Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A conversation about what challenges men— in love, in sex, and in money.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Anxiety Rx podcast which is kind of a double thing today because my friend Neema Romani and I are starting a podcast called the Mangxiety podcast, which is devoted mostly towards men, but I'm sure we want this women to listen to it too. I think our little catch phrase is this is the podcast you wish your boyfriend slash husband would would listen to. So so we're gonna do an episode today of both the anxiety RX podcast and the new anxiety show. And I am going to have Nina take it over from here because we're gonna talk today about boundaries. Mhmm.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And Nima is an expert on interpersonal anxiety. So this should be beneficial for me as well as everybody else. Hello, my friend.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Hello, my friend. Doctor doing? Ross.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You too. So good to see you. I didn't go to Hebrew Medical School. We called mister. Thank you very much.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Let this be a reminder to you. This organization will not tolerate failure.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I'm very badly burned.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Something funny happened.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You shocked me. Okay. Well, it
Dr. Nima Rahmany:got to be done. We regress to teenage hood every time we hang out.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I think the one of the things we talk about, you and I, in this podcast, the Manxiety podcast, is that we're gonna make it entertaining as well as, you know, because men trying to drag men into an environment where they're trying to get more emotionally literate. You know, you're probably not gonna get a whole lot of, like, buying into that. So it's like we put in some humor. We put in some, like, this is what my life is like. This is what your life has been like.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I've been divorced. You've been divorced. We both been through some significant issues. So it's kinda like, can we share this with the younger population of men and even the older population of men and just give them something that they can hold on to from 2 guys who have been there, but also have a lot of training in interpersonal relationships.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. We've studied it, but also the work lives in our bones. And so,
Dr. Russel Kannedy:the And my kidneys and my test and my testicles.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And my testicles. Okay. Alright. So the the Mangxiety the concept of the Mangxiety show is really about kind of honoring the challenges that men have, the anxieties that men have in love, in sex, in money, the things that are most prevalent and you just nailed it there when you said men, and emotional challenges with connecting to our emotions. It's because, when we're children, if you're a boy, when we have any emotion, we've been silenced.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It's like you know, put up your
Dr. Russel Kannedy:shut up. Don't cry.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. Don't cry. Shut up.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Suck it up.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:If you have suck it up, buttercup. So Yep. We really don't have a range of literacy of emotions other than connecting to anger, and that's also invalidated. So men are in crisis and this is it's time that we start educating, just, you know, why we're doing this is because we're so inspired to, save the world. We're we're pretty inspired to, identify the parts of us, parts of our journey that the holes that that we didn't have filled.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And so what we're doing is we're filling those gaps for others. And this conversation is kind of, an extension of the last one that we talked about when we talked about fawning. And, we're talking today about fawning and boundaries and what are boundaries actually? Roughly, Fawning is a reflexive it's actually a trauma response. We have fight, flight, and freeze, but nobody's really talking about the 4th one which is the most prevalent which is fawning.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And fawning is a reflexive, desire to perform to prevent the other person from getting upset. So we take on a role. We it's a niceness. It's a charm. It's a flattery.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It's a charm.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:For other people, violating our own boundaries to be to be like, this is the nice guy syndrome. Oh, you know, a girl or nice guy. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it really is something that, you know, if you are truly a nice guy, this is truly coming from your heart and your authenticity.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Absolutely. But if you're just doing this to sort of get a reaction and show her or whoever, look how great I am because I've done this. Or look how nice I am because I brought you flowers.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It's performative. It's performative.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And it's transactional as well. Right. It's not coming from an authentic place. So we're gonna talk about that today and, like, I think you sent me some questions today that we're gonna I thought were really good. Do you wanna read them about it?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Few questions that I that I've been getting quite a bit from my community, and we're gonna talk about boundaries. First of all, we gotta define what a boundary is. We'll talk a little bit about that. And just a little bit on fawning though, Russ, is the nice guy thing is there's a difference. There's a stark distinction between being kind and being nice.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Kindness is coming from a place of I'm good with me no matter what and I'm kind of coming from a place of overflow. But niceness, there's a manipulative performative aspect to it where you're doing it to for perception management. To get something. To get something. There's a trend like you said, there's a transactional component of it.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And so that often happens where we have a very blurred sense of boundaries. Can we kinda go over boundaries? Because that's a difficult thing to, actually define. How would you define it from your training and your observation?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah. I think it's more of almost an existential thing. It's like from your family. You you'll see how your mother interacts with you is basically where your boundaries a lot of where your boundaries come from. Your dad too, but, you know, your mother is your mother one of these things?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Oh, you know, I'll get really upset if you don't come over for dinner on Saturday. You know, I made your special meal. And it's just this there is this sense, like, how do you feel when you're in interaction with this person? Do you feel like it's warm, it's comfortable, it's moving forward, or it's or at least it's in a, in a comfortable space? Or do you feel like, oh, this person wants to get something from me, but because they're so nice to me, it's very hard for me to just kind of say no and establish my own boundary that, no, I already have plans for this Saturday night.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I can't come over to the house for dinner.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. Yeah. A boundary to me is an energetic it's kind of like an energetic it's the shape of who you are. It's an energetic kind of limit
