When You Stop Abandoning Yourself to Keep the Peace with Barb Nangle

What if keeping the peace with everyone else has been costing you peace with yourself?

In this episode of Delay the Binge™, Pam Dwyer talks with boundaries coach, speaker, author, and Fragmented to Whole podcast host Barb Nangle about the connection between healthy boundaries, self-trust, and what Barb calls internal safety.

After entering recovery at age 52, Barb began recognizing long-standing patterns of people pleasing, over-responsibility, and self-abandonment. She discovered that creating boundaries wasn’t simply about learning how to say no. It was about learning to have her own back when guilt, discomfort, or someone else’s disappointment showed up.

Barb explains why pausing became her most important recovery tool, how curiosity can interrupt self-judgment, why behavior change rarely happens in a straight line, and how boundaries can eventually become so integrated that you no longer have to constantly “set” them. You simply have them. 

Pam and Barb also explore people pleasing, nervous-system regulation, connection, self-compassion, and the enormous amount of energy we can reclaim when we stop trying to manage everyone else’s lives and begin paying attention to our own.

As Barb puts it, becoming whole means becoming grounded enough in yourself that life may rock you, but it no longer has to shatter you. 

Connect with Barb Nangle:

Website: https://higherpowercc.com
Fragmented to Whole Podcast: https://higherpowercc.com/podcast
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barb-nangle
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@higherpowercoaching

Delay the Binge™ with Pam Dwyer
Pause. Choose. Build momentum. Finish stronger.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Why The Pause Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to Delay the Binge. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer. This is the podcast about the moment before the reaction when life gets hard. The moment before the binge, the outburst, the people pleasing, the shutdown, and the self-sabotage. The moment when we can either react on autopilot or pause long enough to choose a different path. Because transformation doesn't begin after the behavior. It begins in the pause. My guest today is Barb Nangle, a boundaries coach, speaker, author, and host of the podcast Fragmented to Whole. After decades of therapy and personal development, Barb entered recovery at age 52 and discovered something powerful. The issue wasn't simply food, relationships, people pleasing, or boundaries. At the core was something deeper, internal safety. Today we're talking about what that means, why so many women struggle to honor their own needs, and how learning to pause long enough to ask the right question can change everything. Please join me in welcoming Barb Nangle. Barb, welcome to Delay the Binge. I'm so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Thank you so much, Pam. And when I saw the title of your podcast, I was like, oh my God, I love that for so many reasons. As a recovering compulsive overeater, for one, like the binge that most people think about. But there are so many ways that we binge, and I just love that. And pausing is the number one tool I learned in recovery. And it since the beginning and it to this day, it is. And the way I think of it is I can't use any of my other tools unless I pause.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Can't. Oh my gosh. I know we're gonna so dive deep into that. Yeah. It's my favorite thing to talk about because it really, it literally saved my life. And I am an emotional eater and compulsive eater as well. Okay. And so I've struggled with that my whole life, my whole adult life.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah. Yeah. For me, it was adult life, not as a child. It was like, I feel like the switch kind of flipped

Recovery Purpose And Sustainable Giving

SPEAKER_03 2:13

when I was 22, and I went from being a normal eater to being a compulsive overeater.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yes. Well, before we dive into your beautiful story, I would love to start with today. Like, what are you most passionate about right now?

SPEAKER_03 2:27

In 12-step recovery, part of step 12 is that we carry the message of recovery to those who still suffer. And that's what I'm most passionate about. Like, that's my purpose in life. I found my purpose when I got into recovery. And so, you know, technically that means that, you know, we're a model of recovery for those who are in recovery with us, and that we walk out in the world as a model of what like healthy living can look like. And then we attract other people, and maybe we tell them about recovery and maybe they join it. And that's true for me. And then also that we sponsor other people in recovery. But for me, it's also my business. So I'm you mentioned I'm a boundaries coach. And so I'm carrying the message, especially to professional women who say yes when they really want to say no and who neglect themselves because they're so focused on others, that it doesn't have to be that way. And that learning how to build healthy boundaries can end the overwhelm, the exhaustion, the guilt, the shame, the like the turmoil that's happening inside you, um, and help you build a sense of internal safety and start focusing on yourself in good ways so that you like you're never gonna stop giving to other people, but you're gonna give in a way that's sustainable. And so, yeah, my purpose is um to carry the message of recovery to those who still suffer. Essentially, give people hope and then a pathway. So you need to have the hope because you want to believe I can get better, things can change, but then you also need a pathway to do it. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Women need to hear this because the majority of us are our own worst enemies. And I struggled with boundaries, and I still do. It's it's an ongoing process for me. And I really do believe it's from the trauma of childhood, just being a pleaser and afraid of a confrontation. But it's taken eight years of therapy for me to even be aware of it, first of all. The coping mechanism that I was taught, it's still difficult because your tendency is to do A. And then your the work you've done, you have to do come out with B. And there's just so many things you have to think about with just one sentence.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

So that in itself is exhausting, the coping.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Yeah, it is. But it's like if you think about if you learned to drive in the very beginning, you had to pay very specific attention to where are the mirrors, where is my seat shifted, how much pressure am I putting on the gas pedal, how much am I putting on the brake, am I using a clutch, you know, am I shifting? And then as time goes on, you just drive, you never even pay attention to it. That's what happens with our behavior changes too. In the beginning, you're like, oh my God, I have to think through every second of, you know, what am I gonna think? What am I gonna say? How am I gonna say it? And eventually you just are. And so one of the ways that I express that, Pam, is I don't set boundaries, I have them. I used to set them, but they've become integrated into my very being. So, you know, I had a client I finished with not too long ago, and she just dramatic changed. She ended up divorcing her active alcoholic husband. They were, she calls it parallel parenting because they weren't co-parenting their four-year-old child. And, you know, when she reflected on what a year ago had been, she was like, I just can't get over like how much my life has changed. And I said, What's your go-to? Like, what's the thing? And she said, When something comes up, I always ask myself, is this mine? Is this mine to manage? And I said, That's amazing. I don't even have to ask that anymore because I just know. I just know what's mine. Because, and here's how I think about it, Pam. I am situated in me, in my life, and my body. Whereas I was out there in your life and his life and thinking about you and what is he doing, and what is she doing, and what are they doing, and and how do I help them and how are they going to solve this problem without me? And I got to make sure that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now I'm like, uh, what am I doing? And when it's time to be involved in something that involves other people, then I dedicate my energy to that. But it's not scattered all over the place the way that it used to.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

