Diplomatically Dealing With Assholes

And An Open Invitation To FREE Boundaries Consultation

As many of you know, I am really jazzed about everything boundaries mean and how they work. I have a lot of experience dealing with boundaries in my own life, having divorced after the point of exhaustion my parents and siblings who undervalued me. Looking back, hindsight being 20/20, they just never shared core values with me in the first place.

You don’t get good at boundaries by never having issues pop up. That’s not how it works. Issues pop up all the time, and people who have established good boundaries strategize and they maintain boundaries. They also know how to quickly and effortlessly negotiate boundaries. As technical as all this seems, most of the dialogue of the negotiation of boundaries happens between you and yourself, or in my case, me and myself. In most cases, the better I have gotten at keeping a clear idea of what I want inside my boundaries and making a plan and active discipline defending that space, the less time, attention and energy goes to thinking of boundaries at all. It eventually just defaults to one question. Are you ready for it? Take out a paper and write this down.

Is this what I want?

That’s it.

Now, it might look like two people having a conversation. It might look like a whole family decision. And this is not to say that compromise can’t be made, but EVEN THEN, you aren’t going to compromise, not really, if you aren’t getting something you want. That’s what compromise is supposed to entail. Each person gives up a little to still gain in the long run. Do I value this relationship enough as a whole to say, “ok, let’s each find a middle ground”? But it’s not a compromise if you aren’t getting what you want. That’s maybe codependency or capitulation or even, at worst case, self-sabotage.

I got a confrontation right today, mostly, so I thought I’d share a boundary win with you.

I am going through some legal stuff. Like all legal stuff, it’s mostly bullocks. I have to interview some attorneys to see if I can or even need one to represent me. The details are less important.

The important thing is that I am looking to possibly hire someone for a service, and most attorneys in this field offer a free consultation (to sell themselves and win my business).

This attorney I spoke with today was trying to start off the consultation being personable, telling me about his son who lives in Texas as I mentioned I had just returned from Texas. When I tried to joke with him about Texas, rather than laugh at the joke (ok, maybe it wasn’t that funny), he started arguing the nuances of the joke- like an attorney. He got extremely defensive about it, too, which was quite uncomfortable. I felt compelled to explain that it was just a joke and not in any means intended to offend him which he said he immediately understood. Maybe, his argumentation skills are laudable, but in this case, he’s trying to sell me on him as my defender. It was very weird for him to go into attack mode on me.

The first time I meet someone and we clash because the person behaved in a way I feel is socially inappropriate (trying to tell jokes to attorneys, for example), I give a sort of excuse for his behavior. Ok, that was odd, but moving on… So, that’s what I did. Let’s get down to business. I thought. He started going over my case, explaining to me that the attorney I am up against lives in Colorado, as if he is familiar with him. He says, “he’s a tough one.” On the court document, the attorney he is talking about has a Colorado PO Box listed. Anyone can see that by looking at the filing, but if he knows the guy, he knows the guy lives in Colorado. Right?

Except, that’s not right.

After noticing yesterday that the attorney on the other side of the case listed a Colorado PO Box, Aaron (my husband) looked up the attorney. Incidentally, he lives and works in Salt Lake City, UT. Aaron and I had a whole discussion about how one can have a PO Box listed as such and such state but the box is actually anywhere in the US.

Long story short, I inquired, “oh, so you know him and he does live in Colorado? We saw that PO Box address and looked him up out of curiosity. It appears he lives here in Utah.” It didn’t occur to me in the moment that the attorney I was speaking to was saying, “(so and so) who lives in Colorado, and he’s a tough one” was just to scare me about whom I was up against and to make me believe this awkward attorney I was interviewing was familiar if not competent in dealing with him.

In response to my question which caught him off guard, he just said. “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Upon reflection, it showed me he was caught in a lie. This conversation was so brief, I hadn’t the time to put those pieces together. I assumed he was merely mistaken. Either way, not holding his mistake or lie against him was the second olive branch I extended to him (if you are keeping count).

Then, he asked what I need to ask him or what I needed him for. I was kind of stumped at this point about why he asked the question. I also couldn’t discern why he asked it in such a way. It had me wondering how he didn’t know since he was looking directly at my case and clearly, I required representation. I just admitted, “Well, I have no idea what I’m doing in this case, and…” at this point he started to interrupt me and as I tried to end my sentence as quickly as possible to let him speak, within 3 more words of me trying to answer his question, he spoke over me.