Dr. Russel Kannedy:where the other people end and
Dr. Nima Rahmany:the other person begins and so it you're right how it comes from childhood because like it goes back to childhood where, you know, a mother is is breastfeeding her child and then he bites her. Okay? Like, he bites and she's like, and then he how does she exert her no? And I remember when Dominic was a child when he was like a little baby, an infant and we would say no, like he would hit or he would he would kick and then we would say no and the second we would exert a boundary on him, guess how he would react?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Like you react. No. I'm very happy. Like, Dobsy and you are like clones of each other for sure. So I can see.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:No. I can see. He he well, he can start
Dr. Nima Rahmany:to cry.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:He
Dr. Nima Rahmany:would start to cry because inherently deep down, this is why boundaries it's important to say.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:This is why exerting boundaries are just so difficult because when someone exerts their no to us, it feels inherently like a rejection of our whole selves. So the no feels like a rejection and because of that, if you say no to your mother and she reacts and feels rejected and gives you the impression that if you say no, then she starts crying or gives you a guilt trip. The message that little Rusty gets is that I can't say no without losing affection. And so we then learn it's the shape of who I am. I learn is that that my values, my beliefs, my preferences to exert them, how was I responded to?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Was I encouraged or was I invalidated, denied or dismissed And the way that those boundaries or preferences were treated shapes our relationship to our no moving forward.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah. And that's basically the the root cause of enmeshment. You know, when you can't feel good about saying something for your own for your own good and for fear of disappointing, upsetting someone else that's
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Choosing you.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Codependent Choosing you. Enmeshment. Yeah. Yeah. So and if you choose you you all the time, well, that's a different story.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:But there's certain types of boundaries. You know, we have energy boundaries. We have emotional boundaries. We have time boundaries. Because if you grew up with an enmeshed family, you don't notice boundaries because you didn't you didn't have them.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. There is no you don't know where you begin and the other person ends.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Absolutely.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And the way that that shows up is when mom is upset everybody's upset. Yep. You know and naturally and and it's complicated. It's very nuanced too because with parent child relationship, a parent in order to keep the child alive must violate their boundaries in order to keep their child alive. Like last night, Diana was at a parent meeting, with the teachers, with her teachers and I was putting him to sleep and I just was like I just go the f to sleep, you know.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Just just just could you just there's a book about that. Just go the f to sleep and I could see that my boundaries were like if he was an adult, I would be able to say, hey. I'm really tired. I gotta honor what my boundaries are. But in parenting, we can't do that.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:So parenting is one place where we're violating our boundaries. Another place is if you're working in a job that's unfulfilling and you have to go there because of survival, you're not choosing many people go to work and they violate their boundaries. Maybe people go into their family systems and they violate their boundaries. So we're constantly living in a culture of fawning and it's impacting our health and our relationships.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah. And I think, I think that was very well said. And I think, you know, when you get these things about, you know, violating boundaries, the natural response from that is resentment on both sides.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:You know, I
Dr. Russel Kannedy:resent my mother for demanding this of me and she resents me for not capitulating to her needs. And resentment is what I believe kills 95% of relationships is it's it's resentment that kills us. So if we can be more boundaried and say, okay. This and you can't do it when you're both in fight or flight, but pick the time where you can kinda say, hey. You know, I've been making some changes in my life.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I'm just saying that I can't come over for dinner on Saturday nights anymore because I have this other gig that I'm doing or whatever. But we could do Sunday or Monday. You know? And then she'll go, well, you know, I really wanted Saturday, but, you know, I mean, she's 90 now, so she doesn't do this anymore. But she used to do things like this when she was a little bit younger.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So it's like she'd be like, okay. You know, that seems alright because all she really wanted was having me
