Fragmented to Whole

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0:44 Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Barb, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Doctor Doug. I'm really excited to be here. Oh it's great. I'm glad we were able to connect on this. So let the audience know who you are and the background behind why you were at the point you are. Okay, So my name is Barb Nangel. I am a Boundaries coach. I'm a former people pleaser, rescuer, fixer, enabler, savor, enabler, codependent person. And when I was fifty two and twenty fifteen, I hit a code dependent bottom and I didn't know what that word meant. I had never heard it, despite having been in therapy since about age fifteen, reading a Goojulian self help books, doing like workshops, workbooks, spiritual like you name it, I was trying, and I was shocked to learn that as this very introspective person I am, I hadn't heard the word codependent. And I learned that it's really it's sort of a constellation of things, but the theme is that people are codependent focused on that which is outside of themselves. So we're often really more concerned with other people, what they're doing, what they're saying, what they're thinking, what they're thinking about us, and really end up neglecting ourselves because we're so focused externally. And

2:16 I ended up, through a series of serendipitous events, landing in twelve step recovery for codependence and very quickly realized, I think I need to be reparented. But I didn't know that reparenting was a thing. I thought I'd made that up and Then a few weeks into my codependance recovery, I went to go visit a friend a few hours away who had been in Alcoholics Anonymous for over ten years, and she had raved since I met her about how radically her life was changed. So I said, hey, I've been going to this twelve step meeting CODA, and she said, you know, let's see if we can find a code of meeting locally and we'll go. And she couldn't, but she found an ACA meeting doctor which I knew of this ACA Adult Children of Alcoholics. It never occurred to me that I qualified, but she qualified. So I was like, I'll go for you. And I walk in and they say, we reparent ourselves, and I was like what. And then they read the list of the fourteen traits of an adult child excuse me, which is affectionately called the laundry List.

3:24 And I thought at the time that I qualified for seven of them. It turns out it's really thirteen. I was in such denial about my own dysfunction and the dysfunction of my family, and I learned in this meeting that the name of the group is actually Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional families. So for that program, I qualified. So I started going to that program, and about a year into it, I decided to let go of CODA because it wasn't a great fit. And it turned out that was a higher powered moment because I ended up going in to Overeaters Anonymous and going on the night that I had been going to KODA. I'm now down over one hundred pounds from my top weight. I've been at my goal weight for over six years. And all of that self help and therapy and stuff that I did before recovery, the way I think of it, Doctor Doug, is it scratched the surface of the iceberg of my life, and twelve step recovery melted the iceberg my life. So for me, the twelve steps are where it's at. I think there is so much wisdom in twelve step recovery that is just not making its way out into the world, which is why I started my podcast, which is called Fragmented to whole life lessons from twelve Step Recovery. There was so much about me like that I didn't have boundaries.

4:45 I grew up in a dysfunctional family. I had intergenerational dysfunction, childhood trauma, I had unrealistic expectations of myself other people in the world. I was deeply entrenched in victim mentality and and that was by far the biggest paradigm shift of my recovery. I was a dishonest person. I truly believed I was an honest person. I lied all the time about things like cigarettes and drugs and alcohol, but mainly in the people pleasing department, and just many other things that just came up very easily in the first two years of recovery, and as a codependent, and I think of the codependence as my core wound. Boundaries is kind of the antidote to that. So because of that, learning how to build healthy boundaries was such a game changer for me that when I ultimately started my own business I decided to niche as a boundaries coach, because boundaries permeate every area of our lives. And I, even though I always had high self esteem, I always kind of liked myself. When I got in recovery, I could see, you know, that was not the behavior of a woman who felt worthy. That was not the behavior of a woman who loved herself. And I also I did know that I didn't trust myself, and so there are many, many gifts of boundaries. But I learned to really love myself.

6:11 I built self trust, and I came to feel worthy. And I had been in a string of dysfunctional romantic relationships my entire life. And then when I was fifty five, three and a half years into my recovery, I met my sweetheart. Were still together. We've been together for five and a half years, and I am in a very healthy, loving, wonderful relationship with this man that I just was not capable of in the past. But I thought that it was them the whole time, so I could go on and on. I feel like I've given you enough sort of body understand you my story and my transformation and that sort of thing, and why I do what I do.

