Empowered Boundaries ― Speaking Truth, Setting Boundaries, and Inspiring Social Change

An invaluable resource on boundary-setting practices for anyone looking to challenge our default social conditioning and create empowered relationships and communities.

As there have been increases in violence against women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQI-identified people, there has been a corresponding demand for individual and community self-defense, boundary setting, and bystander trainings that are grounded in an understanding of the complexities and intersections of power and privilege. Survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault are reporting that the current political moment is bringing up past trauma as well as emboldening attitudes of toxic masculinity and hetero-patriarchy, alongside an increase in incidents of violence and abuse. Boundary setting that is grounded in an understanding of gender-based oppression, violence, and liberation is necessary. Explaining power and privilege and the links between individual safety and community safety, Cristien Storm shows how to set emotional boundaries that build a better world. Storm has developed boundary setting curricula grounded in resiliency and trauma-informed theories, and the book provides skills and exercises, such as Naming the Behavior, the Broken Record, Freeze Framing, the Reflective Loop, and Trusting Intuition, as well as examples from workshop participants. Building vibrant social movements means understanding the links between individual safety and community safety. Boundary setting can be used, not just as a means for personal safety, but as form of solidarity, resistance, and inspiration for the future we keep fighting for.

CRISTIEN STORM is a writer, activist, politicized mental health therapist, and co-founder and former Executive Director of Home Alive, a self-defense organization started in the '90s as a response to the brutal murder of a Seattle musician. At Home Alive, Cristien developed and facilitated self-defense and boundary setting curricula rooted in traditional martial arts, social justice, and anti-oppression sensibilities. She was a featured panelist on a three-week European human rights speakers tour on gender and sexism in progressive and radical social movements entitled "Culture War." In addition to speaking at events, she has collaborated with local activists to develop and present self-defense and boundary setting trainings addressing sexism, transphobia, and heterosexism in social justice movements. Cristien is also a co-founder of If You Don't They Will, a Northwest collaboration that provides concrete and creative tools for countering white nationalism through a cultural lens.