Dr. Nima Rahmany:over there.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And the only way that she knew how to do that was to kind of order me around because that's what she used to do to me as a child, and it Or get cute. Worked. And it worked. You know? Yeah.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So why why were our parents do anything differently? So I mean, and part of these are the same. Why would they do anything differently for you? Because they know it works on you.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:They've been great though. Why? I know. Because now I exert my boundaries with my parents, and I say, well, that doesn't work that doesn't work with me. And so that's completely transformed and what you were talking about resentment is very key because I really wanted to share this.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:You say, you feel resentment when you violate your boundaries. You're resenting her, she's resenting you, but here's the most important piece and why it's so important as far as from an anxiety and a health standpoint is that we cannot violate our boundaries without simultaneously creating resentment towards ourselves.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It's like a self attack and when you do it again and again and again and again, you burn out your adrenals. If you're dealing with chronic fatigue, it's your body is becoming the boundary. So what I've discovered and this was like an revelation as a, chiropractor. This is what made me wanna leave my chiropractic practice is that symptoms are your body's way of exerting boundaries. So if I'm eating too much, drinking too much alcohol, the hangover is my body's attempt at setting a boundary.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:If I'm eating too much gluten and that's an assault on my system, my body's symptoms will bring up these boundaries. Symptoms are your body's attempt at giving boundaries. Isn't that a neat reframe that we give?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I think it's really intuitive for sure. And also the problem a lot of the problem with that is that the symptoms knock you deeper into alarm, which takes you out of your rational ability to actually see and set those boundaries in the future.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:So you abandon yourself abandon yourself even further? Over and
Dr. Russel Kannedy:over and over again. You know? And then and then on top of all that stuff, you feel bad that you can't set boundaries. And then that just becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So it's it's really learning to be able to kind of see yourself in this very aware light.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You're not gonna change your boundaries overnight, but you can do it slowly. You can start doing it with people, say, in your casual relationships as opposed to, you know, your your family or whatever. Just start creating little things and just get some success with it. You know, like James Clear talks about in atomic habits. Get little bits of success and then you're more likely through your prefrontal cortex and your ventro tegmental area, your dopamine circuits, you're more likely to complete that motion to change in the future.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Otherwise, if you get shot down immediately, if you go in and say tell your mom your mother, I'm not coming over for dinner on Friday night and that's that ends it, You know? Yeah. It's probably not gonna go well for either one of you.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Now here here let let let's chat a little bit. I I really had on my notes here, it says, to really share like the difference the nuance of what a boundary is. So let's say you come over and you start
Dr. Russel Kannedy:eating cashews like I did a couple nights ago.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Oh, perfect.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Because I yeah. Because because dinner was gonna be late and I'm starving. I've been looking forward to your cooking all day. So it's like, I am freaking starving. I walk in.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I see this bowl of nuts and it's like, I'm eating these nuts, man.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I'm like, dinner will be ready in half an hour. And you're like, okay. He starts going after the cashews. Yeah. Handfuls.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. Like, handfuls. And I'm like, slow down, dude. Dinner's coming. I know.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Boundary. Boundary. No. But so here here it is. Let's use that as a hilarious exact I literally just thought of that and then as you said it.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Hilarious. So as you say that, as you reach over, let's say I get triggered that you're not you're eating all my food. Okay?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Okay. Let me just jump in first because
Dr. Nima Rahmany:it's like This is so funny.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Invited me over for dinner. So in my little mind, when I get hungry, I get a little bit irrational. Right? So invite me over for dinner. Hangry.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You tell me
Dr. Nima Rahmany:dinner's I'm getting hangry.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah. You tell me dinner's in half an hour. I'm like, I expected you, Neema, to feed me. Now. So now.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So I am going to unconsciously look for anything I can eat at this point That was the cashews.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:See. And and what's important is that in that moment, you were respecting a boundary of your body. Your body was saying, I'm hungry. So you were respecting the need and that's the key that I wanted to mention is that a boundary is a expression of a need in your body.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Mhmm.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:So when I reach and I drink water because I'm thirsty, I am like my body the symptom of thirst is the boundary and then I drink. You are hungry when you came over, you grabbed my fucking cashews. Yep.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Because they were there.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:They were there. Yeah. It's all good.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Otherwise, if they weren't there, I would say, hey, I need a snack. I haven't eaten all afternoon.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And that is exerting a boundary. Exactly. A boundary is an expression of an internal need. It's about you, But
Dr. Russel Kannedy:if you
Dr. Nima Rahmany:turned around and you were like, what's the matter with you? You're not feeding me. That's not a boundary.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Well, I said that's my point. Like that's that's the child that's the child but that's the child in me, Nima. That's the child in me going, you know, I I have a certain expectation of you that you're going to give me something to eat because I've I've sort of kept my appetite, you know, in check all afternoon and now all the now my boundary was, if if there was no cashews there, I would say, hey, look. If it's gonna be half an hour, I need a snack. Now the other option I could have done was just suck it up, stay really hungry for that half hour, go I don't
Dr. Nima Rahmany:upset I
