From People-Pleasing to Self-Love: How to Heal Codependency After 50 | Emotional Healing Journey

What if you could break free from lifelong patterns of codependence and transform your life through the power of boundaries? In this episode of Lift One Self, we sit down with Barb Nangle, a remarkable boundaries coach who turned her life around through 12-step recovery programs. Barb opens up about her journey through Codependence Anonymous and Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, revealing how she reparented herself and healed from trauma. Her inspiring story of shedding over 100 pounds by embracing healthy boundaries showcases the profound impact of self-care and community support on personal growth and professional transformation.

Our conversation takes a deeper dive into the practices that have anchored Barb’s healing journey, such as meditation, play, and emotional processing. By drawing from Internal Family Systems theory, Barb illustrates how techniques like yelling into a pillow can release pent-up feelings and lead to authentic emotional expression. The episode unravels the intricacies of people-pleasing behaviors and the significance of setting boundaries aligned with personal values. Through Barb's candid reflections, we explore how shifting from a need for external validation to cultivating internal safety has reshaped her life and relationships, including finding her first healthy romantic relationship in her 50s.

We conclude by emphasizing the importance of spreading the message of self-care and emotional healing. Barb encourages listeners to share these transformative insights with those who might benefit and to practice kindness and gentleness toward themselves. As Barb’s story illustrates, addressing small, present-moment emotions can unravel deeper layers of healing over time. Join us for an eye-opening conversation on the journey from codependence to empowerment, and discover how you too can cultivate a life of self-awareness, self-love, and intentional growth.

Connect with Barb here:
https://higherpowercc.com/podcast/

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Stigmas
• 13:21 Healing Through Self-Care and Reparenting
• 27:22 Uncovering Manipulation and Healing Journeys
• 32:40 Internal Healing and Accountability in Recovery
• 42:08 Self-Care Through Emotional Processing
• 54:20 Spreading the Message of Self-Care

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, Nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself. Welcome to the Lift when Self podcast. I'm your host, Nat Nat, and today I have a beautiful woman named Barb Nangle, and would you allow us to know a little bit about yourself, Barb? And you know what is it that is in your jam and what you like to do?

Speaker 2: 0:55

Sure. Thanks, natnat. I'm so excited to be here and very happy to meet you. Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 2: 1:03

So I am a boundaries coach, which is kind of hilarious because I was a lifelong people pleaser, rescuer, fixer and saver saver and enabler and in 2015, when I was 52, I hit a codependent bottom. And if people don't know what that means, welcome to the club. I didn't either. Even though I had been in therapy since I was 15, read a gajillion self-help books, done all the things, I'd never heard this word codependent. So a codependent person the classic codependent is someone who's in a relationship with an addict or an alcoholic, but codependents are essentially people who are focused so much more on what's going on outside of them than what's inside. So what does he need? What does she need? What do they need? What does the situation need? What does the organization need? And they pretty much don't. They're not focused at all internally. They don't know what's going on with themselves.

Speaker 2: 1:56

So I got into Codependence Anonymous, which is a 12-step recovery program. Most people have heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, which was the very first 12 step recovery program. There, I understand there's some like 200 and something of them. And then I very quickly got into another program called ACA, which stands for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, which I did not know that I qualified for. I just, by the grace of my higher power, someone brought me to the meeting and that's actually a trauma recovery program where you reparent yourself and you use the 12 steps to recover and that is my main program. And then a year later I let go of CODA and got someone gently brought me into Overeaters Anonymous and I'm now down over 100 pounds from my top weight and my journey through the 12 steps of recovery, nat Nat, has been utterly transformative. So the way I think of all that personal development work I did for the you know, from 15 to 52, so that's 37 years was like it scratched the surface of the iceberg of my life and recovery melted the iceberg. So for me the 12 steps are where it's at.

Speaker 2: 3:08

I was working full time at Yale University when I landed in recovery and one of the amazing, one of the many, many, many benefits of 12 step recovery was I learned how to build healthy boundaries and I think of my core wound as codependence, and boundaries are essentially the antidote to codependence and I was shocked at the ripple effect on my team and my project when I was working at Yale, I was like wait a minute, none of these people are in recovery. What's going on here? And it just goes to show that when one person changes the dynamics of their interactions with the people around them, that it has a ripple effect. So we can't control people, but we can influence them. And then a couple years later, I ended up getting laid off and, through a series of serendipitous events, found my way into the world of entrepreneurship, startups and innovation at Yale and, in New Haven, started my own coaching and consulting business. I started a podcast it's called Fragmented to Whole Life Lessons from 12-Step Recovery.

Speaker 2: 4:09

Very soon after that, not thinking it would really have much to do with my business, it's now the most common way that I get clients. But I started it because I was like man, there's all this wisdom in 12-step recovery that's just not making its way out into the world. So I now have 290 episodes and I've been doing it for five and a half years weekly, and my first couple years, when I had my business, I was just sort of generalized coaching. And then, you know, learned, you know you have to have some kind of a niche, and so it just made sense for me to niche into being a boundaries coach, because my lived experience of 50 something years with no boundaries and now having such healthy boundaries that I coach people and also one of the things that people love to hear about is that I'm finally in the first and only healthy romantic relationship of my life, when I was 55 and he was 60. We've been together over six years now and I attribute my ability to be in that relationship and be in a healthy relationship to having healthy boundaries, because I know who I am, I know where I end and other people begin, I know what's okay and not okay with me. I know what I like, want, need and prefer. I didn't know any of those things.

