Meg-John Barker's Blog, page 11

Stuck in alone or together: An opportunity to address stuck patterns

A few months ago a therapist on twitter said something along the lines of: ‘When a relationship gets tough whether you break-up or stay together the work you’ll have to do will be the same’. It struck me that something similar could be said right now – in the time of Covid-19. Many of us are facing potentially long periods of social isolation/distancing. Whether we’re stuck in alone, or with other people, the work that we could usefully do will be the same.

This series of three posts work through what stuck patterns are, and the ways we can address them if we’re stuck in alone, or if we’re stuck in with others. However, all three are relevant to everyone because I’ll suggest that those of us stuck in alone could do with exploring how we might do some of this work with others, while those of us stuck in with others could do with getting plenty of solitude in order to do the parts of the work that need doing alone. 

In this first post, I’ll start with a bit more of an introduction to what stuck patterns are, and why we might prioritise shifting them at this time. 

Hopefully if/when this period of Covid-19 crisis is over, the ideas and practices here will still be helpful for those finding themselves alone and wanting to address their relationship patterns, and for those wanting to do so while in relationship with others. I’m also aware that not everybody will be ‘stuck in’, particularly those in the category of key-workers. Hopefully some of the ‘stuck together’ advice will also be useful for those who’re still out in the world working with others.

What are stuck patterns?

The point of the tweet I began with is that intimate relationships hold up a mirror to our habitual patterns of relating with others, and with ourselves. Most of us will have fetched up with some stuck patterns in how we do this along the way which will have ended up being harmful – or at least not helpful – to ourselves and others. 

These patterns will generally emerge in all of our relationships, given time. Often they influence how they relate to other things in our lives besides people too: work, leisure, food, exercise, technology, etc. In this post I’m focusing on how they emerge in relationships, particularly in relationships where we are very emotionally close and/or spending a lot of time together. This is where they often come up most intensely.

Stuck patterns determine how we relate to others  – and ourselves – on an everyday basis, and also when we’re triggered or activated. Different therapeutic approaches have all kinds of ways of naming these patterns and understanding where they come from. Generally they agree that stuck patterns are the strategies which we learnt when we were young – or sometimes through stress and trauma in later life – which enabled us to survive.

One useful model comes from Pete Walker’s work on cPTSD. He suggests that these strategies are often versions of the classic trauma responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Some of us learnt as kids that what worked was to battle, belittle or control those around us (fight). Others learnt that striving to perfect ourselves and do all of the things was the way (flight). Others learnt to retreat into ourselves and self-soothing (freeze). Others learnt to do whatever it took to appease others and be what they wanted us to be (fawn). 

Most of us have some combination of these strategies, or go to different ones at different times. Generally they have become the way we habitually relate to other people, and they come out most vividly when we’re triggered or activated: in times of crisis or conflict.

For example, my go-to patterns are mainly fawn/flight. The fawn part means I habitually try to monitor myself to ensure I’m being ‘good’ for those around me and struggle to have boundaries if people want me to do things that don’t feel good for me. The flight part means I tend towards over- rather than under-functioning, like – I don’t know – writing a whole bunch of books, zines, and blog posts to try to figure this stuff out and communicate it to others! 

When triggered, fawn/flight means that it can feel life-or-death to me to make things right with people. And I’m likely to throw everything that I have at the situation, exhausting myself in the process, rather than taking the time I need to look after myself and get some perspective.

If Pete’s model doesn’t work for you, there are many other ways of looking at stuck patterns out there. For example Jeffrey Young lists ten common problematic schemas with which we tend to approach relationships, again developed as survival strategies during our lives.

Whatever language you use for the stuck patterns, and whatever understanding you have of how they got there, we all have them and we can address them by:

Noticing the patternsDoing something differentMaking that an everyday practice so that new habits can bed in over time



Why address stuck patterns?

If we decide to stay in relationship with somebody, we’ll need to address those patterns in order for that relationship to work well for everyone in it over time. If we break-up because the patterns are hurting us too much then we’ll need to address them or we’ll likely bring them into subsequent relationships.

Better for us

Addressing our stuck patterns is better for ourselves because it will help us to discern which relationships in our lives are best for us, as well as preventing us from getting into painful dynamics with others, or enabling us to notice them and shift them when we have.

Better for our close people

Addressing our stuck patterns is better for the people we’re close to because we’re less likely to hurt them, or get stuck in dynamics where we keep triggering each other with our patterns. Hopefully once we’re clearer on what our patterns are – and more able to shift from them – we’ll also have more capacity for the people in our lives and deal better when relationships do become difficult.

Better for everyone else

Addressing our stuck patterns is better for everybody because when we’re stuck in painful dynamics we have so much less to offer to the other people in our lives and to our wider communities. It’s extremely hard to be empathic and compassionate when we’re stuck in these patterns. We’re also more likely to act out of these patterns with others beyond our closest people if we haven’t addressed them: friends online, the staff in the supermarket, strangers on social media. 

It might seem like addressing our relationship patterns is not the most urgent thing we could be doing while the world is literally on fire with rising fevers and global temperatures, conflagrations and conflicts. In fact I’d argue it’s one of the most vital things we can be doing. Why?

On an everyday level our lives have the potential to be heaven or hell depending on how we relate to ourselves and each other. If we’re all relating to each other through our stuck patterns we’ll hurt each other and feel terrible about ourselves. If we can find ways to shift out of our stuck patterns then there’s the potential for everyday life – even a much more constrained everyday life – to be okay, perhaps even pretty good if we explicitly make this our plan and notice how we’re making progress over time.In relation to sickness specifically we know the toll that stress and trauma take on the immune system. If we’re putting other people – and ourselves – under stress and/or triggering them into trauma responses with our patterns then we’re making it more likely that they’ll get sick and struggle to recover quickly, not to mention the mental health crises that can result from prolonged relational stress or being frequently retraumatised.Just as our relationship to ourselves often mirrors the way we relate to other people, so too does the way we relate to the wider world. At a time when we urgently need to all be thinking and behaving collaboratively and collectively – and kindness, compassion and mutuality are essential – unlearning patterns which keep us locked in our own individual pain – and in stuck dynamics with close people – seems pretty urgent.



Addressing stuck patterns

In the next two blog posts I’ll cover how you might address stuck patterns if you’re stuck in alone, and if you’re stuck in with others. In some ways the challenges and opportunities of these two alternatives are opposite. Those stuck in alone may find it easier to get the space and time needed to do this slow habit-shifting work (although this will be more challenging for those who are still working full time from home and/or who struggle not to fill time with distractions). They may find it harder to get opportunities to practice shifting habits in relationship with others. Those stuck in together may find it hard to get enough space to do the inner work needed here, but they may find it easier to get practical opportunities to practice in relationship, particularly if those around them are up for this kind of work too.

A key aspect of what I’m arguing here is reframing our stuckness (alone or together) as an opportunity. Of course it’s vital to experience and express all of our feelings about the ways in which the current situation has altered our lives. This isn’t a Pollyanna approach. We need to feel our fear at what might be coming, our grief at what we’ve lost, our rage at systems which have failed to support us. 

However, embracing the potential in what has happened for befriending ourselves and addressing our stuck patterns can definitely be a useful reframe. It also means that we can relate differently to the micro-moments of difficulty which come up as we spend more time alone or with close people. Instead of regarding each freak-out, plunge into loneliness, argument, or relationship tension as a failure, we can reframe these as opportunities to slow down, to turn towards what we’re finding hard, and to learn more about our patterns and how they operate in us.

To read on to the posts about how to address stuck patterns if alone or with others, follow these links:

Stuck in alone.

Stuck in together.

Patreon link: If you liked this, feel free to support my Patreon, it will certainly help this self-employed person to maintain some income during these uncertain times.
Plural tag: This post was written by Beastie.

The post Stuck in alone or together: An opportunity to address stuck patterns appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Addressing stuck patterns when stuck in alone

This blog post outlines ways in which we might address our relationship patterns if we’re stuck in alone during Covid-19. There’s a post discussing the reasons why we might want to do so here, and one about what we can do if we’re stuck in with others here.

