It was/is something I had to be taught and re-evaluate to get right. It’s not a one step internal process as much as it’s an ongoing process like working out, or eating a healthy diet or even writing and publishing.
Unfortunately I grew up with parents who experienced a lot of trauma in their lives. Fortunately though they were not only highly educated, having met in college but my mother majored in psychology. This meant that the idea of mental health, seeking mental health counseling and being conscious of feelings were all within the realm of possibility, very unusual for African Americans. I think what also helped was that my parents became adults, in college, post 1960s. There was still enough of “free thought” being pressed and Black Consciousness but it also meant that they were away from some more repressive parts of the larger society.
The negative side to “freedom” was that they got involved in drugs and alcohol in distracting and addictive ways. Both of them had strong addictive issues but again luckily, due to education, I was well provided for so we never lived in poverty. This also meant that my mother was more aware of getting out of control and voluntarily went to rehab then shifted our lives away from father and addictive stepfathers. She was able to become self reflective enough to see herself, if not clearly, then as the architect of her own misery and rectify much of it.
What this meant growing up was that on one hand I experienced a lot of freedom, not from necessarily neglect but as an only child there were less boundaries between myself and the adult world. Everything was honestly and graphically explained to me which then artificially advanced past other children my own age. In order though to be a child in an adult world, it was easier to take me along sometimes than find a babysitter,I became not a direct people pleaser but something similar, helpful, gracious, giving—-it took me years to learn appropriate giving in the sense that I gave as I wanted and not simply to make others happy, which creates an indirect shine back onto me. I now give because I genuinely want to. The good part about this is that I’ve ever been attached to an outcome from the giving, which means I’m not predatory about it. I’ve found though in balancing myself how non-giving so many people are and therefore how being giving made me stand out or has given me opportunities. In many ways those dysfunction of Swiss cheese boundaries forced me to establish a higher ideal about being generous and helpful. In corporate word this wasn’t such a big problem but becoming a teacher/educator it was and in personal relationships.
Teaching/Educator
I worked as a TA for a university then corporate world for about a decade than slipped back into education at a charter school then several non-profits and eventually a university again. This meant that my students, 80% over 18, were closer to my age or older than not. I also spent years teaching workshops/counseling around sex and sexuality so this meant that I was intimately acquainted with personal and private issues from a lot of my students. What this meant was that worked for several organizations that had bad boundaries so I had to first notice this then adjust myself then understand I wasn’t being stand offish or rude by keeping myself, my personal life private but that it was the internalized corruption of agencies that had bad boundaries.
Several agencies like GMAD, Gay Men of African Descent or Black Men’s Xchange normalized predatory sexual behaviors, unsafe sexual behaviors while being funded to be the opposite and fraudulent financial behaviors. It wasn’t until I worked for GMHC, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Phoenix House, that I found healthy boundaries that aligned to my own internal ethics and morals. But this meant that I had to slowly weed out friends, clients, former students, former coworkers—-including directors and social workers—-from my life because of their drug/alcohol habits, predatory sexual habits towards younger people and their dissonance around safe sex and caring for the health of others.
How I Changed
I had a friend from middle school, who started out male—-let’s call him K. It was pretty apparent that whatever K was going to be, a total geeky nerd that he wasn’t going to be conventionally heterosexual. He was just very light melanin wise and fey-—-so he stood out even among Black people. Eventually when we were about 20, K had gone to school in Buffalo and I was working at home, helping to pay off the mortgage while figuring out how to get to college myself, we had a discussion on the phone. I calmly said that I’d joined a gay dating service. I’d been in counseling with a high school counselor for years—-she started a group and had a relationship beyond friendship with my best friend—-come out to my family at 18, so K steadily more of a distant/visiting friend was the last to know. I was very nonchalant about it and that’s when K revealed he was trans. I was very nonchalant about that too. K peppered me with interruptions and questions until he—-transitioning to a she understood that I understood.
