Lee Noto, host of the Way of the High Priestess Podcast, joins Dr. Deb to discuss the importance of learning to speak up for yourself without compromising your boundaries, needs or desires. Listen as they discuss access your inner higher priestess to guide you and your life.
Do not miss these highlights:
[3:47] Not knowing how to process her emotions, Lee continued with her fast paced lifestyle which led to the development of Bell’s Palsy, making her realize it was time for change
[8:39] Learning to surrender to your body and what it is saying
[10:11] Moving into a journey of spirituality and self-discovery
[13:12] Rooting yourself in the feminine instead of allowing the masculine ‘go-go-go’ side of yourself
[17:17] Looking at tantra beyond the sexual associations that it has
[23:28] Discovering the importance of setting boundaries to protect yourself and how to effectively use them
[29:34] Learning to recognize when our boundaries have been crossed so that we are not making the compromises that are not to our benefit
[37:19] Strategies for communicating to others that your boundaries have crossed to create a mutual understanding
Resources Mentioned
Phoenix Factor – https://debra-s-school-1b7e.thinkific.com/courses/phoenix-factor-protocol
About our Guest:
Lee guides women on a journey to embodying their Inner High Priestess, so that they can create deep, intimate partnership. Her mission is to help women feel empowered and free in their expression.
In her “past life,” she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Business & Entrepreneurship and her Master’s Degree in Education. From teaching in the classrooms of Hawaii to running multiple businesses in New York City, she has a reverence for nature, learning, and quick wit.
In “this life,” Lee is a master coach with certifications in holistic coaching and transformational coaching, and has deep study in personal development, sacred sexuality, and spirituality. She shares powerful communication tools and somatic practices that allow clients to connect deeply to their emotions and bodies. By guiding clients into deeper self-love, self-acceptance, curiosity, and play, Lee helps them boldly open their hearts in order to give and receive the epic love they desire.
She is most loved for her ability to hold a safe space for clients to step into their power and create a bliss-filled life.
You can find Lee dancing in the park, singing aloud, or talking in various accents for her own entertainment. :p
Social Media & Website:
Website: https://www.leenoto.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leenoto_/
Youtube: https://bit.ly/3bPGFvc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leenoto1
Podcast: The Way of The High Priestess https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-way-of-the-high-priestess/id1533454470
Transcription of Episode #115:
Debra Muth 0:02
Welcome to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, I’m your host, Dr. Deb. This is where we talk about everything wellness, and learn to defy aging and live our lives on our own terms. Hello, hello. Welcome to Let’s Talk Wellness Nows. Now today I am bringing you one of the most amazing guests that we have talked to yet. Her name is Lee Noto. She is a high priestess, mentor, educator, and a fellow podcaster. Lee guides women on a journey to embody their inner High Priestess so that they can create deep, intimate partnerships. Her mission is to help women feel empowered, and free in their expression. Those of you who know me, you’ve heard me talk about the priestess programs before talked about how you can embody your own inner priestess, and how you can work from your feminine side to make things be better for you in your life. So, in Lee’s past life, she earned a bachelor’s degree in business entrepreneurship and her master’s in education. And from teaching in the classrooms of Hawaii to running multiple businesses in New York City she has a reverence for nature, learning and quick wit. In this life. We as a master coach with certifications of holistic coaching, transformational coaching, and has a deep study in personal development, sacred sexuality and spirituality. She’s going to share with us powerful communication tools and somatic practices that allow clients to connect deeply in their emotions and bodies. And today, we’re going to talk about how we can set boundaries, how we can discover our inner priestess and freedom, so people don’t feel stuck. And we are going to talk about those boundaries and desires. And how do you speak up for what you need without giving up your boundaries and your desires.
Debra Muth 2:21
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Debra Muth 3:17
Welcome to the show everybody. I’m so excited to introduce you to Lee Noto. We’re going to have a fantastic conversation. I love to have her here. And I love to talk about these kinds of things. So Lee, welcome.
Lee Noto 3:30
Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Debra Muth 3:32
Thank you. So tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you get led into the world of discovering your inner priestess? And how, like, what made you get there? And how did you get there?