So what if you’re stuck in alone? This is the situation that I find myself in, so I’ll probably be blogging a fair amount about this in the coming weeks and months. I feel fortunate that – for me – I had already decided to live alone and to take a break from certain kinds of (romantic and erotic) relationships for a while in order to address these patterns, before social distancing/isolation hit. It must be much harder for those where this hasn’t been an intentional choice. However I think that solitude can be an opportunity for us all to do this work, and maybe reframing it in this way can be helpful for you if solitude and isolation hasn’t been something you’ve welcomed.

The opportunity here – if we want to take it – is to take an intentional break from any kinds of relationships where we get drawn into these patterns in a big way. For a lot of us these are partner, family, and cohabiting relationships. This is because we’re often around each other a lot, and because – whether consciously or not – we tend to look to partners and families to provide us with the kinds of love we lacked or lost when we were younger. Our stuck patterns often emerged as an attempt to get ourselves care and protection from others and to prevent people from abandoning us or hurting us.

So here’s a great chance to go cold turkey on problematic relationship patterns! In a similar to the way that, for some of us, the current situation enables us to have a period of not doing our job in the way we used to and perhaps addressing some of our stuck patterns around work, it also enables us to have a period away from intense relationships. Of course, just as we could fill our time with other kinds of work, we could fill solitude with online relationships, continuing to date, have online sex, speak to family every day, etc. However, I’d like to suggest the alternative of taking this time as permission to step away from being caught up in intense relationships for a while.

You won’t be surprised to hear me stress the need for gentleness around this kind of cold turkey. While I’m no fan of addiction models, there is something to the analogy between drug addiction and the kinds of compulsions we’re acting out when we long for love to heal or save us. We can expect some detox pain, withdrawal symptoms, cravings, and relapses. 

For me the hardest part of this process of trying to shift several old patterns of relating to myself and others has been an initial period where everything felt a whole lot more painful and difficult. It’s hard to have the faith needed to keep going when you’re not getting any rewards for the work you’re doing and when there’s a lot of uncertainty – and no guarantees – about what’s on the other side. Again a whole shedload of gentleness and kindness towards yourself is key. I’ll be blogging more about that in the coming weeks too, but it’s worth remembering that you can’t shift these kinds of patterns the same way they came into being, i.e. through treating yourself harshly.

Also this kind of work can’t be done quickly because it takes a lot of time to bed new habits into our bodies. Physiologically it’s like there was a deep channel through which the rainwater made its way off the roof and down to the ground. We need to wear a new channel deeper than that old one before the water will automatically follow the new channel.

Noticing and shifting stuck patterns by yourself

So the aim is to notice and shift these patterns in our ways of relating. Initially we won’t even notice the patterns because they come so habitually to us. Then – by bringing our attention towards them intentionally – we’ll start to notice them, but we probably won’t manage to do anything differently. This is often the hardest part: realising how much we do this stuff and feeling unable to change it. If possible at this stage it’s great if you can reward yourself for just simply noticing. That, in itself, is a huge shift. This is followed by a period where you can sometimes manage to do things differently when the old pattern kicks in, although it probably takes a lot of effort.

Eventually there will come a time when the new pattern feels as easy as the old one did. Here it’s useful to remind yourself of times you have changed other – perhaps more minor – habits in this way. You can reach that point! This is just how learning works. Portia Nelson’s poem of the hole in the road, or the visual model of unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence can be helpful reminders here.

So what are we noticing if we’re alone without close people around us to keep pushing our buttons? Fortunately (!) even if we’re completely isolated our stuck patterns will kick in plenty. They’ll play out when we get a tricky email, or have a rough exchange on social media, or when a tough memory comes to mind, or a song reminds us of something: probably many times a day. Certainly the degree of uncertainty in the world and the frequent changes we’re having to make will probably bring out our familiar patterns. 

I’ve found that increased solitude has helped me to get a way more vivid sense of what it feels like when my fawn/flight pattern kicks in. This helps me to notice it more and more – including the smaller everyday versions of it as well as the big crisis versions. For me – as for many I suspect – the underlying feeling behind my patterns is one of fear combined with shame. However, initially we may be more likely to notice the feelings that get tend to get layered on top of that feeling: anger and blame if we tend to fight, busyness and speed if we tend to flight, lethargy or scatteredness if we tend to freeze, or guilt and self-criticism if we tend to fawn. 

Over time I’ve found it possible to identify the earlier flickers of discomfort in my body which precede the pattern kicking in. When I turn my attention towards that, instead of trying to deny that anything is going on as I might have done in the past, I can usually now address it before the bigger pattern kicks in. I’ve started to ask myself why this particular trigger puts me in a fear/shame place, and to consider what it might be like if I looked at it differently. My process is something like this:

Message comes in asking me to do something I don’t really want to doSense of discomfortTurn towards sense of discomfort instead of pretending it isn’t there or acting immediately on the messageAsk myself how this is a fear/shame thing for meRealise that I feel shame if I imagine saying ‘no’ to the request because someone may think badly of me, but I feel fear if I imagine saying ‘yes’ because I know that will hurt me because it involves me overriding my self-consentConsider other options beyond the binary of no/shame and yes/fear, such as explaining to the person why it’s tricky for me, offering something else that is a ‘yes’ for me, giving myself more time before responding, etc.Feel the sense of discomfort ease and a sense of peace replace it

For me personally, because I work in a plural way around everything, I found it helpful to locate the part of myself who gets stuck in the fawn place and the part who gets stuck in the flight place. I realised that my fawner is the one who is freaking out in the background trying to figure out what to do in the face of this fear/shame double bind, and this makes my flee-er jump to attention and try to do something immediately, often hurting and exhausting themself in the process. I now speak directly to my fawner when this happens – from a kind part of myself. I conceptualise this process as helping my inner fawner to step out of his prison: something I drew in comic form last year, which has been a helpful visual touchstone for me.

What I’m suggesting here is that, by slowing down and attending to these things intentionally, particularly when they kick in in small ways on a daily basis, we can get a detailed sense of the anatomy of our patterns and how they play out for us. Then we can get creative about how we shift ourselves out of them, eventually coming up with a range of tools which help us to do something – anything – differently when the patterns kick in.

Addressing blocks to this work

One thing which can really block us on doing this kind of work is fear and shame around it. 

Fear: We often don’t want to go anywhere near it because it will involve confronting who-knows-what damage our patterns have caused to ourselves and others over the years. We fear what we might find if we attend to ourselves and our patterns so we don’t go near them.

Shame: In a culture which is utterly rooted in shame in order to sell projects and police our behaviour, we’re terrified of confronting anything which might validate the sneaking suspicion which has been implanted in all of us that we’re unacceptable ‘bad’ people. Certainly admitting to our stuck patterns and the damage they have done is a radical act in a world where being seen to have behaved badly can result in public call-outs and cancelling.

There will be more blog posts and podcasts from me on this topic because I think that shifting the culture of frightening and shaming (ourselves and others) is another of the urgent things we need to do right now. For now let’s focus on how we might personally lift the block of fear/shame in order to enable ourselves to do the work of noticing and shifting our patterns.

I find it useful to remind myself of the following things in order to avoid getting frozen in the fear of what I might find if I address the patterns, and to avoid defending against shame by blaming others.

Everyone has stuck patterns which hurt themselves and each other, not just me. This is not something I should feel specifically bad about, but something which connects me with everyone.If I turn towards these patterns and the impact they have I stand a much better chance at halting my part in toxic relationships, systems, and cultures.If I can learn how to do this stuff maybe I can help others to do it too and that will be good work to do (getting my inner fawner and flee-er on board!)

Another useful practice which I’ve written about before are regret rituals. If we come up against painful memories where we have been hurt and hurt others then we can make deliberate space in our life to feel the grief and regret around those times. Doing this regularly can help us to feel less overwhelmed. It can help us in the hard work of forgiving ourselves and the others who have been caught up in these dynamics with us. This relates to the idea of embracing both our inner survivor/victim and our inner oppressor/abuser which many intersectional feminists suggest. We’ve all been both these things and we need to grieve and regret them as part of addressing our patterns.

