Empowering Change with Barb: The Journey of Setting Boundaries and Embracing Gratitude

What if setting boundaries could transform your life and career? Join us for an engaging conversation with Barb, a dynamic boundaries coach and fellow podcaster, who shares her remarkable journey from being a talkative child often told to be quiet, to realizing the power of her voice as a professional asset. Barb opens up about her late-life discovery of codependency and how her involvement in 12-step recovery programs enabled her to build healthier boundaries. Now, she’s on a mission to empower professional women to prioritize their needs and thrive, using the very skills she honed through her own experiences. Her podcast, Fragmented to Whole: Life Lessons from 12 Step Recovery, stands as a testament to her growth and commitment to helping others reclaim their autonomy.

Our conversation doesn't stop there. We uncover the transformative power of gratitude in everyday life, sharing personal stories about managing expectations and cultivating a mindset of appreciation. From navigating workplace challenges with a notoriously unreliable boss to embracing the habit of maintaining a gratitude journal, learn how adjusting your expectations and focusing on gratitude can significantly reduce stress and promote personal growth. Plus, we introduce a free boundary-building starter kit packed with practical tools to help you align your personal boundaries with your values. This episode promises to deliver insights and inspiration for anyone ready to embrace change and foster personal development.

Chapters

• 0:02 Overcoming Boundaries and Victim Mentality
• 11:54 Practicing Gratitude in Daily Life
• 16:16 Gratitude and Boundary Building Kit

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello there and welcome back to the next episode of Overcome Yourself, the podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole and today I'm so excited to be here with Barb, and Barb is kind of like me. She got in trouble for talking too much I bet it was all over your report cards when she was little and now we get paid to talk. We turned our weakness into our superpower and I'm so excited to hear all about that. So, barb, take it away and let us know who you are and who you help now.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Yeah, I'd love to. So thank you so much and I just love your, the concept of overcome yourself. So I do want to address the talking thing. So I got in trouble. I remember being my family stopped going to church when I was six. But I remember being in trouble in church for talking. And then, years later, that same girl I got in trouble for talking with. We sat next to each other in chorus and got in trouble and I was always like talking too much, talking too loud, getting in trouble. And then, a few years ago, when I started in the coaching business, I went to this training and this guy talked about like what did you get in trouble? And then, a few years ago, when I started in the coaching business, I went to this training and this guy talked about like what did you get in trouble for as a kid Cause it might be your greatest gift. And I was like, oh my God, talking. And so I'm a podcaster, so I talk. I'm a coach, so I talk and I'm a connector in the world of entrepreneurship, so I talk and I get paid to do it. And so like, screw everybody who says you know you talk too much or whatever, but I'm a boundaries coach and so, just to tell you, like how that happened, I I don't know if you've ever heard of the term codependence.

Speaker 2: 1:40

I had not heard of that term, nicole, until I hit a codependent bottom in 2015 at the age of 52. So a codependent person is basically someone who's focused on everything outside themselves. So other people what are they doing? Not doing Like, what does the situation need? What does the organization need? What does the person need? They neglect themselves.

Speaker 2: 2:00

The classic codependent is in a relationship with an addict or an alcoholic. So that could be a romantic, could be their, you know, the parent of an adult child, it could be a sibling or something. But not everybody that's codependent is in such a relationship. And I had never even heard that word, despite starting therapy at 15, being introduced to self-help genre when I was like 22, 23, like seminars and retreats and works, like you just name it. I did all the things and I got into 12-step recovery for codependence. I'm now in a couple of other programs for other things which you know, maybe we'll get to or not, but I just didn't even know that it was a thing and my life was absolutely transformed from 12 step recovery and I learned so, so, so many things in recovery, but because my core wound is codependence, learning how to build healthy boundaries was such a game changer for me, partly because it's the antidote to building I mean, it's the antidote to codependence, but, um, partly because boundaries permeate every area of your life. So there I can. You know like I mostly help people that have difficult relationships, whether at work or at home, or, you know, family of origin or something like that. But, um, you know people uh, have issues with boundaries, with you know no-transcript around them. It changes things.

