Breaking Codependence: Barb Nangles’ 12-Step Journey to Inner Safety

Host Cat York interviews Barb Nangle about her transformational recovery through ACA and OA, how she healed codependence, built internal safety, and developed strong boundaries that reshaped her life and relationships.

The episode covers Barb’s personal story, practical communication and boundary tools, forgiveness and self-compassion practices, and resources for anyone curious about 12-step fellowships and coaching.

To learn more about Barb, inquire about her coaching or to give her podcast “Fragmented to Whole - Life Lessons from 12 Step Recovery”  a listen please visit her website at higherpowercc.com

Love the conversation?  Want to be a guest? Support the Call Her Cat Podcast mission to redefine the story of addiction and recovery. The easiest way to help is to subscribe on your favorite platform and share this episode with a friend. We always love hearing from our listeners! linktr.ee/callhercatpodcast

To learn more about co-dependence or to see if CoDA is right for you please visit https://coda.org/

To learn more about Overeaters Anonymous or to find out if its right for you please visit: https://oa.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Hello everyone. Healing and reading whether you are exploring sobriety, navigating challenging healing cycles or working toward finding self-love and empowerment conversations. Hi Barb, how are you today?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

I'm really excited for this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

I am too. I've been looking forward to talking to you. This is such an important topic to talk about. And first I want to add, is there anything you would like to add to your bio that I missed?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