6:55 You have and one of the things that I want to really if you don't and if it's not too sensitive, and you can say no if you want to. But what I find is for a lot of listeners that have experienced this horrific childhood situations, you tell me you were in therapy at a very young age, Are you okay to kind of share in general what you went through as a child, Because I want people to be able to see that if they're going through similar situations that there is hope. Yeah. Absolutely, So I want to answer that question by saying, when I first got into ACA, I didn't know that it was a trauma recovery program. So it's a trauma recovery program where you repairent yourself and you use the twelve steps to recover. And I'm here in trauma and I was like, when I was seventeen, my dad tried to strangle me, and I moved out and it happened again when I was eighteen. I knew that that was traumatic, Doctor Doug. That was pretty clear. But I also was like, well, you know, I was almost an adult. It wasn't childhood, so that doesn't count. And I kept hearing other people and it was very clear to me that objectively, I did not have it as bad as the other people in the room. I didn't get physically abused other than the strength the attempts to strangle me. I wasn't told that I was a piece of crap. I wasn't told I was going to amount to anything, but it was very clear that I had those traits that I mentioned.

8:22 And then when I heard that the absence of good things happening can cause trauma. I was like, Oh, that makes sense to me, and I've since heard that trauma can result from unmet needs. So that's when I stopped fighting against I belong here, even though I knew I belonged, but I just kept kind of making excuses for why I didn't. So what happened for me is what I call the the drip drip drip of emotional invalidation. I was not really allowed to have the feelings that nactually came to me from sometimes being a scared little kid or a worried little kid. And I also my parents gas lit me, so I know that that's a term people are throwing around a lot lately, And for me, what that means is they would say things that were just not true. So I'll give you an example. My mom secretly smoked cigarettes and one time and we like as we knew it as kids, but of course we didn't talk about it, and that is really crazy making for children. But I remember one time my brother going into the room she used to smoke in her bathroom off of her room, and he went into the room and he goes, it smells like smoke. In here and she goes, no, it doesn't. That's the bathroom spray. So this is what I remember right now. God only knows

9:53 how many other times we were told what you perceive is not what's happening. And for me, doctor Doug, the worst effect of growing up in a dysfunctional family was not was questioning my own perception. Is this real? Did this really happen? And how can you have a high quality life where you thrive when you question your own perception about us? My mom? Do I not? Is this real? Did this happen? That sort of thing. So that's really the description of what happened for me. And when I learned the term relational trauma, it was like things clicked into place for me, like, oh so it's not big t trauma like a blunt event, it's little tea trauma. That's something that happens continually over time.

10:46 Well, and I think that we all go through that because I love the word perception, because as you think of a child, you know what you went through, I would assume is as you said, you know that perception of it's my reality. It then becomes I'm really not I'm really not any I'm not worthwhile I'm this type of thing and many children, you know, and we're all guilty. This is parents, you know, we will say something not being aware that the perception of the child is going to be far different than what we were actually saying. So the words we use, the body language, all of those types of things that tonality, I think are so important for parents to understand that you've got to be aware of what is the child's perception and maybe a little communication would help in that regard, you know what, I.

11:36 Go ahead, Oh, I just want to add one to think. I think a lot of that, like the innocent things that adults do with children, comes from the fact that kids are really concrete and adults are not. So when I was little, my great aunt always had candy at her house and she was single, and to me, candy was for kids. And I was like, why do I always have candy? And she said, I have a sweet tooth. Well, I was so little that I thought meant she had a specific tooth in her mouth, but she had to, like, I don't know, put candy on or something like that. And it wasn't until I was a teenager that I was like, oh, it means I like sweets is what it means, right, But I carved that idea into my head about a sweet tooth, and I just let that idea stay in my head until one day in my teenagehood, I was like, that's crazy. Oh it means I like sweets.