Lee Noto 3:46
Sure. So the most, the most literal wake up call that I’d ever received was severe health challenge. This is I mean, it’s so such a common story and unfortunate. But I was a city slicker in New York City in the corporate world. I was in my 20s and I was just doing it long hours, doing all of the things coffee in the morning. I mean, it was the the stereotypical New York Life and I felt like I was on top of the world. I felt great. I loved the high energy. And after a really tragic heartbreak while living in New York City I had recognized that I didn’t have I didn’t have any tools nor was I using the tools to process emotions. So it was continuing to perpetuate this lifestyle where there was no slowing down, no stopping. No allowing space to feel emotions and no recognition that emotions were even an important part of my being to consider. So I continued on with my logic and I instead of feeling my emotions, I worked, I worked out, I attended social gatherings. and months and months after doing this, I woke up and the left side of my face was paralyzed, I’d given myself Bell’s Palsy. And it was just undue amounts of stress on processed anger and grief and sadness that I had never really held space for myself to go through after this heartbreak. And my body had had enough, I had so many intermittent signs along the way that something was awry in my body from hives to cystic breakouts on my face. And I ignored them all. And so when my body was really not going to tolerate any more, I created Bell’s Palsy. And that was the that was a big wake up call, because I couldn’t hide from it. I mean, it literally hit me in the face. And that was the first time I’d ever really stopped and said, something’s got to change. Like, there’s something about the way I’m living my life. That is creating an imbalance for me that’s creating dis ease in my body. And so that was the opening to a very deep healing journey where I started to learn about the aspects of feminine and masculine energy, I dove deep into my own spiritual practices, I really understood, I started to learn and understand more about my health. And that was, that was the start of it all. Even though at that point, I didn’t know that my work would evolve into what it is. Now, that felt like a big turning point for me.
Debra Muth 6:43
You know, I think so many people listening can relate to your story. And I know for myself, I do too. We kind of all hit that wall or that breaking point. And I did the same thing. A couple of years ago, I was turning into someone I didn’t like I was such a witch. Nobody wanted to be around me. And and I just felt like everybody was doing things to me, and that somehow it was but in the struggle and the stress and the strain of running a business and doing all the other crazy things that I seem to do in my life at the same time, I got to the same place where you did and studied with somebody to learn more of the preistess work. And I’ve always done that in my life. Like I’ve been drawn to the mnemonic practices and learn about shamanic healing over the years, and the whole art of spirituality has been really strong in my life. But I felt like I needed to go and study and learn with somebody and get that deeper connection. And I’m so grateful that I did because I came out of it a completely different person, knowing how to embrace my feminine side without always having to be on that masculine side, knowing that I don’t always have to be that crabby bullish person demanding that things happen. And it made all the difference in my life. I don’t know where I would have been had I not studied with someone like you to figure out how am I going to change this in my life? So I can be peaceful again.
Lee Noto 8:09
Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s going down that kind of path is one of the greatest acts of revolution, especially for a woman. This is the the, the deep uncovering, and the deep knowing of all of the things beyond and beneath what we’ve been conditioned to believe about ourselves, about our bodies, about our sexuality or expression. So to hear that you’ve gone on that journey is just incredible.
Debra Muth 8:39
Yeah. And you know, it’s, it’s a journey that when you take it for people who are listening, and you guys have heard me talk about this before, it’s a journey that you have to surrender, right? Like you don’t have a choice but to surrender what’s going on, otherwise, you’re not going to get to the other side, which is probably one of the hardest things for women these days, is to just surrender and be and process some of the deep wounds that have happened to us through our whole life. I mean, in this practice that I was with women, I mean, there were women shedding things that had happened to them as children, you know, little children, like five, six years old, and some teenagers, of course, because that’s where we get a lot of our conditioning from, but to watch them go through this evolution of change, and come out whole and have to finally process that traumatic thing that happened that they didn’t even see as traumatic at the time, or that it had been impacting their life for 30 years. It was just amazing to see us kind of all rebirth ourselves and come out stronger and powerful and, and less conditioned to the way of the world, right? Yeah. Yeah. So once you started doing or surge realized with your Bell’s Palsy that there was an issue. Take us through how You decided to practice the spirituality that you did? And can you take us through a little bit of what that transition was like for you?