Finally I’ve recently come up with this process for thinking through any situation which comes up where we feel a lot of shame about our behaviour, often because we’ve acted out of our stuck patterns. It helps me to get my own personal role in perspective so that I can then be accountable for that without becoming so lost in shame that I can’t engage helpfully and responsibly. 

I assume that the following elements will be involved in any occasion where somebody feels hurt by another’s behaviour. I work through the specific situation considering what I know each element is in this situation – or what I can imagine they might likely be in the areas where I don’t have the information.

How did each of these things contribute to the situation?

Who I am, what my patterns are, and the stuff that’s happened to me to result in those patternsWho they are, what their patterns are, and the stuff that’s happened to them to result in those patternsRelational dynamics that often get acted out between people like the drama triangle or the four horsemen or the kinds of objectification of self and others that I wrote about in the Rewriting the Rules chapter on conflictThe wider systems and culture around usRandom chance

Then I can consider how best to address my part in it without taking too much responsibility, or too little because I can’t handle the shame.

Finding inside what you’ve looked for outside

Another useful way of addressing your patterns alone involves finding inside yourself the things that you’ve been looking for outside yourself. I mentioned earlier that when we form relationships from a place of still having these patterns we’re often trying to find – in another person or people – things that we struggle to find in ourselves, perhaps because we lacked or lost them in painful ways earlier in our lives.

For example, Pete Walker suggests that many survival strategies come into being because we’ve lacked or lost care and/or protection. This means that it’s hard to be kind towards ourselves (due to lack of good models of care) and to keep ourselves safe (due to lack of good models of protection). We could see the antidote to our shame as care, and the antidote to our fear as protection. Pete suggests ‘reparenting ourselves’ as a way of addressing this. Instead of searching for others to provide a kind of total care and protection which is probably impossible for anyone to give, we could cultivate our capacities for self-care and self-protection.

Working as I do from a plural perspective I’ve found it useful to consider what my inner carer and protector look, sound and feel like, and to intentionally bring them into dialogue with other parts of myself so that they can become increasingly accessible in a way they certainly haven’t been for much of my life. 

However you don’t have to work with it in quite this vivid a way. It could just be about talking to yourself – internally or externally – in a kind and/or protective way each time you’re struggling. If this feels impossible it can be an area where ‘acting as if’ is helpful at first. Imagine if you did have such a kind/protective inner voice. What might it say? What would it say to another person in your situation? Again even glimmers of being able to treat yourself in these ways are impressive to begin with, and can build into something much more available and constant over time.

It can be good to consider what else you may have been looking for in external relationships which you could use this opportunity to find in yourself. You could list some of the things you’ve been drawn to in the people you’ve had close relationships with and see if you can access those aspects of yourself. For example if you tend to romanticise or eroticise rescuing vulnerable people, can you find that vulnerable part of yourself to rescue? If you’re drawn to cocky confident clowns, can you find one of those in you? If you get together with people who feel a bit dark or dangerous, maybe there’s a dark, dangerous part of you who needs some love and attention. Again I hope to blog and zine more about how to do this work, but the initial plural zine gives you some tools.

I’ve been asking a lot lately what it might be like if the kind of love which I have projected out onto other people could be turned in towards myself. There’s a lot of fun, pleasure, and interest to be had in experimenting with this, and it seems to expand with practice too. I’d recommend playing with this yourself, if you can, because we need these processes to feel good in some way if we’re going to remain committed to them. Hopefully the peaceful feeling of addressing our patterns, the lifting of shame involved in regret rituals, and the joy of turning the love in, can help us to stay on this path over time. Justin and I have resources on self-love, joy, and love in the time of Covid-19.

Gradual relationship practice

I’ve explored a lot of things that we can do alone to shift our patterns and to turn our solitude into something potentially immensely valuable to ourselves and others. However there’s a limit to what we can do alone.

First, it is very hard – if not impossible – to do solo work without systems and structures to support it. This is why I’m so critical of the ideas of self-help and self-improvement, and why many are shifting their language from self-care to community-care.

Secondly, the point here is to shift our relational patterns, and we do need to practice those in relation with others. Pema Chödrön gives the example of a hermit alone in a cave practising patience. Another monk visits him and starts joking that it’s all a ruse he’s using to look good and to get people donating things to him. Eventually the hermit explodes in anger and tells the monk to piss off, at which point the monk asks ‘where is your patience now?’

While we’re in this time of solitude it’s worth asking ourselves how we can cultivate systems and structures to support our solo work, as well as how we can engage in relationships in ways that enable us to practise what we’re learning. One bonus of this time – if we’re stuck alone – is that it can be relatively easy to ensure we have a lot of spaciousness and slowness around all our relationships in which to process what happens and act intentionally rather than quickly from old patterns.

Relationships you might consider building in online while isolated, if you can, include:

Peers who are also engaging in this kind of work to share how it’s going and to support each other Small groups where you all have time to share what’s going on for you at the moment and be heardMore explicit forms of one-to-one peer support or therapy ( Time to Think gives one useful model for this)Professional support if you can afford it (therapy relationships are one place where it’s explicitly intended that you notice your patterns playing out and practise different ones)Contact with people in your life who offer you care and/or protection (Pete calls this ‘reparenting by committee’)Engagements with authors and communities who are discussing how to do this kind of work – and supporting each other around it – at this time

For more about how you might go about shifting stuck patterns with others, check out my post on being stuck in together. There’s more about what the patterns are – and where they come from in this post.

Patreon link: If you liked this, feel free to support my Patreon, it will certainly help this self-employed person to maintain some income during these uncertain times.
Plural tag: This post was written by Beastie.

The post Addressing stuck patterns when stuck in alone appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Addressing stuck patterns when stuck in together

This blog post outlines ways in which we might address our relationship patterns if we’re stuck in with others during Covid-19. There’s a post discussing the reasons why we might want to do so here, and one about what we can do if we’re stuck in alone – and what the practice of shifting our patterns looks like – here.

Perhaps addressing our stuck relationship patterns becomes a matter of greater urgency for those stuck together than those stuck alone. Being up alongside partners, family, or housemates day after day can be a hell or a heaven depending on whether we’re playing out our patterns on each other, or managing to do something different. 

I’m reminded of Sartre’s No Exit ‘hell is other people’ or the Jewish parable of the long spoons, where hell is a place with a magnificent feast but everyone has spoons so long that they are unable to feed themselves and they starve. Heaven is exactly the same, but people are using the spoons to feed each other. I guess The Good Place would be ideal Netflix viewing for folk stuck together for the duration.

Probably, inevitably, time stuck together will sometimes be heaven, sometimes hell, and oftentimes something in between. Pema Chödrön talks about the six Buddhist heaven and hell realms as places we’re always moving between in our everyday life. In relation to our stuck patterns we could perhaps see the worst hell realm as when we’re utterly locked into our patterns with each other, retraumatising each other constantly. The hungry ghost realm is about addiction and craving. Perhaps where we’re not in permanent hell, but are still filled with unfulfilled yearning and longing for the other person to save us from our pain. The animal realm is where we don’t realise that the things that bring us short term pleasure often cause us long term pain – like a moth to a flame. So perhaps we’re still employing old patterns to try to get what we want – from ourselves and others – and struggling when it means relationships flounder long term even if we do get some immediate pleasure or control.

The human realm is where we muddle along with glimpses of connection and harmony with others, and times of disconnection and pain. In the realm of the jealous gods we perhaps manage to see how our patterns hurt us all long term and manage do something different, but there’s still that sense of separation of self from other. The heaven realm could be those sacred moments when we feel our connection and oneness and the sense that what helps us helps them and vice versa. Our patterns have dropped away – at least briefly – and we know what it’s like to relate without them tugging us down into fear and shame.

As with addressing our patterns when stuck in alone, two vital elements of addressing our patterns when stuck together are time alone and support from others.

The need for space

It is virtually impossible to address our stuck patterns in relationships if we have no space and solitude. We need enough slowness and spaciousness around time together to notice our patterns playing out, and to practise doing something different.