That is so perfect. And that's sort of what like what I do even now. And I have to ask myself a question. A lot of times, if no one else were in my life and it was just me, what would Pam do? Nice. That for some reason helps me go back to this is me, this is Pam.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

We're focusing internally. I I like I used my mantra used to be keep the focus on yourself, keep the focus on yourself, keep the focus on yourself. And it's not that it's gone away, but it's like I think saying internally, because when people hear keep the focus on yourself, they think be selfish. No, no, not at all. But focus internally. What is happening for me inside? And I know we're gonna talk about internal safety soon, but I want to say this you cannot create a sense of internal safety by focusing externally. Can't happen, cannot do it. So you have to continually bring the focus internally. And one way, like a metaphor that I I love metaphors because I feel like, oh, meaning sinks so much more deeply. So a metaphor I use is my gravitational pull is now internal, whereas it used to be external, entirely external. But because I've exercised the metaphorical muscle of turn within, turn within, turn within, which is what you're doing when you say, if nobody else existed and it was only Pam, what would Pam do? You're focusing internally. Yeah. You're you're thinking from your you're situated in you. You're occupying yourself, your body, your life.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Right. And eventually over time, I came to realize that if I am strong and healthy and not exhausted, I'm a much better person, even in the people that I love. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Like who would you rather have help you? Someone that was pouring from the overflow rather than an empty cup who had lots of energy and was happy, joyous, and free, or someone who was resentful AF because they had 50 million things on their plate, and this is just one more thing they have to do. Right? No choice there, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

No choice at all, yeah. Right. It's anyone would answer the person that's rested and strong.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Right. And happy to give because they have it to give.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yes. And that's so important. I why do you think that this message that we're discussing right now is resonating so strongly right now?

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Well, I mean, I know people say this all the time in different, you know, eras, like the world's is really crazy right now. The world is really crazy right now. And a lot of people feel pulled in all different directions. They care about so many different causes, and yet they're exhausted from their own lives. Um, you know, maybe because they have a ton of responsibility or they're overly responsible and they're dipping into things that aren't really their responsibility, they're overwhelmed by just the sheer amount of information that comes with them from, you know, media, social media, you know, advertisements. You can't drive down the road or anything. Like it's just like coming at you all the time. And if you don't understand that you actually have choices about what

Turning The Focus Back Inside

SPEAKER_03 10:00

you take in, um, which I didn't really understand that, I'm not stupid, but I just like I learned from recovery. I have way more choices and way more control over my life than I ever thought that I did. And that's because I was focusing externally on things I can't control, which meant I was ignoring myself, which I actually can control.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

And so the take, you know, it's like the things were flipped. So I think, you know, part of that. Um, and then also, you know, a lot of things are under threat, like the whole DEI thing. Well, guess what? Women are included in that.

unknown 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

You know, this is still a man's world. Women have made massive inroads, but patriarchy is alive and well when you combine that with capitalism and white racism. Yeah, like this is bad. And so, um, you know, I I actually want to take a minute to say to connect to this bigger message of like patriarchy and stuff like that. So I'm actually a sociologist by training. I have a master's and a bachelor's degree in sociology. I came out of graduate school wanting to level the playing field. And for me, that primarily primarily meant race, gender, and sexual orientation, though I care about all the isms. When I got into recovery, that didn't go away, but it kind of shifted to the side because my my mission became healing, carrying the message of recovery to those who still suffer. Well, because I cater to professional women, I realized a couple of years ago, wait a minute, those two missions are aligned because women are never going to make inroads into the social structures of society when they keep saying yes to shit they don't want to do and they keep neglecting themselves. Like you cannot become a sustainable leader when you're doing other people's work and you're minding other people's business. And you can't become a sustainable, powerful leader when you're neglecting yourselves and you're trying to pour from an empty cup. You have to learn to fill your own cup first and pour from the overflow and groom the people that are your subordinates to become future leaders who say yes to things that fuel them and who take care of themselves. So it's like my missions have been like, like God knew this, I didn't. Like they're still aligned because I um like I, you know, this isn't anything against individual men. Like, I love men. They're like, we need them, I love them, I love many men, but I'm done with patriarchy. Yes. You know, it's not working.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

And that's a message all women need to hear and know because the expectations that have been set upon us since we were little, and we have just poured all of our energy into meeting those expectations. And they're not even anything we would do if we we just felt like we had to do these things. And so I love, love, love that you advocate for that. We need more voices like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Just to give permission to empower someone that they don't understand why they're so unhappy and why they turn to all these patterns and behaviors that are not serving them. It's because they need their voice to be heard.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Yeah. And you know, I want to give hope to all those who are listening that think, oh, you know, if I build boundaries and I only say yes to things I really want to do and I stop neglecting myself, I'm gonna become a selfish person and I'm never gonna be giving and helping. No, the opposite is true. So my own particular example is this. Before recovery, I volunteered for 13 different nonprofit organizations over time. So I was a volunteer holic and I just people tapped me for stuff all the time because they knew that I was gonna say yes. Well, now I actually donate more hours per week in community service than I ever did before. But I do it strategically rather than at the drop of a hat. I do it by choice,

Why Women Stay Overresponsible

SPEAKER_03 14:05

not because I feel obligated or compelled. And I do it after filling my cup first.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

So, and my my community service is all within the world of 12-step recovery. So I sponsor people, I give service in meetings, I go to meetings, and it's hours during the week. Whereas before, I wasn't donating like five hours a week, but I was exhausted all the time because I was just giving, giving, giving. And so this is like, you know, everybody knows, even if you've never flown on a plane, you've heard people talk about, they tell you if the oxygen mask falls down and you're caring for someone next to you, put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help the person next to you. Because if you're passed out, you can't help them. So we need women who are not passed out so we can help bring other women up behind us and so that we can lead and we can show men there is a sustainable relational way to be in power and to create change and prosperity in this world. Yes, without all of the drama that comes with patriarchy and capitalism and racism.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

We're gonna play that one over and over, everybody. That's gonna be worth listening to when you need it. Oh, goody. I love that so much and sustainable. That is my and maintenance. That's the whole foundation of why I have delay the binge message going out there. Yeah, is because I was like a little over 300 pounds at one time.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

Okay. I know I was at was 247, but I was I don't know if I was 30 pounds more than that, 50 pounds.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

It seemed like I was 240, and then all of a sudden, I guess I didn't want to see it.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