12:23 So that's just that's an innocent example. But multiply that times. How many times do we say things? It's a case. Well, yeah, and it's interesting, you know. I also love how you talked about codependency. Well, one of the interesting things that I have found is I'm the behavioral analyst also, so I use very much an assessment to help people. And what I found is that there's a particular personality style that lends itself towards codependency. And it really is you know, when we get into it, we talk about ways of communicating with the greatest fear, with the greatest strength, and so forth. Greatest fear with this particular personality is abandonment the relationships, and so they tend to stay in those relationships and as you say, disregard boundaries because the fear is greater, The fear of abandonment is greater than the fear of the unknown.

13:22 Right exactly, and you know, it's funny that you mentioned abandonment, because that is the core wound of adult children, is that most of us have been emotionally abandoned. Some of us have been literally abandoned. Whether it's you know, it's not the typical you were left on a church doorstep or at the fire station. It could be you know, your parents separated, or it could be your parents were never home, or they just emotionally abandoned you. And unfortunately, for adult children, is the thing we fear the most. Abandonment is the thing we do to ourselves. So if you're in a relationship that is dysfunctional and you stay in it because you're afraid that they're going to leave you, and you people, please, when you say things are okay that are not okay, et cetera, and you compromise your values, you are abandoning yourself. So you've really built abandonment into the relationship because you're not really there. This fake version of you is there, and so it's your the relationship is doomed to fill that need of closeness and intimacy that we're actually seeking, which is the opposite of abandonment.

14:31 And this is why in the ACA program. We say the solution is to become your own loving parent, in other words, to give yourself to backfill that love that you've missed as a child. And what I found, doctor Doug, is that when I stopped abandoning myself, I stop being afraid of abandonment from other people because I'm not abandoned. And then, you know, I don't know if everybody knows this, but twelve step programs are spiritual pro and that means we find a power greater than ourselves. I personally call my higher power God. Not everybody does. But when you stopped abandoning yourself and you also feel like you have a connection with a higher power, you're like, doubly maybe we could even say quadruple not abandoned. And so you don't go out into the world in this grasping way of like, don't abandon me, don't abandon me, don't abandon me.

15:24 You find somebody who matches a much healthier, non grasping version of you. And for me, I learned like learning to build healthy boundaries was one of the many ways that I learned to stop abandoning myself. I learned to show up for myself, to follow through for myself to say the truth about what was okay and what was not okay. And it's a process that you go through. I personally happened to go through like this meandering, haphazard process over two to three years in recovery in the beginning, even know that I was building boundaries. And what I've done is, you know, I did a lot of reading about boundaries after that and sort of retroactively understood what I did. And I as I was reading, I would draw images to visually depict like what did that look like to me? Because I'm a pretty visual person, And those images turned into handouts, which turned into a workbook, which turned in that's the spine of my Boundaries coaching program.

16:25 So I've figured out, like, what are the qualities, what's the essence of what you need to build boundaries in a matter of weeks rather than a matter of months. And essentially I coach people who are former me, you know, because I know what it's like to look like you have it together on the outside. Meanwhile, internally you're a mess and probably have a series of dysfunctional relationships, or you're continually saying no, would you really want to say yes, and you're neglecting yourself because you're so focused on other people Like those are the typically women that I work with that are like that because I want to help former me, because I wish I had a me to coach me through this process.

17:09 Well, and you know, you talk about a lot of things. You talk about ACA, and for the audience, could you explain exactly what does that stand for? ACA? So it stands for adult children of Alcoholics and dysfunctional Families. It was started in nineteen seventy eight by some teens who had grown out of the Altine program, which is a program for teenagers who are children of alcoholics, and they outgrew that program, but they didn't want to go to alan On, which is an adult program for loved ones of alcoholics. And because they were like, those are parents are in the room, you know, we don't want to be in the room with them. We feel like there's something qualitatively different about growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family.

17:55 Right. It was originally named Adult Schoune of Alcoholics because they were just adult own of alcoholics, and over time the name was changed to include dysfunctional families because it became clear there are a variety of types of dysfunction that result in the same traits. So you could grow up in a super militaristic family, a family where there's chronic illness or mental illness or personality disorder of a parent. Maybe you move a ton, it could be like a hyper religious family. There's all kinds of types of families that can result in having the same traits as adult children of alcoholics. So that's why they expand it and call it, they say and dysfunctional families now. And it's a twelve step program, which the twelve steps started with alcoholics anonymous in the late thirties and there are now literally hundreds of twelve step recovery programs.