Speaker 2: 5:22

The boundary building process is the process where I learned all those things. I also learned to love myself and to have self-worth through that process. So I just want to say one more thing, and then I will end my intro, and that is that after about two to three years in recovery, when it was really clear like wow, these boundaries are amazing, I decided to start reading about boundaries because I learned to build them through this haphazard, meandering process through 12-step recovery. It's not like someone sat me down and was like all right, we're going to work on boundaries. So I started reading about them and it helped me to retroactively understand. Okay, here's what was going on. And while I was doing the reading that now I would kind of like visually depict what I was understanding that boundary situation to be.

Speaker 2: 6:10

Well, those drawings turned into handouts, which turned into a workbook which is the backbone of my boundaries coaching program. So I've created an accelerated process for people to learn how to build boundaries in a matter of weeks rather than some like two to three year haphazard, meandering process that I did. So I have a 12 module curriculum that you know. My flag flagship program is my 12 week private boundaries coaching program where I will work with anybody my group coaching same curriculum that I only do that for women and I mostly cater to women. So my ideal audience for my speaking and my ideal clients are professional women who say yes when they really want to say no and who neglect themselves because they're so focused on others. And that's because that was me and so I want to coach former me. So that's a very brief version of my story.

Speaker 1: 7:06

You said a lot that I'd like to dive into. Yet before we go into that, would you be willing to do a mindful moment with me?

Speaker 2: 7:14

Absolutely, I would love it. I could really use it right now, to be honest with you, okay.

Speaker 1: 7:19

And for the listeners, as I always tell you, the safety spiel. Most people listen to a podcast while they're driving or doing some visual. So when I asked Barb and myself to close our eyes, please don't Safety first. Yet you're able to do the other prompts. So, barb, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and, if it's safe to do so, gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose. And you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose.

Speaker 1: 7:54

You're not going to try and control your breath, just going to be aware of its rhythm, allowing it to bring you into the body. There may be some sensations or feelings coming up. That's okay, let them come up. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go. Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop deeper into your body. There may be some thoughts or to-do lists that have popped up in your mind, and that's okay. Gently, bring your awareness back to your breath. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping deeper into the gently bring your awareness to your breath, beginning again, creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts, and you're dropping even deeper into the body, allowing yourself to just be with the breath. Continue staying with the breath Now, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while staying with the breath.

Speaker 2: 9:49

How's your heart doing Well, yeah, that was beautiful. Thank you, you're welcome.

Speaker 1: 9:59

I started introducing this with the guest about a year ago. Instead of telling people to meditate and what the benefits are, I invite people in to access how grounding our breath can be. And it's free. It's accessible anywhere, where we are, and it's just to remember to practice it, because when we're in a dysregulated state with our nervous system, it's hard to access our breath.

Speaker 2: 10:26

But if we?

Speaker 1: 10:27

implement it, you know, day by day, moment by moment. Then you're able to be there for yourself, You're able to create that safety in your body and feel the emotions that are coming up. So that's why I call it mindful moments instead of meditation, because meditation can activate people and they're like, oh, I don't want that.

Speaker 2: 10:48

So it's like just take a mindful moment for a minute, check in with yourself, let your body feel actually in a coaching program right now called Positive Intelligence, where they have these several times a day on the app. They signal you to do very similar, so sometimes it's just breath, sometimes it's senses like touch your fingertips in such a way that you're so attentive that you can feel the ridges. Oh, that's so soothing. It's been absolutely delightful. So that was just a very welcome delight. Thank you so much for guiding me through that, and your voice was just oh just beautiful.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Safety in the body when you know feeling the anxiety, the fear, the helplessness, the sadness, feeling all those things, allowing there to be a space for it all to be there, not shoving it down or suppressing.

Speaker 1: 11:53

And what you explained in your beginning story of the people pleaser the helper, that's that fond state of the nervous system.

Speaker 1: 12:02

I'm very familiar with it because I've been in my fawn state because of traumatic events in my childhood.

Speaker 1: 12:09

And coming out of that and discovering it, it is a journey and when you don't really have the verbiage and understanding, when you go back you're like, oh, that's what that was, because, yeah, you explain boundaries, yet it's an energetic thing that goes on internally. Because, yeah, you explain boundaries, yet it's an energetic thing that goes on internally. You have to feel what's inside rather than grasping for that safety on the outside and really understanding that validation, that sense of feeling worthy. The doing gives us a feedback of like you know, we're valued and all that stuff and recognizing weight. That's supposed to be your job, yet we're so anchored of looking for our safety on the outside that that's why so many people are, you know, in that state, because they don't realize that they can create that safety in their body. What are tools that you use right now to provide self-care for yourself and to regulate that nervous system? I understand that you have that 12 step, yet is there other tools also that you've created and implemented for you?