My aha moment. Well, first of all, I hit bottom with sugar. I woke up on I can tell you the date, April 20th, 2016, feeling like I was being internally electrocuted by sugar. And a friend of mine had started going to Overeaters Anonymous and had been telling me about it. And she was, I didn't know this, but she was trying to like gently get me to go with her. So I woke up and I texted her and I said, I just have to tell somebody that just today I'm not eating sugar. I've not had sugar since that day. And then she invited me to go to a workshop. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm a compulsive overeater. I didn't even know compulsive eating was a thing. So I hit bottom at just the right time. Thank you, God. And then I got the solution, you know, right then and there. My the first speaker I heard, he said, I'm down 185 pounds and I've been abstinent for 30 years, which abstinent in a food recovery program is equivalent to sober in an alcohol recovery program. And I was like, You've got my attention because I'd never met anybody who'd kept their weight off ever. And I'm the only people I ever knew that had lost over 100 pounds, all of them had surgery, and nine of the 10 of them had gained it all back. So I knew this guy knows something that I don't, and I'm fucking listening to him. And then that is me.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I am postbariatric. Yeah. Seven years.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Good for you. Good for you. So since then I've met other people who've had surgery and have maintained it. But at that point in time, the only people I knew that had it, which was many, literally 10, and and nine of them had gained their weight back, and they were miserable.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yep. You know, they feel shame, they feel failed. Yeah, it's the whole reason because we were never taught they go through a lot of education before the surgery because it's a huge transition.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

And they want to make sure that you can be as healthy as possible before doing it. Not once did anyone tell me how to maintain.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And I had serious regain. And the surgeon will actually tell you you have one year to get the bulk of the weight off, and then your body figures it out, and you're gonna start regaining.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Yeah. So I worked for Weight Watchers for years. I mean, it was a long, it was decades ago, and at that time, I can't imagine it's changed much. 95% of people gain their weight back. It's not, it's not the stats are not good. So I knew that, and I heard this guy, and I'm in this, and then I heard three other speakers, and I was like, oh shit, these people have something, you know. Yeah. And it's, you know, the way that we talk about 12-step recovery, it's a spiritual solution. And, you know, whether you believe in God or not, spirituality is about being connected to something greater than yourself. So you don't have to believe in God. I happen to, you know, but I just I was like, this is a spiritual program. What? Like, this is a spiritual solution. And I was already in another recovery program, but the idea of applying that to my food was like, what? And now it's like, oh, okay. And now what's crazy is like I can bake for other people and I can be like, wow, that smells delicious. I have zero desire to eat it. Yes. I remember hearing a woman talking about baking, I'm like, she's insane. Like that I'm never gonna jeopardize myself. And now I'm like, whatever, it doesn't bother me at all.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Right. Because once you make the decision, once you create these new patterns for your brain, then you don't want it because you're not relying on the old patterns where your brain felt safe or your body. Yeah. It's got these new patterns.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

I'm a compulsive overeater in recovery for myself. My coaching is on boundaries. I don't coach people with weight loss, though I have had clients that, you know, what I do and say is helpful to them. But um, yeah, agreed. And I would say rather than say I help them apply it, I help them integrate the knowledge into their very being. You know, because it's more than application. Like you do to become. So when I said earlier, I don't set boundaries, I have them, that's what I mean. I used to set them, and then those patterns became integrated into my very being. So I help people integrate. Most of the people, like I think I've had one client ever that had done no personal development work. Everybody else, many, many of them have been in 12, are in 12-step recovery, but all of them have done decades of therapy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, I know what to do. I can't fucking do it. And I help them do it. I help them finally be able to do it. And part of it is I have a multimedia curriculum. So they're taking in information. I have them do integration exercises in my workbook and then complemented with the coaching where I'm literally talking them through situations. And then I also, I don't know if you do this with your coaching, but my clients, my private clients, have access to me via text and voice memo on Telegram Messenger. So they can message me in the moment and I can help them in real time when the shit hits the fan. And they're like, I don't know what to do, or I'm freaking

Sugar Bottom And Food Recovery

SPEAKER_03 20:50

out, or whatever. And help them figure out like what's actually going on right now, and what have you you decided is important to you? And then I remind you, remember, this is what you want, you know, and here's how you're gonna get it right now.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

The best thing for me when I was uh trying to learn how to pause so that I can make a better choice, would it all I'd always give myself permission? Okay, this chocolate cake, I really I'm about to eat the entire cake. And I can have it if I really want it, but why don't we wait until tomorrow? And if I still want it tomorrow, then I can have a piece.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

I would do the same whole cake.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Yeah, in the beginning I had to do that. I could say, because I would plan my food ahead of time and I would commit to my sponsor, like the I what I I never said my exact food, but I was like, I'm gonna eat abstinent meals and snacks today. And I knew what my plan was. So I would say, okay, I can have it tomorrow, and I meant it. But then in the morning, when I was sane, I would commit my food for that day. And so this is why one day at a time, I only have to be abstinent for one day. That's it, just one day. And and actually When that really hit home for me, that second speaker at that workshop I went to, she said, Here I am abstent from sugar for 30 years, one day at a time. I was like, Oh shit, I love that. Whoa, those one days really add up, you know? Yeah. And now for her, it's 40 years.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Oh my gosh. Yeah, sugar is my weakness as well.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Yeah. And I, you know, I would say, Pam, that I always liked sugar, but my last year before I hit that sugar bottom, my sugar acceleration, my sugar consumption accelerated massively. And it was partly because of what I was going through. I was in another 12-step recovery program and really understanding that I have childhood trauma, digging through that stuff, healing. I also um had shoulder surgery, which really screwed me up. And so it was like I just couldn't get enough sugar in. And that's why I woke up feeling like I was being internally electrocuted by sugar. And I was like, I uh I can't, I can't, I can't do this. I can't.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Well then there's a reason they compare it to cocaine. Yeah, it literally is addicting.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Yeah, yeah. And it's poison. It's not, you are not meant to ingest refined sugar. Fruit, sure. Fruit juice, no.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Well, okay, let's talk about this internal

What Internal Safety Really Means

SPEAKER_00 23:30

safety. I'm very excited to go there. Yeah. So you use this phrase, internal safety. First, first, let's start. What does it mean?