Speaker 2: 3:56

And then, a couple years into recovery, I got laid off from Yale and I found my way into the world of startups and innovation and entrepreneurship in New Haven and at Yale, and I started my own business. I very quickly started my podcast, which is called Fragmented to Whole Life Lessons from 12 Step Recovery, and I started it, nicole, with no vision whatsoever. I had no, I stumbled my way here. I now have 304 episodes right, so I had no idea what I was doing. 304 episodes right, so I had no idea what I was doing. And I started it because I found all this wisdom in recovery that I just was not learning elsewhere and it didn't occur to me that it would have anything to do with my business. It's now the number one way I get clients.

Speaker 2: 4:37

I will say Google is starting to like ramp up in terms of people finding me from Google and I just started sort of generally coaching and after a couple years realized you really need to have a niche and it just made sense for me to be a boundaries coach because of my lived experience 50 something years of no boundaries and having such healthy boundaries now that now I coach people. So what happened for me, nicole, is like I learned how to build healthy boundaries, so this sort of meandering, haphazard path through the 12 step recovery programs I was in. It's not like someone sat me down and was like here we're going to build boundaries now, barb, that's not what happened. So after I got a handle on, I'm like these boundaries are amazing. I started reading about them and when I would read about them it like retroactively helped me understand like what happened. And as I was reading them I would do these drawings to visually depict the principles I was understanding. And those drawings turned into handouts which turned into a workbook which is now the backbone of my boundaries coaching program.

Speaker 2: 5:39

So I have a 12 week or 12 module, which is a 12 week multimedia curriculum that I use Like I teach my clients. So if they like structure, this is the program for them and the transformations I've been able to have people help people have have been incredible. So my, um, my, my target audience are professional women who say yes when they really want to say no and who neglect themselves because they're so focused on others. Because that was me, so I want to help former me. So I mean I could go on. I'm going to stop there because it is your podcast.

Speaker 1: 6:16

No, no, no, no. This is all about you. We want to know about you and this is all fantastic. Learning to say no, like you said. It permeates every area of our life, like with food, with our relationships, with our kids, and I love the example that you gave as a leader in your workplace, how that had that ripple effect. And boundaries are healthy, right. So, yeah, please tell me a little bit more. I would love to know um the story of you overcoming yourself to get to this point if you want to talk to.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Yeah, I think the way that I I don't know that I would have used that language, but I, when I read overcome yourself, I'm like, oh my god, that's essentially what I did. So I am a terribly introspective person. I'd read seven gajillion self-help books, been in therapy forever, did all work, and I got into 12-step recovery and the first like two to three years I found out just volumes about myself that I was completely blind to and I was like why was I paying for all that therapy if literally none of this stuff? So I think for me the number one paradigm shift of my recovery was coming out of victim mentality. So this is a really good example of coming getting over myself. So I'm not the quintessential like woe is me, the world is against me, kind of victim. I always felt like a powerful woman of agency.

Speaker 2: 7:37

My victim mentality was way more subtle than that. So the way that I first started to see it was when I did a relationship inventory in 12-step recovery. I thought I happen to date men. So, like every man on my list, I was like, well, if he would just xyz or he would fill in the blank, then everything would be okay. And I started to realize, wait, that's me acting like I have nothing to do with the status of any of my relationships and it was like whoa. And then, once I saw that in the romance department, I started to realize it was the same with my friendships, with my colleagues, with my family, and I think I probably have like nine episodes now on victim mentality, because every time another layer of that mentality comes off, I do an episode about it because it's insidious, it's a mentality and it comes from somewhere. Like if you have victim mentality, you've probably been victimized in some way, shape or form, but you don't have to live with that mentality. And so if you're saying if only a lot, if you blame a lot, if you complain a lot like I always thought I was a really positive, optimistic person and I did a bunch of work in my late 20s to clean up negative self talk, when I got in recovery it was like whoa, there was this mountain of negativity, so ruminating about the past, catastrophizing about the future, blaming other people and complaining about stuff. I literally like swam in that stuff and so that's a huge way that I got over myself instead of thinking like things were happening at me or to me, realizing I actually have choices here. And I want to give you like an everyday example that I bet a lot of people can identify with, and that is when you're driving in traffic a lot of people can identify with, and that is when you're driving in traffic. So a big, huge like awakening I had was one day.