Lee Noto 10:11
Sure. So I sought spiritual groups and communities outside of me. And one of the deepest spiritual practices was slowing down and going within. And that’s something I’d like to share about spirituality. And just the journey is that we don’t need anything outside of us. Certainly teachers and guides and courses are so helpful. And there is a time and place for all of that. And we are the true guide. We are our own teacher and our own student, and there is a wealth of wisdom inside of us. And so it was making the choice one, I remember standing in the Walgreens pharmacy in like an existential crisis after the doctor at the walk in clinic gave me three prescriptions to cure the Bell’s palsy. And I was like, okay, yes, I can use these pills, and it’ll probably go away. But something told me there had to be a better way. Like, there had to be something else that was happening inside of me. And I wanted to know what that was. So I cancelled the prescriptions, and I sought the support of two Chinese medicine doctors. And with in work with them, I did intensive acupuncture to the face, I use Chinese herbs. And during that journey, I really stepped back and slowed down. And this was, this was a great surrender, there is so much spirituality in surrender, because it, it can oftentimes feel like one of the most challenging things to do, because we’re so used to pushing and moving and forcing, and being the one who creates something. And that was one of the biggest spiritual journeys for me, because I had to step back from all of the things that my identity was tied to my work my clients working out, like these were all facets of me that I was so attached to, that meant that that was who I thought I was. And when all of those things fell away. It at one point felt like I had nothing. And then it felt like I was nothing. And then I thought, well, if I’m nothing like I can just be, I can just be and I don’t have to worry about all of the things outside of me. So that was a huge spiritual journey in and of itself. And then over the years to come, I’d sought out the work of various teachers. And one of the other huge spiritual journeys during that time was synchronistically, finding myself in an apprenticeship, a two year intensive apprenticeship, all based around sacred sexuality, tantric healing, and that when I found myself there, I thought, wow, I’m home. This is home to have access to this wisdom and this knowledge and these teachings. And that really catapulted me into the next level of my own priestess initiation.
Debra Muth 13:12
I love that story, you see, there’s, there’s just so much in there, right? Like, when we’re constantly pushing and moving and making things happen, we don’t realize as women that that’s actually our masculine side that we’re working from oftentimes that push, push, go, go. And for so many of us, the hardest thing you could tell us to do is slow down, slow down and be present. And you would think that you asked us to just drink poison, right? And I’m guilty of that, myself, I always have to tell myself, like, you need to take a breath, you need to just be in the world for a little bit. And I forced myself because like, you know, running multiple businesses, there’s always something to do, right. But I forced myself every week to take some time to just just do nothing. You know, if I don’t want to listen to something, I don’t listen to something if I just want to sit and stare out into space, I just stare into space. And it’s the one thing that keeps me rooted to my feminine because without it, I could go go, go, go , go and, and like you, it almost becomes like, that’s what drives us and we don’t know how to get off that hamster wheel. Yes. So I’m really glad that you shared that. So I think it’s so important for us to reconnect with ourselves. But if we’re always busy and going, there is no connection to our spirit, our higher power or our mind or any of that because we’re just constantly going in the world. So it’s hard to connect with something if you can’t be quiet inside the temple, which is our body. Right? Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that you opted not for prescriptions because I can guess what those prescriptions were they were given. And, and you went to a form of medicine that actually I could help you, and not just put a bandaid over the problem. And in doing that it wasn’t as quick of a fix as maybe the medications would have done. But in the long haul of things, it was a better healing process for you. Because I would imagine that through that process of acupuncture, it wasn’t just the physical that was healing. It was your spiritual that was healing as well with that.