Dr. Russel Kannedy:don't wanna upset Neema because, you know, he's gone to all this trouble of making this wonderful food, so I'm just gonna suck it up and feel the pain.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:That's fawning. That's fawning.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I guess so.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Exactly. Perfect example. So the key that I really wanted to hammer home on this podcast episode was that a boundary is an expression of our internal needs. Many of us mistake a conversation. If your language is about the other person like, if you came over and you said, what's the matter with you?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Where's my you know, where's my dinner? Why haven't you cooked it?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You know, where's my dinner, bitch? Well, I can think that.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:You can think it, but that's not exerting a boundary. That's being an asshole. Okay. So that's the that's the the distinction because most of us don't exert our boundaries and share our boundaries which in it which is an expression of our internal need because we don't want us to be seen as the bad guy. Sure.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:We don't want to be seen as the the an asshole. So the key take home point is that can you express a need that's internal and that's what a boundary is. Your thirst, your hunger, your symptom because that provides an opportunity because I care about you. I'd be like, oh, absolutely. Have some cashews.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It'll be ready in half an hour. Do you need anything else? Diana was there. Do you need anything else? Can I get you anything?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:You're like, nope. You got that. We're good. We're we're gold but the question I have for you, I want to kind of address playing devil's advocate is, what happens if someone doesn't listen to my boundary? What would you do?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:What like what's what do we do when someone because now, you know, the listeners might be asking, so what do I do if someone doesn't listen to a boundary?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Well, using that example, I would regret regress into childhood because I was, you know, when I was hungry as a child, I did not like it. And and the other thing I I know about myself is I do not like anyone else controlling my destiny in any way at all. So if you said, Yeah. I don't want you to now depending on how you said that, I think I might be okay. Say, look, I know you're hungry.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I've spent, you know, the afternoon kinda trying to make this as as good as I possibly can. If you need to eat cashews, here they are. But Yeah. On some level and I'm not this isn't this isn't a demand. But if you can wait, I'd appreciate it.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:But if you can't, that's okay.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It's nuanced, isn't it?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:It is.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It's very nuanced because we're humans and it all depends on our state. It depends on our capacity. Sometimes our capacity is little. Sometimes it's a lot. Have we eaten?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Have we slept? So for the listeners to really get the breadth of this listen to our boundary, that's a time for us to kinda really lean in and re express it from what's happening inside. And if they still don't respect it, well, this is where we get to choose because this is the should I stay or go conversations. This is my specialty in helping people in a should I stay or go situation. Just recently, I spoke about this with you and we went for breakfast on Sunday.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I had a client, kind of challenge my integrity and my boundaries and it got me a chance to go inward and reflect and say okay. Was I in integrity with my values? Yes. I was. Now after I connected with that, it gives me an opportunity now to have a repair conversation and say, hey, during this rupture, during this conflict, this is my values, my priorities are to my company, my family, my business and, you know, I didn't put you ahead of my business and if that's gonna be a problem for you that I choose my values over you, now we can make a decision.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:If you're okay with that, I'm not going to abandon myself so that I can appease you and that's a difficult choice point. Isn't it Russ?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah. But you said you said it with this person in such a way that you you practiced beforehand, you dropped into your body, you were consistent, you were clean with it when you when you say it. Now, if you're not clean with it, there's all sorts of edges that you have.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:What do you mean clean? Can you define what clean is?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Clean is like, okay. Whatever they're going to say, I'm not going to get overly upset about it and and start coming from a reactive place.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Defensive. Not getting defensive.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Exactly. So because then everybody gets into that. So if you project this image like this is what my boundaries are. This is these are my priorities. And even if you're in there saying something like I'm trying to change because sometimes we have these relationships with people, and we have let them kind of steamroller us.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:We have or or we've steamroller them. And it's like we're changing a step in this dance, and it's gonna be uncomfortable for them. So just doing it in such a way that it's not against them. It's more for ourselves.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. Exactly.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So it's just staying in that.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Standing in that and standing in that and being compassionate first to ourselves and then understanding and saying I'm giving you an opportunity. These are my values. This is my priorities. You know, I'm not going to abandon myself for you. Right.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And what'll happen then is that you give them each other an opportunity. It's very nuanced. It might be we need to renegotiate our relationship. Ago. Gone through so many that's what rupture rupture and repair is kind of like the getting to know you phase when you're building a secure foundational relationship.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:If you're boundary if you're boundary if you're not boundary, one of you is gonna, you know, just keep going along with the other one's demands even though you don't see that they're reasonable and then all the resentment builds up and then that doesn't go well at all. So it is about repair. It is about, you know, creating and and boundaries ultimately are creating a fertile ground for repair. You're not gonna you wanna do this anymore with this particular person. You have to change it.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You can't change it overnight, but you can start doing it slowly. But if you stay, you know, reserved within yourself and emotionally grounded and that's what I mean about clean. I'm clean with this. What whatever way whatever they're gonna say, I'm clean with it.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I'm good with me. I'm I'm true to my values. I'm true to my priorities and I'm compassionate with them and it's challenging if they can't meet you at the same. It's challenging if they don't meet you there and that is a potential rupture, but you don't wanna be French in a friendship or a relationship with somebody, you're expected to give up yourself in order to maintain the attachment. So it's important for us this is an attachment question.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:It's because, you know, why do we violate our boundaries for it's because, you know, there's a competing attachment. If I if exert my boundaries and I risk losing you