No, I'm sure that other things will come out as I share sort of my story and my experience. There's a lot, obviously, I'm 63, so my you know, my bio can only contain so much.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Right. So where do you want to get into a little bit of of um of where it started with you? Um the therapy and the personal development.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah, sure. So um actually what I'd like to do is start at age 52 when I had a codependent bottom, and then the the past will be filled in from there. How's that sound? That's perfect. Okay, so um when I was 52, uh I was working at Yale University as a program coordinator for urban education programs, mostly college access programs. I'm a sociologist by training. And um I had volunteered to co-lead a project serving homeless people through my church. And right around the time that project was starting, a homeless guy named Dan started coming to my church as a parishioner. And he and I became very friendly. And I felt like it was like a God send so that I could come to understand the plight of homeless people from an actual homeless person so that, you know, when I was running this project, I would be serving homeless people, not quote, the homeless. And he actually was quite helpful in that regard. And I don't know, maybe like two or three months into our friendship, we had a really big snowstorm here in New Haven, Connecticut. And I invited Dan to stay at my home, which I now know is not normal. So he he absolutely hated homeless shelters. I'm sure nobody likes them, but he normally wouldn't stay in them. But in a massive snowstorm, you kind of have to. So of course he said yes, and he stayed at my home and then he stayed another time and another time. And within a few weeks, he was practically living with me, and I soon felt trapped in my own home. So Dan was an admitted alcoholic and drug addict. I now think on reflection, he also had some kind of personality disorder. By the way, Kat, can I swear on your pod? Oh, yeah, you're fine. Okay. So this guy fucked with my head in a way I had never experienced in my life. And I was in therapy one day talking with my therapist, and the middle of a sentence, I went, Oh my God, do you think I need to go to Al-Anon? And she was like, Yes. So I don't know what I put into Google Cat, but whatever I put into Google looking for Al-Anon, the word codependent came up. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Now I had started therapy at 15. So that was 37 years. I wasn't in therapy continuously for 37 years, but the vast majority of that time I was. I got introduced to the whole self-help genre when I was like 22, 23, and read voraciously in that. I had done workshops and workbooks and seminars and retreats and spiritual groups. And I was like, how do I not know this word codependent? And so, um, just in case, I know that this is a recovery podcast, but not everybody understands codependence. And I'll just say, like, my understanding of codependence is when you are so focused on everyone and everything outside of yourself that you really don't even pay attention to what's going on inside of you, whether it's your feelings, your desires, your bodily functions. Like so many people who are codependent will hold it when they have to go to the bathroom because they it's like they don't want to disturb anybody or whatever. So when we're totally focused on ourselves, so I started going to codependence anonymous and I very quickly felt a sense of relief. I think knowing this is a thing that people recover from it, that there's a program and all that. And about six weeks into going to Coda, I went up to Cape Cod, Massachusetts to visit some longtime friends, one of whom had been in Alcoholics Anonymous for, but at that point she'd been in AA for 10 years. And she had always just raved about how dramatically her life had been turned around by AA. And I was like, You're gonna love this. I'm in codependent anonymous. And she was like, Oh, great, let's see if we can find a coda meeting while you're here. And she couldn't, but she found an ACA meeting, which I knew of as ACOA, Adult Children of Alcoholics, which I never occurred to me that I qualified for. But her dad was an alcoholic. She's like, I've never been, I've always thought of going. So I was like, I'll go for you. Now, meanwhile, in my first few weeks in CODA, I remember saying to someone who could have been Dan, I'm not sure. I remember saying, I think I need to be reparented, but I have no idea, Kat, where I got that phrase from, that idea of reparenting. I think I thought I made, I don't know. So I walk into the ACA meeting and in the opening reading, they said we reparent ourselves. And I was like, What? And then they read the list of the 14 traits of an adult child, which is affectionately called the laundry list. And I was bowled over. Now, my friend Heidi that brought me tells me that I sobbed the whole meeting. I don't remember that, but I do remember buying the literature, coming home to New Haven, Connecticut, and starting going to um ACA meetings, which by the way, that fellowship just in the last month or so has changed its name to its ACAD, Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. So it used to be called adult children of alcoholics years and years ago, but they realized that you don't have to be from a family of addiction to develop the traits of an adult child. It can be um like a violent family, it can be a super militaristic family, it can be a family where there's chronic illness, mental illness, um, super religiosity, like all kinds of stuff can cause people to have the traits. So I start going to ACA, and I was like, oh my God, this is it. This is what I have been looking for my whole life. I was reading through the fellowship text, which we call the big red book, and I was like, oh my God, this is what happened. This is what happened, this is what happened. And I didn't know something, quote, happened to me, but I felt like, oh my God, were they filming the inside of my head? And I'm going to meetings and I'm hearing some recovery. At the same time, it was pretty clear that at the time I was going back then, the people in the rooms objectively had it way worse than me. I didn't have the shit kicked out of me, I didn't get my bones broken, I didn't get raped. I didn't get told I was a piece of crap, but I knew that I had the traits. So I kept kind of almost like making excuses for why it was okay for me to be there. And they also kept talking about trauma. And I was like, huh. And my understanding back then of trauma was just the trauma that most people know about, where like you're in a hurricane or you're in a car accident or you're in a wall. That's like blunt trauma or what sometimes people call big T trauma. But what happens with adult children is what is sometimes referred to as little T trauma or relational trauma. It's sort of like the drip, drip, drip of emotional invalidation. And really it's about abandonment. Sometimes it's literal physical abandonment, like your parents left or were never there, or you were put up for adoption or whatever. But for everybody, it's emotional abandonment. And it's about our caregivers not being able to be there for us to support our emotional development. And this is not to blame them because they did what was done to them. But in any case, I started finding out all this stuff about myself. And I soon, um, a women's ACA meeting started very soon after that. I started going to that. That meeting still exists. I still go to that meeting. And then I got into a 12-step group. Me and three other women decided to use the ACA 12-step workbook and work through the steps. And my transformation was just unbelievable. It was really incredible. I had absolutely no idea how dysfunctional my family was. And I especially had no idea how dysfunctional I was because I looked on the outside like I had it together. You know, um, I owned a home, I had a career, I had a master's degree, I volunteered, I paid my taxes. So like I looked, but meanwhile, I had I drank abusively until I was in my early 40s. And then I just sort of stopped. And then once I started again, I really just barely drank. I smoked bales of weed. I lied about smoking cigarettes for years. Um, and then of course, all the toxic relationships I was in, I just did not have a well-lived life. And um, but on paper, you know, it looked really good. And so about a year into my journey in ACA, I had still been going to CODA meetings, but I just went to one meeting a month. I didn't do any work outside of the program. I didn't get together with people outside the program, whereas I really dove into ACA and decided to let CODA go because it really was maybe, excuse me, like a 75% fit, whereas ACA was 100% fit. And that turned out to be like a higher-powered moment for me because one of the women in my 12-step group had started sharing in our step group about her relationship with food and about the way she was thinking about food and her behavior. And I was aghast. I was just like, oh my God. And it wasn't what she was doing, it's that she was talking about it because I didn't know that other people thought like I did about food, that they acted like I did about food. And I think I was a normal eater until I was about 22 when I quit smoking, which I put in parentheses because I literally quit for six months and then I smoked secretly for 20 years after that, unless I was out in public with people drinking and they were smoking cigarettes, then I would smoke publicly. But I gained like 35 pounds then. I battled with about 35 pounds through my 20s and then it moved up to like 80 to 100 pounds in my 30s. And I really don't know my top weight. I know that I'm down over 100 pounds because I know the top weight I saw on the scale was 247, but I know that I weighed more than that. And I don't know if it was like 30 pounds more, 50 pounds more, whatever. And um, anyway, so the woman starts sharing about this, and she started going to Overeaters Anonymous, and she very sort of gently was trying to get me to go to a meeting with her. And I went and I was like, oh my God, I'm a compulsive overeater, which I didn't even know was a thing. Never mind that I was that. So I have been in ACA for 11 years. I've been in OA and what we call abstinent in that program for 10 years. So abstinent in OA is equivalent to sober in AA. Okay. And my life has never been the same. And so I got laid off from Yale after like two and a half years in recovery. And through a series of serendipitous events, I found myself in the world of entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation in New Haven and at Yale, and decided to start my own coaching and consulting business. And I just started sort of generally coaching and then very soon um decided to start my podcast, not thinking it would have anything to do with my business. It was all about what we call carrying the message of recovery to those who still suffer, which is part of step 12. Because the feedback I got from people is there was something about the way that I related my experience of recovery to others that was really helpful. And I was like, I don't, I'm just talking. I don't, I don't know what it is. So I started my podcast just as an effort to carry the message. And it's called Fragmented to Whole Life Lessons from 12-step recovery because I um have this that's sort of my experience is that I was a bunch of fragmented pieces sort of floating around in space. And the process of recovery, especially the part about building healthy boundaries, helped me integrate those fragments into one coherent whole. And so now, like I can be rocked by things that happen to me, but I can't be shattered by them the way that I used to because I'm whole, because I have this sense of inner safety that came through the process of building boundaries. And so as I got into being a coach for a little while, I realized because I do nothing about having a business. I realized I needed to have a niche. And so it just made sense for me to be a boundaries coach. So I'm I'm gonna stop there because I've said a lot and then it we can talk more about like what does that mean to be a boundaries coach and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Sure. No, I mean, thank you for sharing all that because I want to acknowledge that everything that you've shared is very it's very hard to share, no matter how many times you share it.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah, it's not hard for me at all. I have 352 episodes of my podcast. I have been on scores of podcasts, and I've shared in recovery for 11 years, so it's not at all hard for me at all.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Well, that's good. I mean, that means you've come a long way and you've really worked the programs that you can very well to get to this point.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, yeah. But I appreciate you saying that because I know that for some people it's extremely hard, and it's just not for me. And I think that's partly what makes me a good podcaster.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

And I think that's that could be partly what makes you a good coach, too. Yeah, good point. Good point, you know, and I because I think you know, you not only you don't just talk it, but you you you live it too. Yes, yes, you know, and I think that's important whenever anyone is looking for a coach of any sort. That you want someone who's been where you are and knows how that feels.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Right, exactly. And I think, you know, I mentioned I was in therapy for some 37 years in total. I had a ton of therapists and they were sounding boards, and I knew nothing about them. I had no idea if they like based on all the therapists that I know personally as friends, they probably had pretty fucked up lives, and that's why they became therapists. I mean, that's a lot of people, but they never shared any of it. So I had no understanding of the is this an intellectual exercise for you? And no, like all of the things that came up for me, just even in my first two to three years alone in Recovery Cat, none of that stuff came up in all of those years of therapy. So I didn't know about childhood trauma, I didn't know about intergenerational family dysfunction, I didn't know that I didn't have boundaries, I didn't know that I was codependent, I didn't know I was a compulsive over either. I didn't know that I fucking lied all the time, even though when I got in recovery, I thought I was an honest person, right? I didn't know that I basically had wildly unrealistic expectations of myself, other people in the world. Right. I didn't know that I really didn't, I was basically not accepting reality the way that it was. I was always fighting it like things shouldn't be this way. So many, many, many, many things. I didn't know for me personally, the biggest mindset shift was coming out of victim mentality, which I would never have believed about myself because I always felt like a powerful woman of agency. And also I could spot a victim a mile away because I was gonna rescue that person.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

