Boundaries, Self-Worth and Saying No with Barb Nangle | Part 2 of 3

Summary: In Part 2, Barb and Katie continue the conversation by going deeper into what happens when you actually start building boundaries and why the transition period feels so uncomfortable. Barb shares her own journey from volunteering for 15 nonprofits to learning to pour from the overflow, and introduces the concept of picking your discomfort: the lifelong, never-ending discomfort of dysfunction, or the finite discomfort of growth.

They also get into how boundaries show up specifically in business, with a detailed case study of a social media manager who went from giving everything away for free to building a thriving, boundaried client base.

Key Takeaways
→ You cannot pour from an empty cup. The only way to have overflow for others is to fill your own cup first. This is not selfish. It is self-preservation.

→ Pick your discomfort. The discomfort of dysfunction is lifelong, never-ending and gets worse over time. The discomfort of growth is finite and has healing on the other side.

→ The people who push back when you set boundaries are the people who benefited from you having none. Their reaction is not a sign you did something wrong.

→ Discomfort does not mean danger. This is one of the most important things to internalize as you build new boundary patterns.

→ Niching is a boundary. Saying clearly who you serve and who you do not is one of the most powerful limits you can set in your business. When you try to serve everyone, you serve no one.

→ Undercharging is a boundary issue. When you price below your worth, it is rooted in the same childhood pattern of needing others to be okay with you to feel safe.

→ Scope creep is a boundary issue. Giving more and more beyond what was paid for is people-pleasing in a business context and it depletes you just as fast.

→ Building new boundary patterns takes time but the pull back to old patterns gets weaker and weaker the more you practice. Every time you hold a boundary, you build self-trust.

Where to Find Barb
Free 30 minute "Say No without Guilt" call
Podcast
Website
LinkedIn
Youtube
What's Draining Your Boundaries Quiz

Transcript

Katie Wrigley (00:28)
Welcome back to the Catapult Effect. We are continuing the conversation with Barb Nangle. She is a boundaries coach and she has been developing bombs of wisdom all through the first episode. Fantastic definition of boundaries. That boundaries really define where you end so that you clearly know where you end and where someone else begins. And we're going to continue that conversation today. So please come join us in the episode.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (00:54)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (00:54)
And now as you were talking, Barb, about how relief is prioritized over safety, you flashed me back to an Ayahuasca journey I'd had. think it was one that I don't remember which journey it had done. I did a lot more journey before I did more cognitive movement. I haven't gone back to Ayahuasca again for a few years. Like I'm a huge fan of it, but I found that for me, it's easier for me to process.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (01:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (01:18)
in a sober state of mind, like my eagle will try to talk me out of things that I have said. then years later it comes back. I'm like, man, she was spot on. But one of the things that she said, was boundaries were coming up. And it was some, I'm trying to remember the exact message. Like I remember laying on my left side and rolling to my back and being like, that makes sense. But she had said like,

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (01:20)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (01:41)
It is all about having comfort in your body. You need boundaries to be comfortable. Who's allowed to touch you? How are they allowed to touch you? Are they allowed to touch you? And that's just the physical ones. And then how much energy can I put into this person? But it is up to us.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (01:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (02:01)
who's living

inside this human vessel to say, hey, these are what I need so that I have the most comfort possible while I'm living in this body.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (02:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. And so as you're saying that, what I'm hearing is my clients going, but I don't want to be selfish. You know, they think it's somehow selfish. And I think that it's not that men don't ever feel selfish. But I think especially in this culture, it's like an epithet to call a woman selfish. is like, you know, women are acculturated to be giving and helping

and be the be-all and end-all, the core of their families and be super mom and superwoman and all that stuff. that when they go to do anything for themselves, they either are told you're being selfish or don't be selfish or they've internalized it so much that they think, that's selfish. And it's actually self-preservation to take care of yourself.