One dangerous idea about relationships is that it is better to spend all – or most – of our time together. This is likely to play out in risky ways during this time as people may be spending all their days and nights together for extended periods of time. It’s easy for us to feel shame around taking our own time and space due to a cultural assumption that we ‘should’ be together, and that being apart is a failure or ‘bad sign’ about the relationship. This can be especially hard in relationships where one or both people’s patterns involve trying to maximise together time in order to avoid the fear and shame they have around abandonment.

It would be great to reverse this idea and to assume that everyone needs space and time alone in relationships and that it’s okay for people to have different needs and boundaries around this. It could be good, early on, for each person in a shared space under social isolation/distancing to tune into their needs and to communicate them to others. What might be possible in terms of giving people time alone when they know they’ll be uninterrupted? If it’s not possible for everyone to have their own private room, then can shared spaces be allocated on a rota, or private spaces made within shared rooms by blocking off parts of them?

Alone time becomes even more vital when one or more people are activated, triggered, or in a trauma response, as is often the case in conflict. Again, there’s a cultural norm that we must stay together at such times and sort it out to get back to good feelings as quickly as possible, often by making the other person see that we’re right and they’re wrong. Actually when we’re in such a reactive response we are way more likely to act out our stuck patterns and to hurt the other person and/or ourselves in the process. Finding ourselves in traumatic interactions regularly will likely make those patterns play out more, as well as retraumatising us so that we’re less and less able to handle conflicts and crises that do occur. Over time it becomes increasingly hard to see each others’ perspectives and to look after ourselves and other people in our lives.

As soon as we recognise that anyone present is triggered it’s best to get some space and time so we can soothe ourselves and/or get support from somebody who is not caught up in the dynamic with us. There’s advice about how to do this in the conflict chapter of my book Rewriting the Rules and in the literature on trauma on and offline.

Getting support

Another dangerous idea about relationships like families and partnerships is that they should be private and protected from the eyes of anybody outside of them. That means that all kinds of damaging dynamics can begin to play out without anybody being able to spot them and say that something doesn’t seem good. For those within the dynamic it can often be hard to spot this happening because the dynamic has developed so gradually over time, and/or because it may be so familiar from damaging dynamics we’ve been in in the past that we don’t realise there’s a problem.

Again there’s a risk that this ideal of privacy and protection will play out more during this time because we’re stuck with each other and it feels risky to acknowledge – to ourselves or our friends – that there are any problems. The cultural ideals around families and romantic relationships really don’t help here because we’re bombarded with images of happy families and perfect loves which we can never live up to, but may well feel we have to pretend we’re managing in order to avoid shame.

It would be great to reverse this idea and come to a new cultural norm whereby a healthy family or relationship of any kind is one with the windows open where everyone involved is nurturing their support system and able to talk freely about what the relationship is like for them: good and bad. That means that the inevitable patterns which are present for all of us can be more easily seen and discussed openly, instead of becoming hidden and unspeakable.

It can be useful for each person in the partnership, family, or household to consider what their needs are to feel supported from outside, and how those supports might be put in place. Again supportive relationships that each of you might consider building in, separately, online if you can, include:

Peers who are also engaging in this kind of work to share how it’s going and support each otherSmall groups where you all have time to share what’s going on for you at the moment and be heardMore explicit forms of one-to-one peer support or therapy ( Time to Think gives one useful model for this)Professional support if you can afford it (therapy relationships are one place where it’s explicitly intended that you can notice your patterns playing out and practice different ones)Contact with people in your life who offer you care and/or protection Engagements with authors and communities who are discussing how to do this kind of work – and supporting each other around it – at this time

When doing this work together it’s also useful to consider whether the relationship can be supported, as well as the individuals who make it up, whether that be a partnership, a family system, or a group of housemates. If dynamics have become stuck and/or damaging this is particularly vital. Possible forms of support for this – which can all be done online – include:

Relationship therapySystemic/family therapyMediationRestorative and transformative justice

You might also get creative about how conversations between members of any cohabiting group might be witnessed and supported by others in your system or community, instead of doing them in private. Can it become a regular practice between you that difficult conversations are carried out in front of each other, perhaps with a designated facilitator? Can you agree a structure for such conversations, such as each person getting time to speak and be heard? Can you have a process for what will happen if anyone gets triggered or activated? Such conversations can be returned to over time rather than being a one-off, and it’s useful to have aims like ‘everyone being heard’ rather than figuring out who is right and wrong.

Doing it together?

One great opportunity of being stuck together for extended periods is the potential to do this kind of work together. Very few things bring up our stuck patterns like our close relationships, especially when we’re around each other a lot. What a fabulous AFOG (as Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy call it).

However it is very hard to do this kind of work together unless everybody is fully on board. As I stressed when talking about doing this work alone, we’re in for a hell of a ride here. Engaging with our stuck patterns involves facing our deepest fears and shames, and may well bring up tough memories from when these patterns came into being, as well as times when they’ve been most vivid over the years. We’ll likely have to face times when we’ve hurt others badly as well as times when we’ve been hurt ourselves. 

If we’re stuck in with families then we might be doing this work with the very people who we were with when the patterns developed in the first place. If we’re stuck in with partners then we may be doing this work with people who we hoped would give us the things we lost or lacked back when these patterns were put in place. Often part of what we have to face is other peoples’ inability to give us those things – at least not in any completely consistent ongoing way – and the impact of their patterns on us.

My own personal criteria for doing this kind of work with others are:

Is everyone involved up for doing their own individual work? Is everyone involved cultivating their own support system to help them through it given that it’s hard – if not impossible – to support each other within a relationship where this is playing out? Are we broadly on the same page with this way of understanding things: acknowledging that we’re all part of these dynamics with our own stuck patterns, rather than trying to pin it on one person being the main problem?

If everyone involved is up for it then it can be a good idea to start having discussions about what the processes will be within your partnership or group, as well as how these might be supported from outside, and what support you might offer out in return. For example, you might think about making times for everyone to gather together:

Just to share how they are doing (where each person gets allocated time to share), To address practical aspects of living together during this timeTo address emotional dynamics of living together during this time and what stuck patterns are playing out between peopleTo deal with specific conflictsTo relax and have fun together (because it’s hard to do this work if all your time together is focused on hard stuff)

Addressing our part when others are not on board

Whether or not the people around you are working on their stuck patterns, it’s still worth doing your work. In fact, you doing this kind of work can become a model for others which they may take up if and when they’re ready. Also when one person changes their patterns it can be that the whole system changes to encompass that change. Harriet Lerner’s work is really helpful on how to shift our own patterns and hold firm when others try to pull us back into old dynamics or systems.

It wouldn’t be consensual to push anybody into doing this kind of work. Also it’s important to recognise what a big ask it is, and how it may well not be something people yet have capacity for.

However, it is also a hell of a lot of emotional labour for one person to work on their patterns – and try to improve the relationship or family – when others involved are doing nothing. It is hard – if not impossible – to make these changes within a system where others are actively resisting such changes, or unable to confront their role in it at all.

If you want to address your own stuck patterns within a relationship, family or group where others aren’t up for doing it together, then you might find my suggestions on how to do this work when stuck alone helpful. Considering how you can carve out time and space within your home to do this work, and get outside support, will be particularly important here.

Of course the most dangerous end of the spectrum of these kinds of stuck relationships patterns are abusive relationship dynamics of various kinds, including coercive control as well as physically or sexually abusive relationships. Slightly lower down the spectrum – but still concerning – are relationships where one or more people are frequently being (re)traumatised by the degree of conflict or the kinds of dynamics that are playing out.

In situations where there is abuse, very damaging dynamics, and/or where other people involved are not up for addressing the problem, it is important to consider other options. Of course this may be far more difficult during this time of social distancing and isolation. There’s government guidance for safe accommodation provision here, a useful article about the spike in domestic abuse here, and a list of places to support you in crisis here and here. 

Personally I think it’s useful for all people – whether living alone or with others – during this time to have a sense of what their contingency plan would be if their living situation became damaging and their mental health deteriorated because of it. Mental and physical risks need to be balanced. It may be the case that alleviating stress by moving location for a brief period of respite – or longer term –  is less risky to everyone’s physical and mental health than staying put. Also remember the toll that the stress of repressing the pain you’re in or having regular trauma times can take on the immune system.

