This week’s Navel Gazette is all about boundaries, with a prompt to consider who gets your yes, a classic boundary-setting anthem, and three books to strengthen your “No.”
Journaling prompt: Saying NO
Paid subscribers can access a guided journaling video on this prompt.
When a species that evolved for group cohesion gains infinite interconnectivity, its kindest members can become overwhelmed with caretaking.
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar argues that we are only built to handle relationships with a small group of people, who can be visualized in concentric circles:
The innermost layer of 1.5 is [the most intimate]; clearly that has to do with your romantic relationships. The next layer of five is your shoulders-to-cry-on friendships. They are the ones who will drop everything to support us when our world falls apart. The 15[-person] layer includes the previous five, and your core social partners. They are our main social companions, so they provide the context for having fun times. They also provide the main circle for exchange of child care. We trust them enough to leave our children with them. The next layer up, at 50, is your big-weekend-barbecue people. And the 150 layer is your weddings and funerals group who would come to your once-in-a-lifetime event.
Naturally we want to accommodate the five people closest to us even at personal cost, and the next layer of 15 whenever possible.
But how often are we accommodating people we wouldn’t even want at our barbecue, much less minding our children?
Today in your journal, reflect on who gets your yes and where they fall in (or outside of) Dunbar’s framework. Here’s one of my favorite pages from 50 Ways to Say No to prompt further consideration:
Boundary-setting inspiration:
Other recommended resources for owning your no:
Nedra Glover Tawwab’s Set Boundaries, Find Peace is a beautiful primer on setting and maintaining boundaries. One of the most powerful takeaways is that we must expect and accept feelings of guilt when we exercise our boundaries.
Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework sheds light on how different people respond to expectations. Whether you are an Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, or Rebel, understanding your orientation to expectations can help you better navigate social pressures and implement supportive systems.
Here’s my own compilation of useful and effective strategies for the no-hesitant, organized by context and with explanations and examples for each phrase.
Want more? Paid subscribers receive a supplement with access to a guided journaling video for this week’s prompt and weekly release of my journal-processing blog, All the Beauty that Was Mine. This week’s post excavates a middle school journal that I discover was read by my classmates.