By then my mother and I had done intensive therapy with meditation techniques, I still use today; I’d been in an Incest Anonymous group for over a year; I’d been to years of AA and NA meetings with my sober mother and I had the high school counseling. This is important because the conglomeration of those things forged a healthier sense of self within myself. K and I had diverged after high school, him getting the chance to move to absolute suburbia with his father and stepmother and then onto to college. We talked about his being sexually abused at 6 onward and how he thought and related to it as the best sexual experiences of his lifetime—-though the perpetrator was 10+ years older. My own sexual abuse experiences I was purposefully working to contextualize as separate from my sexuality and then identify my sexuality clearly and enact it healthily.
I eventually went to the same university as K, who flunked out after 7 years and though I was trying to work downstate and the deal was K would keep my stuff in her apartment basement, I’d return, and we’d find a big place, in NYC, in December, K surprised moved in September. As sort of a passive revenge thing because I’d gone to PA, my mother’s house, then left there and was in Philadelphia working. In retrospect, I lost lots of stuff from Buffalo because I wasn’t taking care of K, I was taking care of myself. But I had accustomed myself to being the brother/caretaker role and with my high paying job helped K learn and get well paid too in NYC, using my credit to get us a big apartment.
K though was out of control—-dressing female, purposefully taking illegal hormone pills and silicone injections under the muscles to create a female appearance but not eating so there was no fat to “shape”. K was literally working at an antithesis with herself. She was also constantly on a dick hunt, inviting vagrants into the apartment, to draw them naked or married men. It wasn't like one’s wild 20s where you’re dating and learning yeses and noes, K was like a bad remake of Looking for Mr. Goodbar, with increasingly more dangerous acts for both attention and self destruction.
Finally 2 years into this roommate hell, we’re having a blow up over K leaving the front door open in the mad dash to get a married train conductor from the 7 train back to her bedroom, to blow, the previous night. Within the argument K explodes that for those 3 months I was working in Philadelphia, while I stayed in contact with her and family to let them know I was safe, I’d detached, not told anyone where I was.
I realized that having taken time away from K and my money demanding parents/family—-a boundary—-had been seen as betrayal by K.
I was also regularly listening to and reading Marianne Williamson and one of the things she’d said in a lecture was that if you find yourself in an argument and you think it’s insanity, that the other person is insane that is the intervention of God, in a holy instance, and that you too are insane.
But that the most insane person must step back and the very next day get a therapist.
The very next day I went and got a therapist. Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, The Therapist. A Romulan.
In our discussions we talked about my friend and family—-bad boundaries and more importantly how I was enraged—-no, like murderously enraged internally for the past few years. How I perhaps loved dysfunctional friends, family, relationships but deeply disliked them yet never got to call them out on their stuff.
Elizabeth and I worked on basic boundaries—-like self worth care of my being on time—-that it was my self worth care to tell my idiot V boss that one day a week, I was working 100 hour weeks, I need a 90 minute lunch so that I would have time to get across town for our 60 minute appointment. Every minute I was late was cheating myself, did I think I was worth 1 hour in my own healing?
Elizabeth actually looked like a Romulan—-she was as tall as Helen Hunt and cut her hair with a soup bowl. But she was sharp, incisive and called me out on the things I let pass or hurt me. She told me that within 6 months time, following her guidelines, I would change and K would notice, my family would notice. They would then be super nice to me to try and woo me back to my old ways, that would be when I had to choose—-old or new.
Six months later my birthday came up and I decided to throw myself a huge birthday party at a favorite restaurant—-I invited 30 people with invites and notes about books, candles or incense being a great gift. I came home with sacks of gifts that I dumped in the living room and then promptly went on a fun brunch the next day as a first date.
K noticed and tried to give me a gift but I told her no, thank, you , I actually already had it. I saw then how furnishing my bedroom, feeling guilty I then cajoled my mother into helping furnish K’s room as she gave me furniture from the big house in PA. That I should’ve left K sleeping on an air mattress with no furniture but I felt guilty about finding/buying a king sized bed, tables, chairs, a desk—-living like an adult.
K was content, as she’d been in a room in Buffalo, to sleep on the floor, have a closet full of slutty clothes and skads of make-up and comic books. After 6 months with Elizabeth I was able to SEE who and what K really was and that I was an enabler/caretaker to this person.