Speaker 2: 13:15

Yeah. So meditation is really, really powerful for me. One of the things I mentioned in the ACA program Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. So what we say in that program is the solution is to become your own loving parent, and so it's loosely based on IFS or internal family systems theory. So the idea is we have this, the inner critic, we call our inner critical parent and we cultivate an inner loving parent, and then everybody has an inner child, maybe more than one inner teenager. So I do a lot of reparenting work. I've really intensely in the last two years.

Speaker 2: 13:55

I've been in ACA for nine and a half years and I sort of dabbled in the reparenting stuff for the first eight years and often I would hear people talk about what they were doing and I was like I don't know what that means, but my inner family has it and the healing is just absolutely profound. So one of the ways that I do that is I take my younger self back through an episode of something that happened that was traumatic or at least really, really difficult, with my inner loving parent and with the perspective of an adult, and I recast the event. So just last week I took my teenage self back through. I went. There was a boy who was a friend of a friend who asked me out and I didn't want to go and I did. And so I went back to the events of the date and I went at the end of the date and intervened. And then I went to an earlier part of the date and intervened. And then I went to the beginning where I said thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so flattered but I'm going to say no Like I. That was not. It was not even an option for me. It's not like I couldn't say no I, just the idea of saying no just wasn't an option for me. And I, you know, one of the things I said earlier was, like my target people that I love to work with are women who say yes when they really want to say no. I've literally just taught my younger self to say no when I want to say no, and that has a cascade of facts on my understanding of who I am from the past to now. So that's really healing but that's like long-term stuff. But if I'm really really like, my nervous system has been really out of whack this week.

Speaker 2: 15:42

I've done a lot of self-care. So for me, what I have done a lot of this week. I go outside. I need the sunlight in the air. I happen to be privileged enough to live across the street from the New Haven Harbor so I can go to the ocean and feel the breeze and hear the birds and hear the waves and all that stuff. I meditate regularly. I'm doing that coaching program For me. It's my breath, like what happens for me frequently is I feel like I have an elephant on my chest and so sometimes I just have to get to the point where I catch my breath. But mostly it's like what's going on internally, like checking in with myself.

Speaker 2: 16:25

But I laid on the couch and watched Hallmark Christmas movies quite a bit this week. I just like was had things to do in my business and I was like my nervous system is so much more important and I'm not going to do any of these things well, anyway. So there's that and then playing and having fun. That's actually one of the promises in the ACA program. So last not this past summer, the summer before when the Barbie movie came out I bought a Barbie doll and I bought a doll that looks like me and I called her boundaries Barbie's boundaries, coach Barb, and I did this whole campaign on better boundaries with Barbie.

Speaker 2: 17:09

It was super fun, and so I pulled out my Barbie dolls and played with them the other day because it's fun, and I have these little bears that sit on. They're on my bed and I sometimes just diddle around with them and I'm 61. People might think like, oh my God, you're a 61-year-old woman, you can think anything you want of me. This is healing and joyful for me. So I do things like that. I also reach out to other people and let them know what's going on for me and tell them I really need to stay in closer contact or I'm going to be checking in with you more frequently lately in the upcoming time. So lots of things to take care of myself. I could probably go on.

Speaker 1: 18:01

Yeah, thank you for being transparent and vulnerable and explaining what it is in your own. You know, warrior work, because it is warrior work to regulate that nervous system and feel our authentic emotions, because there's secondary emotions that you know we allow. Yet if you're doing the deep healing, it's really feeling those authentic emotions and remembering not to identify with them, that they're data, they're not information. Yet when that stuff is going on inside your body, it's like whoa, this is a tsunami and you know, and, as you said, it's finding people that can help co-regulate, like hold a space that I can feel in, that I feel safe with this feeling and that I'm not alone with it. Until you know, I have the capacity to be able to engage with it on my own. And play is the biggest thing to regulate your nervous system. That's why I keep Nat Nat as the nickname, so that people can engage with their childlike.

Speaker 1: 19:03

One of the tools that I use, especially when befriending anger, because anger is a protective emotion and you want to get what is it protecting? I tell people to yell in a pillow or go to a smash room and bang, and when they hear about yelling in a pillow, they're like I can't do that Like. That's like so childish and I'm like did you ever do it as a child? Well, no, nobody told me or allowed me, and it's like that's why I do it right now. And when they do it, they're like oh my gosh, I didn't realize how much I was holding on to and it was stuffing. And now I feel like weight has been taken off and I can see things a little bit more clearer. And so this narrative of age and what age is supposed to look like and adulting is supposed to look like, that is one of the things that is such a disservice with our healing.

Speaker 2: 19:56

Agreed A hundred percent, Absolutely. And you know I have a Friday night women's ACA meeting that I've been at since it started. It started, you know, like two months after I got into ACA, the women's meeting started and every year when we have an anniversary party, we all know what we're going to do. We're going to play and have fun, and one of the things we most commonly do together when we socialize outside of the meeting is get together to play games, Because we and you know I remember in the beginning one of the women was like I'm not playing games Because in her family the game ended up with a table getting flipped over and people getting into fights and stuff like that. So she decided to come and just watch us and she was like, I mean, it was healing for her to watch people sit at a table and be like mature adults having fun and nobody getting into arguments and flipping tables over and stuff.

Speaker 1: 20:49

She still never ended up playing with us, but just watching us was like this healing experience for her yeah, it was reshaping her nervous system to seeing, yeah, feeling of the environment and being able, if she was willing to engage with the intensity of thinking, she knew what was going to happen.