And really coming to understand that my my version of victim mentality was way more subtle than that classic, like, whoa is me, the world is against me, I can never win. That's not me. Mine was more like if only, like if only my boss was different, or if only this boyfriend was different, or every boyfriend was different. You know, it was complaining constantly, um, uh gossiping, um, just really like that kind of stuff is acting like you don't have choices, which victims don't perceive choices. And I do want to also say that if you have victim mentality, it came from somewhere. You were in some way, shape, or form victimized, whether you recognize it or not. So you're not a bad person, but also it's a mentality, which means it can be changed. And for me, that has been the biggest um paradigm shift. But like none of that stuff ever came up with all that 37 years of therapy and personal development. The woman that I was with as a therapist when I got into recovery, the one where I was like, uh, do you think I need to go to Alan? She was head and shoulders above the rest of the therapists. But she also never said anything to me about you're an adult child, you're codependent. She validated it for me when I came back to her. And when I finally got the wherewithal to say to her, like, why didn't you tell me that I was codependent? I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was something like it was ridiculous. It was something like, I don't feel like it's my job to diagnose people. And I didn't have it in me. Now I would say, like, well, who the fuck's job is it to diagnose people? Like, who's carried? And also, you have a diagnosis on my insurance form. I know you do because I've been here for years and you're getting paid. So, you know, like diagnosing me then, right? Exactly. What is that? And I've talked to so many people, especially in recovery, whose therapists are like, you should check out ACA or look up the word codependent, or it sounds like enrichment. Like nobody was ever saying any of these things to me. And so I was just completely baffled and blown away by understanding all this stuff. And so I think like there are lots of amazing therapists out there. There's also a ton of really shitty therapists out there. And the problem is nobody knows it, you know, and their their clients are the victims. The thing about coaches, because you know, you advertise and you get paid, like you can see public testimonials about them, you can hear evidence, and then also like I have a podcast. You when by the time you come to work with me, you know who I am, right? You know what I've been through, you know what kind of things I can do to help people. I'm I've been vetted. But therapists, we don't get to do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

No, you kind of and you a lot of the times the first one isn't the right fit either. Yeah. And if you're if you're if you've been seasoned to therapy, you know, you can kind of spot maybe a not so great one early on. Yeah, I couldn't clearly. Well, you were trying, you know, you were trying. Yes, you were trying. And you know, a lot of what I what I hear like kind of come through is that you've mentioned it a couple of times, is that feeling of internal safety.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

And I I want to know if like what was it like to not feel internally safe, and what does it feel like when you do feel internally safe?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

So I I I want to say that I just came up with the phraseology internal safety last year. I would I think I was guesting on a podcast, and I'm like, oh my god, building healthy boundaries is really about creating a sense of internal safety. It's something that I've known, but I hadn't named. It was like I was sort of swimming around it for a long time. So the idea of I want to start with what internal safety is. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you never get upset, it doesn't mean that your heart isn't racing and stuff. It means that you rely on yourself for your sense of safety and not the outside world. So what happens? Especially for codependence, but lots of people in recovery is we seek safety in the outside world. So I, for example, I need you to be okay so that I can be okay. And I especially need you to be okay with me. That's how we that's how people that don't have a sense of internal safety operate. Right. And so what we do is we try, we do things like we apologize, we over-accommodate, we overgive, we override our internal sense of like this is not good for me, but I'm going to do it anyway because I need them to be okay with me. Internal safety is where I'm not going to people please you because I can withstand you being upset with me, because I understand those are your feelings. You are separate from me and you are in charge of your own feelings. And I am the only person who can give me the true sense of safety that I want, which is I can rely on myself. Now I will say that because I've been doing this for so long, um, and like I actually let me put a pin in that for a second. My belief is that healthy boundaries are the antidote to codependence. So I think that's why I became a boundaries coach. I don't think that's an accident. And I also like in in 12-step recovery, we become a sponsor to other people to um it's ultimately, of course, we want other people to recover, but ultimately it's to strengthen our own recovery. I think that's probably the case with being a boundaries coach. How can I possibly let go of my boundaries when I'm a boundaries coach and not talking about it all day, every day, right? So let me just let me say that. So because I do this, it's very rare that I have that feeling of internal threat any longer. And when I do, I know how to take care of myself. I know that, like for me, what I have been saying for years now is my nervous system regulation is the highest priority for me. My nervous system tells me what's okay and not okay with me. I did not know when I got into recovery what was okay, what was not okay. I didn't know what I wanted, liked, needed, preferred. I didn't know where I ended and other people began. That's because I didn't have boundaries, right? Right. And so part of the process of building boundaries is discovering that stuff, figuring out what's okay and what's not okay, and then acting on that. No longer saying, yeah, I'm fine with that, when you're not fine with that. Because the reason we say we're fine with that is because we put other people's opinions above our own. Oh, they say it's okay. So I guess I need to make it okay with me. No, you don't. Internal safety means it's actually not okay with me, and I'm going to tell you that. So once you develop this, it's it's really a process of internal safety, might be a better way to describe it, where you know, you abandon yourself most of your life and just give in to what other people want and override things and make things okay. And then you start realizing that you're doing it, and then you're like, oh, I don't want to do that, but then you can't not do it. And then like if that's the behavior change thing. Like you realize something is a thing and you're like, great idea. I have no idea how to do it. And then you start thinking about it, and then you try it and you mess up, and then you try it and you do it, and then you try it and you mess up again, and then you try it and you try it, and you mess up, and you do it, and you do it, and you mess up, and you so it's like one step forward, two steps back, three steps forward, one step back. You know, that's how human change happens. And then eventually you're taking steps forward and forward and forward and forward. And so with internal safety, you come to rely on yourself for your own sense of safety. You don't need like I want other people's approval, Kat, but I don't need it the way that I used to, partly, majorly, because I have my own approval. And the reason I have my own approval is because I live in integrity with myself now. I didn't before. Like I didn't know that I lied all the time. So I lied about cigarettes, I lied about drugs, I lied about um alcohol, I lied about relationships, but mostly I lied in the people pleasing department. I lied and said things were okay with me. I like even when I drank, I didn't even drink my own damn drink. So I started drinking beer when I was a teen because that's what people drank. And then I dated a guy who was into wine, so I drank wine, and then I dated a guy who was into Jack Daniel, so I drank Jack and Diet Coke, and then I dated a guy who was a beer connoisseur, so then I learned I liked Belgian beers. Like I couldn't even have my own damn drink, right? Like that's how much of a chameleon I was. And back then I thought that that was good, but now I can see it was about a sense of safety. I thought that's what I needed to belong. So the idea that we self-reference for what feels safe to us, you know, that my mantra for years with my clients has been keep the focus on yourself, keep the focus on yourself, keep the focus on yourself, keep the focus on yourself. And that's not about being selfish, it's about self-preservation. It's not putting yourself first to the neglect of other people, it's putting yourself first so that you can take care of yourself, take responsibility for what is actually yours to be responsible for. Let other people take responsibility for what for what's theirs, like their feelings, their behaviors, their beliefs, their choices are theirs. And it's also about taking really good care of yourself because this is what we do as codependents. We neglect ourselves terribly in body, mind, and spirit, spirit, and and put other people first. So when we have a sense of inner safety, um, we feel really good about having our own backs. And when we don't have a sense of inner safety, um we I like for me, I lived with a sense of urgency at all times. I remember the first time I heard that phrase on a recovery podcast, sense of urgency. I'm like, oh my God, that's me. I didn't know it until I heard it and it was named. Um, I um often I didn't even understand until I got in recovery that that horrendous flood of feeling that sort of comes up from somewhere above me and floods through my body and feels horrendous. I didn't even know that that was shame. And I had a lot of shame almost kind of for existing. Um, even though I also felt like a powerful woman of agency. So it was really kind of crazy making. So I had a lot of shame. I had I also did not know until I was in recovery, I was mired in fear my entire life, but I didn't know it. So I know that a lot of women like they won't go out alone at night or what like I've never been like that. I've I've always felt like the world was a safe place. But when I got in recovery, I realized I was mired in fear, and essentially my fear was people, and basically fear of rejection, abandonment, ridicule, judgment. That's why I was doing all of the over-accommodating, overgiving, people-pleasing, manipulating, you know, enabling kind of behaviors, because I didn't want people to judge me. And now I don't want you to judge me, but I kind of know that humans are judging discerning creatures. And so if they're going to judge me, how about if they judge me for the actual Barb instead of some like facade version of Barb or some morphed version of Barb who's who's a people pleaser? And now, like I live in alignment with my own integrity. And I think there's a lot of ways that I think about boundaries, and I think one of the most important ones is living in integrity with yourself, like being solidly who you are, going from fragmented to whole. So I think like if I were to summarize now that I just said that, like what's it like to not have inner safety, to feel fragmented, and to have inner safety, it's to feel whole. But just because you're whole doesn't mean nothing ever happens to you and you don't ever feel bad. No.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