Lee Noto 15:25
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s one of the one of the Chinese medicine doctors became like a coach and a mother to me. And there was, I don’t know if she even knows to this day, how big of an impact she had in my healing journey. And the other doctor was this, I don’t know, 70 something year old Chinese man who barely spoke a word of English. But every time I came into his shop, he just had the biggest smile on his face, and he would hug me and put me on the table and say, Okay, okay, you’re good. And just the energy was, I would cry in his, in his in his office, there was something so nurturing about that there was nurture from both of them. And I had found that what I really needed the most during that time was gentle nurture. And them amongst a few others are the ones who taught me how to nurture myself.
Debra Muth 16:27
You know, and I think that’s so important. It is the people that we surround ourselves with, and the people that we get help from, oftentimes, we’re attracted to people for things that we need, even though at the time, we don’t know that what we need, right. And they become our gift and our transition and, and thank goodness that the spirit world brings us those people when we need them. Yes, yeah. So true. You know, talk a little bit about the Tantra, Tantra healing, because it’s so important. We’ve had a couple other guests on the show, talk about that a little bit and how it’s impacted their lives significantly. And it’s not just around the sexual being as people think it’s more of a spiritual experience, but it does include some of the sexual practices, can you share a little bit about that?
Lee Noto 17:17
Absolutely. So I love that you share that because I think there’s this misconception in Western cultures that Tantra equals sex, because of what we see on cosmopolitan magazines, and you know, all of those things. And certainly, you can be in sex and engage in sex tantrically, but you can do almost anything tonically there is something deep that happens when we bring presents to how we walk through life. And a part of Tantra is inner union, out the inner union between our masculine aspects and our feminine aspects. And, you know, many of your listeners may already know this, but we all contain both, we all have feminine qualities and masculine qualities. And these are not related to gender, these are just aspects of who we are and how we how we walk the earth as as beings with polarity. So when it comes to Tantra, when we bring great presence to what we’re doing, we can hold an appreciation for that and almost create a union or emerging with the experience itself. So I’ll give a trivial example. But you know, I could be sitting at the sink, doing dishes, and I could be curmudgeonly about it because I don’t want to do the dishes, and I have an email to check. And I could be completely absent from the experience. Or I could be so present with the experience. And I can feel the water come out of the faucet and hit my hands, I can tune into the temperature, I can feel the texture of the plate beneath my fingers, and I can look out of the window where my sink is and see squirrels playing in the yard. And it’s almost as if time stops. And there is emerging between me and the experience such that I become the experience itself. And there’s a timelessness to this. And, you know when we’re talking about Tantra Tantra means loom or weaving like a weaving together. And there’s just this weaving together of everything that I am present to. And so, in that, in that instance, it has nothing to do with sexuality, really. And there is a emerging emerging of consciousness almost and when that occurs between two or more people. There’s it there is this experience of oneness. And that that is the way of the tantric path just recognizing that oneness with everything. The the merging The sameness and so of course that can happen in, in sexual scenarios where there’s deep presence where there is safety established, and where there is just a willingness to surrender, to give, to receive to be everything and be nothing at the same time. And I have not experienced anything more profound or deep in my entire life than when I have given myself up to something like that. And it is, you know, the aspect of surrender can be scary because it, our brain perceives it as death, we lose ourselves. And there’s a part of our brain that says, I cannot lose myself, I am this person, this identity. And when we do that, it can also be the most liberating experience of life, because we we let go have all of the conceptions about ourselves, if not enough, or too much, or however we identify. So there’s a complete and total liberation that is available in those experiences.
Debra Muth 21:08
I think that is such a great description of Tantra. And I love what you said at the end is giving up who we identify with. And, and I know when I went into my training, you know, we’re all used to introducing ourselves as this is who I am, this is what I do. And when we started our training, it wasn’t that at all, it was literally, what is your name? That’s it. That was the introduction, what was your name, and we were with each other for 10 days. And at the end of the 10 days, we still didn’t know who each other was outside of the rooms that we shared. And we share groups with each other, there was three or four of us in a room. And we still didn’t ever share that. And it was amazing to watch these women evolve, and you don’t know anything about their background, but you know them so intensely and so deeply. But there’s no attachment to who they are in the world other than this woman standing in front of you. And I learned that to be such a profound lesson. Like we left all of our baggage without all of who we were away, and just got to be for the first time for some of us. For me, it was the first time in my life that I didn’t have to be this persona of who I was. And it was just such an incredible experience to just freely leave all that behind and just be It was amazing. Yeah.
