This masterclass will give you the tools for you and your clients to negotiate self-led boundaries as a healing tool for personal growth, self-awareness, spiritual development, intimacy-building, and physical and mental health.
Join us for this three-hour Zoom masterclass on FRIDAY, MARCH 24 2023, 2:00 PM — 5:00 PM EST, with best-selling author and founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute, Lissa Rankin MD.
To watch a brief video describing what to expect from the workshop CLICK HERE
Self-help books, and recovery programs hammer into us the importance of healthy boundaries, and rightfully so. Without boundaries to protect us from mistreatment and boundaries to contain us from mistreating others, relationships are often unsafe, trust erodes, the intimacy we all crave and need for our emotional, physical, and spiritual health is hard to find and sustain, and relationships can be retraumatizing.
Without healthy, safe, emotionally intimate relationships, our health can suffer and our recovery can be impaired if we do wind up sick. But once we learn to put healthy boundaries in place, we’re free to let our hearts blossom, like putting a greenhouse around an orchid bulb and getting clear about who we will and won’t let into our greenhouse.
Click Here for Lissa's Presentation on "Mind over medicine"
Video: Dick Schwartz and Lissa - Healing from Spiritual Bypassing
When our boundaries are wounded by "Big T" or "Little t" trauma, usually in childhood, we tend to pair up with other boundary-wounded people, not just in romances, but in our families, friendships, and even at work, playing out our original traumas in retraumatizing relational dynamics because of impaired boundaries. Then we wind up getting hurt- and inadvertently hurting others- until our hearts are so bruised we might be tempted to erect “Out of Business” signs that keep us from being emotionally intimate with others, perhaps for a lifetime.
While those reactive parts may think they’re protecting us, they may also cause harm in our relationships when we’re in distress. Because we either freeze and fail to protect our boundaries, fight in ways that may not be fair, flee in a manner that can feel like abandonment to someone else, or fawn when we should be standing up for ourselves.
Because of our boundary confusion, we often wind up on a quest for a “soulmate” who becomes a “woundmate".
There’s another way. When we learn to care for the parts of ourselves that can be so hair-trigger sensitive, and we learn to communicate with others about their own sensitivities (or lack thereof), we can find more robust and gentler ways to protect ourselves and others while still keeping our hearts open. Using Internal Family Systems (IFS) to negotiate Self-led boundaries, we’re more likely to be able to navigate challenging relational dynamics, even in the heat of boundary violations and the painful emotions that can accompany them- and this can benefit our health in significant ways.
Boundaries don’t have to be one-sided or harsh. They can be mutually negotiated, relational, and intimacy-building in ways that draw people together, rather than dividing them with walls or allowing people to walk all over the flower bulb of your heart. Healthy boundaries are also crucial for close friendships, successful business negotiations, and conflict mediations of all kinds, including addressing collective traumas and cultural conflicts. Because you’ll learn to know your own “parts” before engaging in any relational boundary, it’s also a profoundly healing tool for personal growth, self-awareness, spiritual development, intimacy-building, and physical and mental health.
This IFS-informed boundaries masterclass will give you tools if you/your clients
- have a hard time saying no;
- tend to neglect your personal boundaries because you’re afraid of losing someone or having them fly off the handle if you don’t collapse to what they want;
- think love always has to wear a soft, sweet, or nice face and you’re afraid of being perceived as harsh if you set boundaries;
- dread when certain people appear on your phone but you don’t know how to deal with it other than to not pick up;
- wind up feeling drained and hungover after spending time with certain people;
- get triggered when other people set boundaries that feel like intimacy avoidant walls;
- experience a chronic unmet longing to be seen, heard, understood, or validated;
- often feel lonely, even when you’re with other people;
- have a hard time making it clear what’s okay and not okay when you’re with other people;
- Other people accuse you of controlling behavior or being a bully and you want to learn to be more respectful and less controlling;
- often feel resentful but rarely say anything about how you feel;
- tend to stomp around, being passive-aggressive, rather than speaking up about what’s upsetting you or inviting someone respectfully to treat you differently;
- are in relationships that tend to be full of drama, end badly, or leave you feeling like it’s easier to just be alone, even if you’re lonely;
- would like to learn how to negotiate boundaries together, as a relational practice, rather than resorting to one-sided threats or ultimatums.
If you would like to purchase a recording of the masterclass please click on the "Please inform me when the recording is available" option at registration here