The Day I Fired My Therapist: Why Boundaries Are Hardest for the "Good" Helper (Women Healers 50+)

Have you ever ignored your own exhaustion because “you should know better”? Or found yourself nodding politely while your therapist—or any other helper—gave you advice that made your nervous system completely shut down?

You teach boundaries for a living, so why is it terrifying to set one? For women over 50 and healers, we aren't bad at boundaries; we have been conditioned out of them. This episode exposes the neuroscience behind why setting limits with other helpers feels impossible. When you default to fawning or people-pleasing in rooms where you "should" feel safe, you aren't being "good"—you are experiencing a survival response. This compliance is a major driver of burnout and resentment.

In this raw and vulnerable episode, Dr. Juls tells the full story of the day she fired her own therapist—and what it taught her about how compassion fatigue rewires the brain. You will learn why your anxiety spikes when you advocate for yourself and how to break the cycle of being "too nice." Discover:

• The "Fawn" Response: Why midlife women default to being agreeable when they feel unsafe (and how this fuels self neglect).
• The Neuroscience of Advocacy: How decades of professional conditioning make it harder to fight for your own mental health.
• A 5-Minute Nervous System Reset: A simple science-based tool to practice before setting a boundary so your body feels safe enough to follow your authenticity.

Stop being the "easy" client. Press play to stop abandoning yourself and start reclaiming your power and clarity.

This podcast supports women healers over 50 navigating burnout, compassion fatigue, and midlife transitions with strategies for nervous system regulation, trauma-informed boundaries, and chakra alignment to heal resentment and self-neglect while cultivating soul joy, radiance, and a purposeful next chapter of freedom and inner peace.

THE DIAGNOSIS: Are you the Martyr who can't say no? Or the Warrior who fights until she collapses? You cannot heal what you cannot name.

👇 Take the 60-Second Quiz to find your Burnout Archetype: [CLICK HERE TO REVEAL YOUR ARCHETYPE]

Join the Rebellion: If this episode woke something up in you, share it with a colleague who needs permission to stop. We rise together.

Reach out to Dr. Julie

Episodes drop every Tuesday at 5am and every Friday at noon.

Special guest episodes drop the 4th Thursday of every month at 7am.

