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Setting Healthy Boundaries with Silvy Khoucasian

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Silvy Khoucasian is a couple’s relationship coach with a passion for helping individuals and couples have healthier relationships with themselves and others.

Today, we deep dive on boundaries – what they are, how to set them, and what to do when they’re being violated.

What you’ll learn about boundaries in relationships (or why you should care):

• What the heck boundaries are and the four types of boundary violations

• The difference in how men and women process and talk about emotional reactions

• The importance of repairing after a boundary violation has taken place, and how to do

• How to bring safety and respect to a conversation about boundaries

Where to find Silvy Khoucasian

Website | http://www.silvykhoucasian.com

Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/silvykhoucasian

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/SilvyKhoucasian

Mentioned on the podcast:

Silvy’s Boundaries Program https://bryanreeves.com/boundaries-silvy/

Harriet Lerner’s book – Why Won’t You Apologize? https://amzn.to/2XRCBnJ

Brene Brown’s book – Rising Strong https://amzn.to/2XRCBnJ

Rokelle Lerner’s book – Living in The Comfort Zone: The Gift of Boundaries in Relationship https://amzn.to/2T09ECe

This show is produced by Shaun Galanos with the help from Gilford Street Studios.

Read about Boundaries in Relationships:

Setting Healthy Boundaries with Silvy Khoucasian

“A boundary is just an agreement that creates the best possible energetic, dynamic space for a relationship to really thrive for both partners.”

Silvy Khoucasian: Hi, my name is Silvy Khoucasian. I’m a relationship coach.

There are so many different things I could say, but what I primarily really focus on is help singles and couples with their relationships, helping them to create boundaries, but also how to express themselves, show up for both themselves and their partner in relationships.

I am a Middle Eastern gal. I moved to the United States at four years old from Syria. I also have a lot of unique cultural components in my own personal life that I like to bring into my work.

Shaun Galanos: We could start by explaining what is a boundary and why are they so important in relationships?

Silvy Khoucasian: That’s a beautiful place to start and so important. A lot of us would be,

“What the hell is a boundary, I don’t even know where to start with holding a boundary. How do I know where my boundary is?”

Shaun Galanos: What is a boundary?

Silvy Khoucasian: A boundary is something that we create to protect our emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, energetic space and this can be languaged very differently but the essential component of it is— we’re protecting ourselves.

A common distinction I like to make is that there’s a huge difference between a boundary and a wall.

A boundary is actually created so you can then feel safe to be more intimate and loving with the person, whereas a wall is actually, “I’m just putting up boundaries, I’m never going to let you get in so I could protect myself”.

There’s a healthy version of protecting our energetic space and then there’s a version that’s actually very destructive and unhealthy for relationships.

Figuring out which is which again is a part of that journey.

Shaun Galanos: It sounds like boundaries are what we can put in place in order for others to know what is a safe way of them interacting with us.

And a wall sounds like something that we put up as a defense mechanism to not allow people to get closer to us.

Silvy Khoucasian: Exactly. You nailed it.

Shaun Galanos: If one of them invites connection and conversation and exploration around that boundary and why it’s there and what it does, and the other is just like, “No, this is a no-zone, do not enter”.

Silvy Khoucasian: Let’s think about it just really logically.

If I’ve been physically abused or if I was put in a situation as a child where I constantly had to be physically affectionate with family, even family members as a young kid, but I was a really sensitive child, my body would close down because I didn’t feel comfortable.

If my parents weren’t tuned into that, my physical boundaries were constantly being violated.

As an adult, I might be really sensitive to how people touch me.

If I go to my partner and say,

“Honey, I just want to share with you that for some reason I’ve always felt uncomfortable with people touching me without asking for permission or without just kind of being sensitive to my state. With you, I’d really love if you can approach me gently if you notice I tense up if you can just be really present with me. It’s not about you. This is something that I’m working on, that I’ve had to work through for a long time.”

Rather than,

“Don’t touch me, make sure to ask me for permission before you touch me.”

There’s such a different way, but we can only do that when we own our boundaries, when we make peace that we have them and we’re not trying to override them or pretend like we don’t have a certain sensitivity to things, then we’re getting ourselves in deeper trouble.

Do you have anything that comes up for you when I say that, Shaun?

Read the Boundaries in Relationships transcript here

Setting Healthy Boundaries with Silvy Khoucasian

“A boundary is just an agreement that creates the best possible energetic, dynamic space for a relationship to really thrive for both partners.”

Silvy Khoucasian: Hi, my name is Silvy Khoucasian. I’m an associate psychotherapist and a relationship coach.

There are so many different things I could say, but what I primarily really focus on is help singles and couples with their relationships, helping them to create boundaries, but also how to express themselves, show up for both themselves and their partner in relationships.

I am a Middle Eastern gal. I moved to the United States at four years old from Syria. I also have a lot of unique cultural components in my own personal life that I like to bring into my work.

Shaun Galanos: Cool. Awesome.

We could start by explaining what is a boundary and why are they so important in relationships?

Silvy Khoucasian: That’s a beautiful place to start and so important. A lot of us would be,

“What the hell is a boundary, I don’t even know where to start with holding a boundary. How do I know where my boundary is?”

Shaun Galanos: What is a boundary?

Silvy Khoucasian: What the hell is a boundary?

A boundary is something that we create to protect our emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, energetic space and this can be languaged very differently but the essential component of it is— we’re protecting ourselves.

A common distinction I like to make is that there’s a huge difference between a boundary and a wall.

A boundary is actually created so you can then feel safe to be more intimate and loving with the person, whereas a wall is actually, “I’m just putting up boundaries, I’m never going to let you get in so I could protect myself”.

There’s a healthy version of protecting our energetic space and then there’s a version that’s actually very destructive and unhealthy for relationships.

Figuring out which is which again is a part of that journey.

Shaun Galanos: It sounds like boundaries are what we can put in place in order for others to know what is a safe way of them interacting with us.

And a wall sounds like something that we put up as a defense mechanism to not allow people to get closer to us.

Silvy Khoucasian: Exactly. You nailed it.

Shaun Galanos: If one of them invites connection and conversation and exploration around that boundary and why it’s there and what it does, and the other is just like, “No, this is a no-zone, do not enter”.

Silvy Khoucasian: Let’s think about it just really logically.

If I’ve been physically abused or if I was put in a situation as a child where I constantly had to be physically affectionate with family, even family members as a young kid, but I was a really sensitive child, my body would close down because I didn’t feel comfortable.

If my parents weren’t tuned into that, my physical boundaries were constantly being violated.

As an adult, I might be really sensitive to how people touch me.