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Mhmm.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:If I'm not resourced within myself and I haven't healed my attachment traumas and I haven't worked through my, you know, integrated my shadows and I haven't really, owned my own self worth, I'm gonna abandon myself to maintain an attachment and then give not fully me to this relationship. And now we're creating a code
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And then resent it And then resent it. So and that's what
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Most codependencies are run with resentment.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Oh, of course. That's the fuel that runs Yeah. You know, codependency and merging and and enmeshment and that kind of thing too. So a lot of people, you know, who have porous boundaries they need to be needed. Like, it's really important for them that they are needed.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:They're important for what they can give because they've trained themselves through operant conditioning. That they have a sense of importance only when they provide something. Right. And it's a way of manipulating as well. Yeah.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So it's not clean. It's enmeshed. It's codependent. And and it just creates all sorts of resentment on both sides. So Yeah.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I wanted to get back to those questions though. Like, he said, you know,
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I started I got another one more question here, but the but the the point here is that it is porous boundaries. When we don't allow those boundaries to to express themselves, it's because, you know, we don't love ourselves. We don't, appreciate ourselves and we are willing to risk losing ourselves for the attachment. And that is codependency and that's exactly where resentment builds and then this is basically what trauma bonds come from.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And a lot of times, it's not your fault. It's basically how you were raised. You know, you were raised in an environment where there was porous boundaries. And, you know, kids just follow what they see. So if they see a family that's completely enmeshed with each other, they don't know about boundaries.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Like, they just it just doesn't come into their into their frame of reference. So, of course, your relationships are always gonna be fraught with resentment and, you know, you're giving too much or maybe you're taking too much because the pattern that you saw in your own family. So So it's all about awareness. It's all about, okay, how how were disputes resolved in the family? People have the right to their own emotional garden.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You know? So you have 4 people in a family and does everybody have their right to know, you know, mom's feeling upset. That doesn't necessarily mean that all the other 3 people in the family have to be upset as well. Often that's the case. But it's just, like, do does each member of the family, can they have their own garden?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And can that garden be separate? Can you close the door to that garden so the other members can't come in? And that's right.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And that's exactly why people don't exert their boundaries because we don't wanna be the bad guy. If I if I exert my boundaries and and it offend you, then I'm the bad guy. So then I'll fawn and people please as a result. So number 2 question. That first one was what if someone the first one was what if someone doesn't listen to my boundary?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Screw them.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Well, give it a shot and exert that again And then if they're not willing to, you don't need to be in a relationship with somebody who isn't because that's not really
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah. There's recap there.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Number 2. What if I regret my boundaries and wanna change them?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Tell me more about that one.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:So, that's a question I I get quite a bit. So let's say I mean, a classic one. Let's say a man and a woman are dating and first date, second date and all of a sudden they have sex. She says, let's consent to sex and then afterwards, feels guilty about
Dr. Russel Kannedy:it. She does.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:She does. Let's say she does or one of them do. Right? That's the story that I hear from our cycle
Dr. Russel Kannedy:break students. Like, yeah. That would be
Dr. Nima Rahmany:the most standard. Pretty standard, really. Standard, actually. Pretty standard, really. And then all of a sudden they go back and they go shit.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I I went a little too far. Now what do I do?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Right.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:You know, what happens there? And so how would you kinda take that on?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I think it's to be honest and compassionate with yourself first. You know, I think that's a lot of where we create so many problems. I mean, I had this story in my book about, you know, how you get a donkey to do something. You either hit it with a stick or give them a carrot. And I I think so often, especially in this society, we hit ourselves with sticks because it does work.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Like, overtly, it does work.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. But Shaming ourselves.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:As Neufeld would say At what cost? At what cost? At what cost?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:What cost?