For more about how you might go about shifting stuck patterns, check out my post on being stuck in alone. There’s more about what the patterns are – and where they come from in this post.

Patreon link: If you liked this, feel free to support my Patreon, it will certainly help this self-employed person to maintain some income during these uncertain times.
Plural tag: This post was written by Beastie.

The post Addressing stuck patterns when stuck in together appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

New Radio Show: The Book of Polyamory – The Ethical Slut

Thanks so much to Radio 4 for including me in this awesome show about The Ethical Slut: The Book of Polyamory. Give it a listen to hear all about open non-monogamy and the history of The Ethical Slut in the polyamory movement and beyond.

As somebody who read the book first right after it was published, and again many times over the years, and as someone who has been involved in promoting the ideas in it – sometimes deliberately and sometimes less so, it was grand to be able to tell some of my stories and to talk about where I’ve got to with this stuff with the idea of relationship diversity.

This book was the inspiration for me writing Rewriting the Rules, and the blog posts, zines and books which have followed. I wanted to write a more European/British book on relationships which covered the diversity of ways of relating rather than focusing on polyamory, but also drawing upon the wisdom from openly non-monogamous movements, and other non-normative communities around sex, love, and gender.

You can listen to the show here:

The Book of Polyamory

The post New Radio Show: The Book of Polyamory – The Ethical Slut appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Locating our selves during the Covid-19 crisis

Today is the first time I’ve felt able to post more personally since the Covid-19 pandemic began. In fact it’s the first time I’ve felt able to write this way in the last four months due to the extent of ongoing trauma and upheaval in my life. I’ve been fortunate indeed to have the podcast with Justin which has felt like a safe-enough place to keep doing the kind of work I find most meaningful while I’ve had to be so inward-focused.

I want to write here about how I’m locating myself within this period of crisis and uncertainty. I’m hoping that it’ll be helpful for me to set out what I’m doing – and what I hope to do – as well as being interesting for regular readers to get a sense of what they might expect from me in the coming weeks and months. Perhaps it will also be useful for you to consider doing something like this for yourself: an ongoing – necessarily work-in-progress – manifesto for how you want to treat yourself, others, and the wider world, during this time. If you like that idea I’ve included a series of prompts which I’ve found helpful at the end.

Trauma on top of trauma

Coming into this global emergency on the back of a personal emergency is a strangely double-edged experience. 

On the one hand there is a sense of yet another huge earth-shattering thing occurring on top of all the major losses of last year (work, love, home, and my oldest and youngest family members). There can be a sense of intense fragility when one rug is pulled out after another after another. There is fear about what might come next, and shame about having so little to give just when it is so desperately needed: in my families of origin and choice, in my local and queer communities, and in the wider world.

One the other hand, in some ways I feel I may have some kind of a jump on much that people are facing right now. I’ve lived in a state of uncertainty and constant rug-pulling-out for many months now. Of course I need to acknowledge that I have major privileges which are protecting me from some of the worst potential outcomes for now. Although self-employed I have something of a financial buffer and a safe-enough place to live in a town when I have supportive friends. That’s a huge amount in comparison to many and I am deeply grateful for that.

This privilege is enabling me to do a lot of personal practice around trauma, sickness, and loss, as those things occupy by body and mind. Some of where I’ve got to feels revelatory to me: helping me to shift the habits of a lifetime. I’m talking with others who have been in a similar place and learning a lot from them too. 

I feel like I’m learning how to live, how to love, and how to work kindly and consensually, for the first time. At a moment when perhaps all of us are being called upon to relearn how we do those things, perhaps I have something to offer from the work I’ve been doing.

Compassion in troubled times

I imagine that many of us are struggling with the question of what we can offer at this time and how to balance self-care and care-for-others. I’ve found this idea from my main teacher, Pema Chödrön to be a useful touchstone. It suggests that there are three kinds of compassion:

Compassion inwards is compassion towards ourselves which is a good and necessary foundation for daily life and also helps us recover – and increase our capacity – when we’re sick or struggling.Compassion alongside others is compassion where we’re kind to them and they’re kind to us in a mutually supportive way.Compassion outwards is compassion towards others when we have more to give than them, based on our particular capacity to offer, for example, financial, practical and/or emotional support.

It’s not that one of these is better than the others, it’s about recognising the need for a balance between the three, and also noticing which we need at a particular time, and focusing on that.

After what I’ve been through lately I realise that I’m at a point in my life where the first kind of compassion has become the most urgent, when previously I have perhaps focused on the other two. I’ve acknowledged many of the habits and survival strategies that have carried me through life so far, and how these have harmed me and others around me. It seems vital to turn inwards and address these habits and strategies now so that I don’t keep living, loving, and working in ways that cause harm. So I’m spending a lot of my time on therapy, on reading about trauma and recovery, on journaling, and on practising noticing the old habits come up and doing something different whenever I can. 

I’m hopeful that the intense period of going through this process will come to a natural end at some point, perhaps followed by a sense of expansion outwards and having more to offer when it does. It can’t be rushed though. I’m discovering – as I will blog about soon no doubt – that this kind of work (changing the habits of a lifetime!) can only be down slowly, in its own time. 

As I do this work though, I can tune into the places where I do have the other two types of compassion available. I ask myself regularly: What kinds of work and relating feel possible without old harmful habits kicking in? How can I live in such a way as to give my best to myself, to others, and to the wider world? For me some answers right now are that, while I absolutely could not hold therapy clients at the moment for example, I can certainly be of help to my writing mentor clients and a few others who I work with in this kind of way. While I can’t do romantic or erotic relationships at the moment – and other relationships with a history of shaky foundations – I seem to be pretty good at kind, consensual friendships, especially when I’m clear about my needs and boundaries.

The alongside kind of compassion feels very helpful to explore, especially given the need for collective forms of care and acknowledgement of our interdependence at times like these. I’m finding it really useful – for myself and for others – to hold sharing circles with friends where we each have time to feel and communicate where we’re at on a regular basis.

My collaborative work with Justin feels mutually nourishing and something that hopefully gives others something helpful. I’m keen to keep exploring with my collaborators – like Justin, Alex, and the Consent Collective – what we can offer together. I’m also keen to keep sharing the work of others who are engaging with this crisis in useful ways.

What do I have to offer?

I hope that this post might be valuable for those needing permission around the limits they’re experiencing on what they can offer at the moment. It’s hard to acknowledge these, but I remain convinced that overriding our self-consent and capacities in order to help others isn’t the way here. I think we’re likely to have much more to give – and less likelihood of offering things that are beyond our capacity or burning out – if we can recognise and allow for this. I’ll also be blogging soon about the idea that the way out of trauma and other mental health struggles can’t be the way that we got into them (i.e. non-consent or frightening or shaming ourselves). I think the same is true for helping others.

It’s vital to acknowledge the enormity of the current crisis and the impact that it will have on many of our lives, particularly those who are already the most vulnerable and marginalised. Within that caveat firmly in place I am interested to explore what might happen – individually and collectively – if we’re able to embrace the changes to our lives and what they can open up, as well as close down. 

For those of us who are finding ourselves with more time due to cancellations and more solitude due to isolation, I’m interested in considering how those things might offer an opportunity for knowing ourselves more deeply and befriending ourselves in the ways that are vital in order for us to engage well outwards. Similarly, with so many of us sick, how might learning to care for ourselves and each other during sickness open up capacities for gentleness towards ourselves, and explorations of sustainable systems and structures of care?

On a wider cultural level I wonder whether there might be opportunities here to explore more consensual, collaborative, sustainable ways of relating, working, living, and caring for one another which have been desperately needed for a long time now, but which this crisis brings into stark focus.

What do I want to write about?

Over the last couple of months I’ve written quite a few blog posts which I haven’t yet shared. It seems that whenever I’m publicly open about some aspect of myself and get used to that, some other aspect comes forward which feels even more exposing to share. The latest one is trauma. The regular emotional flashbacks – and the impact these have on my immune system and physical health – feel very old and very vulnerable to write about. I do want to lift the silence now though – if I can – because I suspect many, many people are facing the same kinds of experiences in response to the global and closer-to-home crises they’re living through.

