it and stuff, not commenting, but hearted it. And I was like, okay like I know my point's being understood then.
And then another person commented and literally was like, you need to practice compassion.
Ikenna: Oof.
Safrianna: Because clearly you don't understand why people are having these experiences and. Why they would be posting this stuff on social media and something I have said in the prior post clarifying was peop people can pain dump on their wall if they want to , but I don't have to look at it.
However, if people are pain dumping without a request for help, or without saying what they need, they're not. Gaining anything . So I think it's better for people and healthier for people to reach out to friends directly, or reach out to a support system directly and say, this is what I need.
Ikenna: Because paint uping in that sense of not necessarily having a game plan or not, not wanting to get out of that pain. If they're explaining their pain with the intention of. bringing everyone to their level of pain that's not, that's
Safrianna: how is their healing in
Ikenna: that's not necessarily raising the vibration of your friend group.
Like you're just, it's pulling everyone down. Yeah.
Safrianna: And it's very different. I have several friends going through hard times and they'll post on social media. Hey, here's an update about what's going on. And then here's how you can help. Yeah. Or, and so that feels really good, cuz I'm like, okay, I know how to help.
Versus people that are just like, life is awful, everything's terrible right now. And they just post videos of themselves crying. I'm not even kidding no, I know. And I'm like, okay. And part of this next commenter was like, clearly when people are doing that, it's a cry for help.
It is a cry for help. I completely agree. And I'm not required to respond to that cry, to respond to their cry for help. Yeah. So I can have boundaries around how I spend my time in social media. I do that for a living. Yeah. I hold space for people for a living and I'm compassionate for people for a living.
So this energy of getting in arguments with people in the feed, when that comment came through. I just took a deep breath and I said, I don't need to explain myself to anyone. And I moved on. Yeah. And I know I'm a little spicy about it, but I'm not spicy that, someone dared challenged me or something.
It's that this is the norm on social media. Yeah. It's roll up in the comments with strangers who, nothing about and try to argue why their point is wrong. Yep. And, oh boy. I know if I have some clients listen to this, they're gonna be like, oh, I've shared that I've done that in therapy, honey.
We all have . Yep. We have all gotten in a, an argument and tried to prove that we were right to somebody on the internet at some point, like that's. That's this generation of humans on this planet right now. If you've got social media, you've argued with somebody in the comment.
Ikenna: Even if you don't have social media, like in person, you've argued with somebody somewhere.
Think about Thanksgiving table. Oh gosh. Discussions with family members that don't share your views. Yep.
Safrianna: Yeah. And so my point is we don't have to do that. We can instead just disengage from. Places in social media that have a tendency to rile us the fuck up.
Ikenna: I think this could be because, so I remember you talking about you feeling misunderstood and that was where defensives came up.
Yep. And I wanna make note of that because we are people who want to feel understood. And if we feel like someone is explaining something or sharing a piece of information that we believe something different about, and we want the rest of the world to understand where we come from, that's where the arguments can start cropping up because we're like, I want to feel understood in this moment.
I feel like these people don't understand, and it's almost like a badge of honor to be like, I was able to explain my way or argue my way into having these people feel like right. Get to my level of understanding around this stuff.
Safrianna: And this is where boundaries and context are so important. And I am going to try so hard for my ADHD brain to pull all of this together.
Cause I'm like making big connections. Yeah, me too.
Facebook comments, social media comments are not the place to try and convince other people of your point of view and be understood unless , that is what the original poster is inviting you to do. Or someone in the comments is inviting you to do directly and reply to them. Example, I've seen lots.
well meaning comments on Facebook that are like, Hey, can anyone help me understand X, Y, Z? Yep. I don't understand this, but I'm so open to understanding. Can you please can someone please explain and there's even a group there's a Facebook group. I think it's called what does it mean?
and it's like memes and things from the internet that people are literally I do not understand this and I've even seen the rule of that group is just explain what it means. Yeah, somebody posts just explain what it means. And then people will come in and be like, you're fucking stupid for not understanding what this meant.