18:51 Well, And as you talk about this specific one, because obviously it worked for you, what are the twelve steps or is it something that is easy to remember or what are they exactly? You know, I could probably recite them, I could also pull them up. But like step one is, we're powerless over you know whatever the thing like in alcohol looks anonymous is we're powerless over alcohol, and our lives have become manageable. In acas, we're powerless over the effects of family dysfunction and our lives have become unmanageable. And so what we say in ACA is the main effects are fear and distorted thinking. So because I grew up in a dysfunctional family, I am going to have some distorted thinking.

19:33 For example, I can't trust my perception. I couldn't trust my perception as a kid. Or here's another distorted thinking. If I abandon myself enough, people will love me. That is some really serious distorted thinking. And then step two is came to believe that a power greater than our selves could restore us to sanity, and ACA we sometimes say could restore us to clarity because we never had sanity. Maybe and I grew up, I didn't know that I was confused much of my life until I got in recovery and I looked back and I was like, oh my god, I was confused all the time because I couldn't.

20:13 Trust my own perception. And then step three is became willing to turn our will and our lives over to a power greater than ourselves. And that for me, even though I identified as a spiritual person, when I got into recovery, and as I said, I call my high power God, I didn't use God. In other words, I didn't turn my will and my life over to God. I didn't ask God for guidance. I didn't say, God, you know, please show me your will for me. And when I started doing that, it was like the weight of the not the weight of the world, the weight of the universe was taken off of me. Because I always felt like I had to have an answer, I had to know things, I had to stuff out on my own. And when I started being able to hand stuff over, it was, you know, it was amazing. So and then step four is where we say we take a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. And this is so that we can really get to note what have I been doing in my life that has been creating chaos or maybe exacerbating the already existing chaos, creating dysfunction.

21:30 And I think for me, this is the step that got me to come out of victim mentality, that got me to see that I had that victim mentality I was telling you about and got me to come out of it. Because it's not like I was walking around going you're to blame, You're to blame, You're to blame. But I was living in blame of other people. I really thought, for example, in all my relationships, well, if he would just fill in the blank, then everything would be okay, which meant that I was acting like I got nothing to do with the step of any of my relationships. And actually, here's a funny little story. I thought that I was responsible for all of the good things in all my relationships, and then he, whoever he was, was responsible for all the bad things. Now when you say, when I say that, on the face of it, that's ridiculous, like, how could that possibly beze, So it wasn't a conscious thought that I had. It came up to my consciousness when I did the twelve Steps of Recovery because I was taking the searching and for it fearless moral inventory of my life, and it was like, I mean, come on, that's insane. That I could possibly be responsible for all the good things and then he could be responsible for all of the bad things. That just doesn't make any sense.

22:45 And so I think that that has a lot to do with why I was able to come out of victim mentality. And the thing is, when you learn that you're the problem, you get to be the solution. So for some people they learn they're the problem, they use it as a reason to beat themselves up. To me, it's empowering because if I'm the problem, then I get to be the solution and I get to stop waiting for other people to change. Well. And it's interesting as you're talking about this. You know, you talked about Step four where you're really doing that introspective work and really accepting responsibility, which I think is key for anyone. But what's fascinating to me is with this twelfth Step program, they've got a few foundational things that they have included, which is normally, as far as I can tell, not necessarily included in most therapy or help.

23:40 And that's this whole sense of godliness and you know that type of thing. And do you find that people kind of push away against that? Have you observed that? Yeah? Absolutely so some people get really turned off by the whole higher power, and unfortunately it is a deal breaker for some people. But I can also tell you I have met numerous people, especially people that have been in recovery for decades, that came in as staunch atheists and just by just saying I'm going to put that aside right now and not worry. But I'm going to do the behaviors of the people who have what I want.