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Yeah. So internal safety is that you can rely on yourself to stop abandoning yourself when you used to. For example, if you set a boundary with someone and they get upset before you have internal safety, you use their upsetness almost as an instruction or a dictate. You've done something wrong and you need to clean it up right now. So you don't feel safe inside. You have all these emotions because you think them being upset with you is a threat to you. You internalize it as a threat. And so you act on that. When you have internal safety, it doesn't mean you don't have the feelings. It means that you understand this is a feeling, not a dictate. Their upsetness is their feelings and not mine, and they're their responsibility, not mine. This doesn't mean I've done anything wrong or I'm a bad person. And I get to hold my boundary. So when I say abandon yourself, it's like caving in on your boundary. Or let's say I set a boundary with someone, and even if they receive it well, I might still feel guilty because I have this identity, I'm a helper person. How dare I not help them? And I feel guilty. So internal safety means I see that guilt, I feel that guilt, and I don't use it as an instruction. You've done something wrong, and you need to backpedal and fix it. I go, oh, this is a feeling based on my old pattern that I'm breaking, and that's what the guilt is really about. It's really about I'm breaking my pattern, the identity that I hold as a helper person. Yeah. And internal safety means I've got my own back. I'm not abandoning myself any longer. So it doesn't mean you feel calm all the time. It doesn't mean you never have difficult feelings. You will definitely have way, way, way, way less of those feelings over time. And the intensity of them will reduce massively. Like I would say things that used to inflame me, like shame, felt like it was a waterfall of these like shitty chemicals just draining down on me. I might have a trickle, not a waterfall anymore.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Right. But and I can withstand that. But I've built this sense of internal safety by setting boundaries. So Pam, I think it was last year, and I'm pretty sure I was guesting on a podcast when I had this epiphany. I'm like, oh my God, building healthy boundaries is about building a sense of internal safety. And I it's something, it was a concept I've been sort of like swirling around, but hadn't I knew it, but I hadn't named it. And once I named it, it was like, oh my God, I it helped me to retroactively understand everything that I do and how to explain it to people. And so, like another way that I express this is I've come to care more what I think of me than what other people think of me. That is the big shift that enabled me to go from having no boundaries for 50 something years to having such healthy boundaries that I now coach and write and speak and podcast about boundaries. And so what I mean by that is not I don't care what anybody thinks of me. Of course I care what people think of me. I'm a human, right? We're wired for connection. You know, the worst thing you can do to a human is ostracize them, right? Yeah. So what it means is I used to be willing to throw my integrity out the window for your approval. Now I didn't know that was going on. I thought that I was helpful because I'm a nice person. I'm a helpful, nice person. And I was shocked to learn that I was an approval seeker, that that was really, it doesn't mean I didn't want to be helpful, but it was like wanting to be helpful doesn't explain that you exhaust yourself, you're built filled with resentment, you know, you're overwhelmed, you you know, are you know complaining about the people that you're helping behind their back because they're making you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. When you just want to be helpful, you wouldn't be doing that stuff. You'd be like, this doesn't feel like it's helpful anymore. And you get to be part of the people that you're helpful to. So I used to like lie and manipulate. That's what people pleasing is. So you're saying yes to things you don't want to do. You're acting like you're fine when you're dying inside. You pretend things are okay when they're not. That's that's dishonest. And then manipulating, when you're people pleasing, you are doing things for the express purpose of getting them to be pleased with you. That is called manipulation. And when I learned that, I was like, oh my God, I'm a horrible person. I manipulate, I lied. You're not a horrible person. These are patterns, survival patterns that you learned probably in childhood because they made you feel safe and they worked because you made it into adulthood, but they're not working any longer. So once you see you have them, then it's time to take responsibility and change them. And so now I'm no longer willing to throw my integrity out the window. So I want people's approval, but I don't with claws need it the way that I used to because I feel safe inside by being an honest woman of integrity, by living up to my own standards, by having my own approval, by having my own back. So I've built this sense of internal safety over time, bit by bit, conversation by conversation, boundary by boundary, by having my own back and then not having my own back, and then having my own back and not and not and having and having and not and not and having and having and having. And like, you know, it's like that's how how change works. So having internal safety means I show up for me and stop abandoning myself, especially in environments and situations and relationships where my history is I've abandoned myself. I've caved to other people rather than to like following through on what matters to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

And that can be so damaging. I'd love that you named it internal safety because coming from an abusive childhood, if you set boundaries, then you would get beat. If you drew a line in the sand, then that was just a reason for someone to beat the crap out of you.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

And so as a child, you learn, okay, I can't have any boundaries. It's not safe.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Right. And so these neuropathways were created in you that your nervous system says boundaries equals unsafe, right? So your nervous system and your thinking gets to be updated and you get to do it. So what's beautiful about humans is we have neuroplasticity. We can change our neuropathways. So one of the ways we do it is by changing our behavior, because then our thinking changes. You just like one of the principles I learned, which is essentially behaviorism in recovery, is you can't think your way into right acting, but you can act your way into right thinking. So do the behavior. Do the behavior, and eventually the thinking would just fucking do it. Right? Just do the new behavior. Yeah. And and it's like you can't snap your fingers and do it. And you know, of course, we're going to talk about pausing, but you know, like that is imperative for being able to do that. So you act your way into right thinking, and you know, you become a new person. And then the neuropathways change.

Nervous System Work And New Pathways

SPEAKER_03 31:14

And then what I've also like, I would say the last year has been massive in that what I've learned is that like I what I used to do that I wasn't even aware of before recovery is I ruminated about the past, I catastrophized about the future, I complained, and I blamed. So I was mired in negativity, even though I've always thought about myself as a super positive, optimistic, laughable person, and I am, but I had all this negativity going on. And so what I would do is I would just spin out on all the catastrophes that were going to happen, or I would spin out on that shitty thing that happened in the past and just replay it. And I think of it as I was milking those shitty feelings. Well, what I've learned in the last year is I can do the same thing with good feelings.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Oh, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