I heard someone say a couple years ago that, you know, obviously you can't pour from an empty cup. Well, she advocates for pouring from the overflow. Well, the only way you can have overflow in your cup is if you fill your cup first. And it's not selfish. So I'll give you a very specific example from my own life. Before recovery, I volunteered for some like something like 15 different nonprofit organizations. You know, I thought of myself as a volunteer-aholic.

Katie Wrigley (03:13)
Mm-hmm.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (03:27)
When I got in recovery, was like, stopping everything right now, I'm going to volunteer for Barb. That's what I'm going to do. And now I actually donate more hours per week and community service than I ever did as a volunteer-aholic. But I do it strategically rather than at the drop of a hat. I do it by choice, not by sense of some sense of obligation or compulsion to prove that I'm a helpful, good, kind person.

Katie Wrigley (03:40)
Wow.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (03:54)
and I do it after filling my cup first. So I pour from the overflow. So learning to build healthy boundaries is not at all about being selfish. And even if it was, go ahead because being selfish is not the worst thing in the world. And you may actually contribute more if you're like me, though I've met people who are like, I've kind of done my 40 years of volunteering.

and I'm going to start traveling and doing the things I've always wanted to do instead of putting my energy out there. You you get to decide, you get to actually make a choice. And that's, you know, another thing about when we build boundaries, when we start living our life on purpose in alignment with our values, we start to realize we have a lot more choices in our, in our lives than we thought. We have a lot more control or have the potential for a lot more control over lives.

than we ever thought that we did because we have a lot of distorted thinking or cognitive distortions about what's okay and not okay. And because we're so focused on what other people think about us that we don't really pay that much attention to what we think of ourselves. So when we start living in alignment with our values, it's pretty easy to think well of yourself.

when you know that you're doing what's important to you. then when you like for me, the journey to build boundaries was absolutely profound. And I think that's because my core wound is co-dependence. And boundaries are essentially the antidote to that. That I think I had high self-esteem before, but I know that I didn't love myself. I know that I didn't trust myself. I probably, if you had said to me, do you feel worthy? I would have said yes.

Katie Wrigley (05:25)
Mm-hmm.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (05:38)
But when I went through the 12 steps of recovery, was like, my God, look at this life. This is not a woman who feels worthy. So I built self-worth, I built self-trust, I built self-love. And when I look at how did I do that, it was literally the boundary building process because I got to know myself and figure out what's okay and not okay with me. What do I want, like, need and prefer? Then I started actually living like those things matter to me.

And I started following through for myself in ways I never had before. I started like doing things. I started enjoying my life more. Like if you want to love someone, give them things and experiences that they enjoy. Make their life better for them. You know, so that's a good way to build love for yourself. And then, you know, I came to feel worthy by acting worthy. You know, there's a principle that's really

Katie Wrigley (06:20)
Right?

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (06:32)
common in 12-step recovery, which is act as if. And I think the most common way that people talk about it in 12-step recovery is that it has to do with spirituality. So many people may not, if they even know about 12-step recovery programs, they're spiritual programs. And it doesn't mean you have to believe in God, but it means that coming to believe that there is some kind of a power greater than you that you can depend on. And so

what people are taught who either have no belief in any kind of God or they have really negative experiences and beliefs about God is act as if you had a loving God. When you see people that have the kind of life that you want, that have the kind of spirituality you want, what are the behaviors they're doing? Do those things, like act like you have it. And what follows from that is I was told you can't think your way into right acting.

Katie Wrigley (07:17)
Hmm.

Yep.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (07:26)
but you can act your way into right thinking. And I really learned that. So I'll give you an example. One of the women that I was in recovery with in the very beginning, she had been married to her husband for 10 years. They divorced and then they got back together when she was in recovery and he had all these health problems. And so she was always trying to manage like, don't put salt on that. Did you go to the doctor? Did you get your exercise? Don't eat this, don't eat that.