If I go to my partner and say,

“Honey, I just want to share with you that for some reason I’ve always felt uncomfortable with people touching me without asking for permission or without just kind of being sensitive to my state. With you, I’d really love if you can approach me gently if you notice I tense up if you can just be really present with me. It’s not about you. This is something that I’m working on, that I’ve had to work through for a long time.”

Rather than,

“Don’t touch me, make sure to ask me for permission before you touch me.”

There’s such a different way, but we can only do that when we own our boundaries, when we make peace that we have them and we’re not trying to override them or pretend like we don’t have a certain sensitivity to things, then we’re getting ourselves in deeper trouble.

Do you have anything that comes up for you when I say that, Shaun?

Shaun Galanos: Well, I was just thinking of what’s a good way of identifying what are boundaries and then you said being aware of sensitivities.

That seems like a good barometer for this is a sensation or a behavior that is triggering me in some way and maybe there is an effective way to put a boundary around this.

That’s what came up, is how to gauge what is and is not a boundary sort of material.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, and it’s such a moment-to-moment thing.

I often say, “Our boundaries will soften around people that respect them.”

If I have a boundary and I can feel like, “Okay, they’re not forcing me to go beyond what I’m capable of.”

I have a limit, if they’re trying to push me beyond my limit, I’m going to feel more rigid around them.

I’m going to start to put up stronger and firmer boundaries.

But if they accept and embrace where I’m at, work with me in a loving way.

Again, this other person has to have a confident sense of self in order to do that and an awareness of their own boundaries.

Because a lot of times people that struggle the most with honoring other people’s boundaries are people that have not spent any time discovering their own.

They tend to be a little bit more codependent. They tend to go based on what other people are doing and it’s harder for them to really understand what the hell it is.

Shaun Galanos: I’m curious how we can start gaining awareness around what our boundaries are?

Silvy Khoucasian: What I can actually go into, Shaun, is talk about the four different boundaries and how to know if they were violated for you. Knowing if they were violated for you as a child usually helps us a better gauge.

Our boundaries could be violated as adults too, but our framework tends to happen as kids and knowing that they were violated helps us intellectually understand, “Ah, this is why when I’m in this kind of situation, I freeze.”

Or, “Even though I feel uncomfortable, I can never actually say anything because I feel disoriented”.

The first one that I already shared was the physical boundaries, which is the most obvious boundary— if someone hits you, you’re going to know, Shaun, you’re going to know if somebody slaps you on the shoulder or if someone tries to grab me inappropriately, it’s obvious.

I’m going to feel uncomfortable.

I want to feel more entitled to stand up for myself, even though I still might freeze, but I know that morally this has been a line that has been crossed, and culturally we embrace physical boundaries. Does that make sense?

That’s across the world. Maybe not across the world, actually, I shouldn’t say that. Because there are some places where woman get stoned for god knows what, so we won’t go into that.

But the other three that I found to be so life-changing for me to realize, and the woman that wrote about these, her name is Rokelle Lerner, I always want to make sure to credit her work.

There are emotional boundaries. Emotional boundaries get violated as kids when our parents share secrets with us when we’re really young kids that are inappropriate, that we should not be holding secrets at a little children, when they make us the surrogate partner, let’s say, if parents get divorced and now the child is the husband of the mom.

Or the wife of the dad. I mean, they emotionally comfort the parent because of that void that is now present. This happens a lot.

Another way emotional boundaries get violated is when nobody in the house is willing to feel their feelings and children are smart.

They feel everything. If mom and dad are not being honest about their emotions, the child is like a sponge, it carries everything for the family. Usually, the more sensitive kids tend to do that.

And so as adults they tend to choose partners that are really shut down or extremely emotionally chaotic, that ends up violating their boundaries in the same way that they were violated as kids.

Shaun Galanos: I assume also that children who are with parents that don’t process their emotions in a healthy way learn the same mechanisms, which is to bottle it up and not process those emotions, right? We kind of learned from our role models.

Silvy Khoucasian: Absolutely and minimizing, “Oh, it’s not a big deal, your feelings, don’t worry about it,” or overriding it. All those things we end up violating and honoring those parts of ourselves. Absolutely.

Shaun Galanos: As you said, we’ll find partners that either mirror that or mirror the opposite so that we can work on it.

Silvy Khoucasian: Exactly.

It’s one or the other and it can alternate depending on the stage of our life. If we’ve done a little bit more work maybe we’ll attract somebody that’s more emotional because we’ve actually done work.

And the way to reclaim the boundaries— let me go through the other two just because it might make a little bit more sense.

The other one is intellectual boundaries.

This was the one that was the most life-changing for me, that when I realized what happens when somebody violates our intellectual boundaries because I never thought about it in this way.

Let’s say you’re a kid at home, you have a father or a mother that comes home drunk, five nights a week, sleeping on the couch— nobody’s talking about it. Nobody’s talking about what is obviously going on. Nobody’s trying to help us make sense of our reality.

That child’s intellectual boundaries get violated because they cannot make sense of what’s happening. They see what’s happening. But nobody’s helping them as you said process it.

You said it exactly, that processing component, both emotionally and intellectually, without our parents doing that, we don’t get to build that skill inside of ourselves. So we kind of just feel like a robot like, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Shaun Galanos: Because we don’t get relationship education in school.

Silvy Khoucasian: Which is such a shame.

Shaun Galanos: We don’t get emotional processing 1.0.1, which is madness, actually.

Silvy Khoucasian: I know, it really is. Can you imagine just learning these things in like even just high school or middle school?

Shaun Galanos: I think it would be great.

Silvy Khoucasian: It would be amazing.

Shaun Galanos: So, intellectual boundaries.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes, a lot of minimizing or let’s say you have a parent that’s a hardcore Republican or a hardcore Democrat and everyone in the family has to have the same thoughts and beliefs as the father or the mother, because they are the head of the house. Nobody’s really allowed to have strong opinions that are different than the head of the house.

So then, a child is not allowed to have their reality validated, and as adults, these are people that tend to give their power away, if it’s time for them to make a choice about something, they’re people that tend to find gurus and people that are coaches but not boundary coaches, that end up telling them what to do instead of actually helping to guide them to come up with the decision that’s ultimately going to be best for them.

So it takes away their ability to decipher and integrate that sense of self with their intellect. Do you know what I mean?

Shaun Galanos: I mean, I often struggle with making decisions. I often fear to make the wrong decision. And I also came from the school of, “It’s my way or the highway.”

Silvy Khoucasian: Growing up. Well, that makes sense. Yeah.

Shaun Galanos: I’m starting to put a lot of things together, the more I work with my therapist and the more I do these interviews.