Speaker 2: 9:30

My first couple of months, or maybe three months or so in recovery, I'm on my way to work in a traffic jam and the third time I went to just pump the brake, the thought came in my head I need to leave more space between cars. And I went oh my God, I need to leave more space between cars. And I'm like, oh my God, I need to leave more space between cars. And I'm like, oh my God, it's me, I'm the problem. I'm the problem, it's me, my program, my program is working. Now, when I say I'm the problem, I don't mean that in a self deprecating way, I mean it in an empowering way. I am the problem, so I get to be the solution, because if everybody else is the problem, I'm screwed.

Speaker 2: 10:08

So when I unpacked that experience after, by the way, I got to work and sat there in the parking lot and had this cascade of understanding about my behavior. When I got in the car to drive home that night, I was a completely different driver. I drove in the right hand lane, I drove the speed limit. If somebody pulls out in front of me, I slow down, I speed up, I sort whatever I need to do and I don't lose my mind over them because I don't know them and I don't want to give my serenity to them. This is just what's happening. But what I started to realize was that I had this really deeply subconscious belief that there shouldn't be traffic, at least not when I'm driving. Meanwhile, highways were built for traffic, so if you're upset that there's traffic on the highway, you have victim mentality, at least in regard to driving on the highway. You're acting like this is happening to me. I'm a victim of this.

Speaker 2: 11:03

No you're not like. You have choices, so you could go at another time. You know you could do something different. You could just decide oh, I'm going to listen to audio books and I get to have more story time because there's traffic to audiobooks and I get to have more story time because there's traffic sometimes. I heard it said you're not sitting in traffic, you are traffic. Yes, oh my god, I'm totally stealing that. I love it.

Speaker 1: 11:23

I don't know where I got it from you are the traffic right exactly go at a different time. So like I live in Miami and like we were just talking the other day, like damn, like you know, uh, five o'clock, traffic now is from like two to eight, so like now you can't leave the house till after eight o'clock, right, but yeah, like we do have to adjust sometimes and then if I leave, if I have to leave the house like at three, I'm like I'm gonna have to sit in traffic and this you know, you're just gonna enjoy the ride and like I didn't even realize. But that's such a good point. Um, yeah, and one of my goals is don't be an asshole like don't be the asshole.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Like let people merge in front of you, like do what needs to be done, lead by example, right, um, and yeah, so it doesn't have to be so stressful, right, when you're driving. Um, yeah, because you're the only one in your car, so like it could be a party.

Speaker 2: 12:17

Or it could be a party, or you could call your friends and have friend time, because they're probably in the car too, you know.

Speaker 2: 12:23

But you got to the point that you know you alluded to something that like let's have the expectation that there will be traffic. So that's another big, huge, like eye-op opening thing for me was I found out that I had these wildly unrealistic expectations of myself, the world and other people. I wanted things to be the way I wanted them to be and getting my expectations that's. I have another whole list of podcast episodes on overcoming realist, unrealistic expectations because I had so many of them and the more I see and I see it in people all the time because it was so me and I just thought that these were reasonable expectations and what? Here's what I've come to learn.

Speaker 2: 13:06

So I worked at Yale University and my boss I've loved her dearly. She drove me crazy. She was one of the most unreliable humans I have ever met in my entire life. So it is reasonable in a professional setting like Yale University to expect a boss to show up on time, do what they say they're going to do, follow through on things right. That's reasonable.

Speaker 2: 13:26

But that particular woman showed me for 19 years that she was not going to show up on time and was not going to follow through and was not going to do what she said she was going to do. So it's an unreasonable excuse me, unrealistic expectation for her. So in the workplace, reasonable, with that particular woman, unrealistic. So you can have something that's a reasonable expectation. And you know, one of the things that I learned is like that's my expectation for myself and I get to uphold that, but to hold, like be mad at her for being the same person she was since the day I met her, like my part in that was expecting her to be different than she was. So if it's that much of a problem for me, then I can leave. But instead.