Transcript

0:02

Okay, so the day I fired my therapist. Now before you gasp and think, did she just say that out loud? Yes. Yes I did. And here's why this matters to you. You know that little voice in your head that says, but they're the expert. Who am I to question them? Even if I'm a therapist? Even if I'm a nurse, even if I'm a doctor or a social worker, yeah, that voice, that's the same voice that's keeping you in burnout, saying yes, when you mean no, and wondering why you feel so darn disconnected from your own life. So today, today my friend, you're going to learn. Two game changing things. First, you're going to understand the neuroscience of why us helper types struggle so much with setting boundaries with other helpers, and yes, therapists count. And second, I'm giving you a five minute nervous reset activity you can literally do in your car. Between patients, between clients, between kids, my, my well between grandkids or that meeting? You should have been, oh God. That meeting, that should have been an email. Anyone you wanna punch your eye or poke my eyes out with a pencil in those meetings? Okay. Sound good? Let's dive in. Welcome to Soul Joy, the podcast for empowering brilliant women in healthcare over 50, transform burnout into purpose, reignited your spark to create a life that energizes you every single day. I'm your host, Dr. Julie Merriman. Let's get to it. Okay, so let's look at this. So my friend, I want you to picture this. I'm sitting in my therapist office, uh, we're gonna call her Betty Suit because that's not her name or wasn't her name. And I'm explaining for probably the 10th time that I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm exhausted, like I'm giving everyone everything and there's nothing. I mean, nothing left for me. And you know what Betty Sue said to me, Betty Sue says, well, Julie, have you tried a bubble bath? Dun a bubble bath? Now listen, I love a good bath bomb as much as the next woman I do. But here I am. A licensed professional counselor with 30 years of experience running a counseling department, running a private practice, managing severely emotionally disturbed teens in my earlier career, and my therapist is suggesting I sprinkle some lavender in that tub Papa, and call it selfcare. And here's what happened in my body in the moment. I don't know if y'all relate with this, and this is where the neuroscience gets really interesting, my ventral vagal nerve. That's part of our nervous system that helps us feel safe and connected. It's a very important part. It just flipping shut down. Boom. I felt this weird numbness wash over me. And you know what I did? I smiled, I nodded. I said, eh, it's a great idea. Betty Sue. I'll try that. And then I went to my car and cried. Supposed to cry in the therapist office, not out in the car. Because here's what was happening. My polyvagal system was doing exactly what it's been trained to do for 50 plus years as a woman in helping profession. It was people pleasing. Anybody raise my hand there? People pleasing. It was fawning. It was choosing connection over authenticity because my nervous system literally perceived setting a boundary as a threat, as a threat. So research by Dr. Steven POEs, who developed the polyvagal theory, which is phenomenal. Y'all need to go watch those videos, read the books, and know about that, especially those US gals over 50 going through all this stuff we're going through. So, Dr. POEs, who developed the polyvagal theory shows us that our nervous system has this hierarchy of responses. When we feel safe, we're in that ventral vagal state. Yeah, we can connect, we can think clearly, we can be ourselves. Throat chakra is wide open. We're being our authentic selves. But when we don't feel safe, we either fight, flee, or, and y'all, this is the big one for us helpers. We fawn. We become who we think the other person needs us to be. And sitting in Betty Sue's office, my nervous system was screaming, danger. Danger. If you tell her this isn't working, you'll be difficult. You'll be ungrateful. You'll be that client. But here's the thing that changed. Everything always is something right? Here's the thing. I had this moment driving home when I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute. If I can't even set a boundary with my own therapist, how am I supposed to teach by clients? My students? About boundaries. So the next week I went back and you know what I said, Betty Sue. I said, Betty Sue, I really appreciate the work you've done, the work we've done together, but I don't think this is the right fit anymore. I need someone who understands compassion, fatigue and burnout. Specifically in helping professions'cause it's different, it's very different for us healers and helpers and medical folk. And my voice shook. Oh, it shook. You know how when you just, I was activated, I was fearful. I was gonna be rejected it. My voice shook. My hands were sweaty, my nervous system was convinced I was about to be rejected or shamed. But y'all, you know what happened? She said, well, I completely understand. Julie, thank you so much for being honest with me. That's it, man. No drama, no guilt, trick trip. Just respect. Okay, so let's talk about why this is so hard for us. When you're a woman over 50 in healthcare, I don't care if you're a nurse, a therapist, a social worker, a physician, a counselor, a Reiki person, a massage therapist. You've spent decades training your nervous system to attune to other people. There's actually research on this. A 2019 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that helping professionals show higher levels of neural activity in the anterior insula that's the part of your brain responsible for empathy compared to other professionals. So there's more neural activity in our anterior insula because we're in empathy 24 7, 50 years worth. Here's the translation. Your brain, Fran, your brain is literally wired differently. You feel other people's distress more intensely. Does that make sense? When you had teenagers, hubby. Wife I makes sense. We feel it more intensely because our brain has be, we rewired our brain from using so much empathy. And here's where it gets tricky. And that's with boundaries, my friend, your nervous system associates attunement with safety. And when you're attuned with someone. When you're tracking their emotions, their needs, their comfort, you feel like you are doing your job, you feel useful, you feel safe. SAFE capital word safe. But when you set a boundary, when you say no or disagree or decide something isn't working for you. Your nervous system perceives that as a break in attunement and that triggers a stress response. The research shows that for helping professionals, this creates what Dr. Kirsten Neff, which