Lee Noto 22:34
It’s, I’m just nodding my head. Yes. Like, what a beautiful experience to have. That is, to me the quintessence of our human experience. And it’s, I love hearing when people create something like that for themselves.
Debra Muth 22:52
That’s so powerful. It just was, it’s, it’s hard to put words to it, but it was the most powerful thing to not have to attach to what the world thought we should be or what we thought the world thought we should be. Right? Yeah, we had an opportunity to just be, yeah, that’s crazy. You know how to tweet, let’s talk a little bit about boundaries. Because when we’re doing some of this stuff, if we either have boundaries that we don’t want to go outside of, or we need to set boundaries, because maybe we don’t have any, how does boundaries play into a scenario like this, when we’re starting to try to figure out who we are in connect with ourselves?
Lee Noto 23:38
Yes. So boundaries are a big topic of conversation in my world with my clients boundaries have been a very challenging road to navigate for me, throughout my life, be it sexually or not sexually. What I have found over time is that, you know, boundaries are aren’t inherently good or bad, right or wrong. What they can do when when exercised with intention is they can create safety. So boundaries can really create safety for people. And of course, you know, we have both ends of the spectrum where, when there are absolutely no boundaries, there’s a feeling of unsafety. And when the boundaries are too rigid, there’s a feeling of constriction. So we want to find ourselves at some point on the spectrum that feels right and good for us in that scenario at that moment, we also want to keep in mind that boundaries, change and shift what what my boundary is right now could be different than what my boundary is in five minutes from now, and could be different than what my boundary is with a different person. So boundaries are not something that are set in stone. They are ever shifting and changing, just like we are from moment to moment. And I like to give people permission to work with boundaries. That way, because I never knew that before I had done any sort of boundary work myself. So boundaries can create safety. And if we’re, you know, if we’re looking at sort of masculine and feminine aspects, one of the ways that the masculine shows up within us and in the world is it creates the masculine creates a container, a safe container so that we know, you know, where where we can go and where we can go. But when we don’t have that container, the example uses, imagine you’re pouring soup into a Tupperware, the Tupperware serves as the container the Tupperware is the set of boundaries. So the soup doesn’t just fall over the counter. If there are no boundaries, the soup will spill everywhere. And it becomes a bit of a mess. When we’re working with boundaries in our personal lives, when there is no container aka boundaries, we don’t know which direction to go in, we don’t know what is permissible and what’s not. Other people don’t know what feels good for us and what doesn’t. So there is this energy that exists that is apprehensive, unsure, and it doesn’t allow our human organism to feel rested and relaxed, and in a in a parasympathetic state. So as we create boundaries, and as we use communication to create boundaries, we can create that safety. And that’s something that, you know, I’ve I’ve done a lot of work on, but one of the things that I have found works really well is being able to use some of our experiences, and really going into our bodies to understand where our boundaries are. A lot of times, and I’ve done this many times myself, I’ve tried to use my mind as a way to determine boundaries. But what I what I find in in some situations is when a boundary of mine is crossed, there is an immediate somatic response, there’s a tightening in my chest, or there’s a turning in my stomach, something feels off for me, that lets me know that there’s been a boundary violation. And a part of the nature of boundaries is that sometimes they’ll be crossed. So it’s not it’s not, you know, always a bad thing, although there can be severe boundary violations. But we want to just tune into the body. So anytime we feel a shift in our somatic experience in our bodies, it’s a good time to say, okay, what’s happening for me? Not necessarily psychologically, we’ll, we’ll get there in a moment. But what’s happening for me physiologically, okay, I’m feeling my shoulder turn away. That’s that that might be assigned to me, I’m feeling my arms crossed my body, I’m feeling my I’m feeling my arms cross. There’s something protective. That’s happening right now, there’s an armoring that’s happening physically. So is there something that I need to be aware of that doesn’t feel good for me hear something someone said, away? Someone touched me? Something someone didn’t do? Can I just tune into the sensations in my body, just being with the body without the story. And then as I tune in, and I see that my chest is clenching, or that my pelvic floor is tightening, then can I step back? Take a deep breath, allow that to be and then say, okay, body, what do you need right now? What do you need to feel relaxed, the body always has messages for us. So my body might, you know, I might get the message, okay, I need to like take a step back, I need a little bit of space, I need a breather, I need to tell them that that didn’t feel good for me. So tuning into that. And then as we understand what’s happening in the body, we can start to form, how we’re going to communicate or share a message about boundaries. And then we can continue from there. But I always like to share with people to tune into the body first, because our mind can be running a million stories at once. Sometimes we don’t know what’s true and what’s not. And sometimes what comes out is this person’s a jerk. Maybe, maybe not. But what I do know is true is that my chest is clenching. That is an objective truth, whether or not this person’s a jerk is is my own perception. So how can I tune into the body so that I can be present with what’s here and then, from that place of presence, communicate boundaries with whoever I’m interacting with.