A few months later, I discovered K was purposefully not paying her half of the rent, cable, electric to tank the apartment, which would force the last 6 months of the lease to break. She of course had her parents house to go to, I had no family in NY so I would’ve effectively been homeless if I hadn’t noticed what was going on. I realized we’d played this game of bills, catch up, housing court because I was expected to act as the administrator/adult and attend to details and that privately, I never trusted K.
I never trusted, after 15+ years of friendship, K because K never went to a psychologist as a trans person is suppose to, was doing all of these illegal drugs (even her stepmother confronted her with how are unregulated drugs changing her mentally plus the illegal silicone deposits in her body)—-I was in many ways managing my family’s addictions through K. Once I got that, I pulled my money together, kicked K out and lived in a gorgeous apartment with a fireplace until I was ready to move.
Coincidentally the month after kicking K out I allowed my mother to visit—-to set her up with a job interview with my idiot boss, the VP as she was considering leaving my stepfather in Charlotte. She had moved in her boyfriend and began graphically describing on the LIRR their “exercise routine”. Yes, she moved in her boyfriend with her husband,. Then her last night as I’m counting my nickels and pennies so that I had the $5000 to get the apartment out of arrears (no, she brought no money)—-I was able to single out $75 on a tight budget to take her to dinner. I go into the living room and she, who had arrived with one bag, had several and boxes—-she’d gone shopping through my apartment for things she liked. First I peaceably tried to offer, I’ll buy/forward you stuff-books from Amazon then I finally said no. Took her one bag and her and kicked her out. It was 7pm, her train (which I’d paid for left at 7am—-I told her she’d have to sit at Amtrak and think about what she’d done.
I was on a roll.
When I told Elizabeth, the Romulan, calmly asked, knowing my mother’s dysfunction, why I invited her, paid for her to come at such an upheaval time? I groused at the little Romulan. But I understood her point.
Carlene Hatcher Polite, the Pulitzer nominated writer and professor I’d worked for in Buffalo, had met K once at a concert. Later, after TA work/class she took me to lunch and gently, in her inimically, metaphor laden, word dancing, way asked if she could tell me something, offer me something? I was flummoxed because she was being so careful. I said yes.
She said that she was surprised K and I were friends. She’d moved through many lives, over many continents, so she knew all kinds of people, all kinds of sexualities and such, but that being older she had looked deep into K in that short meeting. And knowing me, my character, wanted to know why I had such a “fragile” person as a friend.
I was gobsmacked and silent. Blown away by her estimation of K.
Three or four years, later when I’d thrown K (and my mother) out and was on the phone with Carlene describing how I’d been cleaning this 2000 square foot apartment from top to bottom, not my normal cleaning, but actually on the floor scrubbing the extra bedroom, opening windows all night, setting off all kinds of incense—-Carlene gently suggested to me: had I ever considered that what I was in actuality, unconsciously, spiritually doing was trying to get rid of the remnants of an unclean spirit?
I was gobsmacked and silent. Blown away by her estimation of K. Again.
I had gotten K work (at a salary level , $40k+ a year that she didn’t deserve or had earned), a home, furniture, food, emotional support and got very little of that back, instead I’d been undermining myself. Much the same with my family. During that time I’d sailed ahead in a good financial analyst career, had several healthy boyfriends and recognized my own dysfunctions.
I saw Elizabeth for a total of a year then moved on, eventually to working in education and then took up anther therapist Allison, when I thought from my small business endeavor of earning so much money on the side, that I need counseling. It turned out I meant a life coach, which I got a few months later, and he helped me with moving on and away from the corrupted non-profit agencies that I worked for, that I didn’t want to leave because I, as a youth coordinator and teacher, didn’t want to leave my charges to the wolves.
I helped those leave the program—-insanely recruiting up from zero to 80- then slowly pushing them out and away until there was only 1 left. He skipped out on his pick up to rehab and I left a few weeks later.