And there's and I think that's that's that's an important distinction because life is still gonna happen to you.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Of course, but I have tools now to handle the vicissitudes of life, whereas all my tools in the past were shitty coping mechanisms. It was either substance use or making things worse. But I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Did you process like as you're going through your different recovery programs of forgiving yourself for what you didn't know?

SPEAKER_00 31:12

That's a really good question. Yeah, I don't you know, I I like I don't even know how to answer that. I think that I was so excited to finally understand what the fuck happened to me. And I didn't have time for that. I just didn't, it was just like I got I'm doing whatever, whatever these pieces of literature are telling me, I'm fucking doing it. Um, and it's just part of recovery is to forgive yourself and to forgive uh other people because um and also let me just say I was estranged from my dad from 94 to 2005, and and then um when I reconnected with him, it was still weird and awkward, but luckily he moved to another state, so I didn't have to see him in person much. But much of that time I read and worked on forgiveness. I read a ton of stuff on forgiveness, and so I'm certain that during that time I absorbed a lot of uh understanding of forgiveness of myself. But I will say that the vast majority of the things that I read and experienced were why to forgive, which I was like, okay, fine, I get it. And I think it's important to understand why to forgive. You know, it's like, you know, not forgiving is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. But it wasn't until I read the book, The Wisdom of Forgiving Forgiveness, by the Dalai Lama, that I actually learned like how to forgive. And he essentially says it's about compassion. And so that was the first time that I had actually tried to look at my father as a person, as a man, not as my dad. And I was like, oh my God, like he didn't get the wife he wanted, he didn't get the sons he wanted, he didn't get the daughter he wanted, he didn't get the life he wanted. And like that's objectively gotta suck. He's still my dad, you know. But like I could, I could like take a step back and look at him, and that's why I was able to forgive him. But I I did a lot of work on that. So my guess is that somehow during that time I probably learned to forgive myself. But I I've, you know, my let me just say, like my raking myself over the coals kind of thing that a lot of people do, especially people with trauma, has been um really, really subtle, like below the level of language often. And also I've been way more judgmental of other people than of myself. And what I've learned in recovery is that it's just the opposite side of the coin. The direction of the judgment is just outward rather than inward. They both saw it's not good to be either one of those things. No, no, it's not um, and um, but so the when I say um that a lot of the stuff that was going on in my head was pre-language. Here's an example. I, for the longest time in my life, had this feeling that I needed to like shrink down, get smaller, back off. And it wasn't until I was in recovery, and for the first two and a half years, I went to Y12 SR yoga for 12-step recovery. And one of the times, normally it was just a meeting and then yoga, but when we did the yoga part, we did the teacher had us do some exercise. I wish I knew what the exercise was, but she had us kind of come up with like, what's your core issue? And I was able to be like, Oh, and then like name it and then come up with an antidote. And I finally was able to put words to it, which is I'm too much. Now I wasn't walking around saying to myself, I'm too much, cat, but I had that belief.

unknown 34:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

So when I say um it was prelingual, I think the reason I didn't have the words is because I internalized the idea that I was too much of a burden before I could talk. And I also know now I was born with a kidney infection, and my brother was 17 months old. So my mother had a baby and then had a baby with an infection.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