Debra Muth 29:34
I love that description of the boundaries. Because I think so many times as women, we don’t make the connection of what’s happening in our body to either a boundary being crossed or something just being intuitively not right for us. And it’s so many times and I’d love to hear your scenario on this tour. your thought on this is I’ve worked with women for 25 years I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a woman be so incredibly sick only until she leaves a relationship that wasn’t working for her. And all of a sudden, every symptom she has is either gone, or significantly improved to the point where it’s not debilitating their lives. And that’s a perfect example, I think of us not listening to our bodies not being connected, and not allowing our boundaries to be set and being crossed a lot. Because we’re not paying attention to what’s happening to us, we’re not paying attention to those little signals that are coming up, and the body’s talking louder, and louder and louder. until you finally have to listen. It’s gonna force you eventually, like your scenario, like your story, right? In coaching women, do you see that quite often as well?
Lee Noto 30:53
Yes, yes, I see that often. And I started to really try and understand what, what inhibits people or what prohibits people from creating boundaries. And I started to look back in my life, and I started to do research. And, you know, our deepest core human needs are love, safety and belonging. And if there’s anything that threatens the idea of that, we will act in accordance with whatever it is that we perceive will get us love, safety and belonging. And so if in our mind, setting a boundary could potentially equal the loss of love, the loss of connection, the loss of safety, or belonging, then why the heck would we set a boundary, it’s, it’s a very intelligent, adaptation for our organism to do everything in its power, to create that sort of stability and to get those core needs met. As it turns out, you know, because we have evolved so much over time, there are ways to continue to ensure that for ourselves, and or to perceive things differently, in some cases, although not not all cases, where we can have both where we can have love safety and belonging and get our needs met, get our core needs met for the honoring of boundaries, the honoring of physical space. Now, I also am aware that there are many situations in which this is not an option for someone, and, you know, having their boundaries violated is the only way in that scenario to stay safe. And, you know, I I also have seen in many cases where there was just a perception of potential loss of love, safety or belonging, and that is why someone continuously did not create boundaries.
Debra Muth 32:52
Yeah, there are definitely all kinds of reasons why people don’t set boundaries, or we don’t listen to our boundaries. And you’re right, sometimes it’s a safety thing, and you don’t have choice. But for people listening, I’d like to challenge you a little bit and see, is that true? Is there truly a safety issue? Or is that just your perception, like you had said, Is that your perception? Because I think so often, especially in long term relationships, we get to the place where we think we know what our loved one expects from us or wants from us. Only to find out when we start changing the boundary, they never really cared about that in the first place. It was just us that thought they cared about that. And once it’s been changed, it’s crazy how things open up, and then you realize you’ve suffered for so long, because you thought something was a particular way. And you didn’t bother to check it out. earlier on. Yeah,
Lee Noto 33:54
I mean, Oh, my gosh, I’ve done that so many times just this. It’s fascinating, because we are not, we’re not usually aware of our own assumptions, unless we are willing to roll our sleeves up and examine our thoughts, patterns, which oftentimes exists in our blind spots. So, so many of us, especially, I mean, in all relationships, but in romantic partnership, in particular with someone that we spend a significant amount of time with. It’s fascinating to see how we could literally be inhabiting the same physical space, there can be physical proximity, but there can oftentimes be energetic and mental distance. You could be in the same space but be in two completely different worlds.