I learned though that though I was hawkeyed on not getting in a dysfunctional romantic relationship, having set good boundaries with my friends and family—-that one’s job world could be a dysfunctional relationship.
I left the job for GMHC, who’d been courting me for a year, confronted myself about what I was truly worth, took care of myself, refused contact or to allow certain people into my home, really thought about the dysfunctions some presented—-and like I did during the K times—-got a fucking life away from those work peers. What made it trickier though was that my work and personal social life—-parties, groups, etc. overlapped and I lived in the neighborhood of the agency. I had to learn to socialize elsewhere, make new friends, separate and compartmentalize a lot. My boss at GMAD, who eventually went on a sex spree infecting people with HIV while embezzling company money on crystal meth was actually mad at me when he laid me off ad I accepted teh GMHC offer the next day and was working there when he came begging for agency money a week later. he was mad at me for being okay. No, really, that’s how crazy the agency heads were.
One friend, work peer, I called up and having pulled him along to several jobs, was asking how he was.
No literally I said “Hi, how are you?
And he said: “Well, I’m still depressed because I can’t find a man. No one wants me at my age so I’m not having sex which makes me feel awful about myself. I’m so lonely, I will never be happy.”
I actually looked at the receiver—-all I said was Hi, how are you?
I realized how mired in his own pain and drama he was but I also realized how he vomited it at everyone (which is why he’s single) before you got past general pleasantries. I saw the swamp he immediately threw up at you. Which precluded you or ME existing in his view. We were targets for his depression not real people that he could be supportive of or happy for. Which ironically is one of the reasons why he was unattractive.
Another coworker, this one a social worker, saw me on the train years later and asked about my mother passing, did I get the house, did I get money? how much money?
I was so shocked at such casual personal questions on a crowded train, that I asked about the guy half his age that he’d been a “therapist” for that he’d tried to seduce—-have you heard from him? I had. I’ gotten him teaching jobs. Then I asked about the social worker’s HIV+ status and how I’d seen/heard he’d been in the hospital for a brain infection and how he was constantly in and out of the hospital. How was that heath decline going?
He was actually gobsmacked that I came back at him, his shit, so viciously. He said I hadn’t changed and got up and left, telling me to contact him.
Before my mother died, in Charlotte, I called him because of his profession to ask him (and others) about elder programs in NYC. He left me a voicemail laughing, no elder info, and asking could I tell him how to do an Access Query?—-maybe a shot at my leaving GMAD and nearly doubling my salary at GMHC teaching computer certifications. I never forgot that. I think he was high too.)
I realized with people, jobs, even family that I had made space for their insanity, allowed them to trounce across boundaries.
Now I will hit you with a gentle but firm No—-I practice at stores, with vagrants—-I believe in looking people directly in the eye, no matter their station in life and saying No, thank you—-to their requests. Here in NYC it’s pushier vagrants so sometimes you have to say No a lot harder but it’s good boundary exercise.
I’ve learned to give as I will and consider how the person received it, what I meant, what I didn’t mean. Some people have never been freely given to so when you give them a book they think it means you want a blowjob.
No, I was just giving you a book.
When I’ve won money sometimes I treat coworkers one or two at a time to lunch or tell them I’m headed to pick up my dinner, how many are in their family and bring a dinner for them.
I can give. It’s cool and fun. Most people are gracious and accept and the giving comes back 10 fold from other sources—-like winning money occasionally! lol
I learned to maintain boundaries with my mother so that I could loyally and lovingly be there for her and take care of her the 2 years it took for her to die. And I could admit relief that it was over.
I’ve learned to separate abuse from my sexuality and curiosity——and I have had a fun, fun, fun fun time of loving with about 95% good men and women and occasionally small groups over the years. I’ve always practiced safe sex and never used drugs, no matter the emotional calamity I was in, and minimally engage alcohol.
I could have been a hot mess so many things happened to me before 21 but even in her 80% sanity my mother and father dealing with his addiction and mentors like Carlene and others nudged me to be free, to explore myself and at the same time take care of myself.