24:23 So if those people pray, even if I don't believe it works, I'm going to start praying. If those people hand things over to a power greater themselves, I'm going to do it. And they saw effects that were undeniable and so, and what I say to people is, it just has to be a power greater than you. It does not have to be divine. It doesn't have to be It could be nature, it could be universe. It could be the process of evolution. It could be entropy, it could be the ocean. Like just something that is more powerful than you that you can say, listen, I'm going to turn this over to you so that I can let go of responsibility. There are people who, even when they stay in recovery for a long time, continue to be staunch atheists and they find other ways. Some people say it's the power of the group that is greater than me. It is the power of the twelve steps that is greater than me. You know, whatever they need to do. There are I know in my ACA program, there is a movement afoot of some people that are working to try to find some literature that is not grounded in higher power that works for them and like all the power to them. My personal belief and experience based on what I've seen in my own recovery and all the other people I've been in both pro I've been in ACA for nine years, in OA for eight years.

25:42 I don't believe that it's possible to really recover through the twelve steps without having some kind of a higher power. But I think that, you know, you really hit on something here. I think there's a few reasons why twelve step recovery is so powerful and why it worked so well for me whereas nothing else did before. One is the spiritual nature of the program, like I'm part of something greater than myself and I cannot deny that, and acknowledging that and participating in that helps me in ways that nothing else can. Two, I'm in a group of other people who have had similar experiences to me. We're all on different timelines in the path, but there are people who've been here longer than me, and they've done something that I've never been able to do before, which has changed these long standing patterns of my life that haven't served me so I want to know what they've been doing. And the third thing is that there's this step wise nature the twelve steps. You do them or you don't go one step one, step four, step seven.

26:44 You go one, two, three, four, five, six, seventy nine, ten, eleven, twelve. And they've been proven for decades to work for so many people. And so I think, you know, those three things together really really help. And then we have all of these like slogans and tools and tips and tricks that just are like it seems to me they're not making their way out into the world because I just there was so much I did not know about myself and tell recovery. And what's crazy is that I was trying, and I was introspective, and I was trying to do whatever work was put in front of me or that I sought out, and it just wasn't. I mean, I got little dribs and drabs of stuff here and there, and all those therapists I work with, they were mainly sounding boards. I got a couple of book recommendations over the years, and they might occasionally ask me a fruitful question, but nothing to see my patterns and change them like recovery did.

27:53 Yes, and then that I think that's a common experience for people. One of the things you said that's a little bit opposite of what you had said before. So I want to clarify for the audience because as you were talking about the higher power and talked about the fact that therefore I'm not responsible, and yet one of the key areas number four is to take responsibility for your emotions. So can you clarify what you meant by that, because I think so many people put everything on another you know, if it's a higher power, Well, this is God's will, this is how it's supposed to be, and not take the responsibility to live their lives in a positive way. Yeah. So I have a saying for recovery that I think will get at the heart of what you're saying.

28:35 Is God can move mountains, but I have to bring a shovel. Right. God doesn't have arms and legs, so I have to be like God's hands and feet on the earth. So when it comes to feelings, in the beginning of my recovery, the things I handed over most frequently to God were my feelings and my thoughts. I didn't know that I ruminated and catastrophized. Even though I've always been an introspective person and always thought of myself as a very positive, motivating, inspired person, I had all kinds of negative stuff going on. So I was like, all right, God, I'm going to hand this over to you. These feelings feel like way too much for me. I need you to take them from me. And it was just this relief that I'm not alone. So it's not necessarily that I'm negating any responsibility that I have. Is that I have this glorious partner, my higher power that I choose to call God, that is helping me with these things. I felt one hundred percent responsible for everything around me twenty four to seven, three hundred and sixty five days a year in all cases.

29:45 So I felt the need to have it together all the time and to never let anybody know that I didn't know something, that I wasn't capable of something, or that I had flaws. And I was able to let go of that cause I'm like, I like, I literally can't do that, you know, And so does that answer your question? That does that? Does? It's show? Number four is the responsibility part? What's number five? So five is admitted to ourselves to another human being and a higher power the exact nature of our wrongs. So we share what came up in this inventory with someone else. So we're not just sharing it with ourselves.

