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S2E14 TRANSCRIPT:

----more----Mark: Welcome back to the wonders. Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host Mark.

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And today we are going to talk about boundaries. Really important concept for relationships and for our mental health, a really important concept for a practicing rituals with one another. Just basically an important concept to be aware of and to have tools in the kit to be able to manifest when necessary in your life.

Yucca: Exactly and something very important to keep in mind. As we move into the season of Beltane. This is something that can come up maybe a little bit less this year when there will be fewer in-person gatherings, but still just to a critical concept.

Mark: Right. And in my experience in going to festivals in the pagan community and so forth there is that kind of American mistake of being really amped about our rights and freedoms and maybe not so focused on our responsibilities. And I feel as though the way that we can have healthy lusty play and all that kind of stuff is for people to get really good with the concept of boundaries. Very, very clear about the concept of consent,

Yucca: Yes.

Mark: Because what consent is saying this behavior that we are engaging in together is within the boundary of what I consider to be okay. And that's very different than, well, I'm going to figure that out later or,

Yucca: I'm just not going to think about it.

Mark: going to think about it. Yeah.

All of those kinds of things, which are very problematic and fundamentally mean that that whatever behavior you're involved in is not consensual.

Yucca: and before we go any further, I think that it's worth mentioning that someone else's boundaries is not a reflection on your worth. Right. What's somebody else's comfortable with what they want with their, how they are treated their emotions, their body, despite what decades of social programming tells you, that's about them. That's not you and your worth.

Mark: Right. And it can be very hard to be rejected in some way and not take it personally in that sense. And that's why it's really important that we work on our self-esteem because it helps us to get through those moments when we're not getting what we want and it doesn't feel so great.

Yucca: So maybe a good place to start would be talking about what are boundaries and what are boundaries not.

Mark: Okay. Great. Great. Well, the fundamental idea of a boundary is literally what it sounds like. It's like a fence around you, right? you define a certain amount of personal space and that can be physical space. It can be emotional space can be psychological space and there's a fence around it that you don't feel comfortable letting anyone in without making a deliberate agreement to do so. And if someone pushes their way past that fence, it feels uncomfortable and you feel invaded. and. So it's really important for us to understand what are our natural limits? what are the places that feel comfortable for us and the places that don't feel comfortable as well as how do we articulate those with other people and how do we, what are the techniques we can use to assert that?

And we'll be talking somewhat about that later on. So when you think about boundaries what kind of definitions do you use? Yucca?

Yucca: Sure. Well, there's lots of different kinds of boundaries. There's physical and emotional social, all of those. But I tend to think of boundaries as what you are establishing is not okay to do to you, not what you want somebody to do to you, but what is not okay for them to do to you. It is a boundary to say it's not okay to call me names. Right. It's not okay to use derogative terms. It