So I do something called a heart-brain coherence meditation. I've been doing it for like two and a half years. And there's something about the feelings that I generate that I'm doing that are just beyond anything, that it's beyond ever any drug or alcohol or buzz I ever had in my entire life. It's just such a really good feeling. And this particular version of the meditation I do, every what you do is you picture a person that you love and you think of scenes with them and just generate the good feelings about that. Then you send that person love, gratitude, compassion, and appreciation. Then you extend that to the entire world, then you bring it back to the person, and then you feel it for yourself. And at the end, the narrator says those feelings of love, gratitude, compassion, and appreciation are in you at all times. And I was like, oh my God, he's right. They're in me at all times. And that means I can tap into them at any moment by generating them. The same is true of the shitty feelings, but I used to tap into those and milk them. And now I milk the good feelings. So if you have a particularly good memory, you want to replay that memory and have those feelings over and over again. And what I'm doing when I do that, Pam, is I'm creating new neuropathways. I'm helping my nervous system go, oh, wait, our default is now going to become good feelings. Our default is going to become good feelings. Our default is going to become good feelings. So my neuropathways of like trauma and drama and chaos are fading. And my neuropathways of like goodness and happiness and joy and love and gratitude and compassion and appreciation are becoming like paved highways. Yeah. And the other ones are like dirt roads now. So that um I would say that the hardest thing in life for me is to not catastrophize. And until the last couple of years, I would have said, like, I don't think I ruminate it all anymore. I maybe I complain, but it's rare. I don't blame, but I do catastrophize. And I would have said that went down by like 90-ish percent in the last few years. I think I'm at the point now where it's down by like 99%. Wow. Because of all this nervous system work that I'm doing. And I had an experience a couple weeks ago, this has never happened before. So I call when I go into a spiral, I call it the pit of doom. Okay. So normally what happens, it's like all of a sudden I'm in the pit of doom. I don't see it come in, I just fall in. And then I'm like, how do I get out of here? Well, a couple weeks ago, I was like, oh my God, there's the pit of doom. Like I was aware that it was there and it was starting its gravitational pull to me. And I immediately reached out to like 10 people on text and I said, I'm feeling really discouraged. Please tell me something good. The act of just reaching out to those people literally made the pit of doom go away. And I'm like, okay, first of all, I've never had notice that the pit of doom was on its way. So that was a miracle. And then understanding that just reaching out to people made it go away. Like I've I know reaching out to people is a huge, it's my number three, number two tool of recovery after pausing. And then all the good things started coming in from people. So a couple of people said good things about me, which is not what I was looking for. It was wonderful. One person was like, oh, I made enchiladas with my mom. And another person was like, oh, I just knitted this thing. My brother was like, oh, I just got earbuds. Cause I've been like, you need to get earbuds because I don't want to hear your thing. You know, it was like just the wide variety of things, or my daughter just did the blah, blah, blah. And so then to get that joy back from them was amazing. And I have to believe that the reason I got notice from the pit of doom that it was on its way was because of all this work that I'm doing with my neuropathways. Yes. I still get good feelings. So my system was like, hello, there's a pit of doom over there. We don't want to go there.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

My pit of doom is a well. Okay. I was like, I'm about to fall down in the well. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing. And I love that you're talking on this because, you know, as a writer, I'm a writer, and I never thought I would be. But every Tuesday. Me neither. Same. Same, same. I know. Every Tuesday I I post a short story with a memory of my childhood that is hilarious. It's funny. It's humorous, but it also has a life lesson in it. And so it's so therapeutic for me to do that. I don't care if one person reads it or another one reads it. Same. Like I'm writing this because I need to get this out of me. Hopefully it's helpful to love. It's like journaling. And so I do that, but it people love those little short stories, and they help me a great deal. It helps me to continue my path of healing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Your story, your story is fascinating because you spent nearly 40 years, I think, in therapy, right? And personal development.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

Like every conceivable one you can imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

There's self-abandonment in your story. Um, but let's hear a little bit of it.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Yeah, yeah. So when I got in recovery, so remember, I was 52, so long-standing patterns of behavior that I had no idea how dysfunctional they were. And I learned that pausing was a thing. And I'm like, brilliant, love it. No idea how to do it. Like, I'm like, what? Hall. I and one of the ways we talk about that in one of my recovery programs, we say we're reactors rather than actors in our lives. And in my other recovery program, is we learn to act on life rather than react to it. So it's like really important to learn how to pause. So I learned that pausing was a thing. And I was like, yeah, I have no idea how to do it. And so then what happened is one day I'm like, oh, that situation three weeks ago, I could have paused, noted. And then a little while later, I'm like, oh, that situation a week and a half ago, I could have paused, noted. I'm like, oh my God. I'm seeing the time between when I could have paused and I realized it close. And I got excited. I'm like, oh, the time is closing. Hopefully, pretty soon I'll be able to know, like, ahead of time, it's time to pause. And that's exactly what happened. But it's not like I was like, okay, then I paused for the rest of my life. No. So I paused and then I forgot. And then I paused and I forgot and I forgot and I forgot. And then I remembered and I remembered and I forgot and I forgot and I remembered and I remembered and I'm paused and I blah blah blah. And then eventually I have a built-in pauser now. But that right there is how human change happens. Yes. It doesn't happen in a linear fashion. You know, I I have this, this um, I guess you would call it a meme, and it show says it's the subtitle is recovery, and then it has expectations and it shows an arrow pointing up to the right, like on an XY curve, like up to the right, and then it shows reality and it shows this line that's like a big, huge scribble, that the trajectory is up towards the right, but it's like this meandering path. Like that's what actual recovery looks like. That's what actual change looks like. I've had pauses that are 2.5 seconds, and I once had a pause that was a year and a half. Oh, couldn't decide what I wanted to do about something, and I was like, I'm going to wait. And the way I think of it now is if I don't know what to do in a situation, I do nothing because something is going to happen. Either the situation will resolve, I will get new information, somebody else will clean it up, my higher power will give me some kind of insight, something will happen.

Pausing Through Uncertainty And Decisions

SPEAKER_03 40:06

And then I have this one podcast episode about five decision-making techniques for people in recovery, but I'm only going to talk about one of them right now. And I learned it from Brooke Castillo from Lice Coach School. She says, if you don't really care what happens, or even if you kind of do, but you're not sure what you want to pick, flip a coin and don't like don't look at it. And you know, like tell yourself and then then look at it. And if you're disappointed in which whether it was heads or tails, then that tells you what your gut wants. But if you don't really care, then do what the coin says. Because if you don't care, and so I've been using that because I'm a pretty decisive person.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

But then there are things that I just don't care that much. So how do you pick when you don't care? I'm like, oh, I'm gonna flip a coin because it's gonna save me time. So I go to my wallet, I find a coin, I flip it, I'm like, okay, that's what I'm doing. But even if you have an investment, but you're not sure which one, look at what the coin says. And if you're disappointed, then pick the other one.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

I've heard you talk uh in my research of your work. Something really stood out to me, and that's the curiosity being the bridge between self-judgment and self-compassion.

Curiosity As The Bridge

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Can you talk to us a little bit about why you think curiosity is so important?

