Consent is Boundaries
Consent is boundaries that we create with ourselves to help us design rules for how we share ourselves with others.
It’s imperative that we spend time exploring the depths of ourselves. We have to really make space to know our deepest and most authentic selves. To uncover what feeling sensations and emotions feels like to us. What are our own individual yeses and nos. To understand the difference of maybe from a curious place vs. maybe from a place of fear. To learn how to allow and settle into growth and evolution over time as we gain different perspectives and understandings of information and experiences. How to take all the information of what we feel inside our bodies and minds and translate it into words that can be understood by the outside world.
We have to learn spend time with ourselves really reflecting on how it felt when we crossed our own boundaries. To really interpret how it’s possible to violate unspoken consent and how much bigger that can feel when you realize that you didn’t say no but you didn’t say yes. To sit still with our own discomforts of rejection, nos, non-responses or not having enough information to feel the integrity of choosing to say yes. We have to learn how to really understand the nuances of fluidity of how our body and brain can seem to be communicating in different ways. And when to listen to information stored in our mind vs. the signals firing from different systems of the body.
It’s vital that we choose to spend time with ourselves with openness, curiosity, courage, compassion, and the ability to move from a place of discernment.
This grows our own individual Code of Consent.
Consent is boundaries we create with ourselves. Boundaries are only discovered when we meet or cross our edges. They are only able to be developed through experiencing life in real time. By being present in the moment and connected to our bodies. We can’t gage our truths and answers when we are disassociated or living disconnected to our body or mind. Experiences happen throughout our lifetime that starts to create a library of information that flashes when we have a newer experience. When we meet an experience similar to something we had before, our boundaries have the opportunity to shape by comparing the previous experience to what we are experiencing right now. We can tune into how our body, nervous system, and brain response and articulate to ourselves and others what our boundary around that experience is. We evolve our boundaries when we use discernment to explore the present moment and feel into our bodies to see what feels like the right decision for this specific moment each time. This designs our personal code of consent that is a ever evolving guidebook for intimacy and connection with others.
Boundaries create a Play + Connection Guide.
Boundaries help us design rules for how we share ourselves with others. As we are able to learn and define boundaries with ourselves, we have the information we need to make informed, conscious, and value-centered choices. Choosing from a place of authenticity and in alignment with your own integrity, we can explore intimacy the most ethically. We are able to make decisions for the experiences we want to explore more honestly and to hold with more courage and responsibility the choices we make.
This is layered, and although the foundation of the truth is just this direct, the fact is that the way the rest of the structure is designed is going to look unique and different for each person. We each will have a journey that determines how we are able to practice establishing our Code of Consent and our Play + Connection Guidebook. For some of us, we may meet and cross our edges many times over. For others, we may not experience much at all before we determine what feels good or right for us. What we have to truly trust is that we are the ones who determine these edges and where our lines lie. No one else can do this for us. And if we create a boundary and it is crossed, we have to also grow strength in learning how to allow anger, grief, remorse, and repair.