Posts by Barb Nangle

Issue 156, February 27, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ Emotions, Emotional Boundaries, and the Stories Your Mind Tells I want to start by sharing something that happened a while ago. It showed me that the tendency toward rescuing and fixing doesn’t necessarily disappear just because we’ve done a lot of work. But…

Issue 155, February 20, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ One of the most difficult parts of setting boundaries isn’t deciding what to say. It’s dealing with what you feel. Sometimes even before you say it. And definitely after you say it. In my experience, the number one thing that stops people from…

Issue 154, February 13, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ One of my clients recently asked me for concrete examples of emotional availability and vulnerability. She said something like this:“I show empathy. I validate people. I listen. I’m curious. I really try to be there. So why do I keep ending up with…

Issue 153, February 6, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ When Other People’s Feelings Feel Like Yours For most of my life, I felt other people’s feelings. I’ve seen this with clients and fellows in recovery too.   This is hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. It’s like being permeable. Other people’s feelings penetrate…

Issue 152. January 30, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ One of the most painful patterns I see, both in my own life and in my work with clients, is this: we often end up sabotaging the very thing we want most. Nowhere is this more true than in romantic relationships. We long…

Issue 151. January 23, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ I once had a conversation with a sponsee who was sitting with a knot in her stomach. That conversation has stuck with me for years, and I’ve used it in coaching sessions with my clients. She’d gifted a significant amount of money to…

Issue 150. January 16, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ I Thought I Was a Great Communicator. I Was Wrong. For a long time, I believed I was excellent at communicating. Before recovery, I was a program coordinator at Yale University, managing complex initiatives across as many as 25 schools at a time.…

Issue 149. January 9, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ I had a conversation with a newcomer in recovery recently that landed like a perfect case study for romantic relationships. It was one of those moments where two lessons I teach all the time showed up in real life, fully formed. Those lessons…

Issue 148. January 2, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ January is a time when many people quietly take stock of their romantic relationships. Not just whether they’re partnered or single, but how they show up inside connection. How much they give. How much they tolerate. How safe they feel being fully themselves.…

Issue 147. December 19, 2025 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨ I had a conversation recently that reminded me of something I learned the hard way. A man in recovery told me he finally understood that his expectations were the very thing upsetting him. But he didn’t know how to stop having them. He…