I’m getting a pretty good handle on how I can navigate flashbacks, sickness, and the background noise of fear and shame they leave in their wake. I’d like to share some of this in case it’s helpful for others too.

The other thing I’d like to share more is my plural work/play. Since publishing my zine about this two years ago, and my comic and FAQ last year, it has become a huge part of my life. It’s how I find kindness towards myself and how I navigate trauma responses but – more than that – nowadays it is how I do everything: how I write, how I live my everyday life, how I relate to others.

The current crisis is likely to mean that many of us spend far more time than usual in solitude. Here I wonder if – like the X-men mutants – those of us who experience ourselves as plural systems may have something to offer to everyone else. Many of us already know how to access soothing, caring, protective inner voices to help us through when crisis hits. We know how to ensure that time alone isn’t lonely (one of my selves would joke that you’re never alone with Multiple Personality Disorder, but there is something in what he says). For me plurality has been fundamental in navigating my way through trauma and I wonder if such explorations may be useful for others too. If so I – I mean we – are likely to be blogging about this more, and blogging more as dialogue between us too, so you’ll get to know the whole gang.

To conclude with a note to myself/ves, I would like to continue writing, talking, and reading about:

Trauma and how to navigate it, Lifting out of fear/shame stuckness, Dealing with isolation, Befriending ourselves, Embracing uncertainty, Relating with one another kindly and consensually during hard times, Writing and creating during crises,How we can go about grieving the inevitable losses of the coming period – feeling the feelings for ourselves, for others, and for the world, and finding connection, compassion, and community between us through that process.



Locating your self during the crisis

You might find it useful to write, draw, discuss, or mindmap a similar piece locating yourself at the moment. It will certainly need to be a work in process that you keep returning to as things out in the world – and in you – change over time. It may well be useful to share this with those close to you, and to invite theirs in return. Here are a few prompts that might be worth exploring:

What was my situation heading into this time? Where was I in my life before this crisis hit in terms of fragility/stability? What baggage/habits/survival strategies am I bringing into this time that might be valuable to look at and address?What are my specific needs and vulnerabilities during a time like this?What are my specific skills and capacities at times like this?What might social distancing and self-isolation open up and close down for me, knowing what I know about myself? How would I like to use any additional time/solitude that I end up getting?How might I ensure a balance of compassion inwards, compassion alongside, and compassion outwards? What does each of these look like for me? How much of each am I needing/able to offer right now (any answer is okay)?What ways of working and relating feel possible for me at the moment to do with confidence that I would be able to give my best, and not override my consent or capacity? How might I go about that?How might I collaborate with others to create sustainable systems of care for myself, them, and others through this time?What resources might I access to best support me in all of this?

Patreon link: If you enjoyed this, feel free to support my Patreon, it will certainly help this self-employed person to maintain some income during these uncertain times.

Plural tag: This post was written by Ara.

Further resources: Justin and I blogged and podcasted about consent and Covid-19, and about managing stress around the crisis, over on megjohnandjustin.com.

The post Locating our selves during the Covid-19 crisis appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

First book on audio

The first of my books is now available on audio – The Psychology of Sex! I hope it’s the first of many. Links and blurb below…

Audiobook Audible Google Play

What can psychology teach us about sex?
How do different bodies and brains respond sexually?
How can we prevent people being stigmatised for their sexuality?

The Psychology of Sex takes you on a tour through the different ways that psychologists have created and sustained certain understandings of sex and sexuality. Bearing in mind the subjective nature of sex, the book explores cultural concerns around sexualisation, pornography, and sex addiction, as well as drawing on research from sexual communities and the applied area of sex therapy.

When so much of our relationship to sex happens in the mind, The Psychology of Sex shows us how important it is to understand where our ideas about sex come from.

The post First book on audio appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

New year slowing down and gentleness podcasts

Soooo… The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I haven’t blogged here for a couple of months. This is because on top of the already tough year that 2019 had been – both personally and politically – the turn of the year involved some even more challenging events for me. These included a deeply impactful bereavement and facing some hard ethical questions about how I navigate various aspects of my work.

All of this confirmed for me that 2020 has to be a year which prioritises slowing down and doing The Work. I remain hugely grateful that I can finally afford to make this my focus, and that I have the support I need around it. I’m learning a great deal, from inner experience and from friends and experts, about cPTSD and other forms of trauma, which helps to make sense of some of the more frightening aspects of what I’m going through. It can feel hard indeed to focus inwardly right now when there seems to be an ever greater need for outward action, but it also feels essential.

I’m learning many things from this process which will – I’m sure – eventually find their way into blog posts, books, zines, etc. But I’m also making a practice of only writing when it feels self-consensual to do so. In fact self-consensual creativity and what we can learn from it is a major theme for me – and for the people I’m mentoring around their writing – which I also want to write about when it feels right to do so. I’m mulling over a book project called ‘Not Writing’!

In the meantime, I did manage to do this podcast with the wonderful Marije Janssen where we discuss the importance of slowing down and self-care.

Listen here

If you like that, Justin and I also had a great chat about gentleness to start the year which you can listen to on our Patreon feed if you want to sign up to that.

Listen here

No doubt we will be podcasting more on this theme on both our free feed and Patreon feed during the course of 2020.

Finally, on a joyful note, Jules Scheele will soon be starting to illustrate our next Graphic Guide on Sexuality and has already made a beautiful cover for it which I will share here soon. I’m particularly excited about the development of ongoing character arcs through this book, the ghost/horror theme which is dear to my heart, and the fact I’ve managed to get some Scooby Doo / Rocky Horror Show crossover slash into the book… That, and the highly relevant trauma-informed self-care workbook which Alex and I have been working on, will be out by the end of the year.

Wishing all readers a belated – and very gentle – happy new year.

The post New year slowing down and gentleness podcasts appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

All About Boundaries

I recently got included in this great piece for Allure magazine about making and maintaining sexual boundaries. Boundaries are a vital element of consent, but I haven’t written about boundaries specifically in depth before. The interview that Erin Taylor did with me for Allure was a really good chance for me to think more about what boundaries are, why they’re important, and how we can develop and maintain them – in all areas of life not just around sex. Here is the full interview…

How would you define boundaries?

I’d define them as the limits that we set around how it’s acceptable for another person to behave with us. We set them in order that we can feel free-enough and safe-enough to have a relationship, interaction or encounter with that person. Boundaries vary from person to person because they’re often rooted in our particular lived experiences and values. For example a vegetarian might have a boundary about people not eating meat in front of them. Somebody who has a particular trigger, phobia, allergy, or disability might have boundaries around people being mindful of those, and acting accordingly.

There are some boundaries which might be more generally applicable to everyone, for example those around what is, and is not, consensual behaviour. The Consent Checklist lists some of these.

We can usefully think about our boundaries with ourselves as well as with other people. People often overstep their own boundaries, for example by spending time with somebody who doesn’t feel good to be around because they feel an obligation to do so, or by making themselves work when they’re tired or sick.

What informs the way we approach boundaries?

Probably the biggest one is the non-consensual culture we live in. Very few of us have families, friendship groups, communities, or workplaces which encourage us to tune into – and assert – our boundaries. In fact many do the opposite.

Most everyday relationships involve at least a certain amount of trying to get people to be what we want them to be for us, or to do things that they may not want to do. Examples include getting our friends to do a social activity we want to do, making family get together for the holiday, or pressuring a person to eat the food we’ve prepared.

Most institutions encourage people to work in ways that aren’t good for them, to push themselves further than feels safe or comfortable. Most constrain people to certain forms of labour rather than finding out what would be the best fit for them, in order to feel most free and fulfilled.

Most of us were brought up in families where we were made to eat food we didn’t like, to receive hugs and kisses we didn’t want, to pretend to enjoy presents or entertainments that didn’t feel good to us. Most of us went to schools where the expectation was that we would learn what we were taught was important rather than what we enjoyed, where we were bullied by other kids and told that this was normal, and where we had little choice over the kinds of food we ate or physical activity we engaged in. We were also probably taught to mistrust and/or hide certain important emotional responses like anger, sadness and fear: that we shouldn’t feel those things or that we should pretend we didn’t.

