After nearly 40 years of therapy and personal development, I found my way to 12-step recovery at the age of 52. What began as a journey to address codependence soon expanded to include recovery from intergenerational dysfunction, childhood trauma, and compulsive overeating—issues I hadn’t initially recognized in myself. Decades of personal development had merely scratched the surface. Recovery melted the iceberg of my life.

Because codependence was my core wound, learning to build healthy boundaries transformed me at every level—my relationship with myself, with others, and with the world around me. The ripple effect of these changes even reached my professional life, profoundly impacting my team at Yale University, where I worked at the time.

Before recovery, I was acutely aware of my history of unhealthy, unsatisfying romantic relationships. I also struggled with years of substance use and overeating, carrying over 100 pounds more than I do now. Despite these struggles, I maintained an outward appearance of having it all together.

I once believed I was a positive, optimistic person. Recovery revealed the truth: I was trapped in negativity and fear. I ruminated about the past, catastrophized about the future, complained frequently, engaged in "if only" thinking, and blamed others for my difficulties. I was terrified of judgment, rejection, abandonment, and being seen as a bad person. I didn’t realize how deeply these patterns affected me until they began to change.

At my core, I have an inherent desire to grow. I am a compassionate person driven by a strong purpose to make the world a better place. My background in sociology helped me understand how societal inequalities are embedded in our institutions, yet it also showed me how we can challenge and disrupt these patterns through our everyday interactions. This change starts within us. It can’t happen for women who continue saying yes when they want to say no, or who neglect themselves because they’re too focused on others.

Combining my life experience and education has shaped my purpose: to help professional women stop saying yes when they mean no, and to end the cycle of self-neglect by reclaiming their focus and power. I does this through my boundaries coaching and professional speaking engagements, as well as my podcast, “"Fragmented to Whole: Life Lessons from 12 Step Recovery."

If you want to learn a lot more details about me (and I mean a lot) click here for more about Barb. If you'd like to know how and why I became a boundaries coach, you can read about that here.

Another thing you should know about me is that I have a strong social justice orientation. To me, that means I believe in using the privileges I have as a white, heterosexual, educated cisgender woman to benefit those who have been marginalized in our society. If that's not something that you value, we probably won't work well together.