So when she got in recovery, she realized the error of her codependent ways and that he's a grown man and he gets to take care of his own health. And in the beginning, she just stopped saying things to him. She stopped acting like a codependent person. And she said one day, you know, I stopped saying anything to him. And eventually I just stopped even thinking about it. I'm like, ⁓ my God, you acted your way into right thinking. And she goes, my God, that's what that means. And I was like, yes, that's what that means.

Katie Wrigley (08:13)
you

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (08:16)
You know, so you stop engaging in the dysfunctional behaviors and eventually the thinking will come along with it. And it really, really matters. And so we start treating ourselves as if we have worth and then we come to believe we have worth because we see that we actually do have worth.

And it makes it so it's like you don't have to wait until you have worth to start building boundaries. It's like there's this iterative process where you you set a boundary and like, my God, that was amazing. And what most people think Katie, when they start building boundaries is all they think about is the negative stuff. Like what are people going to think of me? What if they push back? What if I feel guilt? And yeah, I can help you with that. But also let's think about the positive repercussions. You get to actually live your life.

the way you want. You get to have a lot more peace and serenity in your life. Life is a lot easier. Now the transition to building boundaries is difficult just like any change process because what happens when we're building these new patterns is we don't have the new patterns down solidly and the pull to go back to those old patterns is so strong. This is why that internal safety I was talking about

is so important. Like what do you need to do in the bridge? And so like one of the most important things I learned is discomfort does not mean danger. And there's two different kinds of discomfort. There's the discomfort of lifelong dysfunction. So your life is uncomfortable. You may be used to it.

Katie Wrigley (09:45)
Mmm.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (09:57)
So it's comfortable in that it's familiar, but that I call that comfortable, but not comforting. So it's comfortable cause it's like a well-warmed groove, but it's dysfunctional. And it only gets worse over time and it never ends unless you do something. Well, when you're building new behaviors, like learning how to set healthy boundaries, it's really uncomfortable because it's so foreign, but that is the discomfort of growth.

Katie Wrigley (10:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (10:24)
And what's on the other side of that is healing, wellness, peace and serenity. And that discomfort is actually finite. It goes away because you become more and more comfortable with a new pattern. So pick your discomfort. Are you going to take the lifelong, never ending, getting worse over time discomfort of dysfunction?

Katie Wrigley (10:45)
Mm-hmm.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (10:45)
Or are you gonna pick the finite discomfort that has healing and growth and peace and surrounding on the other side? ⁓ I'm gonna pick number two.

Katie Wrigley (10:53)
Me too, me too, every day of the week. this quote popped into my mind and this is something that really helped me as I was trying to figure out boundaries. Because when I was awkward as fuck and it was almost like I was beating people over the head with my boundary. They didn't even know I had it. was like, no, stay away from me. was a little off putting. But the thing that really helped me through that period and made it easier to define it was a quote that one of my coaches had told me in that

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (10:56)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (11:21)
is the fact that the only people who are going to be upset when you start to create boundaries are the people who benefited from you having none.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (11:28)
Yes, precisely. Yes. Right. So if you've been accommodating them your entire life and you're no longer accommodating them, they're going to get upset. And guess what? They get to be upset because A, it's upsetting when your life was easier and now it's not. And B, their feelings are their feelings and they get to have them. And C, their feelings are theirs to manage, not yours. Your feelings are yours to manage. And the other thing is a lot of people feel like they're somehow taking something away from that person.

Katie Wrigley (11:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (11:55)
You're not taking something away from them. You're stopping, abandoning yourself is what you're doing. And it feels weird and awkward in the beginning, but discomfort does not mean danger.