All of this means that most of us find it difficult to tune into where our boundaries actually are, and feel guilt, shame, or fear about communicating them to others. 

Can people learn how to assert boundaries as an adult? How do they?

Love Uncommon’s suggestions for self-consent are a good starting place. We need to recognise that we’ve probably been taught to treat ourselves – and others – pretty non-consensually. We might need emotional support in facing the painful implications of that: The places where we are a survivor and the places where we’ve behaved non-consensually ourselves.

Then it’s about learning about boundaries and consent: which is a long – probably lifelong – journey. Books, websites, and workshops can help with this, several of which I mention in the consent zine. It’s important to have at least some people in your life who’re on the same page with this stuff who you can practice asserting your boundaries with, and having them respected. At first you might find that you swing from having no – or poor – boundaries to being all about the boundaries that keep you safe. Love Uncommon calls this going from the broken house to the fortress of solitude! Over time you can get to a more balanced place, but a certain amount of swinging is to be expected.

It can be great to practise respecting your own boundaries, by tuning into what is a ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘maybe’ for you in more straightforward areas of life: for example around what you eat (if you have a fairly good relationship to food) or what physical activities you do and don’t want to do, 

How do boundaries with yourself differ from boundaries with other people?

It’s a pretty similar idea but in this case it is us who set – and overstep – our own boundaries. Again we’re generally brought up both to allow others to overstep our boundaries, and to do so ourselves. For example, most of us have been taught to crave the love, respect and approval of others, and have had painful experiences where we have lost those things. So we may well overstep our boundaries in the hope of getting love, respect or approval. That might include having sex we don’t want to have, working beyond our comfort levels to do well at work, or giving more of ourselves than we can really offer in order to help a friend or partner.

Other ways of overstepping our own boundaries might be about the boundaries we have which keep us safe and healthy. We might know that it’s not good for us to drink a lot or watch TV all night, but we might overstep those boundaries when we’re feeling low or anxious or overwhelmed. 

Our own boundaries are linked to our boundaries with other people because we’re relational beings. In order to keep boundaries with others we need to know what our boundaries are and recognise when they have been overstepped, as well as articulating them to others, letting them know when they have overstepped them, and withdrawing from that person if they keep doing so – or if they aren’t accountable for their behaviour.

Why is important to have clear boundaries around sex?

Sex is one area where we can be badly hurt by having our boundaries overstepped, as we know from the literature about the physical and psychological toll of sexual assault and abuse. So it’s really important to know where our boundaries are and to respect other peoples’ around sex. Of course this isn’t easy because most of us have also received a bunch of cultural messages that we should want sex, that we should have it in a very specific way, that a relationship or date is a failure if sex doesn’t happen, and that we owe sex to people in certain situations – like if we’ve gone on a date with them, gone home with them, or if they are our partner.

We need to do a great deal – as a culture – to shift these messages so that people know that it’s absolutely okay to never want sex and/or to only want certain kinds of sex under certain circumstances. Also we need to learn that the aim of any relationship or encounter should be for consent to happen – whether or not sex happens, rather than the aim being for sex to happen – whether or not consent happens.

How can sexual assault survivors navigate emotional and physical flashbacks during sex?

First of all it’s about knowing that this is extremely common and many survivors experience it. Definitely it’s worth getting ongoing support from a trauma specialist therapist or counsellor who can help you with the flashbacks. It’s vital to only be sexual if you’re sure you want to be, and with partners who will know how to tell if you’re having flashbacks and will stop the moment that happens. It’s useful to learn – yourself – about how trauma works and what you need when these triggers hit. Books like Trauma Is Really Strange and Healing Sex may well be helpful.

Justin and I did a whole podcast episode about how to handle getting triggered during a hook-up which may be helpful here.

How can survivors of child sexual abuse navigate discussing trauma and boundaries with new partners during sex?

I don’t think this is really specific to survivors of child sexual abuse because, as I’ve mentioned, very few of us have upbringings which encourage us to tune into, or articulate, our boundaries. Also sadly many of us – particularly people who are marginalised in terms of their gender, sexuality, class, race, or disability – reach adulthood with significant trauma. However those with experiences of CSA may find boundaries around sex with others particularly difficult given that those were violated at such a vulnerable age. Having adult experiences which are very careful and consensual can do a lot to shift our bodies and brains in ways which mean we are better able to have and hold our boundaries.

I’d suggest that everybody enters into any sexual encounter or relationship aware that the other person probably has some non-consensual experiences in their past. The boundaries conversation is a really essential one to be having with anybody you’re having sex with (or any other kind of relationship come to that).

Justin Hancock and I put together this zine – Make Your Own Sex Manual – to help people to tune into their own sexual needs, wants, limits and boundaries, and to communicate them to others. Again things like the yes, no, maybe list are helpful, as is communicating about what happens to you if you do go into a trauma response so that the other person can recognise this. It’s absolutely normal for people to dissociate, for example, or to go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses.

How does navigating boundaries change in polyamorous dynamics compared to monogamous dynamics?

I don’t draw a clear distinction here because actually there’s a lot of overlap between monogamy and non-monogamy. Many people who say they are monogamous are actually secretly non-monogamous, and research has found that some monogamous relationships are actually more open than some polyamorous ones, and that people often mean very different things by monogamy, and end up realising that they had very different rules. There’s lots more about all this in my book Rewriting the Rules.

For anyone in any kind of relationship it can be useful to have upfront conversations about where their boundaries are. What do they need in a relationship in order to feel free-enough and safe-enough for that relationship to be a positive one for them? Again Justin and I have made a zine to help people figure this stuff out: Make Your Own Relationship User Guide. 

Things you might think about include: What does being ‘in a relationship’ mean to me? What am I offering to the other person and what do I want from them? Where am I on a spectrum from being sexually monogamous to sexually open? What about from emotionally closest to one person to equally close with a number of people? What agreements would I want about privacy? How enmeshed or entwined do I like relationships to be? Do I have a sense of relationship escalator, and what does that involve for me? 

How do you feel like asserting boundaries enriches our lives?

It enriches our lives more than it’s possible to put into words! As long as we’re unable to know and/or communicate our boundaries we’re treating ourselves – and often others – non-consensually. This is taking a deep physical and emotional toll on our lives. The author Gabor Mate suggests that a great deal of physical illness is a result of us not listening When The Body Says No, and there’s much evidence for the role of the trauma of non-consent in all forms of mental suffering.

When we assert our boundaries we can begin to be more open, authentic and vulnerable with others because we can trust ourselves to know and articulate where our boundaries are, and we can trust others in our lives to help us to hold them. This can lead to much deeper intimacy with others and a much kinder relationship with ourselves.

As we learn to feel our boundaries we may well move away from situations and relationships which are harmful for us and into ones which nourish us better. It’s not an easy path because it can call upon us to make changes, and often to move away from the path that wider culture has set out for people like us. But we may well find ourselves feeling more engaged and fulfilled in what we do – and with the people around us – long term.

We may also engage more politically as we see that non-consensual ways of relating are intrinsically interwoven with how we’ve historically treated marginalised and oppressed groups, animals, and the planet.

Do you think boundaries can assist survivors in taking agency over their lives?

Absolutely. I think that freedom and safety come together here. If we can help people to have and hold their boundaries in order to keep themselves safe enough, then they will also begin to feel more free in their lives – more of a sense of agency – so they can begin to live in more authentic and fulfilling ways.

As I’ve said though, for survivors of developmental trauma and non-consensual behaviour as adults – that is most of us – this can be a long journey and it requires support. Survivor networks can be very helpful in addition to trauma-informed therapy and cultivating your own support networks.

What are good ways people can practice asserting boundaries?

It’s great to start with everyday things, which can be easier to practise than something as emotionally intense and culturally loaded as sex. Ideally it’s great to practise with people who are on the same page about this stuff and who are also passionate about creating more consensual cultures in their families, friendship groups, or communities. Justin and I suggest that everyday greetings are a good place to start. We created this video to help people try different ways of approaching a handshake, including finding and articulating their boundaries.