You know, and so, like, there's that, like that, I didn't put that together until like a couple of years ago. And but then with the exercise I did in that yoga class, it was what's the antidote? And I had to fiddle with it, and I eventually came up with I'm just the right amount of everything. And I had to say that to myself a lot, many, many, many times a day for years, and I never, it doesn't even come up anymore. I don't even care. Like the reality is there are some people in this world for whom I am too much, and that's okay because they're not my people. I am not too much. They just don't have the capacity for me. That's really how I think of it now. Like it's not that's on them, not me. I don't have to hide my light under a bushel because I'm too much for you. You can leave, you know, damn self under the bushel, right? Like I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be offensive to people, but I don't have to stop being who I am because you think that I'm too much. Whereas I used to feel like I had to do that. I had to, I had to morph myself to fit wherever, you know. And I thought being a chameleon was good. No, it's not. Like you're not, like you think you can fit anywhere. No, you can't. You can't fit in everywhere. You're not really fitting in if you're that. It is not good to be a chameleon. Unless you're like a spy, then okay, good for you.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Unless you're a spy. Well, I and you taught you touched on a very important topic that I think is interwoven through all the recovery programs, and that's communication skills, you know, effective communication skills. Because if you're growing up in dysfunction, if you're growing up in an abusive or alcoholic home, you're not communicating or taught to communicate in the most effective way.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Or the safest way, or your wants, or your needs. Yeah. And so I have to wonder if some of that, some of the chameleon behavior that those who grew up in those homes they don't know who they are because they can never even communicate.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Yeah, you know, in ACA we say there's three major rules of dysfunctional families don't talk, don't trust, and don't feel. And so the don't talk rule is figure shit out by yourself, even though you're five, don't ask questions, and also your parents aren't going to tell you stuff. They're not gonna explain things to you. You're just gonna figure it out. And I remember when I was doing the 12 steps at the beginning, my step group and I, we all realized, oh, the reason we want people to read our minds is because we think that's how it works. We've been doing that our entire lives. I mean, so what if we've been wrong in reading people's minds? But we were like, this is how it works. Like, and I remember thinking that people who came right out and directly said something, I remember thinking that they were rude. Like, how dare you tell me exactly what's okay and not okay with you? You're rude. And now I'm like, oh my God, it's so refreshing to have someone tell me, you know, I don't really like cream in my coffee. Oh, okay. Well, I won't like I wouldn't, I'm just giving as I would never put cream in someone else's coffee. But you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, um, you know, I'd rather have you tell me because and also I feel safe when you're telling me the truth about what's okay and not okay with you because I know who I'm getting. And and I can tell you that I can't, I mean, I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, I feel so safe with you, Barb, because I know you're gonna tell me no if the answer is no. And I don't have to worry about whether you're really okay with this. I don't have to be like, is she mean it? Is she people pleasing? Is she they know that I'm like, no, I'm not doing that, you know, or I can't do that, but here's what I can do, you know, because I'm clear. And here's another thing that I will say that um the way that I describe myself now, Kat, is I don't set boundaries. I have them. I used to set boundaries and then I internalized those boundaries because they're part of who I am. So another way to say that is I am situated in me, in my life, in a way that I just wasn't. I was so out there inside of other people. I had so much going on in my head because I was like, what is she gonna think if I do this? And how is she gonna manage that if I don't go in to help her? And what about that person? I was so doing so much emotional and mental labor for and about other people. It was insane. And now I'm living inside of me. I'm living inside of my life and I'm guided by what matters to me. Right. Um, and so one of the ways that I do that with my boundaries coaching clients is I have them identify their top five values. So they not only say this is my value, they say, what does that value mean to me and why is it my value? And then while they're working with me, and hopefully from then on out, they use those values as sort of like guardrails or guideposts for how to make decisions in their lives and when and where to set boundaries. Because the way to live a life on purpose is to live in alignment with what matters to you. You know, if you want to know what your purpose is in life, your purpose is to live in alignment with what matters to you. And so many of us, like I wasn't, you know, I thought I was honest. I truly believed I was an honest person. No, I wasn't, you know, and so now I live in integrity with myself. And integrity is another word for wholeness. So when I said, you know, my fragmented pieces integrated into one coherent whole, integrated is the verb of integrity, which I that I only figured that out like five years ago. I'm like, oh my God, those words are related. That makes total sense, you know. And I'm not like I am not a stupid person, but there's so many things that I was just were so difficult for me. And I think a lot of it has to do with this like the don't talk, don't toss, don't feel rule in my family. One of the ways that played out was being dumb was like the worst thing in my family. You better know stuff. And if you don't know it, you better fucking make it up and then defend it like it was handed to you by God. And I would do that. So I was a very defensive person for that. And then I was also defensive because I had all these different facades up and I didn't want people to see behind the mask and look behind the curtain and realize that I wasn't really a wizard, I was just a guy standing behind a curtain kind of thing. And so, you know, I remember saying uh a number of years ago, I didn't have any tools growing up. Then I was like, wait a minute, yes, I did. I had tools, they were just shitty tools. So I learned things like gossiping. So um I luckily for me, I started the 12 steps in ACA before I did in my OA program. Because in OA, when you do the searching and fearless moral inventory, you are only allowed to look at yourself and your behavior. And this is about what did you do to screw up your life and the lives of people around you? In ACA, we know you're a product of your environment. These patterns came from somewhere, and you will figure out what your part was by looking at what happened to you. And so what happened to me, Kat, was I grew up in a family that engaged in indirect communication. If I had a problem with you, Kat, I would not be talking to you. I'd be talking to everybody around you, and I wouldn't really be talking about the problem. I'd be talking about you. So, what did I do? Well, I gossiped. And so the fact that I could see this pattern came from somewhere, like whether it came from somewhere or not, I still have to stop. But if I didn't realize that this came from somewhere and I just learned that I was a gossip, I would have been riddled with shame and probably would have imploded and gone back to drinking and drugging all the time. But luckily for me, I was in a program that said you're a product for your environment. It's not okay what you're doing, but we're gonna teach you new skills. And you know, speaking of gossip, it was it was one of I first of all, I was shocked to learn that I gossiped. And also it was one of the most difficult, um, I'm gonna call it defaults of character that I had. Um, and but when I really worked on that, I cleaned up a lot of other defaults of my character because it was victim mentality, it was indirect communication, it was blaming, you know, it was so many things. And uh again, I wasn't riddled with shame because I was like, oh, this came from somewhere, you know. So like poor communication, absolutely. Like in my family, sarcasm was like a language. Humiliating people, teasing people was just like part of what you did. And then if you said ouch, people go, it's just a joke. Well, why does it hurt? Like I didn't say that, but I remember thinking this is painful as hell. Yeah. You know, and so um not talking to the people that you need to talk to, trying to read other people's minds, expecting people to read your other your mind, um, expecting people should know things, like that's how I grew up. But the reality is if people should know something, then they would know it. So we need to come right out and tell them. You know, something that happens in my um coaching all the time is people will be like, Well, I've been married to him for 40 years. He should know. I'm like, Well, yeah, apparently he doesn't. So come right out and tell them, right? And the reason like, and we act like if you don't know it, it's a personal affront against me. You're doing something specifically to me. And the reality is, look, different people pay attention to different things, different people absorb different things, different people care about different things. So if someone doesn't remember something you've told them, you know, 40 times, it's not because they hate you and they're trying to piss you off. It's because that just doesn't isn't part of their world, you know? And so just like accept that this is not something they're gonna retain. If they had dementia, you know, then would you be, I mean, yeah, you might be upset with them, but because it's so often, but you understand this isn't the person doing this to be obstinate. They're doing it because this is just how they operate in the world. And we get to let go of that stuff because we have these, you know, expectations that people should understand things. So we come right out and say them. And then also we often communicate about other people rather than ourselves. So, like an example, I you I do a whole module on communication at the beginning of my coaching because it's such an important thing. Like one of the examples I give all the time is instead of saying um you're driving like a maniac, you you would say something like, I feel uncomfortable with the way that you're driving, right? You know, or I feel unsafe. Or um if someone says, you never listen, instead of I don't feel heard. If you say you never listen, you're talking about them. So they're automatically gonna go on the defensive. And when you use words like never or always, there, those are extreme words. People are gonna be even more on the defensive, and the conversation will then be probably an argument about whether they do or do not ever listen, and you've gone past the actual issue, which is I don't feel heard. And when you say things like I don't feel heard, you're talking about you, they're not likely to go on the defensive. Actual communication is much more likely to be had, and you're on the actual issue. And it's hard for other people to dispute whether or not you can't, you do or do not feel heard. Whereas if they say, if you say you never listen, they could be like, Yes, of course I blah, blah, blah. You know, so like all of these things are ways in which um like I learned crappy communication skills and have learned good ones. And and I will also say, Kat, that because I was a I mentioned I was a program coordinator, I ran programs in up to 25 schools at a time sometimes. So I kept the communication going between our program and all those schools. So I felt like I was an amazing communicator. And then I got a recovery like, oh my God, I suck. And and the other thing I want to say is I am now in the first and only healthy romantic relationship of my life. It has everything to do with my healthy boundaries, and I learned how to have good communication skills by building boundaries because I would try to communicate boundaries to people and it wouldn't work, and I had to keep adjusting so that people could understand what I was trying to say so that they could hear me. And so I now know how to communicate and what to communicate to my sweetheart. And um, he also knows how to communicate with me, and it has everything to do with our healthy boundaries and why we're able to have a healthy relationship for the first time in our lives. Like I we've been together for seven and a half years, I had a long string of dysfunctional relationships. He was married for 10 years and then he was married for 25, 25 years, 25 years. And um, according to him, like and uh he those were not functional relationships for him. And this is, and I will also say another speaking of communication, when I started dating him, one of the things that was really different about him is he never complained about his ex-wives. It took him like two to three years to really tell me a lot of the stuff that happened in his marriages, right? And I was like, wow, because most relationships I we started out with bitching about our former partners, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