Katie Wrigley (12:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yep, I love that discomfort does not mean danger. And you're also empowering them to be able to source that thing for themselves that you are providing for them. So you're not doing them a disservice. You're actually benefiting their life as much as you're benefiting your own. But again, like prioritizing yourself, that's the really important thing. like this keeps coming to mind. So I want to share it like Mel Robbins, Let Them Theory and the Let Them Book that's gone everywhere.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (12:12)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Right. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (12:34)
That is a book of boundaries. That's what she's talking about with her charismatic Mel Robbins, why I friggin' love her. But that is, we are basically talking that as a book on boundaries and like, you know, let them be disappointed in you. It means that they love you. It means they care about you. And it means that they're letting you go do the thing that's disappointing them. Like that is a beautiful thing when you look at it that

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (12:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I do want to say something about how you said you're empowering the other person. That's ideal, but it's not always the case. So I work with lots of people in recovery because I'm in recovery. people, lot of codependent people in recovery have addicts and alcoholics in their lives.

So if we stop accommodating them, like the ideal situation would be I stop making their life easier so they go and get sober and clean and stay sober and clean and clean up their lives. Yay. Okay. Often doesn't happen, but you give them the opportunity to start taking responsibility for the lives, which they wouldn't have. Chances are they're going to find someone else to enable them and that's okay. You don't have to be the one that does it.

So this is really about you. And some people think, ⁓ that's selfish. No, it's not. You have one life to live, one. And you get to decide how you want to live it. And living it at the expense of yourself for other people is not dignified. It is not peaceful. It is not, it does not ⁓ promote wellness.

like as you mentioned, like it took a toll on you. So and speaking of living one life, one of the amazing things that I realized as I started building Healthy Boundaries is I have way more energy than I ever did before. And part of it is that I am living one life, mine. I'm not

constantly thinking about everybody around me and how I can either fix their things or how they're gonna react to my stuff and I'm not thinking like my god what is he gonna do without me and how is he gonna be able to do this and fixing this person's problems and that person's problems. I'm living my life and then if I do if I am helping somebody with something then I don't devote my entire life to it. So like I'm a coach now people bring some heavy shit to me. I'm a sponsor.

Katie Wrigley (14:49)
Yeah.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (14:50)
in 12-step recovery. And my main program is called Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, which by the way, I didn't know I qualified for. And I describe it as a trauma recovery program where you repair yourself and you use the 12 steps to recover. So I'm dealing with people who have some serious fucking trauma and I'm able to help them without getting sucked into it. Whereas I couldn't do that when I was an undergrad.

Katie Wrigley (15:13)
Yep.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (15:16)
I did an internship for a year at a young parents program. I was essentially a case manager and I was like, I cannot do this because I now I can say I couldn't do it because I didn't have boundaries. Like I one time had to take one of the young ladies to the emergency room because her father kicked her in the head. My boyfriend came home. I'm sobbing on the floor. It didn't happen to me, but I was acting like it felt like it happened to me, but now I have boundaries. I can be there for other people.

and be supportive of them and hold what they need me to hold without internalizing it into me. And then I can give them a safe place and I can coach them, I can guide them, I can shepherd them towards healing in a way that I just was not capable of before because I'm not permeable anymore because I have boundaries.

Katie Wrigley (16:07)
Yeah, I love that. And that's a huge distinction. Like I've had some really big traumas come up in clients that I've been working with as well. And part of what I lean on in that moment is one, knowing the brain isn't going to reveal something that the person isn't ready to see. Right. Yeah, it's literally if it's coming up, like you have nothing to fear this person, like, do you want to go diving in before they're ready? Hell no. But if it's coming up, they're ready to deal with it.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (16:15)
Mm-hmm.

Right, their psyche won't do it. Yes, agreed. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Agreed.

Katie Wrigley (16:35)
And

it's like what we refer to as holding space and we're letting them have that story, not story meaning it's fiction, meaning this is true to them. This is their reality. This is their lens. But you're either going to be in the water with them drowning or if you get back on dry land, are you more helpful to them to throw them the life preserver while you're on dry land and pull them out?