Silvy Khoucasian: It’s just so helpful to know where we have room to look at these parts, without judging ourselves, without shaming ourselves, without putting ourselves down.

One of the boundaries I violated the most for my partner was this one— I would constantly violate his intellectual boundaries in the beginning.

I would make assumptions about his experience that was not true when I would be triggered, I would add all these stories to things and instead of just saying, “I felt sad”, I would say, “You, you, you,”

I would do this thing and then one day he came to me. He’s like, “Silvy, I feel very disoriented when you do this.” And I was essentially violating his intellectual boundaries.

Had I not listened to that and I just kept going and bulldozing and not taking time to reflect because that’s not my boundary, that’s not mine. Mine is more emotional.

So if someone doesn’t validate my feelings, I’m like, “No no, no this isn’t going to work for me” but it’s so important that we look at where our partner or friends or whoever we’re close with, where they might have had that struggle and help them with it.

Now that you told me that you’ve had your intellectual boundaries possibly violated, I would be mindful with you Shaun and know that it’s really important for me to not give you unsolicited feedback or try to tell you how to do something.

Do you know what I mean? Because that would probably be really triggering for you.

Shaun Galanos: That is one of my least favorite things in the world, unsolicited feedback. It’s a form of verbal abuse for me.

Silvy Khoucasian: Exactly.

For somebody else that might not be a big deal, because it wasn’t something that was triggered, that didn’t come up for them growing up, but for you, it’s important and it’s important for me if I was your partner to be really sensitive about that.

I’m going to probably still do it on accident, but I can catch myself,

“Oh my Gosh, Shaun, I totally did that thing. I know it’s so triggering for you, and I’m so sorry. I know that this is a really big pain point for you. I’m going to work on doing this better, doing a better job of communicating with you.”

Shaun Galanos: I mean— that sounds incredible. I think everybody wishes that they had a partner that can communicate that way.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah. Well, the good news is— all we have to do is do a good job of the repair.

We can do a shitty job the first time around, but as long as we come back to our partner and recognize where we violated them and own it, so we don’t have to do it perfectly the first time, because that’s exhausting.

Shaun Galanos: Well, it’s also impossible because we don’t know the experiences that our partners have, we don’t know what their triggers are.

We don’t know what their emotional responses are and how they deal with that stuff. And so that’s the work, right? Every time there’s a conflict, you come back and you repair.

Silvy Khoucasian: And you’re just sharing that in the same way that if I tell somebody, “I’m really sensitive to not having my emotions validated,” if somebody doesn’t care— because that’s a vulnerability, just like what you just shared Shaun, you letting me know, “I don’t like fear”, like if I keep doing that, you’re not going to feel safe around me, right?

You’re going to get more and more rigid and start to shut down and pull away and that’s why if we don’t have the education around what the boundaries are, it’s really easy to leave a relationship and still not know what the hell happened.

Why are we broken up? Well, did I communicate what my boundaries were and was I received in a way that my vulnerability was heard, and if it wasn’t, did I stand up for myself?

And again, it’s both sided, both partners have to be willing to show it and put our vulnerability out on the sleeve and own it. Another partner’s responsibility is to handle that with care and consideration.

Shaun Galanos: Yeah, and your boundary program, which is incredible by the way, and really, really dense, it has a lot of phenomenal material, there are a lot of really beautiful scripts on how to talk about boundaries, how to receive boundaries, how to talk about them after they’ve been violated, how to talk about them with a repeat violator, like a partner who just consistently crosses your boundaries and the language is really beautiful.

And a lot of it is sort of like, “This is what I need to feel safe. I don’t want to tell you what to do, but if you continue to do this behavior, which makes me feel unsafe, I’m going to have to leave.”

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, it gives so much freedom, right?

Shaun Galanos: It’s beautiful.

Silvy Khoucasian: Thank you, Shaun. I appreciate that.

Shaun Galanos: It’s beautiful to be able to stand up for oneself and say, “I don’t want to control you, but these behaviors affect me in this way. And in order for me to stay safe, I might have to leave”. It’s amazing.

Silvy Khoucasian: It gives the other person the power to really choose if they’re willing to show up.

I think that’s the distinction, when we actually own it and let the person choose for themselves, that’s the most vulnerable place to stand, because we have no idea how we’re going to be responded to, if we’re blaming, or criticizing or still kind of stuck in that chaotic friction conflict, we’re still not being vulnerable.

We’re not really putting ourselves really out there. And so we’re never going to know how we’re going to be met until we do it that way.

Especially for men, that’s one of the biggest things to not want to feel controlled and not want to feel like they’re being told what to do.

Of course, women have it as well, but I find with men it’s much more sensitive because freedom is that value for a masculine for most men.

Now I want to go into the fourth one, the fourth and the last one that I work with, Shaun, which is the spiritual boundary that can get violated.

And there are two parts to this one, kids that grew up with a fear of God, like parents using God or spirituality as punishment. “If you don’t do your homework, God is going to do this,” just constant use of fear tactics to control the behaviors of their child.

Kids, of course, are going to grow up terrified, not only do they feel terror, they feel shame.

They feel paralyzed in a lot of ways and people that may have journeyed on a spiritual path may choose not to, because of the way that it was instilled on them.

They don’t get to be guided in a journey where they get to really question it for themselves. This is a lot of times when parents are, “Okay, this is a church, we’re going every Sunday,” or, “This is mosque”, or, “This is a temple”.

Again, they’re not talked to, they’re just almost expected to have the same faith because they’re the children.

Our spiritual boundaries can also get violated when our parents are really high and mighty. They don’t show any vulnerability or they don’t express making mistakes or that tender side, so kids grow up fearing their parents and just not feeling like they can make mistakes. They don’t feel like they can go to their parents for those kinds of things.

Shaun Galanos: Because they’re expected to know everything.

Silvy Khoucasian: Exactly and any unknown or feeling of not being able to make decisions about certain things can be terrifying as an adult, it becomes much harder when we don’t have that parent modeling.

They’re almost discomforted with certain things, for that happened for them as parents.

Shaun Galanos: I’ve learned that the older I get, the less I know. I would like to be able to communicate that to my children some day.

Silvy Khoucasian: It’s so powerful. I mean, why are we so afraid of not knowing? I mean, it is very vulnerable, but we have to be able to say that.

I feel like it gives us such freedom in all of our relationships and just with ourselves, like yes, we have information, but we have no idea how things are going to turn out, no matter how much we try to control things.

Shaun Galanos: We can’t control the future.

Silvy Khoucasian: We really can’t. We can guide it, we can do our best to guide it.

Shaun Galanos: We can plan for, we can hope for it. We can’t control it.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, absolutely.