And it's
like, whoa, whoa,
Safrianna: whoa. the whole boundary of the group is what does it mean? Just tell people what it means. There's no need to tell them they're dumb or wrong for not knowing what it means.
Ikenna: Cause we are all in different cultures and subcultures where we're very educated on certain things. So for example, you and I
are very much in the mental health field and we're very queer. We're very poly. We're very sex, positive, all of these concepts that we know, and that we teach people. We have presentations that we go to different organizations to teach to people. Like I will roll up to a hairdresser or something and ask them for a haircut or whatever, and we'll have a conversation.
And then I'll realize that they literally don't know the difference between what lesbian and gay is. And I'm. w like I'll have to check myself and be like, okay, first of all, they're asking me these questions because they wanna know what does it mean? So they're just curious about it. And I always get sad whenever they're like, oh, you're like a nice person.
That's gonna explain it to me and not get offended over the fact that I don't know this. And I'm like yeah, because if everyone knew everything. Like the world wouldn't be what it is. and we would basically be robots. Like we would just be like, hello, welcome to life. Here's your SD card that you could stick into your brain that has all of the information about everything.
And we're gonna be bored out of our minds cuz we know everything.
Safrianna: I mean we wouldn't be human anymore. Yeah, exactly. Like human experience is. Uncertainty human experience is fluctuation and change and learning and growing and all of that. Yeah, context matters. And just because somebody tries to argue with you in the feed does not mean you need to, you're allowed to disengage and not comment back.
And I'm trying to remember the other part to the, why does context matter?
Is there an invitation to be understood? Is somebody trying to understand? And. we're gonna have a lot of contacts in life, a lot of quote, unquote, friends, family members, et cetera, strangers that don't want to understand us.
And that's their boundary. They don't have to try to understand us. And if we're trying to make them understand us, when they haven't invited us into their boundary, , then we're barking up the wrong tree.
Ikenna: So if you post something, without an invitation and someone posts a comment.
That sounds to be an attempt to explain their side and explain why you could potentially be wrong or whatever, but you had no invitation on your post for that. How would you go about responding to them. Would you try to explain yourself, would you try to do that or would I think depending on, I know like context depending yeah.
Is very good context.
Safrianna: Context. Depends. So I'll give a couple when we posted our pride stuff on Facebook, we had some hate speech come through. Yeah. Disengage, delete block. End of story. If somebody is attack. If somebody is obviously attacking. Yeah. Like harm is meant. It's not just that they're triggered.
Yeah. Like they're triggered in going into fight harm mode, right? Yeah. Cause hate speech. Yeah. Nope. There's no reply happening there. That's a delete and probably a block unless it was somebody that I knew personally and I'm like, whoa. What's going on right then I would probably reach out.
Ikenna: But if it's a stranger that just wants to cause little fires, let's not get up.
Safrianna: Yeah. Then fuck that. That's a waste of time and energy. Yeah. If it was a stranger, if it was a person from like our social group, like our community group, if it was a acquaintance even, or a friend or family member, and they tried to share their point of view and I was. And there was not an invitation on my post to have a conversation about it, which is very rare.
first of all I deliberately add questions into my social media posts. Usually sometimes I have personal shares that are just personal shares, but often even on my personal shares, there will be like a. Question at the end. So if they actually read it, they'll find, I'm like, what's your experience like with this?
Yeah. And that opens some kind of conversation or says, this is where I want the conversation.
Ikenna: This is usually what happens if I want a deeper conversation in our discord community. Like a lot of times sometimes I'll just find a meme and I'll be like, This relates to this channel and I really wanna post this.
Yeah. So I, our discord community can tell you that Ike will post at least like 10 memes a day, 10 memes a day. On different channels.
Safrianna: especially the Pokemon channel. That's usually 10 at a time.
Ikenna: I'm sorry. That's the, that's where I, this is the thing is like Facebook is where I will get the memes and then I'll post it to discord because I'm like, this is just too good not to share with you all.
