Episode #61: Banned Books, with Laura Anderson, part 2 of 2
One of the most common relational processes that the deconstructing world talks about is boundaries. Evangelical circles encourage the elimination of boundaries. Sexuality is public, as Purity Culture invites people in leadership positions to make a variety of comments about people's bodies. Accountability groups and testimonials favor people who describe the most intimate parts of their stories.
When making sense of these harmful systems, it's easy to go the opposite direction with boundaries; in fact, quite a few people in the deconstructing community invite people to do this. But as we talk about with Laura Anderson, author of When Religion Hurts You, the construction of boundaries is a complex, nuanced process, something more complicated than just "Setting those boundaries".
Laura talks with us about:
Leaving Religious Spaces (2:15): Julia starts us off, “Leaving religious spaces comes with immediate relational losses, such as the friend who said ‘God hates divorce’ when I tearfully confided in her about my separation.”
Trust post-Religion (4:00): Jeremiah says: “Building and maintaining a social network involves a new relationship with trust which can be really hard when religious systems hurt you.
Boundary Rigidity (5:40): Laura discusses, “Coming out of high control religion, boundaries are more like rules than what we might clinically consider boundaries to be, and so I think there's like a needing to reframe that or re-work that principle in order to understand what boundaries truly are. The other piece that I notice a lot with boundaries, especially when we're talking about people where there's a lot of unresolved trauma, a lot of active triggers, and a newness in this process is that there's a lot of boundary rigidity. Our work is about helping people understand that boundaries themselves don't have to be rigid.”
Differences Being Dangerous (11:00): Julia talks about differences and high control religions: “I hear you describing in setting boundaries, we acknowledge that sometimes setting a boundary or receiving a boundary from someone else will highlight a difference, a difference in belief or preferences or any other number of things. And in high control religious contexts we learn that differences can be really dangerous.
Pop Psychology (18:00): Laura says: “I love social media for so many reasons. But I also look at the way that certain things have kind of taken on a life of their own. And I'm like, that's not what that means, or that's not what boundaries are. That's not what trauma bonding is. That's not what a narcissist is. And I can appreciate people trying to understand things, but boundaries are for me, what do I need in order to keep myself safe?
Trauma in the Context of Relationships (21:00): Laura says: “It's very common for people to have an amount of isolation prior to getting into some healthy relationships. So much trauma is based on being harmed in the context of relationship. And even though research talks about how we need relationships in order to heal from trauma, that can feel incredibly scary.”
The Practice of Slowing Down (23:00): Jeremiah highlights, “Even in relationship therapy, we talk about, as a relationship process, how can we talk slower? How can we give more spaces between the clauses that we use? How can we slow and kind of soften our rate? There are ways that you can establish practices of slowing down of space within the relationships that you have.”
Isolation v. Relationships (26:00): Laura shares: “There is such a visceral difference between isolation and relationship that my body feels it every time. So to talk about the people that I'm in relationship with, there's this overwhelming gratitude that comes up because I understand what the healing piece is there.”
Healing Ourselves First (31:00): Julia says, “Sexuality and sexual healing first and foremost begins with the relationship to the self. Before we move into even sex with ourselves through masturbation or through other self pleasure, we first come back to who we are in our bodies in a more neutral kind of way, and then we move towards these other relational aspects of healing, whether that's with our sexual self or with a partner or partners or anyone or anything else.”
Living in Your Legacy (34:00): Laura discusses: “I love Janina Fisher's work here of the living legacy of trauma. She talks about how legacy is oftentimes something that we inherit, that is generational. But a living legacy is saying, here's these things that have happened, and this is my legacy. I am living in this, and yet, it's not necessarily the totality of who I am, it's just that I live within that construct, and it's actually meant to give freedom.”
Accommodations and Understanding (35:00): Laura offers a metaphor: “I use the language of, chronic illness, chronic disease, to talk about accommodations. And so we think about people that have injuries or whatnot, I think in the book, I say something like if, if somebody has a written test and they have a broken arm we don't look at them and say you are so stupid for not being able to write the answers on your test or your arms should just heal faster so that you can get this done. Right. We're like, no, Hey, do you need somebody to write for you? Do you need to do an oral exam? Totally makes sense that you can't take this test, you know, writing because your arm is broken, right?”
Let's heal together!