After 20s, My 30s
I’ve been able to rededicate myself to writing for the past decade and publishing even greater than I had in the decade before, around the world. That's been slow, personal, slightly profitable and wholly my own. A funny thing is my family and dysfunctional friends and such have never bought, read or supported my writing. I’ve had big presentations, TV and radio interviews, countless emails of gratitude and such but my closest (supposedly) circle for years acted like I birthed dead babies and buried them in the yard, sometimes acknowledging I had written books but never saying I read it or I bought one.
When I noticed this it dd hurt—-my mother saying that it was about sexuality—-why?—-she meant it in a shaming way and I pointed out she sold lingerie for years and then eventually put on fashion shows of men and women in underwear in nightclubs—-and my books on safe, healthy sex were scandalous?
I realized this was another way to minimize me.
Another friend coworker said my work was soft porn—-I summarily got rid of her for that comment and her simmering rage at her own life. I learned to value my work, good or bad, my creations as I would children, as worthy of praise and not just viciously critical stabs. Those people, like internet trolls, in person, must go.
I realized too that the friends from GMAD and GMHC and BMX who all knew and loved me while I was a facilitator, ear to their problems, vanished when I needed help or perhaps some of their venom on trains had to do with the fact that I turned the work in those rooms into millions of dollars in books and TV shows. (Which ironically I’d suggested to all of the workshops they do, they blanched/laughed so I went and did it.)
I’d first joined then stayed, then worked for those organizations, seeking male, Black, non-hetero mentors, and found plenty of anti-mentors and plenty of confused people. One of the big lessons I took was to in the terminal time, be with your dysfunctional parents as much as possible to facilitate closure. So many of the men in those rooms—-I’m talking hundreds—-have fucked up relationships with their parents, people, friends, bad lovers, practice unsafe self destructive sex because of not working out their shit. I got mentored by the experience not by the men, which was also disappointing in many ways.
What I can tell you is that:
- I’ve spent 1 year for every decade of my life in therapy—-reviewing, working on that life stages’ issues.
- That I’ve done 2 years of Incest Anonymous to clarify and contextualize abuse, sex, sexuality, pleasure, coercive pleasure, and a liberated/libertine sexuality.
- I’ve done several group therapies and then went on to write magazine cover stories about them—-integrating what I learned and then reproducing it to help others.
- I’ve facilitated thousands of hours of workshops about…everything. Throw an apple at a library of subjects and I’ve taught a group./class about it. In many ways that dynamic challenge is why I’ve been able to write so many long and short non-fiction books and interesting fiction ones. My work, I eventually have transmuted into creativity and back again.
About 98% of the time, I’m internally happy. Thinking about things, issues, solutions more than problems but happy. Content.
It took me a long time to see how exes and K and family and others could be jealous, envious, spiteful of me:
One, because I tried so hard to be good and supportive towards them—-I thought that negated spite.
Two because I thought we were special to one another.
And three, because I didn’t think I was worth those negative emotions, those attacks, such a reversal of esteem. I didn’t think I was good enough to be disliked. The ironic part is that was a perfect set up for a public-professional life of putting my work out there and getting everything from compliments to crank shots.
Recently I’ve written to—-I’m big on the handwritten letter or sent emails—— to exes telling them the truth. It’s not about please love me but it’s about—-you know I loved you but didn’t like you, or I didn’t give you a fair chance or this is how I messed up and why and what I was thinking. Something between tying up loose ends, apologizing, releasing, atonement and closure.
Yes, I used social media and acquaintanceship's and glimpsed K’s life now but didn’t make contact. She’s still in the same place—-a mover I’ve used for years moved her to a hovel in Harlem that he said he actually told her was bad, he didn’t want to leave her there—-still spartan, still no psychologist, still illegal hormones, still at the same job levels. Went back to school and I think realized how much time was wasted and dropped out again, creativity stunted against being trans—-something.