we've talked about before, her book on, um, compassion satisfaction. Great researcher out of the University of Texan, of Texas, Austin. Anyway. She calls this the backdraft. So when we try to show ourselves compassion or set boundaries, we actually feel worse at first because we're going against totally against years of conditioning, years of conditioning. So that numbness I felt. That was my dorsal vagal nerve activating, basically my nervous system's way of saying if we can't fight and we can't run, let's just shut down. But here's the good news. I got good news for you. You can retrain your nervous system. You can create new neural pathways that associate boundaries with safety instead of threat. And that's what we're going to practice right now, right this moment. Okay, my brilliant woman, it's time for you. It's time for your five minute boundary setting, nervous system reset. You can do this right now if you're somewhere safe or bookmark this for later. This activity is called the three Bs reset, breathe, befriend boundary. Okay, so here's step one. You breathe for 90 seconds. You put one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly, and we're going to do what's called physiological sign. And this is research back. I'm having a hard time with my conjugations. This is research backed, and by the way, a Stanford neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman found this is the fastest way to calm your nervous system. So here's how it works. Breathe in through your nose for a count of four. 1, 2, 3, 4. Then hold a second. Let a sip of air at the top. Take a sip of air at the top, then exhale slowly through your mouth for a count of eight. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I want you to do this three times with me. Now, if you're able, I, if you're cleaning house, if you're on a walk, if you're on the treadmill, you can do this. So inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4. Take a little sip at the top. And long exhale. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. And again, inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4. Little sip at the top and exhale. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. One more time. Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4. Little sip at the top and exhale. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Alright, beautiful. Notice how your shoulders have dropped just a little bit. It's good stuff, y'all. It's free stuff. Just good old air and lungs. Okay. So that was step one. Remember step one is breathe. It's pretty easy. Breathe. Step two, befriend. So now I want you to think about, about a boundary you need to set. Maybe it's with a colleague, a family member, even your own expectations of yourself. Notice what comes up in your body when you think about setting this boundary. Where do you feel it? Do you feel tightness, nausea, that fluttery anxiety, dread. I want you to put a hand there for me. It's always my solar plexus. That's where my hand is. So put your hand there. Maybe it's gonna take you a hot minute to find it. We need to be attuned to where emotions are in our body. Those full body scans. I've got podcasts on that. Um, and if I was really professional, I'd tell you what podcasts those were. I'll, I'll get to that. But anyway, they're in, if you go to Apple Podcast, I've got a plethora of them and I've got a bunch on the body scans. But so you've got your hand where you're filling, filling that feeling. And I want you to say this out loud if you can, or silently if you need to. This discomfort is my nervous system trying to keep me safe. It's not dangerous, it's just unfamiliar. And say it again. This is my nervous system trying to keep me safe. Setting this boundary doesn't make me bad. It makes me an honest person. Okay, and step three boundary, you are gonna set a boundary. So now imagine, breathe, befriend boundary. Now imagine setting that boundary, but this time imagine the other person responding with respect just like Betty Sue did. Me. I was so scared about doing that. See? You're okay. So I want you to see yourself speaking clearly. See them nodding, see the inflection ending inflection. There's probably some inflection going on too, but see that interaction ending without disaster. Your brain doesn't know the difference between imagination and reality. This is called mental rehearsal, and it's used by everyone from the Olympic athletes, athletes to Navy Seals. You're literally creating a new neural pathway right now. More than one. So practice saying your boundary out loud. Even if it's just to the steering wheel. I need to, okay, so here's for instance. Maybe it sounds like this, I need to, or this doesn't work for me, or I'm trying, I'm, I'm going to have to decline, say it with a steady voice. Notice, you're still breathing, you're still safe. The world has not ended, and there you have it. You've just retrained your nervous system and that tiny bit. Do this every day for a week, and I promise you'll start to feel different. Promise you're building those new neural pathways. You have a choice. Okay? So. My very brilliant and beautiful friend. Let's wrap this up. Today you learned that setting boundaries feels uncomfortable, not because you're doing something wrong, but because your nervous system has been trained to prioritize other people's comfort over yours and over your authenticity. You learned the neuroscience behind why this is especially hard for those of us in the helping professions. Our brains are literally wired for empathy, which makes boundaries feel like betrayal. And you've got practical. You've got a practical tool. The three Bs reset that you can use any time to regulate your nervous system before, during, or after setting a boundary. Breathe befriend boundary. Here's your homework for this weekend. Find something. Doesn't have to be your therapist. Maybe it's a commitment that is draining you. Maybe it's an expectation you've been carrying that isn't even yours, maybe. Just maybe it's the belief that you have to say yes to everything. Practice boundary setting, reset and notice what happens and hey. If you want more tools like this, including, um, my Complete Soul Joy starter Guide with nervous system regulation techniques, burnout, recovery strategies, and boundary scripts, head to the show notes and download it for free. It. It's my gift to you because you deserve, man. You deserve to feel like you again. We all do. Oh, we all do. And sometimes girl, that starts with one brave boundary at a time. That's all it is. Okay, I'll see you next Friday for more fun day. And until then, remember girl, you are not selfish, girl. You are not difficult. You're just finally choosing yourself and that my friend, is everything.