Of course other people in our lives won’t always be up for joining us in this approach. Harriet Lerner has written a number of brilliant books about how we can assert our boundaries with others who don’t necessarily respect them. Please remember though that you don’t have to be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t respect your boundaries.

How can one assert their boundaries actively during sex?

Personally I’d suggest only having sex with people who are in the same place regarding the importance of boundaries and consent. It’s an equally important up-front chat to have as the one about STIs and contraception.

Importantly it’s not really about the emphasis being on one person to assert their boundaries and the other to respect them. Rather ideally it should be a relational conversation. How can both/all of those involved in the sex maximise the potential of others to be able to have and hold their boundaries. This might involved reflecting on the power dynamics in play. It might be useful to articulate boundaries up front in the form of exchanging fantasies, or yes, no, maybe lists, or having online forms of sex first. There’s more on all of this in The Consent Checklist.

How should sexual partners react when their partner is having a flashback brought on during sex?

Stop as soon as you realise it’s happening and focus on helping them to look after themselves in whatever way works for them. Ideally it’d be great to talk before sex about how each of you responds if you do go into a trauma response (e.g. going still and quiet, going along with things in a dissociated way, pushing away) and also about what helps if it happens (e.g. grounding in the body and/or the environment by naming things in the room or going through what you pick up with the different senses).

Sometimes the person who is going into trauma won’t realise it for a while so it’s great if everyone involved can be mindful of this. If in any doubt, pause and check-in. Reassure everyone that success means that consent has happened – whether or not sex happens. There are so many other things you can do together than sex, and supporting somebody through a tough time into feeling safer can be way more intimate and wonderful than sex.

How can approaching boundaries in relationships be more difficult for survivors?

The more our boundaries have been violated, the more difficult it can be to know where they are, or to feel safe-enough to articulate them. We may just expect people to overstep our boundaries, or we may find it really hard to know when that has happened. The important thing is not to give yourself a hard time about this. It’s just normal for brains and bodies to respond in these ways when they have been traumatised, and it is totally possible to slowly shift our bodies and brains so that they can know where the boundaries are and articulate these. 

Again getting support from professionals and/or other survivors is a great place to start, as is realising that you never have to do anything you don’t want to again. Your Resonant Self is a great book for helping you to become more compassionate with yourself around this kind of thing.

Thoughts on survivorhood?

One final thing that I would emphasise is that survivorhood is not just about sexual assault. Physical and emotional forms of non-consent can take just as heavy a toll, and emotional non-consent is often less easy to spot, take seriously, and get help for.

It’s good that people are becoming more aware of coercive control in relationships. If you’ve been in controlling or bullying relationships, or dynamics where you’ve given up too much of your power or been treated non-consensually in areas other than sex, it’s equally important to get support. Many of the issues discussed here about finding boundaries difficult may well apply if you’ve had those experiences.

To end on a positive note I would say that – like many marginalised groups – survivors actually have the most to teach everyone about consent, and about sex and relationships more broadly. Post #MeToo everyone should be listening to the vast and rich literature which is coming from survivors about how we could all be doing all kinds of sex and relationships more consensually and pleasurably, as well as how this links to many other forms of activism. Books like Ask, Pleasure Activism, and The Revolution Starts at Home, are great places to start.

The post All About Boundaries appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Figuring out your sexuality

Thanks to Paisley Gilmour for including me in this nice netdoctor overview about figuring out your sexuality: Am I gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual or LGBTQ+? This came at a great time for me as Alex Iantaffi and I were just working up a proposal for a new book on How to Understand Your Sexuality, to follow up our book How to Understand Your Gender. Hopefully we’ll get that written next year. In the meantime, here are my thoughts in response to Paisley’s questions.

Is it common for people to question their sexuality?

It’s actually really common. Although many people assume that we’re born with a fixed sexual orientation, actually recent research has found that most people’s sexuality is fluid, meaning that it changes over the course of their lives. For example, we might have been attracted to one gender for our whole lives but experience an attraction to somebody of another gender. This might start us questioning how we identify our sexuality going forward.

It’s also important to remember that sexuality isn’t just about what gender or genders we’re attracted to. It’s also about the amount of sexual attraction we experience (from none to high), the kinds of sex we enjoy, the types of people we find attractive, the roles we like to take sexually (more active or passive, submissive or dominant), and many other things. All of these aspects of our sexuality can change over time meaning that we might start to question what our sexuality is, or how we identify it.

Can this happen at any time in your life?

Absolutely. Most people experience some changes in their sexuality over the course of their lives, for example in the age of the people they’re attracted to, the amount of sex they want to have, or the types of things that turn them on. Our sexuality can be impacted by our physical and mental health, the amount of energy we have, the people we hang out with, who we’re in relationships with, and the messages about sex that are around us in our communities and cultures. All of those things change over time as well.

Why might someone question their sexuality?

Some common reasons for questioning our sexuality include:

Finding that we’re attracted to someone who is quite different to our usual attractions (e.g. a different gender, physical appearance, or background)A friend, colleague or family member coming out as a different sexuality which can make us realise that it might apply to us tooLearning about a sexuality we were previously unfamiliar with in the media or from a friend. This can give us a sudden sense of realisation: ‘oh maybe I could be that,’ ‘that label might apply to me.’Watching porn, reading erotica, or having a fantasy and realising we’re turned on by something that we didn’t used to be turned on by, or which we just hadn’t thought about before.



What should you do if you think you might be gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer etc?

First of all it’s really important to remember that whatever your sexuality is – and however you decide to label it – is absolutely fine. Sadly we live in a culture which gives us the idea that it’s more ‘normal’ or ‘better’ to be straight than it is to be gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, etc. Actually, recent research suggests that at least as many young people are on the spectrum from ‘exclusively heterosexual’ to ‘exclusively homosexual’ than are at the ‘exclusive heterosexual’ end of that spectrum. Also more people have some kind of kinky sexual desires than don’t. And many people are on the asexual spectrum. Even if your sexuality is very rare or unusual, it’s still completely legitimate, so long as you only act on it consensually (that’s also true for common sexualities too of course!)

If you think you might be a different sexuality than the one you thought you were then it’s a great idea to do some self-exploration. Give yourself time to reflect on your sexuality and how you might like to label it, if at all. Journalling, engaging with ethical porn (and paying for it!), reading erotica, and fantasising are all great ways to do self-exploration.

It can also be really helpful to get support from other people who are in these sexual communities. There are online groups, meet-up groups, and community resources for all of these sexualities, as well as books and videos online. Check this stuff out but do remember that nobody should be pressurising you to label yourself in any way, or to come out unless that feels good to you. Go gently and take your time.

Is there a way to know?

Sexuality is a complex, constantly changing and evolving, thing so there’s no way to be sure whether you are ‘really’ straight, gay, bi, pansexual, asexual, demisexual, submissive, etc. It’s much more about whether those words – or others – feel like a good fit for you. It’s fine to just call yourself ‘questioning’ for as long as that feels right, or simply not to label yourself. It’s also fine to use one label for a while, and then change it if it stops feeling like such a good fit.

The main thing to remember is that it is perfectly legitimate to have whatever attractions and desires you have sexually, so long as you only act upon them consensually. If that feels like a struggle for you – or if these questions are causing you distress – then it’s worth getting some professional help from a therapist or counsellor. The Pink Therapy list in the UK is a good one for therapists who specialise in this area. The Kink Aware Professionals and Poly Friendly Professionals lists online are also useful international resources.

What would you recommend for people who think they might be but aren’t sure – any resources, books, practical tips?

I’m writing a book called How To Understand Your Sexuality next year which will hopefully be helpful! Meanwhile BishUK and Scarleteen are excellent resources for younger people questioning their sexuality, and contain useful material for people of all ages too. 

You might also find these zines helpful to work through:

Mapping Your Sexuality

Make Your Own Sex Manual

Justin Hancock and I talk about these themes often on our podcast at megjohnandjustin.com.

The post Figuring out your sexuality appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Brighton Book Launch

I’m launching Gender: A Graphic Guide in Brighton on 11th December. Do come along if you’re nearby.

[image error]

The post Brighton Book Launch appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.