Speaker 1: 21:08

Yet being curious of, oh, there's a different way and I can settle into this, even though the anxiety is alerted because it's thinking that, well, this is what always happens in these kind of scenarios. Yet when you untether your curiosity and allow it to, you know, see the experience without shutting down, with control, it's like, oh, and that's what they mean by that reshaping, rewiring the nervous system or creating neural pathways. It's being able to be with whatever the sensation and creating another lived experience of what's possible, because you can create scenarios in your mind. If that were to work, the world would be much different. It's in lived experience of engaging with this nervous system and what these energies and emotions and feelings feel like internally. Um, and you know, feeling is is the crux of healing and, yeah, absolutely so many different ways.

Speaker 2: 22:08

Yet it's like, okay, the safe space of feeling that vulnerability yeah, yeah, and I do quite a bit of feelings work with my clients because feelings mainly guilt and shame are the things that stop people from setting boundaries. They either don't set them because of that, or they set them and then they cave on them because of the guilt and shame. And then there's resentment that people feel when they need to set like resentment is often a good indicator that it's either time to set a boundary or firm up a boundary. So I do a fair amount of feelings work with my clients because of that, because it's I mean, it's super important exactly, um, recognizing that you have needs and it's okay to have needs.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Like you said, it's giving other people a no so you can give yourself a yes, and I feel like such aversion and dysregulating, because it's like I'm unsafe to do that. I've always to be there for others. I don't know how it is to be there for myself and support myself, form myself and support myself. It's you know and understanding that guilt and shame are protective emotions. So what is it protecting you Like when there's that judgment filter of our mind in the analytical? It's guarding you from being in your vulnerability. It's guarding you feeling those authentic emotions, because it doesn't. Your nervous system reads that you don't have the capacity to feel this. The body is going to get too overwhelmed. Yet the work is to deactivate that part and allow it to come up and give me the information and deal with the discomfort. Like you know, everybody thinks it's going to be comfortable to do the healing work and do the change and it's like oh no, there's a lot of discomfort.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Until you required that the discomfort is actually the comfort and the comfort was the discomfort. Yeah, that takes its process. Rewire that.

Speaker 2: 24:07

Yeah, yeah. And what's ironic is what we. So one of the reasons we have the guilt and shame is because we're afraid we're going to be abandoned by other, abandoned, rejected, judged, whatever by other people and yet we end up abandoning ourselves, and that's like in my ACA program. That's. The core wound is that you know, we're terrified of abandonment because we've been abandoned. Often it's emotionally abandoned, but sometimes it's also physically abandoned, and so we're afraid of abandonment, and yet what we do the irony is what we do is we abandon ourselves.

Speaker 2: 24:41

And what I found that, matt, is that when I stopped abandoning myself, I stopped being so afraid of abandonment. And it makes sense because I stopped being abandoned, because if I'm in a relationship with you and I keep abandoning myself in that relationship, I'm not actually in that relationship because I'm abandoning myself. So I've built abandonment into the relationship. So of course, I'm abandoned. And then you know, I happen to be a higher power person. So not only have I stopped abandoning myself, I have a higher power that's also not going to abandon me. So I don't want you to abandon me, I want you to like, approve of me and like me, but I don't like with claws. You know, like, need you to approve and stay with me under any circumstances whatsoever, circumstances whatsoever. And that's because you know I approve of myself. I want other people's approval but I don't need it. And I heard someone say you know it's fine to seek other people's approval, but only if you have your own approval first. So what I tell my clients is if you're going to do something to get someone's approval and you compromise your own integrity, don't do it. To get someone's approval and you compromise your own integrity, don't do it. It's not worth it because you're abandoning yourself. So keep your own approval, like if you can feel good about yourself while seeking someone's approval, absolutely have at it. But if you're going to seek someone's approval and just be like I can't believe I did that, please don't do that. I mean, that's what I spent my life doing. But honestly, I didn't know that. I didn't know that I was an approval seeker when I started in Codependence Anonymous.

Speaker 2: 26:23

I remember, not that long into the program, saying to someone in the program I'm starting to see there's this continuum of helpfulness where on one end we've got like kindly helpful, healthy, functional behavior and on the other end we've got like kindly helpful, healthy, functional behavior and on the other end, we have this dysfunctional, unhealthy rescuing, fixing, enabling codependent behavior, and it's pretty clear the two ends of that continuum. Where I get confused is in the middle, like where do you flip over from being, say, helpful to being rescuing? And the woman said to me well, barb, you know, it really depends on your motive. Why are you helping? Are you helping them because you want to be helpful or because you want them to like you? And I was like because I want to be helpful? Well, that question percolated in my brain and I was like oh God, I really do. And it wasn't that I want them to necessarily like me. I want them to think good things of me. For example, barb is helpful, barb is reliable, barb is dependable.