Speaker 2: 14:14

I complained about her and tried all these ways of manipulating to try to get her to do the things I wanted her to do. Never worked, by the way.

Speaker 1: 14:21

It doesn't. It doesn't work. And you know, I had, I had someone that was working for me and I knew that she was always two hours late. Whenever we like invited her to something, whenever we had something, she was always two hours late. So I built that in to her schedule and I said, hey, I need you here at 10, yeah, and then she showed up at noon and guess what? I didn't have to be stressed out because I knew that she would get there by noon.

Speaker 1: 14:48

And then somebody who doesn't employ people found out and they were like I cannot believe you lied to her. I'm like how are you gonna get mad at me? I didn't lie, like I, I, you know, like I. Well, like I, I did lie a little bit, but to her benefit, right, because I'm not gonna get mad at you for being there, not being there at 10, when I know, no, just give you two hours extra, so I'll. You know, I'm Cuban, though, so we, we work that way anyway.

Speaker 1: 15:15

And that's something that one of my clients teaches is think, of course, like if you are coming up to someone and you know that they are a certain way, and then they are that way with you, you cannot be surprised. That person's mean. You say something to them, they're mean. You have to laugh and say, of course you would say that because, right, and it helps us understand, it helps us not go crazy trying to change other people. Right, we have to have gratitude. So the next thing that I wanted to ask you about another big theme of my book is practicing gratitude. So can you tell me a little bit about how gratitude played a role in all of this that you've done so I started keeping a gratitude journal in July of 2000.

Speaker 2: 16:09

Nightly. I have a coming on 25 year stable practice of practicing gratitude Now. In the beginning I learned to write five things for which I'm grateful, and in the beginning it was hard to come up with five things, even though I could do the same thing every day if I wanted to. But that stretching to get to a certain number is actually really important, because when you stretch, that means you're seeking and seek and you shall find. And so what I found was that, no matter how shitty my day was, I could always find things for which to be grateful.

Speaker 2: 16:43

Now, I have actually suffered from a number of episodes of pretty bad depression, so even when things were just absolutely horrible, I could still find things to be grateful for, and at times like that it was things like I can read, I have access to clean water, things that I normally would take for granted. But like can you imagine if you can read and what your life would be like if you couldn't? Like? You would be a completely different person if you couldn't read. Can you imagine if you had to actually, you know like lug water for miles every single day? You would be feeling a lot differently about the shower that you get to take. Like, I remember hearing somebody tell me they were in some remote area in South America and they said is it true that people in the United States bathe in drinking water? And at first she was like no, and then she was like wait a minute. Actually, yes, because the water that we, that we, bathe in, is higher quality than the drinking water that some people get, and we get to walk into the bathroom and turn a faucet and in a few moments the water is going to be hot, you know. So I I mean I've been through some really devastating things in my life and being able to keep a gratitude journal has really grounded me. And that nightly practice really helped me when I got into 12 step recovery, because I now also do a nightly inventory, which is step 10 in 12 step recovery. So I'm already doing, I'm already in the journal.

Speaker 2: 18:09

And actually when I got into recovery, nicole, my I changed it to 10 things, for which I'm grateful, because five was just so easy, because my life was was turned around so much.

Speaker 2: 18:20

So I think like, even if you're not going to start a daily gratitude practice, if you're having a difficult day with your attitude, like just write down like A to Z and then write like a bunch of things that you're grateful for, or even like say, okay, what are three things I'm grateful for this morning. One thing that I started doing recently. I just actually went off on my phone. I have a reminder named five things that you enjoyed about today, like in the middle of the day, rather than waiting to the end of the day, and then sometimes I don't even remember what those things are by the time the day ends. But it's a really good way, because you kind of review your life and you start to be like oh, I'm going to put that in my gratitude journal, I'm going to put that in my gratitude journal, and so you're looking for gratitude in the world. So it's really just been a wonderful addition to my life.