30:26 We're not keeping it in the dark. Of course, our higher power knows it all anyway. But to share that and then to share it with another human being, and I some people are absolutely terrified of this. To me, it one of the things we say in ACA. It's the shamebuster because when you sit and you tell another person the things that you think are the worst things you have ever done in your entire life, and they say, I see you, I get you, I love you. There is nothing like that. I will tell you. The third time that I did the twelve Steps, I shared something which I'm comfortable sharing here and now, that I did when I was twelve years old. My little brother was pap was four, My older brother was a year and a half older than mean. Me and my older brother and another kid. I don't know what we were doing, but we took my little brother. We put him in a sleeping bag, rolled it up, put him in a closet, shut the door, and then we hid from him like we were afraid of him, and he practically suffocated. And I still have some pretty strong feelings about how horrible that was to me, that his hands down the worst thing I have ever done in my entire life. And I can't even imagine the impact on my little brother.

31:37 So I fell on the floor sobby the third time that I did the twelve steps, and I had shared this twice before, but I never had this effect. I fell on the floor sobby and my friend that I was sharing this with stood above me and pointed down it to me and she said, Barb, God loves you. God loves you no more and no less right now. And I got to tell you, doctor Doug. I felt like I was a gaping wound and the love of God was poured into that gaping wound and I was healed in a way that nothing could ever have done.

32:22 And then I'm going to jump forward to step eight, which is where we make amends to people except when to do so could cause harm to them or others. And a lot of people are really terrified about this too, and so I want to start by saying, we get to be considered the others. So I'm not going to put myself in harm's way, Like if somebody was abusive to me, I'm not going to go to them and make amends to them in person if I'm going to put myself at risk, So I have to make some kind of indirect amends. What I found when I I made amends for things was that I felt like I cleaned that stuff off of my soul. So I'll give you an example. There was a woman, a young woman when I was in high school that I bullied. I didn't even have an awareness that that was bullying until I did the Twelve Steps. And there was another woman that I bullied in the workplace when I was a young adult. And I couldn't find these people, and I happened to I think this was a higher power moment.

33:29 Run into a guy who was a retired private detective and I went to him and I said, John, I've tried Google, I've tried Facebook. I can't find these women. Do have any suggestions for how I might find these people so I can make amends to them? And he goes, well, I didn't. You didn't know this, but I'm also in twelve step recovery, and so I know what you're doing I'm happy to do it for free for you. And I was like, oh my god. And he said, the only thing is if they don't want to hear from you, you have to take that as an answer. And I was like absolutely. I said, well, here's the thing. If they don't want to hear from me directly, then ask if they would be willing to allow me to write a letter that you give to them. So in forty eight hours he came back to me dog. One woman gave the phone her phone number, and the other one said give me a letter through doctor Doug. So I gave him the letter on a Friday, and on Saturday, I called the woman the phone number. I got her voicemail.

34:28 When I hung up that phone, I started sobbing. I didn't even know that was coming. I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and it was a sobbing of relief and of gratitude that that's when I had that feeling of I cleaned it off of my soul. And I was working with my sponsor and overreaders Anonymous at the time, and he said to me, Barb, no wonder you've lost weight, because you've lost weight. You've lost the weight of this burden. Now, I had no idea that that those feelings were inside of me until I made that phone call, which, by the way, I got her voicemail. I did not get her in person, and she never called me back. But I got the release of taking responsibility for what I did to enough to harm another human being and say that was wrong. I never should have done that. You didn't deserve to be treated that way, and I am sorry, and I have spent my adult life making up for it in these ways, and like, I've never done anything like that outside of twelve step recovery.

35:47 Wow, that's amazing. And you know, we could go into all of these different steps, but I think you've hit on some of the real important ones. But I want to get to what you actually do as far as boundaries coaching. Let's let's talk about boundaries and what is it that keeps people from setting boundaries? And what are the healthy boundaries that we should set? And then one are some of the unhealthy boundaries that we tend to set. Yeah, so the main thing that keeps people is feelings, so they feel guilty and shameful. Those are the two most common feelings that stop people so either they stop them from setting boundaries at all, or they cave when they go to try to set a boundary because they're so riddled with guilt and shame that they can't take it.