SPEAKER_03 41:28

Yeah. So the way that I came to that is very early in recovery, I heard someone on a podcast say this phrase, this is info, not ammo. And I was like, whoa. So what they mean is when you learn something about yourself that you're either not very proud of or you don't really like or you're embarrassed by, it's information for you to learn, integrate, and grow from. It is not ammunition to beat yourself up. Because when you beat yourself up, you just end up battered and bruised, and that's no place from which to grow and change. So instead of going, oh my God, what the fuck's the matter with me? Why did I do that? I'm so stupid, you go, oh, noted. What could I do differently? Let me be curious. And so I love curiosity because it's neutral. It's not Pollyanna and it's not, I'm a piece of crap. It's just neutral. And it's the bridge from self-deprecation to self-compassion. So if you want to go from beating yourself up to having compassion for yourself, come at the situation with curiosity. And I think it's also true for other people too. So when someone, like especially if someone around you has this pattern that really irritates you, let's take a look at it as info, not ammo. And it's not what could they do differently? It's what could I do differently. And often we can change our thinking about what they're doing. Because often what we think is they shouldn't be doing that. Well, guess what? They are. They are doing it, and you cannot change them. So let's change our mind about that. Like, you know, you can't stop people from being the way they are, but maybe you can spend less time with them or spend time with them less frequently, or um, no time with them, depending on how how bothersome the thing is. So it's what could I do differently? And, you know, so maybe it's I changed my mind about it. Like when I was doing the 12 steps in O-Readers Anonymous, I was still working full-time at Yale University, and my boss drove me insane. She was one of the most unreliable people, but she'd been that way for 19 years, and I was still sitting around waiting for her to change. And so my sponsor helped me to say, that's her being her. And so, you know, I don't want to say her name, but she would say, That's her being her. And she would do it in this sing song y way. So then I started hearing like, that's her being her. Yeah. And so I just got to accept this is the reality of the situation. So I wasn't changing ground. Her, I was changing my perspective of her. And when I started doing that, I started realizing I've been waiting around for this woman, woman to change. She's not going to. Maybe there are things I could do that are well within my purview, but I wasn't seeing that I could take action and have agency because I was so focused on what she should be doing that she wasn't.

unknown 44:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

Yeah. And it's all about you can control your emotions, but not theirs.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Behavior.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Yes, and energy. Hello. Why do we pour energy into so many useless things that don't serve us? I have to, that's how I remind myself. I'm like, I'm giving this negative, this thing that doesn't serve me all my energy when I could be pouring it into something that does serve me. It's about redirecting your energy.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Yeah, agreed. And I think, you know, um, I talked about pouring from the overflow. And the way you can have overflow is reduce the things that drain you and expand the things that fuel you. I mean, that's it. Right there. That's self-care. Do more shit that energizes you and less that that drains you. Right. So we're gonna have to set boundaries with ourselves first and foremost, and with other people, so that we can eliminate things that drain us and reduce things that drain us and expand things that fuel us.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

I love that. It's so close to my plus one theory, which is doing your best, plus one, yeah, but finding this reserve of energy or fuel so that you can use that pain for purpose in small steps.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

I love it so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

It's really helped me heal.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

Good, good, good. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

So you often say uh we're protected when we're connected.

Protected When Connected

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yes. Why is healing so difficult when we try to do it alone?

SPEAKER_03 45:58

Um, well, I would say in 12-step recovery, no matter what kind of program you're in, whether it's an addiction recovery program or a process addiction recovery program, that all of us are super good at isolating. And there's a difference between isolation and solitude. So solitude is fueling and purposeful, and isolation is draining, and it's like we're fending off the world. So there's the drain of isolation. And then like humans are literally wired for connection. We are community animals. And as I said, like the worst thing you can do is ostracize a human. That's literally the worst thing you can do to them. And so learning how to reach out and connect with and ask for help with people who are stable and mature and emotionally irresponsive is the best thing for humans. Like I've heard it said, the best thing for a human nervous system is another human. Well, the worst thing for the human nervous system is also another human. It just depends on who the human is and what the circumstances are. And so it's called co-regulation when you're with a healthy person. And so doing things on your own, like you're much more likely to go into the pit of doom when you're alone. And if you have these negative patterns, you can't see yourself the way that other people can. This is one of the reasons why coaching or sponsorship in 12-step recovery is so helpful because other people in real time can say, look what you just said, or look what you just did, or do you see what you're doing? Do you understand that there are other choices? And then there's the love that comes from other people. Like in 12-step recovery, it's all about stories. People share their stories and we hear our own story and other people's stories. Yes. And we usually automatically have sympathy for those people. And then it helps us have sympathy for ourselves. We get models, multiple models, for what healthy living can look like, for what healthy conversation can look like, for what healthy relationships can look like. So when I told you that a couple of weeks ago, I called those people to connect. I have no doubt that that principle, we're protected when we're connected, was at play. That's why the pit of doom disappeared, because I had the protection of the loving connection I have with other human beings, even though it was a texting connection. It's still an energetic connection. Well, I'm in a fellowship, a worldwide fellowship called Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families that's full of people like you. Millions of people. Probably, but not billions are in it, but millions are in the fellowship and on the and like I just didn't, I didn't know I qualified for that fellowship. I had no idea. I didn't know I had intergenerational family dysfunction and childhood trauma. What? You know, and I learned that from my peers. I thought I was alone, and then I learned, oh my God, lots of other people. You know, I just something just popped in my head. My first year, my second year in recovery, a woman said, I um am obsessive and compulsive in isolation and I heal in community. And I have taken that to heart. That's we're protected when we're connected. I love that. We hide when we're compulsive, we lie so that we can hide. Like, think about addiction. People do their massive substance use and they hide it. They hide the substances, they hide the behaviors. They might do it with other people who were abusing substances as badly as they are, but from their loved ones, yeah. They hide it because they're ashamed of it. Shame is like mold, like sunlight heals it. You can't heal in the dark, dank corners. You have to come light into this out into the sunlight of the day, of the love of other people, the witnessing of other people. I know that like when I started learning that I might be able to reach out to other people, I and I had the thought of doing it. Like if I was crying, I'd be like, What are they gonna do for me? Well, now I know you know what they're gonna do for me, they're gonna witness me in my tears, in my sadness, and they're gonna be here for me. That's healing.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

Right. I always think about it as they see all of my brokenness when they still love me. Well, I got a huge sigh when you said that.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

Oh my god, Pam, that was so good.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

Yeah. Well, let's move. I want to talk about your podcast from one podcaster to

From Fragmented To Whole

SPEAKER_00 51:01

another.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

So fragmented to whole. So what does fragmented feel like versus feeling whole?

