“I didn’t even know that I had a boundary there until someone crossed it and I flipped out”

That is how I first learned that we all have boundaries, we just might not have put this language to it. Or indeed any language. I was a young adult and it was expected that I could navigate human relationships with skill, but I was still working out what I need and certainly didn’t always handle boundary conversations well!

Having harmonious relationships is the result of developing a range of skills and being able to name and maintain our boundaries when others are not treating us in ways that feel respectful are essential parts of that. We also need to know how to talk about things as they arise and not just quietly hope that things will get better. This workshop brings together my lived experience and professional knowledge to equip you with the skills required to navigate boundaries and boundary conversations.

This workshop is for you if you find it difficult to work out what you need, how to communicate this to people and how to handle it when people overstep or cross your boundaries.

We’ll approach the topic of boundaries from a compassionate, prosocial perspective. This is about learning caring and loving ways of relating with ourselves and others. We will pay attention to the role that power, including power imbalances, impacts our boundaries, how able we are to set and/or maintain our boundaries and the conversations we have around our boundaries.

The learning intentions of this workshop are:

• Understand what boundaries are,

• Develop ways of identifying our own boundaries,

• Know how to set boundaries with assertiveness and compassion,

• Identify what affects our ability to set and maintain boundaries,

• Develop strategies to be able to stay present for boundary conversations,

• Understand how to handle it when someone oversteps one of our boundaries,

• Explore the way that power impacts boundaries and boundary conversations.

“Where’s your husband?”

This question is asked of me many times and often without any offence or harm intended. Yet it can hit some of us harder than others because of the assumption that underlies it that actually being heterosexual is the norm, the default setting.

We work with people from different cultures all the time. Even within one country there are a variety of subcultures. The UK is not a monoculture where we all watch the same things, do the same activities, eat the same food, have the same values and so on. When we work closely with people who are different from us, being able to approach them respectfully and be experienced by them as respectful is so important.

Today we will be looking at how we can work better with people cross-culturally through an intersectional lens which explicitly acknowledges the experiences of people who are LGBTQIA+, non-monogamous and/or into kink/BDSM. These groups absolutely have their own subcultures as well as being clear examples of how experiences of privilege and oppression are different depending on other personal identities such as race, ethnicity, disability, class and so on.

Aimed primarily at those in helping roles, this workshop has the following learning intentions:

• Explore what we mean by ‘culture’,

• Understand the difference between cultural competence and cultural humilty,

• Identify the importance of cultural humility,

• Understand the concepts of privilege and oppression,

• Explore our own identities as a foundation for working cross-culturally,

• Develop skills for discussing privilege and oppression,

• Acknowledging the impact of shame on our ability to work cross-culturally.

Overwhelmed. Tearful. Irritable. Angry. Rageful. Upset. Grief. Desperate. Isolated. Anxious. Fearful. On high alert. Tense. Pain. Tired. Exhausted. Helpless. Hopeless.

These are all understandable experiences when we are struggling while trying to cope with challenging times. Those challenging times could be individual life experiences such as break ups, difficulties at work and health concerns, systemic issues or holding awareness of the polycrises facing humans and the world right now.

We can turn the news off, avoid the news apps, curate our social media feeds to be a stream of cute animal videos and acts of kindness. And that can help. But when we re-engage with the things that are important to us or the news or conversations at work, family gatherings or catch ups with friends, we can find the overwhelm sneaks back in. Such a cycle of withdrawal, calming our nervous system, then re-engaging gets repeated over and over.

This isn’t sustainable and, more importantly, it’s not kind to ourselves.

Learning to be kind to ourselves and embrace our humanity enables us to find sustainable ways of balancing being actively involved in spaces, conversations and dynamics that are important to us with managing our emotional state.

The learning intentions of this workshop are:

• Explore the difference between emotional avoidance, emotion regulation and managing our state,

• Identify a variety of ways we can manage during challenging times such as this,

• Consider how to put these into practice in our daily lives.

“I didn’t even know that I had a boundary there until someone crossed it and I flipped out”

That is how I first learned that we all have boundaries, we just might not have put this language to it. Or indeed any language. I was a young adult and it was expected that I could navigate human relationships with skill, but I was still working out what I need and certainly didn’t always handle boundary conversations well!

Having harmonious relationships is the result of developing a range of skills and being able to name and maintain our boundaries when others are not treating us in ways that feel respectful are essential parts of that. We also need to know how to talk about things as they arise and not just quietly hope that things will get better. This workshop brings together my lived experience and professional knowledge to equip you with the skills required to navigate boundaries and boundary conversations.

This workshop is for you if you find it difficult to work out what you need, how to communicate this to people and how to handle it when people overstep or cross your boundaries.

We’ll approach the topic of boundaries from a compassionate, prosocial perspective. This is about learning caring and loving ways of relating with ourselves and others. We will pay attention to the role that power, including power imbalances, impacts our boundaries, how able we are to set and/or maintain our boundaries and the conversations we have around our boundaries.

The learning intentions of this workshop are:

• Understand what boundaries are,

• Develop ways of identifying our own boundaries,

• Know how to set boundaries with assertiveness and compassion,

• Identify what affects our ability to set and maintain boundaries,

• Develop strategies to be able to stay present for boundary conversations,

• Understand how to handle it when someone oversteps one of our boundaries,

• Explore the way that power impacts boundaries and boundary conversations.