The last piece I want to say about the spiritual boundaries is the part that really irks me the most because I have personal experience with this, is working with the coach or a spiritual person that violates your boundaries.

This is something that is happening so much. I experienced it with my own partner at the beginning of our relationship when we worked with a coach.

If you’re working with somebody that is trying to bypass your reality, your logic, your emotions, your experience, they are violating your spiritual boundaries, “That’s your ego” or “You need to override this so you can be more enlightened”. Do you know what I mean?

Using affirmations or spiritual mumbo-gumbo language to make you not be able to be in your humanness, which is very messy and needs to be messy.

Shaun Galanos: I would like to add onto this note, which I think this is an incredibly important topic that you’ve brought up.

I’m now going through a coaching program at Concordia University in Montreal and what I know of this program is not what I know a lot of people are doing in coaching.

I think a lot of people are telling people what to do.

They’re bypassing their clients’ agenda in order to fulfill their agenda.

If you do a session with me like there is no advice giving, my job is to guide the conversation and the client has all the answers.

And we can brainstorm, we can come up with stuff together, it’s a partnership but I will not be telling you what to do and your agenda is what’s important and we’re going to move that agenda forward.

I think there’s a lot of coaching which is just like, “I’ve got the answers, come see me and I’ll tell you what to do”.

I think that’s damaging.

Silvy Khoucasian: You said it perfectly— it’s about my agenda.

It’s about the coach’s agenda which is so the opposite of being able to heal the person in front of us. I’m so glad you brought that up, Shaun, because that’s when you can feel that somebody is not really being present to what’s happening for you and it is again just trying to bypass you to see another point.

“Here’s another perspective here. Look at this. It’s so shiny and you can be here.”

Yes, maybe they can be there, but they have to go through their journey to get there, we can’t just force someone to be past trauma or past things, that is the most damaging thing and it re-traumatizes people.

It literally shuts them down and they have to do the work all over again and in a much more guarded way and they have to learn to trust again.

It is really so important for me to talk about these boundaries because we’re the only ones that can really protect ourselves, and that’s by educating ourselves and starting to get tuned into our bodies and paying attention to how people respond to our boundaries.

If we’re loving if we’re saying it in a loving way and that’s what we know, this isn’t really about me when we’re clear that we’re saying it in a vulnerable kind way, if they are not responding well, that’s a big red flag. And it’s okay for them to feel rejected.

This is the distinction I like to make, it’s okay for them to feel rejected because, of course, they might just have a visceral response, if we’re in the middle of having a sexual moment and we stopped and they’re at their peak and they feel rejected. That’s okay.

But at least for them to put the words and verbalize, “I so respect your boundary. I’m upset. I’m frustrated. I have all these things coming up for me, but I want you to know I respect where you’re at.”

That is the duality of taking care of both people at the same time in a relationship that is often missed.

Shaun Galanos: That’s beautiful.

It’s beautiful language and it sort of reminds me of this idea that if I don’t respect my own boundaries, how can I expect you to.

I feel like a lot of the work starts with me respecting my own boundaries and knowing what they are and figuring out what they are and then asking for them to be respected.

Silvy Khoucasian: Is there one particular like maybe from watching the program that stood out for you?

Shaun Galanos: Recently actually I had this woman that I’m dating really needed to see me yesterday, really wanted to see me yesterday.

I said, “Hey sweetie, unfortunately, I’m busy during the day. I’ve got a whole bunch of prep for some podcast. I have to get yesterday’s episode out and like I’m just not available”.

We started talking and it kind of turned into an argument that I’m not making space. And then finally I came because it was easier to just get it out of the way now than it was to figure it out later. I said, “Fine come over. Let’s get this thing done.”

And we did and then I talked to my therapist later and she was like, “Oh that’s interesting. Did you notice that you would set a boundary there that wasn’t respected and then you didn’t respect it as well”?

I hadn’t even seen it that way until I was sitting down on the couch and sort of talking about it. I was disappointed in myself.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, we can get really angry at ourselves for not honoring our boundaries, for sure, and we can feel that feeling of resentment and like anger towards another person.

But like you said, we’re more angry with ourselves like, “Why didn’t I just hold it.”

Shaun Galanos: Yeah. I was bummed at them for not respecting it, but then I was really bummed at myself for,

“Why didn’t I just say, ‘Hey sweetie, I’m really sorry. I can’t meet today. We’ll have to plan it some other time’.”

Silvy Khoucasian: Totally, what a powerful realization to have though. We have to have that to know how to do it differently. We have to go through that. We have to fumble with them.

We have to kind of feel where we’re overriding our own boundaries or where we might be horrible at somebody else’s boundaries, because I work with a lot of people that are on the other side of what you’re saying Shaun, like,

“My partner has boundaries and I’m really uncomfortable with them. Why am I so uncomfortable with them?” It is such a good question.

Why are you so uncomfortable with them, did you never get to feel like you could stand up for yourself and seeing someone stand up for themselves is hard for you because it reminds you of that part of you that didn’t get honored.

There are so many layers. One of the things that I find that my clients give me feedback on the most is that they actually love the practical suggestions, because a lot of times, “I know this stuff in theory, but I have no idea what to say, Silvy. I don’t know what words to use,” and it sounds elementary but even for me, I’m like, “This is so true”

Nobody actually gave us the verbage, what the hell do we tell someone when we’re trying to hold the boundary without making them feel like shit about themselves.

What you just shared just reminded me of that, it’s like, how do I say, “This is not a good time” but then how do I comfort the other person so then I don’t cave.

Shaun Galanos: Right, because she was upset and I could see the conversation ratcheting up, and then it was sort of, okay, now I’m caretaking because I’m not available for this thing that has to happen that will eventually happen, it just didn’t have to happen right then.

It was just easier to cave, it just got too complicated.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah. Do you think if you would have had a language it would have been easier for you like practical things to say?

Shaun Galanos: Oh, yeah, if I had the script.

Although one of the asterisks on the script is, this is the script and it’s beautiful when it works out, but when emotions are in the middle and people are either ratcheting up or ratcheting down, the script can kind of fly out the window.

Silvy Khoucasian: It’s so much harder on the phone, too. In person, it’s easier because we can help calm the person.

What I like to suggest, whenever we set a boundary, what we tend to do is there’s a couple of different ways.

Number one, boundaries can come out really messy at first, if we’re not practiced at holding them because there are so much energy and resentment and anger and feelings and emotions for having not stood up for ourselves for so long, that it can come out really harsh and unkind.

For that, we have to learn to acknowledge that, it’s not just NO as a full sentence, the reality is you are going to have no friends if you go around telling that to the people that you actually care about.

Let’s be real.