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (16:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (17:01)
Like you're to be much more effective if you stand that

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (17:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (17:04)
dry land and you give them the life preserver by letting them have that space, feeling what's in there. And it takes a lot of work to be able to get to that place. So kudos to you for being able to hold that space for people to relieve big traumas. And I'm guessing you hear a lot in your space that like there's not a lot of people who have that ability to let someone let out all the messy shit.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (17:07)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (17:30)
that coms are being a human

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (17:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (17:31)
and to be able to put out into the air, sometimes for the first time, the most horrific thought or the most horrific event that they've ever experienced. Like, that's something big.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (17:33)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm. ⁓ God, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I've heard details about probably the top three most heinous things that can ever happen to humans. And I can have sympathy and empathy for them, but it's not happening to me. And I get that.

Katie Wrigley (17:57)
Yep.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (17:59)
And I have to say, absolutely love the metaphor, the water, the life preserver land. That is beautiful. I love it. Love it. Love it. I will probably be stealing that. That's so good. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just so apt. I mean, it's so good. Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (18:08)
Please do, please do. It wasn't mine. I don't remember who told it to me, but that was, yeah.

Yeah, and I've had to remind myself like, wait, am I in the water with them or am I on land? Like, I'm in the water. I need to get out. Like, I'm more helpful if I'm over here. Like, they've had lifeguard training, but I'm still a lot more helpful throwing something from dry land than I am when I'm in the water with them. ⁓

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (18:19)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah,

I don't feel like as you're saying that I'm like, I don't even feel like I have to ask myself that I don't feel like I'm ever in the water with them, which is amazing. Like I used to practically bleed for other people. So I hope like if nothing else, people hear me talking, they have hope that they can change. Because if I can do it, so can you. I mean, it takes work. But, you know, if you have a desire to be whole, it's possible.

Katie Wrigley (18:40)
That's right.

Me too.

right?

It can get better.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (18:58)
And listen, let me tell you, I was 52 when I got in recovery. So I wasn't a spring chicken. OK?

Katie Wrigley (19:04)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I do want to add like, don't get in the water anymore. But as I was creating those boundaries, like now it's easy for me to be like, I really hope you grab the life preserver, but it's not up to me if you do or not. Like, it's up to you. And if you can't grab that, I literally cannot help you. And that's hard to watch.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (19:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Okay.

Mm-hmm. Yes. Right. Right.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right, because I can't pull

you in if you're not holding on to the life preserver. Yeah. Yeah, good.

Katie Wrigley (19:29)
Yeah, yeah. And unfortunately, like

the people who don't want to grab the life preserver, those are the people that sometimes wind up ending their lives by their own choice way prematurely. And it sucks to watch that happen. But that's their journey. Those are their choices that they made. And I met a friend in my past in between his suicide attempts. First one didn't work. Second one did.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (19:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (19:53)
and he taught me something incredibly important and that was that when someone has decided to take their own life there is literally nothing you can do or say to change that.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (19:54)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's so scary. My younger brother did not commit suicide, but he attempted to. So he had bipolar disorder with psychotic tendencies and a substance use problem. And he died of Legionnaires' disease at age 35 in 2006.

I remember this one time, so what would happen is he would go off his meds and then we have a psychotic episode and go manic. And it's pretty common for people with mental health disorders. They feel okay, so they stop taking their meds, even though it's your meds that are making you feel okay. And I remember saying to him, I was trying to get him to go to the hospital. And I said, you know what, Pat, I know that I don't have the right to ask you to continue living a life that you don't see as worth living, but I'm gonna ask you anyway.

And I know it's not fair to say, please do it for me, but I'm fucking doing it. was like, I didn't know. mean, this is 30 years ago. Like I did not know what I was doing and something about what I said got through to him. And then we went and got my mom and the two of us took him to the hospital. You know, but you're right. You can't and, but it's hard to know. Are we at the point?

where they have definitively made up their mind.

Katie Wrigley (21:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is tough. I want to start to, I want to kind of circle this back to since this season is really about the easy entrepreneur.

Barb Nangle, Boundaries Coach (21:31)
Mm-hmm.