Safrianna: So if they shared an opinion and it was, there was no room to have a conversation back, they were just like, this is my point of view. Then I would probably just comment. Thanks for. I appreciate knowing your perspective and a story. I probably wouldn't deeper engage if there was an invitation, like they were inviting me.
Hey, like I read this post and I disagree with it. Can you tell me more, if they were inviting me to share more information? Yeah, I probably would. Yeah. so it's, non-violent communication is a thing I'm very big into. It's another thing we need to put in the, like a mini lesson on NVC in our arise from the soil program.
Yep. But listening non-violently so there's non-violent communication and that means speaking and listen. Yeah. So wild. Both at the same time. Yeah. And the listening part, we can translate to reading text. We don't have as many context clues and text unless people are using like emojis or emojis to say what their tone is.
So we can ask for clarification when we can tell that there's more than one interpretation, right? And that would be nonviolent listening. Hey, I read this and I'm trying to understand, are you feeling angry about what I wrote or is it a different emotion that's coming up?
Ikenna: I remember, there's been people that I know shared different beliefs than me and in certain political climates, they posted things out of fear.
And I didn't understand them cuz I was receiving different messages from different pieces of news than they were. And I was recognizing that other people that shared my political views were throwing hate speech at them. I was witnessing that in the comments and I'm like this. , this is energy. That's being dispelled in the worst way, right?
Like you're not educating this person by calling them a slur. Like you're only going to get them more riled. Yep. Like there's there calling people names has no benefit to anyone. Yep. Don't call anyone names. That's not how that works. If you want to make a difference in this world.
before you call someone a name, it, think about what you want to accomplish.
Safrianna: Yeah. Do you wanna make them feel bad and that's I don't believe, I know I've mentioned that my favorite Anne Frank quote, in this podcast before of her writing, I believe people are inherently good at heart.
And I'm probably not exact on that, cuz I'm terrible with quotes, but. I believe that most of us wanna do good. Yeah. Because we see that in our family systems, that we have family members that might be so fricking unhealthy. Yeah. But there is this underlying, they love us quote, unquote so much that they're trying to protect us.
They're trying to control us. They're trying to change our minds because they're afraid that if we go down a certain path we're doomed or we're going to hell or what, like all of that comes from a, ultimately a place of not knowing how to align in our love. Yeah. And there is no situation in which calling someone names is aligned with actual love.
Yeah. It's fear.
Ikenna: And you were saying something about, hurting people's feelings, people interpret sometimes boundaries as hurting their feelings. And therefore we should not place boundaries, meaning I'll give you the example that I give a lot of parents. We lived in a generation where it was like, you need to hug grandma, or she's going to be sad.
And that teaches us. you need to do what other people tell you or else you are going to affect their emotions. And that's going to be on you. That's your fault. Yeah. And so boundaries become really hard for us because we're like, wait a minute. If I set this boundary, this person might have an emotion that sad, mad, upset, offended something.
And it's my fault. Right? no if the boundary is you protecting yourself, it is not your fault. If the boundary is around your comfort and you advocating for what you need in your space, then that's what you need to do. And it's not your fault. If that person. relating the boundary to a rejection they had so many years ago or a, an experience for someone placed a boundary that was inappropriate or placed some, not placed a boundary, but did a request that was inappropriate or command or something that made them feel unloved or unwanted or.
All of these things. If they're going through the spiral of feeling an emotion, because you set a boundary, but your boundary is appropriately surrounding your space and not controlling them, they're responsible for working through those emotions. You can absolutely support them. If they're like I'm struggling and I want to talk about this, and you're in a mindset and are okay with discussing that with them. And they're not coming from a place of, I want to blame you for this. It's just, I'm feeling emotions and I want reassurance around this. Go for it. That's beautiful. It's a beautiful way to build relationship with someone else.