Speaker 2: 27:22

And what I did not want was for them to think that I was a bad person, and to me, a bad person was someone who said no. Then, when I heard that I was about people pleasing, I heard that and I was like that's not me. Yes, it is. And then I learned that people pleasing is dishonest and manipulative, because we say yes to things that we don't want to do. We say we're okay or we're fine when we're not. That's called lying our things that we're doing with the end game of getting them to approve of us. That's called manipulation. I was like, oh my God, I'm a horrible person. I manipulate, I lie. I'm not a horrible person, I'm a wounded person, and these were tools that I learned as a child that got me through childhood. They're just not serving me anymore, and so I was worried about being a bad person. And yet I'm lying and manipulating, and I bet if you made a list of behaviors of bad people, lying and manipulating would probably be on that list. So I didn't want to be a bad person, but I was doing things that bad people do. And so what I realized was I was more concerned about being perceived as a helpful person than I was in being a helpful person.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Now, that took a while to discern that kind of stuff, and understanding myself really helped me to be like wait, I don't, I'm going to choose how I want to be. I haven't been making choices. I felt compelled to people please rescue, fix and save. It's a, it's a compulsion and um, and I didn't know that I had choices, and so understanding that continuum really helped me and um, you know.

Speaker 2: 29:09

So what happened for me is what, what the question the woman was asking me is what are your motives? What's your motive motive in helping people? And that has turned into one of my most important questions when I'm trying to decide what's the healthy behavior for me, what's the healthy boundary for me, what's the quote right boundary for me? Because my right boundary isn't going to be yours necessarily. And so I asked myself what's my motive? Like, am I doing this Because I truly want to be helpful here, or am I doing this because there's an end game, which is, you know, you're going to think certain things of me. And then the other question I asked myself is does this serve my highest good? So, does it bring me in alignment with my higher power? Does it bring me in alignment with my values and what's important to me? Do I feel like I'm an integrity? And if I can answer appropriately to both of those questions, that helps me decide, like what's the right boundary or what's the healthy behavior for me in any situation, whether it's boundary setting or something else.

Speaker 1: 30:09

Yeah, I love how you've explained it. I explain it the same way because it's really understanding, because a lot of people want to be like, oh, I'm an empath and I'm all good and everything else, and it's like you don't realize you're manipulating in certain ways because you're wanting that good person, that good narrative, that serving narrative, and not recognizing you're manipulating because you don't understand, you feel unsafe and this identity and, as you said, the perception of others makes you feel safe, makes you feel that you're not realizing. That's your responsibility, it's just to be that. Yet A lot of people are going from the outside to in. They don't know it's from the inside out, so to be in, that it's really understanding. Intellectually, there's a part of our healing process and then it's to embody it and, like you said, I asked the question, it was like no, and then, when it resonated and it steeped into your body, it was like it revealed all the things and it's like, oh, I'm doing I didn't know, because your nervous system is protecting you from not seeing the behaviors you had to create that it was back then, but you're doing the work of creating safety in your body, that now it's like, oh, I can reveal this to you and you're like, oh shit, and then you're not separating from yourself which the abandonment, as you said, and it's like you can see this, and even though the narration is hitting against the good girl or the good Samaritan or the helper or you know, the best one for me is alleviating people from pain.

Speaker 1: 31:44

It's like no, no, no, no, you that's, you're okay, you're okay to be here and they're okay with their pain and rewiring that aspect. So thank you for being so transparent and walking somebody through what it looks like to start to change the narrative and dissolve those belief systems.

Speaker 2: 32:04

Yeah, you're welcome and I want to remind you of all that personal development work that I did for 37 years so I'm a very introspective person. I have been doing quote the work for a long time. None of this stuff was in my awareness, none of it came up with any of the therapists I work with. Any of the self-help books, none of the workshops, the retreats, none of that's like literally so many things about me came out in my first two years of 12 step recovery that I was like how is this possible that there's all this stuff going on and I've been trying for all these years? So I didn't know that I was codependent. I didn't know that I had trauma. I didn't know that I had intergenerational family dysfunction. I didn't know victim mentality was, hands down, the biggest paradigm shift of my recovery. I'm not the quintessential victim.

Speaker 2: 32:53

I'm not walking around going whoa, it's me, the world is against me, I can never win. My victim mentality was way more subtle than that and I think I probably have six episodes about victim mentality on my podcast, because every time another layer of my victim mentality comes to my consciousness I do an episode about it. And you know, I didn't know I was codependent. I didn't know I had unhealthy boundaries. I mean, I didn't know anything about boundaries. I didn't know that I lied all the time.

Speaker 2: 33:21

Like I lied, I mean most of it was in the people policing department, but I also lied about cigarettes and drugs and alcohol and relationships and I thought of it as like managing my image. I did a lot of that. I had all these facades up and therefore I was very defensive against people and I just I didn't know any of this stuff, which is why, again, I started the podcast, because I want people to hear, like you know, all this amazing stuff that I'm learning and I've been trying. I can't even imagine what it's for like what it's been like for people who are not trying.

Speaker 1: 33:54

Yeah, no-transcript.

Speaker 2: 34:03

Um, I never thought about it. I don't think so. Um, I think like one of the major major things that abilities that that grew in me as a result of 12 step recovery is actually being able to follow through for myself and be accountable for things to other people. But I let myself. I abandoned myself constantly before, so like the fact that I can have a podcast and follow through on it for 290 weeks in a row is just insane. Like who am I? So? I never really thought about that. I don't think so.

Speaker 2: 34:39

But what occurs to me to say is like one of the things we say in 12 step recovery is you have to give it away to keep it.