No, it's true. And what did that it's interesting because when you go from so many unhealthy relationships that stem from a dysfunctional childhood? What was that like when you're was there a part of you when you entered into you know this healthy relationship? Was there still a part of you that it felt uncomfortable because it wasn't chaotic? Like it wasn't dysfunctional?

SPEAKER_00 49:42

I remember saying to one of my fellows in recovery, who the fuck is this guy? He's saying all the doing all the right things. And and she said, He's the guy that got picked for you. And the reason she said that cat was because I knew him peripherally, and I was on a road trip and I was in a labyrinth in Sedona, Arizona, and he came to mind. And I found out his last name and was able to reach out to him to share something with him, and that's how we got together. So when she said he's the guy that God picked for you, he literally God literally plopped his name in my brain in a fucking uh labyrinth in Sedona, Arizona. So that so I was like, okay, you're right. So um no, you know, I remember saying to him in regard to having sex. So I will say, like in my previous relationships, I would try to hotwire intimacy by having sex very early in a relationship. And I was really thriving when I met him. So I knew this man had better enhance my life because my life is amazing right now. So I was like, so um, he um when we would make out, unlike every other man I have ever made out with, he was not trying to put his hands in my pants or up my shirt. He wasn't like groping me. He he made it very clear that he desired me, but without being inappropriate. And then he brought up sex in this very cute kind of way. And I said to him, you know, um, I want you. I want you to know that I do want you. However, I'm not ready. And I said, I don't even know what that means because those words have literally never come on before. But I'm not ready. But there's a couple things I know that I will need to have ready. One is we need to be in a committed, monogamous relationship. And two, we need to both be tested for STIs before we ever come together. He was like, done and done. And then I was talking to a woman in recovery who'd been married for 35 years, and she said, you know, if you're gonna wait to do it, make a big deal, go away somewhere, and then that way you have a memory. So I brought that idea to him. And he was like, That was great. So we had decided we were gonna we were gonna go away and we're gonna do it on January 15th. And so that would have been 2019. So what ended up happening, Kat, was that we got to look forward to it would be like 19 days until we have sex, 14 days until we have sex. So we made it be this like juicy, yummy thing. And then he actually rented an Airbnb called the Writer's Cottage in the Berkshares.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

