Getting Fierce

Setting boundaries to protect our wholeness in a fragmented world

When people used to make fun of me in middle school, my father would tell me, “don’t let them get to you.” But I had no idea how to do this because I am a highly sensitive person and I feel everything. I was permeable like a sponge, and words and glares and judgment shot right through me, lingering for hours or days while I ruminated on how I could do better, and be what I thought the world wanted me to be. I bit my nails and picked my scabs, always trying to smooth myself out by ripping pieces of myself away.

Growing up, I never understood that I was worth giving myself the respect and dignity that I longed for in relationships, and I never learned how to really stand up for myself, and to honor my individuality and right to physical and emotional safety.

I was desperate to belong and desperate to be like my peers, so that I could fit somewhere with my lumpy body and my freckled skin. I didn’t value myself, and I gave myself away too many times, first to sexual encounters with men who berated me, then to drugs and alcohol, then to a marriage with a person who drained the joy out of every room and continued to belittle and harass me for years after our divorce. I was an empath, full of holes from feeling so much of the world’s pain and trying to make everything better by compromising myself, holes where anyone could easily slip in and steal my light, take advantage of how much I cared, and take a piece of my heart with them.

The hurt and desperation would build up inside me, and I contained myself because I thought that was what I had to do to take care of everyone else. But like a churning volcano without a steam vent I would eventually explode. My rage and fury would pour out of me in a torrent and I would get red-faced and scream and smash things and shout bitter and violent words that I would later regret. This explosive behavior continued through the divorce and on a few occasions (I’m so sorry to say) even terrified my daughter.

I didn’t want to be a raging mother with unpredictable behavior that would surely fill her with her own explosive anger and land her in therapy. When I found my biological family, at the age of 42, on Ancestry.com, I learned about the legacy of alcoholism and abuse that led to my birthmother being in such an unstable domestic violence situation that she had no choice but to put me up for adoption. I saw pictures of my biological father drunk and high and found the police records from when he stole firearms and assaulted women. I learned that I came from a family characterized by rejection and rage, and I became determined to do it differently for my daughter.

Once I learned these truths about my heritage, my body could no longer tolerate alcohol or weed, and I developed a somatic allergic reaction to any substances that put strain on my liver. I had no choice but to make real changes and get control of myself. What I quickly realized with the clarity of sobriety was that I had been letting the world fill me with toxic waste, and that I could make different choices about what I allowed to permeate me. What if I regarded my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual body with exquisite care? What if I treated myself like a temple?

My practice of getting fierce around what I take in has not only given me my own life back, it has given my daughter her mother back, too. I now have the capacity to pause when I notice a trigger, and the clarity to discern when to engage, and when to erect a boundary. There are moments of repair each time I stay in the car when I pick my daughter up from her dad’s instead of going into his house, each time I shift my attention away from one of his death glares, each time I sit on the other side of the room during recitals and school performances or schedule my own parent-teacher conference session or say “no” to another request for money. These moments allow me to keep hold of myself, even when he would see me torn apart.

The years since my divorce have been filled with opportunities for post-traumatic growth and to practice setting boundaries and reclaim all the pieces of myself that I gave away. Attentional training, mindfulness, somatic awareness, and sobriety have been transformational and powerfully healing for me and my family. My daughter knows now that my meditation practice every morning is not something I am willing to compromise, and she knows that I do it because it is the best way to keep the rage monster from attacking. I am fierce in my commitment to keeping myself regulated, rested, and ready for whatever comes at us next. I am so grateful to finally be present to life unfolding. These practices are precious and non-negotiable, because the alternative is so much worse.

When you are fierce, you don’t settle or bend, you roar. You don’t compromise or let people push at the edges of what makes you who you are. You keep your feet firmly planted beneath you and you dig deep and find that determination, grit, and resolve that it takes to protect your heart, the way a mama bear guards her cubs, the way a tiger stalks her prey. Fierce means honoring your knowing, and knowing you deserve to be treated with exquisite care and regard and settling for nothing less, even from all the past versions of yourself that would have you buckle and give in, desperate to belong. Being fierce means refusing to carry the weight of a world in crisis, full of injustice and greed, but listening to the screaming fire in your belly and pushing it up through your throat and speaking your truth out loud, saying enough! STOP. I deserve better. Our children deserve better.

Fierce Boundaries: Practical Skills and Somatic Exercises for Healing in a Traumatized World is now available for pre-order!

Carry Yourself with Dignity: You are worth it.

How you hold your body impacts your mindset. Body language is one of the strongest forms of nonverbal communication, and our posture is closely linked to our autonomic nervous system. Try it out for a minute. Put on a posture that expresses anger, sadness, hope, love, shame, fear, dignity. What do you notice in your body as you invite these emotions to be expressed through the shape that you take on?

Warrior: Warrior poses in yoga are “strong” postures. Whether you choose to take on a crescent warrior or warrior 2 or any other strong pose of your choice, give yourself permission to take up residency in the posture itself. As you settle into the posture, invite yourself to fully extend into your fingertips and from the top of your head to the bottoms of your feet. Invite a sense of engaged ease, not striving or reaching for it, but resting into it with intention. Spending time in these postures and practicing this embodied “engaged ease” is an effective way to practice boundary-setting. These postures allow you to strengthen your turtle shell, to adopt a soft front, and strong back. Sustaining these postures for longer periods of time can help to balance the yin and yang, cultivate discernment, and to be open to giving and receiving while also alert and skillful at protecting.

Hero Pose: The Hero Pose is one of my favorite ways to “fake it ’til you make it.” What qualities does your favorite hero possess? How would Wonder Woman hold herself in the face of harassment by text message? What posture did Rosa Parks take as she sat defiantly at the front of that bus. Next time your boundaries are under attack, or your simply feel exhausted and defenseless, pause and take on a posture that embodies the qualities of your favorite real life or fictional hero. Invite a sense of engagement in this physical stance, but also relax into it, as though the hero is doing the work for you. Again, invite a sense of engaged ease and alertness as you become the hero with your body. The mind will follow.