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You know, hitting yourself with a stick works, and we don't give ourselves enough carrots. Because if you give yourself a carrot, you're kind of putting yourself in a framework like, you know what? Yeah. I made a mistake. Maybe.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:But I I'm in this emotionally grounded place. I'm in my own garden, and I can kind of make a rational decision as to how to progress from here. Mhmm. Do I talk to this person? Do I text them?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:If they don't text me back, am I gonna get devastated about this? Do I have actually awareness and control over this situation? Or am I just gonna tumble into my old patterns of behavior and probably, you know, hit myself with a stick for the next 2 months? Mhmm. So it's it's really understanding through awareness.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:It's like, how can I be kind to myself first about this?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:About violating my boundaries.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And then and see
Dr. Nima Rahmany:where place.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And and what was the what was the boundary that I actually violated? Mhmm. You know? What was that thing? Did you go out before?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:It's like, there's no way I'm gonna have sex with no sex. There's no way I'm gonna have sex with not a not a chance. And then if you fall into that, that's difficult because it's you make you make the intention. You you have your own best interest at heart and then you kind of betray yourself that way. Right.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. That was exactly it. We have to first be super duper compassionate with why we let our boundaries down. Boundaries are very difficult. Let me give you an example.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:This happened with me as well. Like, in my community, I put everything into helping my clients win. Yep. And sometimes that means violating my own boundaries of time. Mhmm.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:So I get DMs when my clients get triggered. I teach my I teach my clients how to take their triggers and turn it into deeper self love. Yep. Right? Sim similar to what you do within their context of relationships.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:So when they get into conflict, I will, in the in the midst of my weekends, start to respond to them, you know.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I've seen you do this many many many times.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yes. Yes. And my wife will sometimes remind me because I'm so immersed. Sometimes enmeshed with really helping them win and so sometimes and when do the conflicts happen? Weekends, Sundays, Saturdays, they always get into conflicts on weekends and so that's when the the the DMs and the Voxers start coming in and then I start doing that.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And so one day, I just remember I was at the Vancouver Aquarium with my family, with Dominic and Diana and I was helping a client through her her trigger and her conflict. And then I just paused, and then I said, listen. I really have to keep my Sunday to my family, and let's reconvene this at another time, you know, I'm just I really gotta set a boundary and guess what happened.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Well, you felt that about yourself.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I did, but what happened was she then was like, I'm so sorry. She went into a shame spiral and then she kind of stopped showing up on the trainings. She would put her camera on. She would dissociate, because now she went into a shame spiral which brought up a crap ton of guilt for me because there it is. I exerted this is my story.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Sure.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:There I go. I exert my boundaries and then then they get butt hurt about it. They it explodes and it turns them into a shame spiral, and then I feel guilt for setting a boundary. And then I'm like, see, now I'm afraid to now because now in the future, I'm trigger happy of just setting a boundary because it's gonna hurt their feelings and I really want them to get better and I want them to heal and then, and then but the answer is speak your truth anyway and I it was been a few weeks I haven't heard from her then I reached out and I said, hey, it's been a while since I've seen you. Was it because I set that boundary?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I understand how that must have been difficult for you and I had to set it anyway. Let's repair. So the take home point is for this question of what if I have wanna change my boundary and and said it is just be prepared for repair. Rupture and repair. Relationships are messy.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Repair is messy. Be willing. Have the willingness to repair.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Especially with yourself. Right? Like, give yourself an understanding. Like, she should give this herself or understanding that, you know, yeah, I overreacted. I, I overreacted.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I felt guilty. I went into a shame spiral. But do I really need to do that? Like, what happens? So in that case, you know, there's your need to be needed which is quite powerful and overwhelming and I'm glad to see that you're kind of moving away from that a little bit.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And then her need to be heard at all hours of the day or whatever. So both of those things came into conflict and compassionately sounds like you were very compassionate when you said it, you know, because it's it's not it's gonna cause some waves like it's not
Dr. Nima Rahmany:gonna be
Dr. Russel Kannedy:uncomfortable, especially if you've been working on these boundaries, these templates, these organizational structures of your life for your whole life, it's going to be messy at at first. And it there's going to be that that initial, oh, you know, maybe I'll just go back to people pleasing
Dr. Nima Rahmany:punishing me. She was just having her own experience and she was just by the sounds of it. Exactly. 100%. 100%.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:So the last question these are super duper helpful. The last question is why when we're setting boundaries is it important to make it about us?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Well, we can't make it about anybody else. Otherwise, it's codependent. If you're trying to make a a boundary based on someone else's needs, you're doing the exact opposite of creating a boundary.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Right? So Focus on what's happening internally then.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And this, I noticed specifically more with women than men. But it's hard to set a boundary where you may be disappointing someone. Men are a little more able to do that. This is just a general rule, not always, but women are kind of like the the glue of the society. So if they aren't available, you know, it's really difficult.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I find men are a little easier to be able to kind of go, look, I can't do this. It's not gonna work for me, whatever. But women, it's just hard with their makeup to be connected. And especially connected through language. You know, men, we're connected through, like, sports and, you know, punching each other on the arm and, you know, teasing each other and that