And he said to me, So it's in January in New England, so it was like, who knows what the weather's gonna be? He goes, I'm gonna rent a monster truck. And I'm like, damn, like I love this. So he found the plays, he rented the place, he said he was going to get a monster truck. Whereas I had always done all of the work in all of my relationships before. So this was new to me. And I was like, This is amazing. And then, like the week before, um, it was clear that it was gonna be like in the 40s and rainy or something. So I called him and I was like, I don't think we need a monster truck. And I'm joking because I think I'm thinking he's joking, right? He goes, Okay, I'll cancel. I'm like, Wait, you rented a monster truck? He goes, Okay, not a monster truck, but I did rent an SUV because we're fucking going no matter what the weather's like. So, like that level of enthusiasm from a man I had never had. So it was amazing, and so no, I didn't have any difficulty accepting that.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

I love that you had such a beautiful experience where you could communicate how you felt and that there was there was like this beautiful buildup to it.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Yeah, yeah, it was really, it was really incredible. And the other thing was by then I was down over a hundred pounds from my top weight. Right. And and I had just reached it in the spring of 2018, so it was still new, newly in this thinner body. And so I did say to him, let's go out for coffee to talk about sex before we go away or do anything. And I said to him, Look, this version of Barb, this thinner version and also this recoverish recovering version of Barb has never had sex before. My guess is I will be totally okay because even when I was heavy, I never needed to have like the lights off and stuff, but I wouldn't like I wouldn't undress in a dressing room with a bunch of women, but I could get naked in front of my partner. But I said to him, This version of Barb has never had sex before. I don't know what's gonna come out of me. You also need to know I have like like you see how my arms are really flabby, my belly is really flabby, my thighs are really flabby. Deal with it, you know, like this is the way that it's gonna be. And and I also told him how, you know, in my previous, there was a couple of relationships, one of which I felt I got shamed by my partner for wanting not for being um reticent about doing things that uh were a little too like this. Is a guy I dated a guy who had literally four duffel bags of sex toys, and I was like, whoa! And he was really into porn, and I just was not, and he like basically shamed me for not being adventurous enough. And then I dated another guy who shamed me for being too adventurous because I wanted to do a fucking doggy style, which I was like, that's normal. That's not. He's like, I should be looking at you, and I said, You are, you're looking at the back of me. But I got shamed on both ends of the spectrum of like too much and too little. So I told him, I didn't tell him any of those details that I just told you, but I did say I got shamed on both ends of the spectrum. And you know, there are things that I might want to try, but I've never felt comfortable because of the shame. And so I would like uh permission from myself to explore things and maybe even change my mind midstream. Like maybe we could be in the middle of something, I'd be like, Nope, change my mind. And he was like, Okay, so then when he we got in the car for him to take me home, I said, How are you feeling about this conversation? And he goes, Well, let me see. My new girlfriend wants to experiment with sex. I think I'm okay with that. And like I could like I didn't the only reason, like I was incapable of that kind of of frankness before Kat. But I think the main reason is one, I have healthy boundaries and I know who I am, and two, I've learned to be honest. Like I can't do dishonesty anymore. I'm not I've lived my life for other people my entire life. I'm not fucking doing it anymore.

SPEAKER_02 56:13

I'm not no no, and well, and I mean because you know what's in it for you too, right? You know, yeah now that you've seen like this side of life, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

This is way better. Way, way, way in every like I have peace inside of myself. I didn't know that I didn't have peace before. I didn't know that I had a sense of urgency at all times. I didn't know that I lived in fight or flight mode almost constantly my entire life. You know, I didn't I just didn't know. And now that I don't have those things, like this is so much better.

SPEAKER_02 56:54

No, and it is because look how beautiful your life is now. Yeah, absolutely. I mean you're in a thriving relationship, a healthy thriving relationship. You are you're a coach, you're a podcast host. I mean, and and you've gone, I think there's something very beautiful to say that you've gone through all these recovery programs and you really immersed yourself in those programs to get the most out of it that you could. I don't get the feeling from you that you you went and just took up a seat.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

No, in Coda, I took up a seat, yes, but not in ACA and not in OA. Yeah, no, I dove in. Um I remember my mother saying to me once when I was a teenager, you don't do things halfway. And I was like, really? Now I know what she's talking, she was talking about, but I never thought of myself as that kind of person. But now I'm like, I think especially as an entrepreneur and I and I network with a lot of other entrepreneurs, and I I definitely am a driven person. And I've had this personal growth thing. Like since I got well, clearly I started therapy at like 15. I wanted something, but when I got introduced to the whole self-help genre, I was in. I'm like, oh yeah, this is it. Like I was driven. And and I will say, like the last especially couple years and and really the the last six months especially, I have backed off on the personal development. I realized I was basically getting hyper-vigilant about personal development. So I am always I've been working on a puzzle uh since not the same one, but puzzles since Christmas. Um, I'm reading actual library books. I have a couple of library apps where I listen to um audiobooks and I read ebooks and I lay on the couch and watch the Hallmark channel. And um, you know, I just um I feel like I need to put a pause on learning anything. I need my personal spiritual and like mental development to just be on pause right now. I mean, I I am a very spiritual person. I pray multiple times a day and all that kind of stuff, but I'm not constantly reading things to get better, be better, do more kind of thing. And I'm really, really enjoying my life right now in a way I just never have.

SPEAKER_02 59:16

No, and it's important, like you said, to find balance. Yeah. You know, because you don't just want to make yourself a project for your whole life.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

Right. That's what you just said. Like I heard somebody say that a couple years ago, and they said I treated myself like I was a project, now like, oh my god, I treat myself like I'm a project. That was the wake-up call for me. So thank you for saying that phrase because hopefully someone will hear you say that and they'll be like, Oh my god, I treat myself like I'm a project. You're not a project, you're a human being who gets to live their life.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

Yeah, and I mean, no matter how much recovery you go through, you're still gonna make mistakes, you're you're still gonna, you know, screw up, and that's okay. It's just you know how to handle it better. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

You don't have to lie about it and cover it up, which is what I did my whole life.