Speaker 2: 34:45

You know you're healing your recovery and that it's customary in most 12-step programs to sponsor other people, which means you kind of take them through the 12 steps and help them on their recovery journey after you've been on yours. And we do that. Of course, we want those other people to recover, but we mainly do it for ourselves, because I'm not going to forget who I am and where I came from and what happened to me and the journey I've been on if I keep helping other people and telling them my story. So we call that carrying the message of recovery to those who still suffer, and so my podcast is me carrying the message of recovery. I wouldn't think of it as holding myself accountable, but it's staying in the recovery. I think the same is true about boundaries coaching. It's no mistake that I became a boundaries coach, because how could I possibly let go of my boundaries when I'm coaching other people? Thinking about it, talking about it, writing about it, podcasting about it, speaking about it constantly, you know.

Speaker 1: 35:42

And that's why I say the holding accountable, because it's like you're talking the talk, so you got to walk the walk. Yeah, yeah, as humans it's easy to go back in patterns. It's easy to go back into that comfortable, even though we know it's toxic. It just feels more comfortable to hide there where you're coming out into the light per se, where it's like, okay, I'm doing the work, I'm sharing it with others, so it ripples back an accountability for myself of keep using the tools because you see the benefits and accepting the messiness of life. This isn't about perfection, and so the accountability is when you see an error that you're not you're going to, you need to shut down and process.

Speaker 2: 36:23

Yes, yet you're still going to.

Speaker 1: 36:24

you need to shut down and process, yes, Yet you're still going to show up that accountability of still showing up for yourself and not degrade yourself, because you know, when we have you develop your self-awareness. It doesn't mean it's all kumbaya and blissful. There's something. And then you have to have that radical compassion for yourself. Yeah, I really understand what that means. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:49

Yeah, and I would say I don't know that I would call. I would not have used the word radical compassion, but compared to the way I used to be, yeah. So I always felt like I had high self-esteem that night I really did. I did some work in my late twenties to undo some negative self-talk. But when I got in recovery I was astonished that number one, I ruminated. Number two, I catastrophized. And number three, I was basically scanning the horizon at all times for reasons to beat myself up. That was out of my awareness. All of that stuff Like I'm me and I didn't even know that was going on. It was like oh my goodness. And I can tell you with 100% certainty I deeply love myself now. I do not berate myself. I don't rake myself over the coals.

Speaker 2: 37:40

The hardest thing for me is to not catastrophize. I don't think I ruminate anymore. I'm pretty sure I don't. I don't look for reasons to beat myself up, but I judge like my circumstances, and then my mind wants to catastrophize, or I call it living into the wreckage of the future. It's a play on a common phrase in 12 Step Recovery. We talk about cleaning up the wreckage of the past. Well, my brain wants to live up the wreckage of the past. Well, I try to. My brain wants to live into the wreckage of the future, and so for me, that is, the most difficult thing in my life is to not do that. And I've got, I mean, I'm infinitely better than I used to be, but it's still like my mind just wants to go down that that negative.

Speaker 1: 38:25

It's the negative price of the nervous system, that's what it's fueled, that's what keeps us protected, and so it goes into that dysregulated. Of course it's going in that negative bias and then it's being able to have the awareness oh wait, I'm dysregulated. So it's looking for the best rehearsal for tragedy. It's looking for all the shoulds, the, the coulds, the potential things that will go wrong, which is its function. So when we regulate it, then we see oh, you're not the nervous system, though how can I acknowledge when I'm actually feeling? Because a lot of times we didn't know how to acknowledge and feel our authentic emotions.

Speaker 1: 39:05

So, like I just caught myself the other day with ruminating, somebody had did something on air that I was doing and I was repeating the story and looking at this and it was like okay, yet I was feeling what? And it was like okay, and oh, that feels awful to be feeling embarrassed, it feels awful that I didn't understand what they were saying. And I saw it totally different. It all felt off and ruminating and catching, and it's like okay, okay, you're there, feel what there is, and then it just walked off. Yet at one point I would have just been ruminating and attacking and not feeling the feelings.

Speaker 1: 39:39

Yet by feeling it then it eventually dissolved itself, because the nervous system for me is like, okay, you're acknowledging me, you're not me or trying to pretend you're something other. The perfection is the one that has it all together. It's like it's okay, be in that. So really understanding that dysregulation of the nervous system and those protective methods that you know people think with healing, everything's going to go away, and it's like no, you're aware of it. So you work at oh, when it's gone this way, how do I come back to this state? How do I come back to what this state is? It's always reframing that perception, which is constant work, and that's, you know, when people say the woke. It's being awake to our patterns, it's being awake to the feeling of unsafety and the dysregulation of the nervous system.

Speaker 2: 40:39

Yeah, that's a lot of work to do. It is, yeah, and you need to take the time to rest, yeah, and there's a couple of things that I have been doing in the last year that have really helped me with my nervous system. So one I just came up with this last year I literally laid down on the floor and splay out my arms and it's like I just was, like I don't, I'm surrendering, like to whatever this is, and I allow the feelings to come up, and it's usually like maybe seven seconds, which is insane. That I've been avoiding and I thought that I was feeling my feelings before that, because I've done a lot of work in recovery and sometimes what happens is I dry heave and the way that I understand that is that is the energy purging from my body, and so I'm in a phase where that's been happening again.