SPEAKER_03 51:10

So it's actually fragmented to whole life lessons from 12-step recovery. So it's my life lessons from 12-step recovery. So I basically can see now that before recovery, I kind of felt like I was a bunch of fragmented pieces floating around in space. There was space between those fragments, which meant other people's shit could leak into my territory. And the process of recovery, especially the process of building healthy boundaries, helped me integrate all those fragments into one coherent whole and get rid of the inauthentic fragments that weren't truly me. So I can be rocked by things that happen to me, Pam, but I can't be shattered by them the way that I used to because I'm whole. When things happen to me, they don't detract from my wholeness. Well, there are multiple ways that I became fragmented. One is that I lied a lot, like that's out of integrity. And integrity, by the way, is another word for wholeness. Integration is the verb of integrity. Like you get integrated and then you have integrity. And then another way that I became fragmented was that I had all these different masks or facades up. I pretended. You know, I pretended that, you know, these things were okay and not okay. And I got really defensive because I didn't want people to see behind the mask. And so now I'm a whole person. Now, wholeness doesn't mean I never get upset and I'm okay all the time. It means I'm grounded, I'm situated in me, I'm not fragmented out there. And then that's another way I got fragmented is I was in your life and your life and your life. And I have so much more energy now because I'm living one life, mine. I'm not doing all this mental and emotional labor about how I'm gonna fix your problems or what you're gonna think about me if I do X, Y, Z and la la la la la la la. I'm living one life. And again, it doesn't mean I'm not helpful to other people. I'm way more helpful than I ever was before because I'm whole.

unknown 53:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

I'm a firm believer that healthy boundaries actually helps you come back to who you were always meant to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

It's like I feel like I'm a concentrated and authentic version of who I was, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, definitely. I like Barb. I think she's amazing. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 53:36

Me too. And I like Pam. I think she's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

What this is we're gonna we're coming to a close soon, but I wanted to ask you this because someone asked me this before and it kind of it was a hard one for me. I don't know why. But what is something you used to believe about yourself that you now know isn't true?

SPEAKER_03 53:56

I used to believe that I had all the answers and that my way was the right way, and that if people only did things my way, that everything would work out okay. But that that was not conscious. I wasn't walking around saying that, but that's how I operated, and that's clearly what I believed. And now I'm like, oh shit. I don't. And you know what's really funny is when I did step one in OA, so step one is I'm powerless over in OA, it's food, and my life has become unmanageable. And so my sponsor had me write out, tell me all the ways in which your life became has become unmanageable. And when I did that work, I literally saw that there was not one area of my life that I ran well. Not my health, not my work life, not my family life, not my household, not my time, not my finance, like literally nothing. And I started laughing so hard. I was rolling around on my bed, holding, you know, when your ribs hurt? I could it because it was insane. It was like, oh my God, I think people should listen to me, and I can't run one fucking area of my life well. What am I thinking? And I look back now and I would call that a spiritual awakening. I saw myself for the first time, and I laughed. I didn't beat myself up, but it helped me to understand. Also, I have been super arrogant, and that's why I hate arrogant people because that's me, you know? And so I tend to be on the arrogant side rather than on a low self-esteem side, but they're the same. They're this opposite sides of the same coin. You're wrong. There's something wrong with you, you're not the right amount of something. Yeah. You know, so that idea that I have all the answers in my way is the right way, that's what I used to believe, and I don't anymore.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Well, and some people think arrogance thinks some people think confidence. Yeah, that's different. Arrogance. But they are different. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

Confidence, like arrogance is like confidence way out of proportion.

unknown 55:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:57

Yeah. It's it's unfounded confidence.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Yes, and and unhealthy.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

So yeah, it's a mask.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

Yeah. Yeah.

The Boundary For Your Inner Critic

SPEAKER_00 56:04

A lot people struggle with boundaries. So what is one boundary you wish every woman felt permissioned to set?

SPEAKER_03 56:14

Um, it's an internal boundary on your thoughts of self-deprecation or your thought your negative thoughts. So whether it's ruminating about the past, catastrophizing about the future, telling yourself you're a piece of shit or you should be different than you are. So it's like you have to know that you're having those thoughts. I didn't know I was having them until recovery. And then you get to stop them. You get to change the channel, is how I think about it. Like your mind's job is to think. It's going to think. You can't just stop them. You have to replace them with something else. You don't need to believe it in the beginning. But what's the opposite? If you tell yourself you're a piece of shit, then you could say, Oh, I'm a beloved child of God. You don't have to believe it in the beginning, but at least you're not poisoning the reservoir of your mind anymore. And when you start saying I'm a beloved child of God, it's like you're putting medicine into the reservoir, which means it's going to purify what may way faster. And the beauty of that kind of work is that it takes you a tiny fraction of the amount of time to change what's going on in your mind. So like I was 52, it didn't take me even five years. It wasn't even 10% to turn that around. It didn't mean I never had those thoughts again. But I also learned in recovery, you're not, I'm not responsible for my first thought, but I am responsible for my second thought and for what comes out of my mouth. You know, so I'm gonna have dysfunctional thoughts. I don't need to believe them.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Right. And a lot of people I notice, they don't know who they are. But if they heal or get rid of these behaviors, they're afraid because who are they without them?

SPEAKER_03 57:49

I had the same. And to me, the boundary building process is this like discovering or creating your real identity. Like, where do I end and other people begin? What's okay and not okay with me? What do I want, like, need, and prefer? What's my responsibility and not mine? Like I figured, like I look like I determine the boundaries of Barb. And so for people who are listening and not watching, I basically took my hands and sort of went around the outline of me. Like I decide this stuff. Because people are like, well, how do I know what my boundaries are? Well, you got to you get to know yourself first and determine like what matters to me, what are my values, and then you act on that. You know? And so, and I I remember the same thing when I did my step six specifically, which is we become entirely ready to let go of these shortcomings. I remember sending my homework to my sponsor and saying, I feel like I'm naked and I will be naked and exposed without these things. I won't know who I am. But I also went through the process of figuring, okay, this is what I used to do. Here's what I could do now. So I had a playbook of new ways to be. And what I've done is become, like I said, a more concentrated, authentic version of me. A lot of Barb used to be up for negotiation. There's 0% of Barb that's up for negotiation now.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