SPEAKER_02 59:56

Right. And you seem like you have a good sense of humor about it too, which I think is important as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

You know, because I don't know if you'll get through any of these programs without one. Yeah, not well anyway. No, like I think you have to laugh at yourself when you're healing a little bit. Yeah, you know, because if you don't find the humor in it, you know, I think you will I think you'll kind of drive yourself crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

And I I am curious, like looking back at all your experience, your life experience with her, if you could say something to you know, the young girl in you who didn't know any better like growing up, like what would you say to her?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

You know, someone asked me that before, and I don't know what I said. What would I say? So I do a lot of inner child work and I do it every day. I have three little versions of me inside. So I don't know. You're enough. Like you're doing enough. You're you're good enough, you're doing enough. You don't like to be you, you know, just you know, pay attention to yourself, do what you love, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Those are good, those are simple words, but they're so important.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

And do you have anything that you'd like to leave us with for those who are contemplating you know joining these programs, whether it be um, you know, OA or Coda or Yeah, I mean, I think all of them have some kind of a quiz or a list or something like that. So like ACA has the laundry list. You read that, you kind of know. OA has 15 questions, and if you answer three of them, chances are as yes, then chances are you're a compulsive overreader. I'm pretty sure every single 12-step recovery program. And if you don't know how to find them, just Google, like Google Codependence Anonymous or Google Overeaders Anonymous, and you'll find it so it's OA.org, ACA is adultchildren.org. Okay. Um, so I and I would say what I hear in both of my fellowships is go to it. If you think a fellowship might be for you, go to at least six meetings before you make the decision. Because sometimes you'll hear shit that scares you and you'll be like, I'm not ready. But go just go for six meetings and then just tell yourself I'm gonna do it because it could absolutely change your life. I know, like I was looking my entire life, and I feel like all of that work that I told you about before, Kat, scratched the surface of the iceberg of my life and 12-step recovery melted the iceberg. And I think part of it is that the 12-steps are an amazing technology for human change. But I think the other part is that because ACA addresses trauma, that I didn't know that that was the underlying thing that was going on. And we now know that trauma underlies most addiction, you know. So I I'm a huge believer that damn close to everybody could participate in ACA and get something out of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

No, I I agree with you. I think there's something in it for everybody. Um, it's I think every program had has something in it for everybody to learn, um, even if it's just more self-reflection. Um, and you get to meet people.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

Yeah, people on the journey of recovery. Like, who doesn't want to be on recovery in recovery with people who want to recover?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:12

Yeah, and and you don't feel so alone either. You know, no isolation.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:16

Yeah. I mean, I think like when I that first OA meeting that I went to, and I was like, oh my God, I'm a compulsive overeater. The first speaker said, I'm down over 180 pounds for 30 years. I was like, oh shit, I'm listening. Because I used to work for Weight Watchers, and the statistics there at that time, anyway, were 95% of people gained their weight back. And everybody I'd met prior to meeting that man that had lost over 100 pounds had had some kind of weight loss surgery, and nine of those 10 people gained it back. So, like, this man has something that nobody I've ever met before has had, you know, and so the the the fact that you go into a room and you hear people saying shit that you didn't know other people said or thought or experienced, and you're like, oh my God, I'm not alone. I'm not the only one that thinks and feels like that. And that is one of the most powerful parts of 12-step recovery is knowing you're not alone and then not being alone because you're surrounded by people.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:16

No, and I think that's I think more than ever in this world that we live in, we need you know the people around us.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

And it also keeps us in check too, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

I think it keeps us honest with ourselves as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

Yeah, agreed. Especially when you have people around you who care about you who are willing to tell you the truth. Like what you're doing to yourself is not okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

Do you have any like do you have a m you you you did say something? Uh keep the focus on yourself. Do you have is that your personal like mantra or do you have like a personal mantra that you follow?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:51

Um I mean, there's so many like sayings from recovery and so many things. I think one that really helped me in early recovery was this is info, not ammo. So when you're learning about yourself and you're finding out things you don't really like, it's information for you to learn, integrate, and grow from. It's not ammunition to beat yourself up. And most of us have been beating ourselves up our entire lives, which means we end up battered and bruised rather than changed and grow growing. And so the way that I talk about that notion with my clients is if you want to go from self-deprecation to having self-compassion, uh, curiosity is the bridge to get you there. And I love curiosity because it's neutral, it's not Pollyanna and it's not self-deprecating. But so when we say info, not ammo, like let's look at this as information, let's be curious about this. So instead of saying, what the fuck is the matter with me? Say, what could I do differently? Like if that is information for me to go, oh, this is a pattern that I have. It's not that I'm a crap, it's a pattern that I internalized as a child, and it's a pattern of behavior, which means it can be changed.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:09

I like that. This is info, not M. I've not heard that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:12

That's that's yeah, it's that is one of my mantras for sure. I love that. And another one is that I'm flossom, so that's f L A W B S O M. So it's flawed and awesome. And hearing that cat really sort of broken open, broke open my my black and white thinking about that. Like I internalized I better not have flaws, and if I have them, then I better hide them, right? And so that's where all the facades came from. So it was like, wait, you can be flawed and awesome. Whoa, you know, so those two I would say flaw some and info, not ammo, are two big ones for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

They're very simple, they're very easy to remember, but they are very powerful. Yes. And thank you for for joining me today, Barb.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

Oh, my pleasure. This was a great conversation. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

I really enjoyed you taking time on your day to talk with me and share your story. And there's a lot here for everybody. And you're a truly incredible human being for all that you do. You are, and you've you've taken you know all the pain that you went through, and you really built something beautiful for yourself and you're helping others. And I think that's I think that's a beautiful testament to to you as a human being.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

Thank you. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

And if you want to find out more about Barb, because we just scratched the surface, there's still so much more you can learn about her. Uh, you can find her guiding women uh to to reclaim their power on her podcast, fragmented to whole. And all of her resources, including um her coaching services and to sign up for her free 30-minute say no without guilt call, um, are available at barbchat.net and highpowercc.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

Higherpowerc.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

Oh, I'm sorry, higherpowerc.com. And Barb is also on YouTube and LinkedIn. And did I miss any links? Is there is there any other links? That's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:11

That sounds good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

And all that will be in the show notes. And I am gonna put the links to to OA, to Coda, all that in the show notes as well for for anybody who's interested. Um, and as always, I want to thank everybody for tuning in to the podcast, for listening. Um, if you want to connect with the show or support us, the link tree is also gonna be in the show notes. And uh, please remember, you know, as always, you don't have to carry what you came from and keep telling your story because, like Barb, you never know who you will help. And I want to thank you, Barb, again, and thank everybody for listening.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

Thanks, you know.