Dr. Nima Rahmany:kinda stuff. To the gym and have a workout. Same. Or let's go for golf. Let's go for a golf, you know, golfing or whatever.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:But women, it's it's much more of a collaborative. It's much more of a integrative experience. Exactly. So that's such fertile ground for boundary violations because, you know, each of them wants to be and I'm I I don't mean to sort of, know, minimize women here. But each of them wants to be so connected that you can't have that, like, mutual connection.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Someone usually has a need, like, I can't come this weekend because I gotta look after my kids or whatever. Someone usually has a need. And if they feel like they can't choose no, that's a big problem. And I think men have an easier time saying no than women do. So I think the boundary exercise is great for men because we don't really even think about boundaries to start with.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:But for women, just being compassionate with yourself while you're doing it. And understand that it's going to be messy. It's gonna be painful because you've gone through your whole life with this familiar program where you can kind of this is the other thing women do is they smooth things over. Mhmm. They smooth things over.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Right? Until the next flow
Dr. Nima Rahmany:up. Yeah. 100%. It is it is the fear of being abandoned. We have these two fears, the fear of abandonment and fear of engulfment that are breathing down our necks.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:The fear of being abandoned by them so we don't say anything or the fear of being consumed by them so we have to. So it's either we feel abandoned or consumed and this is the 2 primary fears that we're all the task of everyone to deal with in within interpersonal relationships. So this is a huge topic. I mean, we could go on and on and boundaries are something that are developed over time. What's the word?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Flexible. They come and they go. Yeah. They they're coming, they go. They're either super duper rigid.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:The idea is not to have such super rigid boundaries that were imprisoned by them and we shut people away and not completely porous where we lose ourselves. It's very nuanced. It's something that's negotiated through rupture and repair. So it's super important to have the skills to become trigger proof and to take conflict and turn it into deeper intimacy. One of the things I'm super grateful for about my relationship with you is that we have a secure relationship where you can speak what's going on.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:I can hear your back. You can say your no, and I don't take it as an attack.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You can see the mistakes I make You can see the mistakes I make in my life and treat me with compassion. And I can see the mistakes you've made in your life and treat you with compassion as well. And I think if if we did that as human beings, we would we would live just such easier easier life. And so when I talk about boundaries, it's basically I have like an ABC thing. Like, right?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Awareness. Like, how do you feel when this person is interacting with you? Like, is it something that sort of gets your back up, or is it something like, oh, I really enjoy being with this person? That's the first thing. Now sometimes we can have boundaries with a person that we really like, and and we tend to sort of give them a little extra leeway because we really like them.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Now that's kind of a boundary violation too, and it's a bit of a nuance. But it's more being aware. Like, how do I feel with this person? And then the next thing is, you know, go into your body. Go into your breath.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Like, what really happens to me when I look at saying I have I've been invited to 2 different things on Saturday night. I'm gonna have to disappoint one of them. How do I feel about disappointing this person?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:The lesser of 2 evils.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And you may even pick the one that hurts more because you think that that's probably a better choice just in a in a perfect world. Of course, we don't live in a perfect world. And then just having compassion for yourself for setting those boundaries because, ultimately, you are creating better relationships for yourself, better relationships for the other people that you're involved with. Because the more boundary, the more you can stay in your own garden and they can stay in their garden, the more connected ironically you'll actually be.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Right. Because you know that the person that you're in a relationship with isn't people pleasing to be with you. You're getting the authentic version of them. Not the watered down, you know, how would you feel yeah. How would you feel if the person that's friends with you has been fawning with you the whole time?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Like that's that just feels gross. Right? And so we really have this deep desire for secure relationships, but we have these conditioning and these fears, the fawning response, fear of being punished for speaking our truth that gets in the way. And that's why I'm super duper inspired to have this conversation to educate people who wanna go deeper, and I'm grateful to have you, on the path with me educating.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:I enjoy having conversations with you about this to kinda just say, hey. This is what happens. This is why I ate the cashews. This is what's happening. Right?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And the fact that we can go about that and just sort of say this is what's happening. Right?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. Just make sure you stop at Costco on the way. Exactly. Next time, replenish those. Of cashews.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Of cashews. Stuff down your gullet. Gorgey bastard.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Oh, well. Yeah. You know, we do your we do our best. See now I'm bounded enough to know that you're just joking. Right?