Shaun Galanos: No, deal with it.

Silvy Khoucasian: Just look at me while I say no to you and deal with what you’re going through.

Shaun Galanos: We need a softer language. We need to be humans about it.

Silvy Khoucasian: Absolutely.

Apologizing for that, “I’m really new about boundaries, I’m still figuring out what they are and sometimes I don’t even know what they are but this is important for me. I would love to practice with you and I’d love for you to practice with me and for us to be a safe space for each other.”

Notice what I just did right here is actually set a container for a healthy boundary conversation.

Before we go into saying boundaries, I’m letting my partner know that I’m going to be bringing boundaries in our dynamic.

It primes them, it gets them prepared. Their nervous system is more ready when it actually comes up and we can create some kind of agreement before we do it, so they know what’s coming.

Shaun Glanos: That’s pretty awesome. I like that.

One of the things that I often say before I have something difficult to say, which I imagine boundaries are often difficult to bring up, is,

“Hey, I have something difficult to say— I might fuck this up”.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, I love that. I love that, Shaun.

Shaun Galanos: “But this is an important conversation and you are important to me and so it’s worth having”.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, you were vulnerable. You got to model the vulnerability that like just even hearing you say that softened me because it takes courage to say that.

It just makes other people, it made me feel like I want to comfort you and even though what you’re saying is going to be hard.

Shaun Galanos: For you, baby, potentially. I mean we have these conversations because we care about our partners. And we want fulfilling, loving relationship with them.

Silvy Khoucasian: Absolutely.

Shaun Galanos: I’m assuming.

Silvy Khoucasian: I would hope so.

Shaun Galanos: I don’t have a partner, but I’m assuming.

Silvy Khoucasian: I would hope so.

Again, there’s learning just to be able to acknowledge the messiness of where you are and things I think is so validating for your partner, even sometimes when I set a boundary because I could tend to be on the extreme side sometimes, sometimes it can be really rigid.

When you’re just discovering things or when you’ve come out of a traumatic situation, we can have really firm boundaries and when we worked with a coach, that was really violating, I came out of that feeling very self-protective.

And so I had to learn sometimes even with a close friend, even as I share a boundary, I’ll let them know,

“I don’t know how long I’m going to need this boundary to be here. I don’t even know if I need this boundary, to be honest with you, but for right now, I feel like I need it,” and just kind of letting them know that I’m struggling with it myself.

Again, it’s kind of what you did, you’re creating safety for the other person so you don’t come off as such a rock and again so invulnerable and unaccessible.

That’s the point of them so we can be intimate and soft and loving with each other rather than just, “I’m closing the door and I’m never letting you come in my room at eight o’clock and onward.”

The goal for boundaries is for more closeness if you’re setting boundaries, and it’s not bringing you closer to partner, there’s a pretty big chance that that’s actually a wall and especially if they’re responding well to them.

If they’re responding well to them and you still feel a lot of distance it’s worth exploring if that boundary might need to be reorganized a little bit.

Shaun Galanos: So we talked about a container which is a great first step in setting a safe space in order to talk about boundaries.

What would actually setting a boundary look like with somebody?

Silvy Khoucasian: Great. Whereas I tend to violate my partner’s intellectual boundaries, for me, one of the challenges for a lot of partners that I’ve been with has again emotional boundaries.

If I feel like I’m sharing an upset, and again, I’ll say, “I might screw this up. I might fuck this up,” but I still know internally that I need my feelings to be validated. I make sure to stand up for that, if it’s not happening, after the fight is kind of gone out,

“I noticed that I shared something really upsetting with you and I know I didn’t do a good job. I know I probably criticized you and I’m so sorry for that, but it’s really important to me that my feelings are validated.”

I used to drill it, I used to kind of drill that home like, “I needed to be validated now,” but I’ve learned to just say that boundary and let it go.

Because again, your partner has to feel free to do this. You don’t want them to feel forced.

I’ll leave and then I’ll observe, is this person hearing me and coming to me and validating?

“You know what, I really totally get that, I bypassed your feelings or I didn’t really make space for them. I’m sorry. Maybe you could share it again with me and I want to be able to listen to you better. I got really defensive or I shut down,” that’s how the repair is formed.

But I have to be the one to stand up for that for myself.

If it doesn’t happen, let’s say that person didn’t respond because this happens a lot, I’m taking mental note here because again, this is really important to me. Just like for you if somebody’s giving you feedback after you just said, I don’t want you to give me feedback.

That’s going to be a really big conflict if that just keeps showing up over and over again. I’ll make that mental note and after a couple of times, it’s still not happening.

I’ll bring it up again, “Okay, I noticed I brought up this thing, that’s really really important for me. And when my feelings don’t get validated, I really start to shut down in my body, my body literally starts to close off from you. I don’t want that to happen. I really care about you. I care so much about our relationship. I felt really scared that that’s happening but it’s important for me that you know how real this is for me.”

And then again, you have to let it go, and if the person after doing that a handful of times, because again we’re teaching our partners, this is not an overnight success, this takes time.

You said it perfectly, in the beginning, we have completely different lenses.

If you’re going to be with a partner you have to make space for that awkward, growing stuff and the thing that you want to pay attention to is— are they making any effort, are they showing even a 10% willingness to do what we’re asking, even if it’s not perfect, but are they trying?

If it’s nothing,  that is a really big red flag, you probably need outside support and I would encourage you to really make your boundaries and really important priority because a relationship won’t survive. Do you know what I mean?

Shaun Galanos: If there’s no attempt at meeting you or if there’s gas lighting or saying, “No, this isn’t actually happening, you’re just too sensitive,” then there’s an issue.

But if there’s a willingness to meet you, not even halfway, it sounds like you can meet him like a quarter of the way because over time that will add up and you will feel safe.

Silvy Khoucasian: Absolutely.

Being able to acknowledge those little efforts is what is going to encourage our partner. It’s different to set off a boundary like, “Hey, I need you to stop while we’re having sex,” there’s no 10% there. They need to stop.

Shaun Galanos: That’s a hundred. Yeah.

Silvy Khoucasian: It’s a hundred. Again, I’m talking about more subtle boundaries that can be negotiated and worked through over time.

Shaun Galanos: What are the things you said earlier? You said many times is that you really need to have your feelings acknowledged. Right? That’s really important for you.

One of the things I found really interesting in the boundaries program that I experienced in my life, I had said something, I don’t know if it was a boundary but it was an emotionally important piece of information that I said to this woman that I’m seeing and I said,

“What do you think about that?” She was, “Oh, I don’t know what I think about it. I know how it makes me feel.”

And to me, I was like, “Okay, that’s the same thing.”