The reason for this piece on boundaries was that I actually am certified by THINY Trans Health Initiative of New York so I was giving a workshop, talking about boundaries and issues and such. A lot of my time dodging corruption and insanity at GMAD, BMX and a little bit at GMHC was that I regularly found workshops and certificates to get—-I have a ton of them. lol
What I found in finding boundaries and in writing about stuff—-hopefully it not only helps someone but all of my writing directly or indirectly goes into my teaching, thinking better and deeper about not just myself but issues to relate to, or publishing within books or on TV, is that I’m often singing a song in my head——la, la, la or now it’s Ole by John Coltrane—-I love it!——but that I’m not consumed as I was in undergrad or living with the highly dysfunctional K—which was dysfunctional and rocking myself to sleep every night with “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.”
I think it was a refrain against the insanity around me, childhood, etc. and not wanting to destroy myself but not knowing how to exorcise or re-contextualize my internal self to be happy.
And happiness is a recontexualization.
Later, after working on it, I was happy even with my family—-not because of them but happy within myself so that I could see them, deal with them, move on. I had to learn the hard lesson of distance from my family meant health. I used to think well, maybe if I jut did this or gave them more and more money or didn’t speak up and then each time, I got burnt or I felt like I was in a mental blender.
I had to learn to accept that though 80% better, that was as good as it was going to get and to make time, space and emotional boundaries to walk away if necessary. Even in the hospital I limited my visits with my mother eventually to 15 minutes at a time, 30 minutes in the cafeteria, then back for another 15 minutes. You don’t have to sit there for hours on end to be a good son. In fact you don’t have to be a good son. You can be a good person who takes care of themselves even when the other person is dying. And still be a good person.
I learned how to learn from the dysfunctional people around me. I learned that sometimes K was mad at me because I’d endeavored to go on 100 dates one year to learn how to date. And it was working, I was having fun, had a boyfriend. What I thought were clopping, awkward steps, K must’ve seen as freedom, bumbling unwitting freedom, and happiness.
The same for my family—-abusive cousins, parents, stepfather, etc.—-I got away from them all. I’ve traveled and never looked back, rarely go back to family reunions, funerals, dinners, etc. because abusers were there or the questions were too prying or because bluntly, I didn’t like some of those people. And I have a good life, living well, money, got a little fat because of it—-it’s clear I’m not missing folk.
- I was recently writing about an ex, who wanted to go to Columbia Law and I mentioned interest too and one day, a couple of years later, he is walking up the block and I come out of the law school in my CU sweater, all beaming, in law classes, just having an intellectual orgy.
- That reminded me of another ex who wanted to go to Dartmouth, and we were to tandem help each other—-me to Princeton. He then ghosted me (when his girlfriend came back to town) and gossiped about me and one day I arrived in my Princeton sweatshirt—-professors having gathered and recommended me there.
- Back farther to another ex in high school who was just languishing and I was making all this money and finally found out I’d be held back 6 months so I took the GED and left. He didn’t. I felt so guilty at leaving him on so many levels and then a couple of years later going to Buffalo for undergrad.
I came to understand that I was all gung ho for them in relationships to the expense of me.o r that I also did what I did with my dysfunctional family—-gung ho for them, secretly do it for myself and then it might look to them like competition or like I was being deceptive. So I could be good and bad at the same time. That I couldn’t be gung ho for someone AND myself publicly, honestly and call them out when they weren’t cheering me on.
That I deserved to be cheered on as much as I was cheering others on.
Sometimes we learn to pretzel ourselves to be both good and gently vindictive or secretive or passively angry, while being seemingly good.
Boundaries are also about learning how to withhold your own bullshit.
Boundaries Are a Circle
It’s like a big circle. And in the circle is your entire life. Even your spirituality and how I relate to religions and religious people. (Manage your own crotch, I got mine. You don’t need to judge, criticize or assist in a non-sexual, consensual way. Anything else—-fuck off. Yes, my mother was also a pastor and got the take a religious hike speech,)
But they keep coming up, new faces, new people. Less faces, less people. I don’t give off the Swiss cheese boundaries scent as much as I used to. I also don’t work or socialize in places where there’s a high concentration.