Speaker 1: 19:09

It just starts popping up, like you don't even have to consciously think about it, because you'll be walking around and be like, oh my God, I'm so grateful for this. Like I get to experience this bridge. Or I'm so grateful for how green this tree is. Or oh my God, I'm so grateful for how green this tree is. Or, oh my God, I'm so grateful, and it just it pours out of you. That is absolutely amazing. I was going to ask you something and it left me. That's fine. I'm grateful that we're still here together, though.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Okay, but it'll come back up, but tell me, because I know you had mentioned that you have a free gift, so I wanted you to tell us a little bit about that. Yes, mentioned that you have a free gift.

Speaker 2: 19:43

So I wanted you to tell us a little bit about that. Yes, yes, so it's a free boundary building starter kit. So I provide this for free because there are people who are never going to coach and there's just not that kind of people. But I want I do have a ton of free stuff, like on my website and on um and on Instagram. But this free starter kit, which is basically a lot, it's it's. It lives on my website, but, um, you sign up for it and then you get um, like on the landing page from there. When you sign up, you get a couple of extra things and there's an opportunity to buy something if you want to buy something, and then you'll get an email with all of the resources. So it's a ton of stuff. So it's, you know, it'll help you learn how to say yes. You really want to say no. It will help you figure out like people ask me like how do I know what my boundaries are? Well, you want to anchor them based on your values. So there's an exercise for that. So there's a couple of worksheets, there's an article, there's a bunch of videos.

Speaker 2: 20:35

I have a podcast playlist of just my episodes about boundaries, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 episodes that you can just binge listen to as part of that. And then I also include three modules from my curriculum that normally only my clients get. So one of them is mindset. I mean, I think I don't care what you're doing, whatever you're doing, mindset is like the foundation of everything. It's about altering your mindset and then communicating.

Speaker 2: 21:02

A lot of people are like I don't know what to say. So the communications module will teach you a whole bunch of tips and then some very specific scripts of things you can say when you're setting boundaries. And then there's also the kind of boundaries that for me personally had the greatest impact. I call them boundaries of self-containment. Me personally had the greatest impact. I call them boundaries of self containment. So these are things we either need to contain or stop doing altogether like gossiping or like negative self-talk and that sort of thing. So it's pretty comprehensive. So they go to boundaries. Darter kitcom to get it, and I think you're also going to link it in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 21:39

You said right, yes, everything that she mentioned is going to be in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 21:43

and also, let us know how can we keep in touch with you other than that, like well, if you go there and you download the kit, you're going to be on my email list automatically, which you cannot subscribe from if you don't want to, and there's everything about me on the website, so you can contact me there via email. My favorite place to hang out on social media is on Instagram. I'm at higher power coaching, and so just DM me there and tell me that you, you know you found me on overcome yourself because I love finding where people you know where they heard where they heard me from, and lots of free stuff on Instagram too, about boundaries.

Speaker 1: 22:18

That is amazing. Thank you so much for offering that to the audience. And before we sign off here, I would like to know do you have any final tips, Like what is like the big takeaway, like the biggest tip that you give your clients?

Speaker 2: 22:32

Yeah. So it's keep the focus on yourself, and I teach quite a number of ways to do that, but to me, the most important one is to take really good care of yourself. So people a lot of women think that it's somehow selfish to put themselves first and to fill their cups so that they can pour from the overflow. It's actually self-preservation. So selfish is not like. Taking care of yourself is not selfish, it's self-preservation, and you deserve to get your cup filled first so you can pour from the overflow rather than from an empty cup. So keep the focus on you and what you're doing, and it doesn't mean that you're not helpful to other people. It means that you're pouring from the overflow and you have a lot more to give other people.

Speaker 1: 23:19

I love that that's. That's in my book too. Like you're quoting my book, yes, yes, the same vibe.

Speaker 2: 23:23

I love that.

Speaker 1: 23:30

So thank you so much for being here with us today. This has been absolutely incredible and be sure yes, so be sure to check out her everything that the gift is going to be amazing. The boundary setting workbook what was it?

Speaker 2: 23:40

I'm sorry, it's a. It's a boundary building starter kit.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Boundary building starter kit. That's even better than what I said. Um, and stay in touch with her on social media and we will see you guys next time on the next episode of overcome yourself.

Speaker 2: 23:53

Bye, all right, thanks Nicole.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Thank you.