Like what’s your response? And for her response is in the body and for me, my response is often in my mind.

Silvy Khoucasian: I’m fascinated by how men and women have a lot of the time that they’re different.

Shaun Galanos: It’s wild.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, it can really trip us up, I want to ask my partner sometimes, “How do you feel about that? Aren’t you excited about it?” He’s like, “I don’t know”,

and I’ve learned to ask him. “Oh, what do you think about that?”

I’ve had to train myself because I would never ask myself, that is not how I would approach me, but he feels so much more acknowledged and like I’m speaking his language and I have to learn how to do that if I’m going to want him to feel connected. What do you think about that? What do you think about that babe?

Shaun Galanos: How’s that make you feel, sweetie?

Silvy Khoucasian: Oh, feels good.

Shaun Galanos: Obviously this isn’t a hard and fast rule for all men and all women.

Silvy Khoucasian: No, no, definitely not.

Shaun Galanos: Often in the podcast, we’re now starting to talk about energies, people with feminine energy, people with masculine energy. I’m a Virgo, I’m always in my brain and I know women that are also like that, they’d rather talk about what they’re thinking rather than what they’re feeling.

Silvy Khoucasian: Totally, totally.

Even when I work with couples that are same sex, there’s always one partner that is much more self-identified masculine.

I don’t even bring that language in because I don’t ever assume that one is either/ or but they’ll be like, “Yeah, I relate so much more to the thinking and the freedom,” and it’s just so fascinating energetically we attract somebody that— there are a higher thinker and a higher feeler. It’s fascinating.

Shaun Galanos: I’m going to have to explore that within my own relationships.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes.

Shaun Galanos: So where should we go from here? I have so many notes and I haven’t really been looking at them.

But I’m just curious what makes sense to discuss taking into consideration everything that we’ve already discussed?

Silvy Khoucasian: Sure. I would say that the next step would be we’ve talked a little bit about the importance of creating the container as you start to express the boundaries for people, is really learning to understand where you have your pain points, because again, we can’t know our boundaries until we validate those things for ourselves.

We have to be able to say, “Ouch, that hurt me,” or thinking about our past, reflecting on our past, just based on this conversation, where were some of the things that I did not feel like were the needs that I got met.

And there was one thing that I actually forgot to mention, was people that are physically violated, tend to have boundaries but there are also people that have been neglected, kids that have not had any physical contact which tends to be very greedy with their— greed is not the best word, they tend to really seek affection but in very unbounded ways because they’ve been deprived of it for so long that they can crave love, but they can be the ones that actually violate a lot of people’s boundaries, because of that.

Shaun Galanos: Because they’re sort of grasping.

Silvy Khoucasian: Exactly.

Shaun Galanos: And they hear a NO that doesn’t really register.

Silvy Khoucasian: Exactly, because it can be so triggering to feel like they’re being pushed away. They will cling on even more.

It’s important if that resonates for us to be able to work on, “Huh, still acknowledging other person’s boundary, but making sure to tend and to work on that” to really find multiple sources for getting your needs met so you don’t put all of that emotional burden on your partner and it’s something I talked about so much in my work.

Our partner is not going to be capable of meeting all of our needs, we have to have other outlets and resources to take care of ourselves. They have to be the primary person.

They would have to be the one that we go to for the all important stuff and there is a necessary connection there.

We have to also make sure we’re spreading that energy in more than one place, multiple places.

Shaun Galanos: Yeah, I agree. People are probably tired of hearing me say this, but I’ve been going to cuddle parties in order to meet my needs for touch and affection and I haven’t been going as much lately because I’ve met someone that fills that, but for the kid who is unboundered in his affection when he grows up and he’s old enough to go to cuddle parties, that could be a safe space for him to get his needs met.

Also, what I really like about these types of events, these relationship and intimate intimacy games events where you learn how to ask for things and you also learn how to receive a NO which I think we’re just not that great at, no one likes to hear a NO.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah. Nobody likes to hear a NO and then we just leave it at NO and we don’t actually comfort the partner that feels rejected for hearing NO.

They are a human being, it’s okay if somebody gets hurt when you say NO, and we can still be loving towards them because we honored the NO, we are holding the boundary first. I love that you mentioned the cuddle parties.

What I love about that is that we’re acknowledging that we have needs, we’re acknowledging that there are physical needs, there are emotional needs, there are spiritual needs.

There are all kinds of needs and when we’re not in a relationship, to have safe places to be able to tend to those needs rather than denying them and acting out and doing things that are going to end up being self-destructive or hurtful to other people.

Just like a therapist, what is a therapist? A therapist is a person that holds space for you and emotionally helps to regulate you so that you can develop that internal regulating system in yourself.

If you haven’t had a parent or somebody in your life that has been that safe presence, that’s what a therapist is, we’re surrogate, carrying, space holding presence.

We’re taking care of the emotional and intellectual component and what you’re describing is that physical component but its structure, it’s created in a way that people feel safe. That’s so important.

Shaun Galanos: Yeah. There’s a container.

Silvy Khoucasian: It’s amazing. What else do you guys do? Do you have the intimacy games?

Shaun Galanos: There are intimacy games. There are cuddle parties. I mean, there’s obviously cuddle ++ parties, right? There are sex parties that I haven’t been to one of those in a long time, but that’s also another great way of meeting some of your needs for that kind of intimate touch.

I do all sorts of different things, I do a dance. I play hockey which gets my needs for like community, aggressive sport out.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes, the need for the challenge for a man is so important.

Shaun Galanos: The need to score goals.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes, solve problems.

Shaun Galanos: Yes, contact dancing there are all sorts of things that I do so that all of my needs are met.

I have a therapist. I have friends that can hold space, I can call them and say, “Hey I’ve got to check into something, are you available?” And they’ll say, “Yeah.” I just can’t rely on just one person to get all my needs met.

Silvy Khoucasian: It’s suffocating to do that.

It’s suffocating for the person you’re with and it’s suffocating when somebody’s doing that with us and that’s another boundary you guys, this is another thing where if you’re in the relationship with somebody that is expecting so much, everything is a boundary conversation.

We can exchange the word boundary with agreement okay, or a container, so it doesn’t feel so like a boundary because a boundary can feel like all these walls and it’s not the purpose of a boundary.

A boundary is just an agreement that creates the best possible energetic, dynamic space for a relationship to really thrive for both partners.

And creating agreements, if you’re with a partner that maybe has mental illness or is emotionally dumping a lot of stuff on you, it’s okay to set limits and to say,

“Hey honey, I’m feeling really tired. I love that you come to me for this stuff, but maybe you can also work with somebody else as you process all these things because it’s a lot for me”.