Debra Muth 34:45
Yeah, so true. I had that in a business partnership. But the partnership that I was in, I perceived as one way he perceived as something else and it It ended up dissolving because I couldn’t, I couldn’t get us to where we needed to be. And now that I look back, I recognize my role that I played in that and, and I get that I needed to play that role in order for me to move on and create what I have now. Because if I would have stayed in that partnership, I would no way what I have now. But I look back and I see how I perceive things to be a certain way. And they really weren’t that way at all. And, and I created it in my own mind’s eyes. So I would have that reason to move on. Because without it, I didn’t have the reason to move on. And so a lot of times you don’t recognize those things until you can take that step back until you can open yourself up and surrender that like maybe life has played out for you wasn’t exactly what you thought it was. Yeah. Amazing how those things happened, right? Yes, it really is. Yeah, it’s sometimes it’s for the better. And sometimes it’s not right, you don’t know. But there’s some healing process that occurs with just acknowledging that it doesn’t have to be right, it doesn’t have to be wrong. You’re just acknowledging the role that you played, or somebody else played in your life to get you to where you are, because we all play that role. But once you see that, it becomes easier to recognize it in the future. And even if you like, even if I had to play that role, again, to have a change happen, it’s okay. But I recognize that at that moment, like this isn’t a bad thing for this person. This is just what has to happen today to create x tomorrow. Right? That way, you’re not blaming everyone, either. Yes. So Lee, tell us a little bit about once somebody has identified some boundaries and in, in coaching with women that you do, I’ve identified a boundary that’s been crossed, I’m uncomfortable with it. How do I then share that this has happened, and I’m uncomfortable with it. And I don’t want this to happen again, what’s a good way for someone to enter into that kind of conversation?
Lee Noto 37:19
Sure. So there’s, there are a few parts of this that I think really can contribute to a successful conversation. And by success, I mean, something that creates mutual understanding. And again, you know, we can do our best as, as the people who are bringing this issue forward, we are not responsible for how other people respond to our boundaries. And we can also, you know, really support ourselves in communicating in a way that is clear, that is compassionate. And that’s what I like to help clients create for themselves. So the first thing is one really taking time, on your own going inward and understanding what happened for you. So what was happening in your body physical sensations? Did as a result of that boundary violation? Were there certain emotions that came up? What emotions came up? How are you feeling? And really going into emotions? Was there sadness? Was there anger was there confusion, because acknowledging these things, in our own experience, before we bring them to someone allows us to validate our experience, it’s so important to be able to self source validation and be able to self source approval. Otherwise, what we often see and what I’ve done many times is, I’m sharing something with someone else. And I expect that they’re going to validate my experience, but I haven’t done the work of doing that for myself. And, you know, my well being is then in their hands, because if they don’t validate the experience, then I feel at a loss. And I, you know, I, I’d rather not feel that way. And I’d rather not have clients feel that way. I want people to feel empowered. So validating our own experience first, and then understanding, you know, what the actual boundary violation was, and what our needs are that went unmet. So what was a need that wasn’t met in that situation? And what kind of requests can we make of this person that is stated in the positive that would allow them to understand our experience and show up differently if they want to continue to interact with us in the way that they are? So it’s, you know, we can use any example of co worker romantic partnership parent. So I like to share a very simple format for my clients to use. And I’ve adapted this format from Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication so I pull some of those components Today, I throw in some of my own. And so it’s my boundary was crossed when. And in that blank, you give a specific, measurable, observable behavior, that someone else can say, Oh, I remember doing that, yes, I remember touching your thigh with, you know, I remember doing that. It’s not, you know, my bedroom was crossed when you were a jerk. That’s completely subjective. My boundary was crossed when you touched my upper thigh without my permission, clear, observable behavior. I felt blank, I felt angry, I felt confused. I felt unsure, I felt