Speaker 2: 41:19

And another thing I do that's sort of preventative for my nervous system is I do a lot of the meditations I do are like heart, brain, coherence meditations and I think about how do I want to feel in the future and I feel the feelings that I want to have. So what I'm doing is I'm preparing my nervous system, I'm paving the way for my nervous system to feel like joy and peace and exuberance and ebullience and expansiveness, as opposed to the like you know, contracting, guilt, shame kind of feelings, and it's really, really helpful to me, especially at times when I'm going through something like this. It's like my body's like okay, we know that other way. Let's, you know, we can go that other way. After we feel this, we'll go to the other way, you know.

Speaker 1: 42:08

I'm very, the nervous system I have is very sly, so we can go into a lot of stoicism. And so I'm like oh, no, no, no, you're intentionally not feeling your emotions which you need to feel. So what I use is Grey's Anatomy. And when I need to emote, grey's Anatomy just lets me do the dry heaving and bawling and feeling all.

Speaker 1: 42:32

And when I see that story, I invite what's in me to really come out and be engaged in, invited into that, because the work that I do, when I tend to show some vulnerability, some people, it doesn't go well with them, so I'll be told don't cry.

Speaker 1: 42:54

And then that all of a sudden tells my nervous system it's not safe. Yet I'm like I'm allowed to cry, I'm allowed to feel this, and yet you know, it's very easy to do intellectually, yet the nervous system is going by feeling and sensation of what this person is. I understand. They just cannot understand their own vulnerability and they're not able to want to feel the sadness or whatever the emotion that's there at the present time, because it's a multitude of things. So at times I'm like OK, well, because I don't always have that safe space with people to feel the immenseness, it's like that Grey's Anatomy allows me to emote in such a profound way that I'm not abandoning myself and also being there for myself to allow it to an invitation to draw it out even more Cause I know my mom needing to have this right now.

Speaker 2: 43:47

Yeah, that's a really good idea. I love that and I remember I watched Grey's Anatomy the first couple years when it came out and then I just I lost it. But I do remember crying a lot when I watched it and that's really. That's really great suggestion is watching something that allows you to emote, because sometimes it's almost like there's this clog in the pipeline and you just need to get it out and it doesn't matter why you start, but the fact that you can clear it out is really, really helpful exactly that's that somatic intelligence and not having the body.

Speaker 1: 44:19

Just you know, like, uh, the body takes count, the body stores. So if you're not feeling that emotion, those energetic charges stay stuck in the body and you know people can feel the blockages or feel that. So that's just a tool that I use and and I love that, intuitively, you listen to what your body needed. I need to just be on a hard ground so I feel supported in that surrender and just let whatever needs to come up, so it just you're invited, I'm giving you a safe space, I'm supporting you. So it feels that hardness for that body that it's like and so intuitively, you're creating the tools you need, which you then invite other people that you can use this or allow your body to find what it actually needs to process the somatic energy charges and feelings. Let that intelligence support the body rather than chastise and drag it along.

Speaker 2: 45:17

That, no, no, you're an inconvenience and yeah yeah, or power through that that was my whole life. Was I just powered like I? I was not aware of my nervous system at all and I think that you know, when I look back now I'm like I'm pretty sure I live with low level anxiety my entire life. I didn't know it because it just was like water to a fish urgency at all times and I was like, oh my God, that's me and it's definitely way better, but I still find myself like I will run up the stairs, like I don't need to be running up the stairs.

Speaker 2: 45:59

Yeah, that impulsivity for everything. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, and I just it's, just it's. You know it's been wired Well, not what programmed into me, and I'm still you know it's been wired well, not what programmed into me, and I'm still, you know, on programming it. So you know, I have 61 years of stuff and the last nine and a half years I've been doing a lot of the deprogramming. But you know, sometimes I'm like okay, I'm good, I'm here, and then I get to another layer and it's like, oh, my goodness, you know another layer, and it's like, oh, my goodness, you know, it's never. Yeah, this repairing stuff is really, really bringing um.

Speaker 1: 46:33

It's bringing um stuff to the surface that I can heal yeah, yeah, because we don't have to go searching for our healing.

Speaker 1: 46:41

It's it life will present right there, yet we don't want to deal with it, yeah we want to do the big stuff and it's like, no, I'm all, all I'm asking you to do the small and it will unravel all the stuff. Yeah, intellectually, because the world has told us you know big and that's what's going to do change. And it's like, no, it's these little small, like what is life presenting you right now, that you can feel and show up with it. And that work, and that parenting part of accessing all those emotional charges that weren't fully felt, that's its own work with regulating that nervous system. Because you're like, well, I thought I had it and it's like there's more profound, like, okay, there's more depth to this. And it's like, yeah, but remember, you have the capacity, you're safe, your body's safe, use the tool of what that safety is. And the biggest thing for me is you're able to ask for help. It's okay, you're safe.