That's amazing. Because a lot of people are still in the mode of negotiating because they don't know who they are. They have no sense of identity.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

Right. And boundary building is discovering that, is determining, deciding all of that. It's not you come in and you you know what your boundaries are. You ex the boundary building is an experimental process. You make educated guesses, you act on them, and you get feedback based on what happens within you and around you.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

Yes. And I always tell people listen to your body. Yes. Your body will communicate with you in one way or another.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

But if you're dissociated all the time, you can't listen to your body. And if you've been in fight or flight mode, that's why like internal safety also includes doing nervous system work, like calming yourself down. Yeah. And and like taking a deep breath and getting to the point where you sigh, because that's a signal to your nervous system and to your body. I'm safe, which means your executive functioning and your brain can now become re-engaged and you can actually think and pay attention to your body and the signals that are happening there. But if you've been dissociated or numbing, like with food or drugs or whatever, your whole life, paying attention to your body, people are like, what does that even mean? You know, like where is my body? Right. So many people are disconnected from their bodies. You know, that's a huge part of my healing work too, it's been somatic work.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Yeah. You know.

One Small Step When You Feel Stuck

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Well, if someone listening today feels depleted or disconnected, exhausted, stuck in old patterns, what's one small step they can start taking today?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

Yeah, I think it's the the internal boundary of stop the drain on your energy and stop jacking up your nervous system with a negativity. The stuff like what happens in your mind plays out in your life and in your body. So stop the negativity. Surround yourself with people and environments that are healthy, healing, and positive. You do not like I remember being told you can walk away from chaos. And I was like, What? I used to walk toward chaos. Because first of all, I'm familiar with it. And secondly, I'm gonna fix that shit. Yeah. Right? I don't have to get involved in every dramatic situation around me. I can walk away. And um, I I get to like if something makes me nervous, that's a signal. Don't do it. Yeah, right? Well, okay, no, there's a level of discernment because sometimes nervousness is good excitement, you know, like if you're going for a job interview and something like that. So like scratch that. But you can't have that level of discernment. Is this good nervous or is this bad nervous when you're in fight or flight mode all the time?

unknown 1:02:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

That's why we a lot of people with dysfunction have such black and white thinking because black and white are starkly different. We can't see gray when our executive functioning is offline when we're in fight or flight mode all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

Oh, that fight or flight mode. It's a tough

Where To Find Barb And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

one. Before we close today, I know there are going to be listeners who heard themselves in a lot of this conversation today. Maybe they're realizing they've spent years saying yes when they mean when they mean no, or they're exhausted from taking care of everyone else while neglecting themselves. Or maybe they're hearing the phrase internal safety for the very first time and realizing that that's what's been missing. So for anyone wanting to learn more about your work, connect with you, or continue the journey, what's the best place for them to find you?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:59

So since they're already listening to a podcast, hopping on over to my podcast, Fragmented to Whole, would be really helpful. So I talk about this stuff all the time, but my show notes have links to like all my things. And then I just recently created an internal safety course that's called Boundaries That Hold. Stop overwriting yourself in real time. So they can go to my website, higherpowercc.com slash boundaries that hold. And then if they think they really want to potentially do coaching with me, they can sign up for a say no with guilt call for me. It's a 45-minute free call. And they can go to barbchat.net and they can hop onto my calendar from there. And my website is full of all kinds of resources. I've got free, low cost, moderate cost, and then you know, my highest ticket item is my unshakable you 12-week private coaching program. And I have stuff on boundaries in the workplace, boundaries in the family, personal boundaries, and romantic boundaries, and stuff about internal safety. I do have a start here page as well. So, like dive in.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

What a calling. Yeah. And you're answering it. Yeah. And I'm so happy. You're gonna help so many. I wish I would have f found you when in my twenties. Yeah. Well, saved me a lot of trouble.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:18

When you were in your 20s, I was probably in my 30s still drinking heavily. I don't know how old you are, but I was probably in my 30s or forties and drinking and smoking and acting out and being codependent. So yeah, you didn't want to find me back then.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:32

So yeah, creating the pain that you would use later.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:35

Right. Exactly. That I've turned into purpose. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:39

Well, as I listen to your story and your methods and your framework, what stands out to me isn't really boundaries, it's trust. Learning to trust yourself enough to tell the truth. Trust yourself enough to honor your needs and trust yourself enough to disappoint someone else if it means you stop disappointing yourself. And I think so many women spend years waiting for permission to take up space, ask for help, rest, speak up.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:17

Yeah, so I'm giving you permission right now. I can actually send you a permission slip if you want it. I'm giving everybody permission. Yeah, I think like I built trust. I built self-trust through the boundary building process. I built self-love through the boundary building process. I built self-worth through the boundary building process.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

You know, I didn't know I didn't love myself. I didn't know I I had didn't have self-worth. If you had asked me, I would have said yes. But I knew I didn't that I did not, I did know I didn't trust myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

The permission was never outside of us, y'all. Um, it was always ours to give ourselves. And Barb, thank you for reminding us that becoming whole isn't about becoming someone new. Right. It's about returning to the parts of ourselves we've endured or silenced or sacrificed somewhere along the way. I'm so grateful for you and your calling and for joining us today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

And thank you for such great questions. Really, this was just such a wonderful conversation. I could literally talk to you for hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

I know me too. And you're what I call PLU, which is people like us. Okay. That's what we say in our family.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

Yeah, kindred spirits. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Kindred spirits. And to everyone else listening, when life gets hard and it will, remember this the moment before the reaction matters. Not because you're trying to be perfect and not because you'll always get it right, but because that moment gives you a choice, a chance to pause and get curious, and a chance to ask, what do I actually need right now? Because transformation doesn't begin after the binge, after the outburst or the burnout or any of those things. Transformation begins in that pause. So until next time, pause, choose, build momentum, and finish stronger than you started. We'll see you all next week. Thanks again, Barb, so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:31

Thank

Listener Reminder And Goodbye

SPEAKER_03 1:07:32

you.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

Hey, it's me, Pam. And before we go, just a quick reminder: everything we share here is meant to encourage, educate, and get you thinking. But it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, legal, financial, or any other licensed advice. I'm simply someone who is walking through life, learning right alongside you. And I'm grateful we get to learn together. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for your unique situation. Thanks for spending this time with us. Until next time, remember sometimes the biggest change begins with one small pause. I'll see you on the next episode of Delay the Binge.