unsafe, so that the person can understand your emotional experience and the impact of their behavior. So I my boundaries crossed when I felt blank, my need for blank was unmet. My need for consent, my need for being asked permission before I’m touched, my need for consideration, my need for physical space was unmet when this occurred, and my request is that blank and making a request in the positive. So my request is that, you know, before giving me physical touch, you asked for my permission. And so a very clear request can be made of someone, and then non attachment to how the person responds. The person can say, No, I’m not down with this. And then you can decide how you want to approach the relationship at that point. Or the person can say, oh, wow, absolutely, I’d love to honor that boundary didn’t realize that was there, you know, thank you for sharing. And so there’s just a clear way to sort of hit all of the important points, or many of the important points when it comes to clearly and authentically expressing our experience to someone so that they can level with us not so that we can place blame and make them feel bad and punish. But so that, you know, I think in these situations, the overall intention for most people, is to create mutual understanding. But if we want people to understand something, we’ve got to be vulnerable in really revealing ourselves to them. And when we reveal vulnerable parts of ourselves, like our emotions, how we felt, you know, how we feel about something, what needs what unmet, what the what the overall experience was like that it allows someone else to come into our world, that’s intimacy. There can be intimacy, even when we’re communicating something that feels challenging, there’s an opportunity for that. And what I found is that this format, can generally allow people to create intimacy in a challenging feeling situation.
Debra Muth 42:47
And love that. Because it forces everybody to a know what you’re feeling to be, be able to say like, this is how I felt when you’ve identified exactly the event that happened. So that there isn’t that wishy washy. Everybody’s left feeling like I don’t really know what I did. I just know that I offended somebody. And then they go about their way thinking like for the next five hours, what did I do? How did I do that? Why don’t remember what happened. And then everybody feels that a loss instead of everything, just being very clear, and pretty concise. And it’s just okay, this happened. I know what it did, I won’t do it again, move on life is great. We don’t spend 50 hours resonating over something that they need to take that amount of time and energy for us. So I love that scenario. And I love the fact that it makes you connect to your own feelings and your own. You know, like, you have to know what was violated. And you have to know how you felt with that. Yeah, that puts a little bit of responsibility on us. But I think if we don’t connect to it, then we don’t, we don’t have the boundary either. If we just know like, I felt bad. Okay. Why, where did that come from? How did that come from? How are we going to fix it again? So it doesn’t happen again. I think that it’s just it’s so concise. I love that so much. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. You know, we I you and I could chat for hours. And I want to be respectful of your time. How do people find you? How do they work with you if they feel like they’re resonating with you? Like I’m sure so many women are resonating right now. How do they find you?
Lee Noto 44:36
Absolutely. So the best way to find me is on my website. It’s Leenoto.com. And if you’re on social media, I’m there as well on Instagram at Lee Noto underscore and on Facebook, Lee Noto. So that’s a great way to find me and I’d be so happy to connect with all the folks and women in your audience. I’m I love having these conversations.
Debra Muth 45:00
Awesome, thank you. These are such great conversations to have. And I think they’re so important for us as women, and just learning about ourselves and connecting with ourselves, and then putting that positive, feminine energy out into the world. Instead of putting more dark, masculine negative stuff into the world that we don’t need, we really need that positive feminine source going out into the world these days. So, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us and your tips on boundaries. Thank you so much for being with us today.
Lee Noto 45:36
Thank you so much for having me on the show. It was a true pleasure.
Debra Muth 45:40
Thank you.
Debra Muth 45:42
Hey, it has been really great sharing this time with you guys on the let’s talk wellness now podcast. If this episode has helped you, or you feel as though this episode would help someone else we’d love for you to leave us a review. Share this podcast. And if you don’t want to miss the most exciting episodes we have coming. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Google Play. Until next time, live every day to the fullest