But that's where a lot of people end up getting caught in. How do I make boundaries? how do I respond to someone making a boundary . And a lot of times, when it's someone in close relationship with you, when they're making a boundary, if you respect that boundary, you will probably grow that relationship, right?
If anything, if you continue to stay in relationship with them and show them that you can respect their boundaries, then your relationship won't fall apart. If you question their boundaries all the time, that's when relationships fall apart.
Safrianna: And I wanted to share this can maybe be where we leave people to think Janet Raftis is the, co-leader one of the co-leaders of the KAIROS healer academy. And I believe it was her that said it. It was . It was one of the two, it was either Janet or Ina but I believe it was Janet said that she had heard something really powerful that had changed her experience, which is I'm not responsible for your triggers and I care.
And I thought that was so powerful and I, again, not great with quotes, so I might be slightly misremembering, but I'm not responsible for everything that's happened in your past. So if I trip up a trigger, I'm not responsible for that trigger being there in the first place. But I care. So I'm going to do my best now that I know it's a trigger to not trip it again, as long as you can communicate with me, Hey, this is a boundary this is triggering to me.
So please, give me space.
Ikenna: And that's the thing is like, people might not even. Realize they have a boundary or a trigger until it crossed until it's crossed. And when it's crossed, that's when we're dysregulated around that trigger, that's like the biggest time for us to really want to be like, how dare you trigger me like that?
And it's no. That trigger was with us. Now we can recognize it and set the boundary and be like, hello, I'm sorry. That was a trigger of mine. I wanna make you aware now that this is what the triggers around so we can make sure that we work through that. Or if it's something that you're working on, like being like, this is something I'm working on in therapy.
And I feel like with time and healing, I'll become more regulated around this, but for now it's it's kinda like a yellow light. This is a yellow light situation. I might. More okay. With this some days and less okay. Other days. So this is just what I wanna let you know, is like a soft boundary sort of thing.
So yeah, so that's very helpful whenever you, cuz I notice when people that, that's the thing that I notice that can be troubling is people getting so up in arms of being like, how dare you trigger me?! Like you crossed a boundary and I'm like, when did you tell me this boundary?
Safrianna: If you don't tell us the boundary, we cannot, we can't know it's there.
Yeah. We're not mind readers. Nope. And this is, I know that this is so hard for people because we don't like being triggered . Yep. We I was. Talking to a client about this last night
Ikenna: who likes being triggered?
Safrianna: Just the piece of we never know who could trigger us or in what situation we may get triggered because we ourselves may not be aware of all of our triggers.
Ikenna: Yeah. And it can feel exhausting to remind random people over and over again of being like, is this a person I'm gonna be in relationship with more? Is this a person that is just a stranger? We had this passing experience and they triggered me. So I don't actually have to tell them that this is my internal experience right now.
You have to make those decisions.
Safrianna: And again, the boundary about your triggers is around yourself. So if someone else cannot respect it, it's your responsibility to remove yourself from their sphere. So that you don't get triggered. Yep. And again, we know that is so hard, but I do not want to contribute to the whole culture of blaming other people for not respecting our boundaries.
Ikenna: Yes. And it'll be extra hard because if you leave that person, who's not respecting your boundaries could blame you for other stuff.
Safrianna: Oh yeah. I've been there. Done that.
Ikenna: yeah. So if they, so if you go based off of your safety that person's just going, and that person starts to have like toxic behavior.
That's on them. But yeah.
Safrianna: Oh, hecking boundaries were,
our whole podcast could be about boundaries.
Ikenna: Yeah. The next season could just be all about
Safrianna: this. This season is all about boundaries at the end of the day. Yeah. It's just the undertone all the time, but yeah.
Ikenna: So think about that. Think about the boundaries that you're setting. Think about the boundaries that. Have don't have your experience around boundaries, how you feel when you, when someone sets a boundary around you,
Safrianna: remember you're allowed to block anyone you want to unfriend unfollow
Ikenna: and you can have boundaries and be a compassionate person.
heck hecking
bye.