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So I go, okay. I can I I I don't have to get resentful? I'm not. Okay. There you go.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So that's a good boundary we can set right there because I'm not either. So we can just keep working on this. We just keep working on this together. But yeah. I mean, I think just just to wind this up, it's really boundaries are ultimately just your relationships, how you relate to other people.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:And if they're very porous, your relationships aren't gonna go well. Right? Eventually, they're gonna they're gonna crack up.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:They're essentially how I'm relating to me and how I'm reporting to you my relationship to myself. That's what a boundary is to me. Is boundary is my embodied somatic relationship to myself. It starts there and then reporting it as a gift to you because I wanna have a a relationship with you that respects mine and your boundaries and that's where secure attachments really are formed.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:Yeah. And to kind of wind it up too, like we can be a reactive self, which is basically people pleasing, fawning, even aggressiveness, anger. That's a reactive self. It's very hard to have relationships that work when you're living in your reactive self. And a lot of us who had a lot of trauma as kids live on our reactive self.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:100%. Now can you be your authentic self, but you will only find your authentic self once you start setting boundaries. Because if you're always in this, you know, this cork in the ocean being thrown around, you never really know what it's like to be on dry land. And if you've never grown up with boundaries, it's one of those you don't even see it. You don't even see that they're there.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:You just know, hey. My relationships don't tend to go well. I tend to be a loner. I tend to be aggressive with people. I can't keep maintain friendships, all that kind of stuff.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:All those things are because you haven't cultivated boundaries, And you're living in a in a sort of a transactional semi codependent enmeshed world, which is a very difficult place to live. And it's a very anxiety bringing you back to anxiety, just to just to wrap it up, is a very angst anxious place to live because if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything or whatever the saying is. And that alarm will just keep building in your system. And the alarm will prevent you, ironically, from creating those boundaries because you'll go back to the groove of how you interacted as a child. And that tends to not go well for you, especially if you had trauma as a child.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So it's just learning Yeah. Awareness then going into your body and then being compassionate with yourself. That's really how you start start with your boundaries and how you kinda maintain them because that's another another podcast is how you maintain these damn things.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:A 100%. It's a moment to moment practice. I'm stoked for the people that are really wanting to delve into this topic a lot deeper and learn more. I'm doing a a workshop on this. It's Friday, 5th is it 15th March?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. It's coming up. I'll provide a link there. It's called From Fawning to Secure Boundaries. How to Elegantly Advocate for Yourself in Relationship and what I'm teaching is how you can take responsibility to become kind of like your own inner advocate so that you're not drowning yourself to please others.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:And we could talk about, fawning, where that comes from. And then I have a little a little quiz that I do just during the it's a 3 hour workshop, and it's only $30 for anybody who's
Dr. Russel Kannedy:super interested. Quiz?
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Bambi. Yeah. It's bambi hashtag Bambi no more. Yeah. Bambi and thumper.
Dr. Nima Rahmany:Yeah. Bambi and thumper. Exactly. And so there's a little quiz where we kinda see give ourselves a rating on how our boundaries are so we know exactly pleasing so that we can pave the way for secure relationships and that's coming up and I really look forward to, teaching that to the peeps that are ready to dive deeper in the conversation. Awesome.
Dr. Russel Kannedy:So I guess that's it for this particular episode of the Anxiety Rx podcast and the Mangxiety podcast. And as you say, we will see you at the next perfect time.