Speaker 2: 47:39

You're safe, yeah. And learning how to ask for help was absolutely gigantic for me in recovery, cause I like, when I I'm the helper, like I'm the person that people come to, and it was very humbling, to be honest with you, nat, nat, when I like learned how to ask for help, because what I saw was that I felt like I was somehow like stepping down a level or something to ask for help. Now, I don't intellectually believe that I'm better than anybody, but clearly on an emotional level I felt like somehow I was stepping down and that was very humbling for me because I was like well, so what that means is I think that people that ask me for help are somehow stepping down, which means I feel like I'm above them, and it was like, ah, I don't believe that. And so when I started like the idea of asking for help and entertaining it, I literally felt like I'm going to die at the thought of asking for help, not actually asking for help. Same thing with setting boundaries, like the first boundary that I remember setting. Thank goodness for the other women in my step group who were there to metaphorically and literally hold my hand, for the other women in my step group who were there to metaphorically and literally hold my hand.

Speaker 2: 48:49

I got emails from my ex boyfriend and I felt like I had to open them immediately and read them and respond to them immediately. And when they were like you actually don't you know, you can like wait until and I think of it now as like until you have the psychic space or eventually block him and don't engage with him. I remember feeling like I'm going to die if I don't open an email right now, and that's the nervous system that we're talking about. Like I'm changing, like who I am and realizing and so what I would do and the other women in my subgroup we all started doing this we would go, I did the thing and I didn't die, and we would say it and we would laugh about it was like I feel like I need to tell myself over and over again I didn't die, I didn't die, I didn't die, I didn't die. To like get it into my frontal lobe so that maybe it will make it to my you know my- lizard brain, You're like look at that.

Speaker 2: 49:46

We have evidence you didn't die. We have lots we're building up evidence you didn't die.

Speaker 1: 49:51

Yeah, exactly, it's a fascinating cause. You, when you're speaking about that, it's like that, this energetic pull, like you really feel it's almost like a possession and it's like, why am I? I know better not to, yet there's something that's controlling that inner, and that fear in that nervous system is very powerful. Yet If you don't work with it, it will always hijack of protection. So it's better understanding, okay, what is it trying to protect? And working with it. Yet A lot of people don't even know the language and they're, they're berating themselves of why am I repeating this behavior or addiction or anything? And it's like, well, what are you trying to protect? What is the pain you're trying to avoid? And so working in that it has already been almost an hour and I know, I just saw the time.

Speaker 2: 50:40

I was like, wow, that went by so fast, went by so fast.

Speaker 1: 50:44

So I'm sure many listeners want to know where they can find Barb. So can you let them know where they can find you and what you have to offer?

Speaker 2: 50:52

Absolutely so. I've already mentioned that I do private boundaries coaching. I'm also a speaker, love to speak with organizations that serve and are comprised of professional women. If you think you might want to work with me, go to barbchatnet and you can sign up for a free 30-minute. Better Boundaries call with me so we can figure out. Like, does it seem like I'm a good fit for you? Since you're already listening to this podcast, you might just hop on over to Fragmented to Whole, or you can go to fragmentedtowholecom, and then one of my favorite places to hang out on social media is on Instagram. I'm at Higher Power Coaching and links to everything about me are there in my profile.

Speaker 1: 51:30

I'll make sure that they're all in the show notes so that people can easily get access and at any time, if there was like an opening or a tingling while you heard this conversation, that is your limbic system letting you know that Barb has some information that will serve you. So reach out. There's no question that cannot be answered and, as you can see, we got into a conversation very easily, so she's very approachable. So reach out and click on those show notes to get in contact with Barb. Is there anything in your heart that you want to leave with the listeners?

Speaker 2: 52:05

Yeah, it's keep the focus on yourself. So I mentioned at the beginning codependent. People are super focused on the outside, so what I mean by that is things like ask yourself what do I want and need in this situation? I never asked that. Is this really my business? I was constantly in other people's business, giving them unsolicited advice. What might I do differently If you're engaged in a dynamic that you don't like, especially if it appears in multiple areas of your life?

Speaker 2: 52:34

You're the common denominator, and this is not about blaming you. This is info, not ammo. Information for you to learn, integrate and grow from, not ammo to beat yourself up. So what could I do differently? And then, one of my favorite ways to keep the focus on yourself is to take really good care of yourself. So instead of trying to pour from an empty cup, you want to pour from the overflow, and the only way to have overflow is if you fill your cup first. It is not selfish to take care of yourself. It is self-preservation and ultimately, it's selfless because you're pouring from the overflow. So keep the focus on you, which is what you can control.

Speaker 1: 53:16

Thank you so much and you know, thank you for doing the podcast. As you said at the beginning, you're not at your optimum, yet You're still showing up and you're giving the most valuable thing you could get about a life, which is your time and your presence. So I really am very grateful for it and I don't take it lightly. So thank you for also doing the alchemy, taking those impurities and turning them into gold. Yet not only keeping the gold to yourself. You're sharing it with others. So thank you for all that you bring into the world, barb.

Speaker 2: 53:48

Yeah, and thank you. To be honest with you, this has been very healing for me. Just having this conversation with you. I've loved, I've written down a couple of things, phrases that you've used, that I've just loved, and I I'm going to be listening to your podcast, for sure, because this is I just love your style and the way that you explain things.

Speaker 1: 54:06

Thank you, it's been an honor and please remember to be kind to yourself. Yes, absolutely. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery, call LiftOneSelfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.