“Well, you’re going to have to be quiet and listen for a minute so you can let me talk.” I’ve had exes who have done this. I have had a small handful of people in my entire life do this to me. When I was younger, if someone did this, I would feel defensive or confused and often, I would blame myself for not letting others talk. But as an adult, I recognize interrupting others who have barely spoken and then telling them you haven’t let them talk or treating them as though it was the interrupted person who was the interruptor as a highly passive/aggressive gaslighting behavior. It’s one that I no longer tolerate. It took me a nano second to ask myself the magic question when I heard gaslighting.

Before that man got another word out of his mouth, not one more word, I interjected, “Excuse me, but I just realized that you are not whom I want representing me. Have a nice day.” END CALL.

But in that nanosecond, I asked myself,

“Is this what I want?” No.

I rebutted: “Aren’t I here to find out if he can help me?” I have my answer already.

And came to self-affirmation:“Who is courting whom in this conversation?” I’m the employer, and I am a benevolent one so I need to end this call politely NOW.

It did cause me a moment in fight or flight reaction. I was momentarily disturbed.

A lot of times, interactions that go south, particularly with strangers, can catch you off guard. I am very gregarious, so I rarely have strong conflicts with strangers. For that reason, I wasn’t prepared to find myself in the presence of someone by chance (on my part) getting caught lying to me and going nuclear. Those people, sociopaths or whatever, few as they may be, are out there. The quickest and best thing to do when you encounter one who gaslights, behaves passive aggressively and when in a pinch, turns tables on a hand intending to feed them, is to soothingly.back.away. You don’t want someone like that getting any more involved with their sport of debasing you, especially one who has your address and could show up at your door. No point fighting people who demonstrate they will hurt their business to attack someone over frivolous nothings, particularly with virtual strangers.

Like I said, it took me a nanosecond to counteract this the most appropriate way possible. Afterwards, a part of me said, maybe he learned a lesson. In reality, there are people around us who need a LOT of therapy, and the lesson is for *us* to quickly and safely identify those people so we can move as far out of their blast zone as possible.

In other situations, with people we know and care about, the negotiation of boundaries requires more nuance. You may want someone in your life, but not in the space or capacity in which they keep showing up for you. For that, I am here to help. Right now, I have a lot of experience. I can articulate it in a way that I believe will help bring you peace and harmony. However, outside of my closest friends and immediate family, I have not shared this information with the public, not the nuts and bolts of negotiation of boundaries from “yes”. For that reason, I do not have unbiased case studies. What I am looking for is 3-5 people who would like to work on negotiating boundaries who are struggling in some way in business or personal relationships. I will offer my services to you for one hour FOR FREE starting next week. My training will apply to your direct situation(s). From there, I will have you fill out a brief evaluation form around mid June to tell me how the skills you learned and the shift in your overall perspective after our call has helped you in those relationships and possibly other areas as well.

Still with me?

If being a part of my case studies and getting free one on one boundary negotiation training is of interest to you, send me a private email to TheKarenKeener@gmail.com, detailing your boundary issue. This letter should include who the person or company is. Is it a friend, family member, employee, boss or coworker? Tell me how long you’ve known them. Let me know how much you currently enjoy relating to them them outside the boundary issue on a scale of one to ten. If you can, describe the issue in a paragraph or two. Also, let me know the best days and times for a one hour training next week. I will only select 3-5 of those letters by Monday the 24th that are the most compelling and challenging to me. I have to narrow down who I have selected to work with first. Either way, you’ll receive a response from me on Monday that you have been selected to work with me now or that you are placed on my personal waiting list for future case studies.

Last, I should mention that this call is strictly for the purpose of building case studies for myself that are showing me if and how my resources and concepts work or if they need tweaking. There will be absolutely no sales or push to upsell you on some course or further training. It’s just for me to discover how much help I can be to the world in one single phone call. That’s it. If you are able to save your most precious relationship, your job or make your life ten times easier each day by getting clear on the simple principles of boundaries in your own mind through our call, I will definitely be selling this call or a program for big $$$ in the future.

For now, it’s just help. It’s free if you want it. The only string attached is to let me know how it worked for you.

So, here’s the big money question: is this what you want?

I look forward to hearing from you!