36:29 And for me, what I used to think when I was back in my codependent days was that I was nice. I'm a nice person, That's why I help people. And when I got in recovery, I learned that I was a people pleaser. Didn't know that, and that I was really doing it because I wanted people's approval. And technically, for me, it was that I didn't want their disapproval, so I didn't want people to think I was a bad person. And to me, a bad person was someone who says no and is unhelpful. And so for me, that antidote to the guilt and shame isn't a quick fix. It's a little bit more long term, and that is that what I do is I start all my clients by having them go through an exercise to identify their top five values, and by knowing their values, what matters, what's important, and setting boundaries in alignment with their values.

37:25 When we start doing that, we get into integrity with ourselves. Integrity is another word for wholeness, and we realize, like, I'm doing this because it brings me in alignment with my highest good, Like I wouldn't have that set of values if it wasn't for my highest good. So let me use health as an example. If you if health is a strong value of yours, you're going to set boundaries in your life such that you support and promote your health. So that might mean things like I set aside time to go to exercise class or to do yoga in the morning, or I pay for a meditation teacher, or I buy equipment, or I avoid going to brunch buffets in eating volumes of food. So if somebody judges you for doing things that are in alignment with your health, it doesn't matter to you as much because you know I'm doing this because it matters to me and it supports and promotes my health. So in the beginning, when you first start doing it and first start setting boundaries, it's difficult. I would say that me being in a food recovery program helped me a lot with my boundaries because there's a lot of food pushers in our society.

38:46 Oh yeah, people are really concerned with what you're eating and not eating. And I so in the beginning, I would say to people, I don't eat sugar, and then they were like, well do you eat fruit? And do you eat this? And do you eat that? And I was like, I don't really want to answer those questions. So then I started saying I don't eat sweets, and the more questions, and I finally started saying I have food issues. And funny enough, when I say that, nobody probes, because nowadays we've got people that are gluten free, people that are vegan, people that are paid blah blah, but nobody asks. So I had to realize what's my boundary in term of what I'm going to offer people for information, Like I get to decide what I tell people and how much I let people in. And I also had to learn to say no, no, thank you, no, I've said no, please stop asking me, you know, like I had to. I had to get better for my own health and if people get offended by that, like I'm going to die if I continue to eat compulsively. So I don't want to die, and that's more important to me than what you think of me. And so that the guilt and the shame are the main reasons that people stop because they have these ideas like, for example, that I'm hurting someone by setting a boundary. And I think something I also learned in recovery was there's a difference between harming someone and hurting them. So it might hurt you to use a needle to take a splinter out of your finger, but it's not going to harm you.

40:08 In fact, it's going to heal you. It might hurt someone's feelings to set a boundary with them, it's not going to harm them. It might heal the relationship because you're being honest with them about what's okay and what's not okay. There are some relationships you could actually lose by setting boundaries, and I am of the opinion that you probably should lose them. If that's yes, I was going to say. So many times we surround ourselves with people, and you know, you comment about original values and boundaries set based on those values, and then also boundaries that we tend to set because we think that's what we need to do. So in one case, we are literally the effect of our environment, and the other side of the side of the coin is that you literally are in control of your environment. Yeah, and you find a lot of people tend to be at the effect where they're setting boundaries because that's what they think people need.

41:10 Well, I think that when we're at the effect of life that is victim mentality, that is the belief that the world is acting on me and then I don't have a say and I can't have an impact. So when we like, one way we say an aca is we become an actor rather than a reactor in our life, or react on life rather than reacting to it. So it is true that there are sometimes you're going to send a boundary, set a boundary as a reaction, and I think that would be like if something just came at you and you weren't expecting it. But most of the time boundaries are pro active. And I think you know, a myth about boundaries is that there are walls. And I will say, like, if you have a violent or toxic or inebriated person in your life, you need a wall with that person. So in cases like that, yes, boundary as the wall. Most of the time, boundaries are not light walls. They're really flexible. And one metaphor that I use, the which many people do, is that a boundary is like having a fence with a gate in it, and the gate opens from the inside only In other words, you're the gatekeeper, and if someone is trampling on your property, it's because you let them out in a man, I'm with the fence, you let them in, and so you're in charge. If they're trampling on your property, then it's up to you to do something about it. You have to provide some kind of a consequence, like what are you going to do if they don't honor your boundary?