Oh my God, how hard is that to say? But how important is it to say?

Shaun Galanos: That’s pretty amazing.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, and some people can get offended, but we have to hold the boundary.

Shaun Galanos: Well, that’s the fear, the fear is that they will leave. If we’re honest about our needs people will leave.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah. Totally.

Shaun Galanos: But that’s not often the case, actually. Because it’s kind of beautiful to be with somebody that knows what they need and isn’t afraid to ask for those needs to be met.

Silvy Khoucasian: It’s so attractive to be with somebody that knows themselves and takes the time to communicate it clearly and with love. I mean, what else can we ask for?

Shaun Galanos: That’s a good one. I imagine that takes a lot of work. We need resources for this stuff.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes, and believe me, I talk about this stuff all day, but I screw this up constantly. I apologize to my partner a minimum of four to five times a week.

I’m constantly like, “God, here’s a shame coming up again because I just did a shitty job”, but I have the language to come back up out of that, whereas before I would get stuck in my shame and I would just kind of stay there, “I guess it’s time for me to leave this relationship now because I did a shitty job. Let me go pack up my bags.”

Dou know what I mean? Not because of them, but because of me and my own shame of feeling like I have to do things perfectly. It’s been helpful to have a language to pull myself back out.

Shaun Galanos: Is there anything that comes to mind as in like a time when you’ve had to apologize or a boundary violation that you had?

Silvy Khoucasian: I think for me it was mostly just my language. I had to really work on it because I would tend to blame a lot.

Instead of getting clear on what was happening for me, I tend to focus out and blame. I would blame something that he was doing when in reality, I couldn’t get in touch with what was happening for myself.

So that’s about that violate somebody, that doesn’t feel good, it erodes trust, that makes them feel unsafe to be with you.

I had to really see that, that I was doing that but he was really good about telling me because a lot of partners or people don’t say if someone’s being criticizing or blaming they don’t even say anything.

When he would tell me, “You say some hurtful things sometimes when you’re mad Silvy,” and I had to hear that, I had to take it in and breathe into that shaming feeling that I felt because, of course, that’s the last thing I ever want to do.

But when he did that, I started to be more present and aware that when I would go into that space of blaming, I could pull myself out of there much more quickly and call myself out,

“Oh my God, I totally did that thing. I totally blamed you, I’m so sorry. I just want you to know that you didn’t do anything wrong. This is totally my stuff. I’m still learning how to communicate with you. I suck. But I want you to know that I see what I’m doing and it’s not okay”, and I’ve gotten so much better at it.

Now I can get to expressing what’s happening for me much quicker.

For me having the scripts and the logical side because I’m so much more emotional, I’m very emotional, it can be reactive, it helps to ground me.

It makes it very practical, like, “Oh, I can pull from this and this,” and it brings me back to feeling very centered and grounded.

Shaun Galanos: You said that a lot of your sort of boundary violations were around language and script, and there is this idea or this thing that I sort of know about now, which is sort of dismissive and contentious language. I just had this experience recently where this person that I was talking to said, “You always do this,” or, “You never do this.”

And that is incredibly maddening to hear because no one is a 100% always fucking up or never doing a thing.

When I hear that I just get defensive, I start bringing up all these times when I didn’t do that thing and now we’re talking about something completely different. I mean, I’m having to defend myself.

Silvy Khoucasian: I’m really good if someone approaches me with assumptions about me, I call it out right away, I’ll stop them right away.

Like, “Can you please say that differently because I’m not going to be able to hear you. I just won’t. Please, I need you to say that differently. I’m here. I’m present with you. I need to say that differently.”

And if they don’t, I can’t. I just can’t, because I will shut down, I will shut off and it will trigger me. I totally get why that would be so triggering and maddening because it’s like you feel completely helpless, there is no chance for me to defend myself in this, you’ve already made up your mind and put me in such a big box that there’s no way to come out of that.

Were they able to apologize for that eventually?

Shaun Galanos: No.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yeah, that would be helpful if they were able to see it, that they did that.

Shaun Galanos: Yeah. I’m not sure that’s going to happen.

Silvy Khoucasian: Most people are not willing to own their mistakes or own their slip-ups in their communication.

We think that we’re going to look so bad and judged when we do that, but in reality, and this has taken me a long time to really see, is that people trust us and respect the so much more when we can just own our mistakes and our shitty attempts to do things.

It’s like, “Oh wow, they are not perfect. I don’t have to be perfect.”

Shaun Galanos: It doesn’t cost anything to apologize. I figured that out a little while ago. It really doesn’t. My ego might take a hit but my ego can use it.

Silvy Khoucasian: There is a great book by Harriet Lerner on Why Won’t You Apologize, it’s a fantastic book.

She talks about all the reasons why people don’t, because their self-esteem is really in a really funky place, they don’t have a solid sense of self, their families shame them for making mistakes constantly, or they were forced to apologize for things that they did not even know what they were apologizing for as kids.

All those things combined, we think it’s easy, but then in the middle of it, all these things are coming up for us that we have to look at to be able to really meet our partner.

Because nobody wants to just hear, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that happened to you”. That’s not a genuine apology.

Shaun Galanos: Well, that’s not going to fly with me. How about, “I’m sorry you feel that way”.

Silvy Khoucasian: Oh, that’s the worst. That is the worst. I’d rather you not say anything at all than say that to me.

Shaun Galanos: You said Why Won’t You Apologize? Did you say Harriet Lerner?

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes.

Shaun Galanos: Also, was the other woman Rokelle Lerner?

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes. I don’t know if they’re related. I don’t know, but I picked up on that too.

Shaun Galanos: Cool. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I got them right. You wrote on Instagram, so I’m quoting you on this, “You can be exceptionally kind and ferociously boundered, too”. That is awesome.

Silvy Khoucasian: Thank you. We have to be. Nobody else is going to stand up for us in the way that we are. Brene Brown often talks about the most loving and compassionate people are the most boundaried.

They are because they have a solid sense of self that they can then be so giving to people because they’ve carved that for them.

They take care of that part of them first. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes a willingness to slow down from your busy week and journal and talk about your day and write it out and actually give yourself space to feel your feelings so, you know where boundaries may be required.

If we’re rushing through our week and filling every nook and cranny with something to do, we are not making any intentional space to get to know ourselves.

That’s what a lot of us do, especially here in the West where there’s such a push for productivity and getting things done and it’s exhausting. That model does not work for most people.

Shaun Galanos: I’m moving away from the always being productive, always hustling to something that is a lot more manageable.

I’ve stopped using an alarm to get up. It turns out I get up around the same time with or without the alarm, but there’s less stress.

Silvy Khoucasian: What time do you get up?