(Funny aside—-I was at a professional networker and this German guy is going on about how horrible Germany is compared to America and then how horrible America is to Germany. I’m trying to be all suit and tie, sipping a ginger ale professional polite and he’s just—-annoying. Finally I said to him—-”You know what, I’m too old to subject myself to this kind of bullshit anymore. You’re an asshole. German, America, Americans, Germany, it’s all a mixed bag but you’re an asshole. If you’ll excuse me.” And I froze him out then and at subsequent meetings and then he vanished—-I actually told an asshole directly, spontaneously, to go away! Normally or professionally, I would tolerate, passive aggressively sidle away, become his best friend, hate him, hate him, hate him and then avoid him and he’d think I was an asshole. But decades of work, I now shoot folks down who don’t suit me.)
That was a few months ago.
The boundary challengers and fools and button pushers come up often or not so often or less often but it’s full planet, they will come up.
I’m more direct in stores. I got followed by a security person in a store that I’ve been going to for 5 years and I told her, the manager and the overall store manager how ridiculous that was. How insulting that was. How it hurt my feelings and how humiliated I was to be treated so.
Because under my ire and my own racial knowledge of such bs, I was hurt.
Kyle’s feelings were hurt. and I can express that now. I can also say that I have a Manhattan based TV show that broadcasts to 500,000 people during a shutdown and I’m going to put your store on blast due to it and affect your bottom line. So many other stores I frequent, I’m an extremely polite large Black man of habit, treat me wonderfully, friendly, helpful, remember my orders and interests. I deserve to be treated well.
I can be honest, vulnerable and take no prisoners—-I can remove myself or demand change or better behavior.
Every day, you exercise the boundary work in new ways, small ways, big ways.
Money, Again
A coworker, yes, I won some money, before I can offer,tells me what kind of lunch to buy her. I said okay then realized I didn’t have to do it. When I saw her next, no lunch on her desk, she asked me and I told her I left, passing the restaurant because I was busy and maybe next time I won I would do it. Or not. You know what happened? She silently went away.
Tight boundaries with family as most of the ones I was closest to are dead. I don’t miss the others. At all. I stay in light contact with one, he’s in my will but the others. Pffft. I’m finally listening to my instincts about them and not overriding it with…but they’re my cousin, family,Stepfather, etc….
Each day even with bosses—-though I think as a man you learn to be professionally more self-respecting, maybe because money is involved—-I decide what I want and need.
Each day, each way, even managing a small business, deadlines and vendors and marketing (my bane!) and such I push myself a bit more, try a little harder, speak up more and more. It seems big to the casual observer now but it was a thousand single bricks put in place at a time. I also don’t shy way from saying, in a gracious way (I don’t like the term humble or feeling—-maybe because I spent so long being limbo dancer under a broom low, that I prefer now to politely stand) but I talk about my work.
I talk about my work.
It wasn’t a secret before but it was close. I’m proud of it, protective of it, I like it. I like me doing it, creating it. I like thinking up good, helpful, valuable things to teach and write about and wild fiction to create with. I like my talents that’ve worked for decades to develop. No, it’s no lightning bolt gifts from the heavens above—-it’s day after day after day slogging along, to write, to create, to start a business, to write a book, to design a blog, to produce a TV show. Work, hours, thousands of hours. Me. Work. .
I made this.
Boundaries are also about expanding your sense of self or self worth. We think of it like a wall but in truth it’s like one of those half and half back doors. Sometimes you open the top, sometimes the bottom, sometimes both. But it is under your choice and control, no matter who or what is knocking.
Hey, I like that metaphor! lol
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#TheKylePhoenixShow
www.kyle-phoenix.com
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVE STREAMING on MNN.org 1130pm, Spectrum Cable Manhattan, NY Channel 56 & 1996, also FIOS 34 and RCN 83.
Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVESTREAM on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) Thursdays 1130pm
Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
Kyle Phoenix on Facebook and TwitterThe Kyle Phoenix Show LIVE STREAMING on MNN.org 1130pm, Spectrum Cable Manhattan, NY Channel 56 & 1996, also FIOS 34 and RCN 83.
Or Click Below to:
Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVESTREAM on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) Thursdays 1130pm
Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
www.kylephoenix.com
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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