42:39 And so often you know, people don't honor a boundary because they don't believe you because you've never done it, or they forgot, or maybe they have horrible boundaries themselves, and so it's really your job to enforce them. And so for in some circumstances, all you're going to do is just repeat it and they'll be like, oh okay. But sometimes we have to change something. So all given and example probably everybody kind of identify with. Nowadays, it's really uncommon for people to smoke in other people's houses, so we don't typically have to have a rule that we stay out loud no smoking in my house. So if somebody walks in your house and they light up a cigarette. You might say, hey, we don't allow smoking in our house. And if they continue to smoke and you do nothing, it's not really a boundary because you're not doing anything about it. But if it's an actual boundary, then the consequence would be that you ask them to put it out and not smoke again. And if they won't put it out, then you walk them out the door and perhaps you say, I'm afraid you're not going to be invited back again because you can't honor my request to not smoke in my house. Like that's a pretty obvious one that most people can understand. But it's the same with other things. And you know where it gets tricky is where we're actually we're telling ourselves this is my boundary, but we're actually trying to control other people.

44:04 So I'll give you an example of my own recovery. So when I got into recovery and I started building boundaries, I thought that I could just say this is my boundary and then people would respect it. So my older brother is a very loud person, and he like whives and breathes politics. And even though he and I agree politically, I'm done. I don't want to talk about it. I don't participate in the news and politics because it's not good for my mental health. So I thought I could just say, hey, I really you know your loudness is hurting my ears. Can you talk quiet? He's not capable. I'm really not interested in talking about politics. Let's talk about something else. He's literally not capable, doctor Doug. He's just not And so I realized, oh, I'm the one that doesn't want to talk politics. I can't turn him into a quiet person. I can't turn him into a person that doesn't talk politics. So what am I going to do about it? Well, what I did was I spent less time with him, So that meant I saw him less frequently, and I saw him for shorter periods of time because I literally can't control him. I cannot turn him into a person that talks quietly and doesn't talk politics. And so that's an example of in the beginning, I was trying to control him by saying talk quietly and don't talk politics. That's not possible. So then what am I going to do? And so I can let go of being annoyed at him and resentful of him, because he talks so loud, he talks politics all the time, because that's who he is. I get to accept him, and as the Serenity prayer says, I get to accept

45:37 the things I cannot change, and I need the courage to change the things I can. So, Mike, I didn't tell him I'm going to stop coming less frequently and for shorter periods of time. I could have. I could have said, if you don't stop talking politics, I'm not going to come around as much, but I chose not to because that's what I wanted. I didn't feel I needed to explain, and I I'm pretty clear he's incapable of not talking about. Pol Oh wow, that's a great example. And as we get to the clothes here that this has been amazing, time goes by so quickly. It just does. It does. I can't flourish me. It floors me. So if there was a message you really want to share with the audience, just in a short message, what would that be?

46:23 So it would be keep the focus on yourself, because you're the only thing you can control. And I have four suggested ways to do that. One ask yourself, what do I want or need in this situation. I never did that too. Mind your own business, let other people live their lives. Stop giving on solicit advice. Three, ask yourself what might I have been doing to contribute to the situation and or what might I do differently and recover? We call that what is my part? And number four, take really good care of yourself. People with poor boundaries are famous for neglecting themselves and trying to pour from an empty cup. I want you to pour from the overflow and the only way you're going to have an overflow is if you fill your cup first. It is not selfish to take care of yourself, it's self preservation.

47:15 Love it, Barb, thanks so much for this has just been fascinating for me and I'm sure for the folks that are going to listen to it. So I really appreciate you being on the show. How do people find you? Real quick? So, my favorite place to hang on on social media is Instagram. I'm in Higher Power Coaching. My podcast you can find on any podcast outlet, or you can go to fragmented to whole dot com. And if you go to Instagram, every link to me. Whether you want to do a boundaries call with me find out about my coaching and that sort of thing is all linked in the bio on Instagram. Great, hey, thank you so much, and folks, thanks for listening. I hope you really enjoyed this and reach out if this is an area that I've never come across before.

47:59 So this sounds really interesting and I hope people will reach out and see if there's a solution that they haven't been able to achieve yet. So anyway, folks that doctor Doug have a wonderful week saying no must stay, I must stay