Shaun Galanos: Eight o’clock in the winter, which is really late. And now it’s starting to get like 7:15, and I assume that in the summer it’ll be more like 6:30 or 6:15.

Silvy Khoucasian: You’re early birth.

Shaun Galanos: Yeah, I guess. I’m moving away from negative self talk about how productive I need to be in order to be successful and working more and sort of just trying to be more gentle with myself.

If it’s not happening, it’s not happening. I’m not going to tell myself that I’m a loser, I’m just going to be like,

“Alright, this is not happening right now, but maybe a walk around the block will do me well. What can I do right now to take care of myself?”

Silvy Khoucasian: Absolutely.

And so much of our creativity and our inspiration and just sort of brain getting inspired happens when we’re resting when we’re not doing anything.

Think about it, this is how it happens for me— as soon as I’m ready to go to sleep because I’m going into that really drowsy state, all my Instagram ideas will come up or my blog stuff, it always sparks when I’m in that restful state.

But if we carved out time to make that more of a priority, even just journaling, I’m reading Brene’s book called Rising Strong, another fantastic book. I love books. I take them everywhere.

She talks about how even 20 minutes of journaling, four days a week is life-changing for people. To sit down and write about what they experienced in the day, their thoughts, their feelings and creating that intimate space, journaling is the number one intervention that I recommend to all my clients, because it literally balances the right and the left brain and it connects them and has them communicate in such a powerful way that you integrate your experiences.

You get triggered by something, you don’t really deal with it or look at it, you just keep moving through the week and then the next week you get triggered by something else, and now you have these things stacked and then four months later. your partner says,

“Hey, can you open the cupboard,” and you explode. That’s what happens when we don’t take time to process our stuff.

Shaun Galanos: Yeah, and when we fill our days with distraction and activities and projects and there’s no time to rest. When you do sports a lot of the growth happens when you rest. And your body regenerates when you sleep and your mind and everything. This seems like another positive of taking it easy sometimes.

Silvy Khoucasian: Yes, absolutely. Sleep is where we do a lot of repairs, our dreams are also where we process, they are the emotional part of our brain.

When I work with clients, I often ask them, “What have you been dreaming about?” They process a lot of what’s coming up for them.

As far as the boundaries, just paying attention to where you feel resentful, where you feel like you cave, like, you’re not really holding those boundaries, or where you’re not good at honoring other people’s boundaries.

Just journal, I think people can really benefit from journaling what got triggered without trying to contain what comes out of you, just write it out, what is being sparked through this conversation and let yourself free flow with that.

Shaun Galanos: That’s a beautiful resource. Do you have any other suggestions before we move on to just a few final questions?

Silvy Khoucasian: Sure. The journaling is my number one. If you are not in a relationship, if you are or if you’re not, find one person that you can have that container talk with, letting them know,

“Hey, I really want to start practicing the boundaries. I’d love to practice with you. I’d love for us to do this together.”

Again, if you’re single do this with a  close friend that you already have a safety with, this is not something you want to practice with people that you’re just getting to know or they’ve already kind of proven to not be safe for your vulnerability.

That’s essential, we want to practice with safe people. Having that container talk and then starting really small, baby steps, start with something that maybe is not that big of a risk for you to say, if you have a huge history of trauma don’t go there, go to something small, I’m trying to think of an example on the spot.

For me, what I have to set a boundary on is if I meet someone new and they’re wanting to kind of go into work mode right away, or maybe they’re sending me a lot of messages, but they’re not really waiting for me to respond.

I can get really triggered by that. It’s my own stuff, totally, and I’ll maybe letting them know something like,

“Hey, if you would be okay with just waiting till I respond before sending me some other stuff just so I can manage and regulate myself with that experience.”

Starting with something small, so you feel like you build your confidence with setting boundaries, you set yourself up to win.

Again, just small, small baby steps. I’m trying to think of another resource that’s really helpful for boundaries— being gentle with yourself. If you don’t do it perfectly, you don’t own it well, if you don’t express it kindly in the first try and it maybe comes out harshly, just be prepared to apologize a lot during this process.

Make space for repair as much as you can that is just as important as the boundary itself. It doesn’t matter how many times we have a conflict with people, it’s not the frequency that matters at all actually, it’s been studied by the government research institute.

It’s how well we do the repair. So if you do a shitty job, just own it. Just go back to your apartment or your friend, whoever you’re practicing with, like, “I’m sorry I said it that way, I’d love to try again.”

And do it in a more productive way, there’s a learning curve with this stuff. Most people want to skip the learning curve, but it’s not possible. This is the messy stage.

Shaun Galanos: You’ve got to get through it to get the fruit on the other end. Do you have a boundary program? Where can we find that?

Silvy Khoucasian: The boundary program, I’ll send you a link for that. It’s $67 and like you mentioned, it covers all different topics, how to set consequences if your partner is not meeting your boundaries, how to language boundaries when you’re first dating, because that’s something I tend to work with, a lot of people were like,

“This is so new, how am I supposed to set boundaries with a guy or a girl that I just met?”

Well, actually you have to, you should and I give scripts for all kinds of scenarios on how to do that. So anyways, I’ll send you the link for that.

And also my Instagram page is where I constantly offer free support, I do live sessions and I post stuff on boundaries, stuff on attachment, which is another part of my work that I really specialized with and all kinds of free goodies.

Shaun Galanos: What is the Instagram page? I’ll obviously link to it, but if people are listening right now, they just want to go there?

Silvy Khoucasian: Sure, instagram.com/Silvy Khoucasian.

Shaun Galanos: I’ll obviously link to all of that in the show notes. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that we would be doing a disservice not talking about?

Or did we do a fairly good job of getting people some help with their boundaries?

Silvy Khoucasian: I think we did a pretty damn good job with talking about a good range of boundaries.

Shaun Galanos: Not only did we do a fairly good job, but we also did a damn good job.

Silvy Khoucasian: A damn good job.

Shaun Galanos: I have one more question for you. And this is a bit of a curveball, I didn’t tell you, but what is love to you?

Silvy Khoucasian: What is love to me? So love is being able to care for somebody else even as you’re struggling to understand what’s happening for them.

Shaun Galanos: That’s awesome.

Silvy Khoucasian: I’m going to write that down for myself, Shaun.

Shaun Galanos: Write it for your Instagram. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you and your dedication to this work and your time today. Thank you.

Silvy Khoucasian: Thank you so much, Shaun, I’m so grateful for you inviting me on and being part of your amazing work and I can’t wait to listen to this.

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Shaun Galanos

Shaun Galanos is a love coach and course creator. He teaches communication and intimacy tools for better relationships and more love.

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