Create The Best Me

How to Say No Without Feeling Bad

• Carmen Hecox • Episode 123

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Have you ever wondered why saying “no” can feel so uncomfortable, or why enforcing boundaries sometimes makes you feel like the bad guy? In this episode, we’re digging into “How to Say No Without Feeling Bad.” I sit down with emotional resilience coach, retreat leader, and author Jen Febel to uncover why people pleasing is so common, why “being nice” isn’t always so nice, and, most importantly, how you can set boundaries with confidence and compassion.

Jen shares her journey from chronic people pleaser to boundary expert, revealing the hard-won lessons and practical tools she developed along the way. If you struggle with guilt, anxiety, or second-guessing every time you put yourself first, you’ll love Jen’s “Boundaries Blueprint”—a simple, three-step approach to standing up for yourself without starting a fight (or using the word “no” at all).

In “How to Say No Without Feeling Bad,” we dig into what it means to move beyond niceness, how to rediscover your true self, and how to balance healthy connection with self-protection. 

5 Key Lessons

  1. Saying NO with compassion is a skill you can learn, and it leads to deeper connections.
  2. Healthy boundaries are flexible, not rigid, and always start with knowing your true self.
  3. You don’t need to justify your needs to others; your words can become your bridge.
  4. Triggers and discomfort are clues to where your boundaries are missing (and how to start healing them).
  5. You don’t have to choose between being loved and being yourself; sometimes, honoring your needs is the most loving act of all. 

Call to Action

Ready to put yourself first, without guilt? Dive deeper with Jen’s book, "How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling Like a Dick," and explore coaching, retreats, and free resources listed below under "Resources."

And remember to download Jen’s course “Rewrite Your Story: From Broken to Unbreakable,” a $39 value, for free when you use the code NICENOMORE at checkout. 

📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep123

https://www.btgwellness.com/

Course: “Rewrite Your Story: From Broken to Unbreakable,” a $39 value for free when you use the code NICENOMORE at checkout.  https://www.btgwellness.com/rewrite 

Purchase “How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling Like a D*ck” https://a.co/d/9xDXt6r 

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Have you ever tried to set boundaries and ended up feeling like, well, a total jerk? Yeah, me too. You're definitely not alone. Today's guest, Jen Febel, actually wrote the book on setting boundaries without feeling like, let's just say less than a nice person. But here's a twist, what if being nice is actually the problem? Stick around because by the end of this episode, you're going to discover why setting boundaries is the ultimate act of compassion and not confrontation. Ready to break up with people pleasing. Let's dive in. Jennifer Febel, welcome to Create the Best Me, this is an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much. It's been lovely. We've been chatting a little bit before. It's nice to get to kind of know you and hang out a little bit. Great. Hey, before we get into today's discussion, which is gonna be a really good one. Could you please tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who you are and what you do? Absolutely. So again, my name is Jen Febel. I am an emotional resilience coach, and I've also a newly published author. And my job is to help people bridge the gap between their head and their heart. A lot of us know what we need to do, but we just don't feel like doing it and we don't really know how to make that jump. And so my job is to help people make that jump. And I do that in a few different ways. I do that with my private practice, I work with people one-on-one. I do that with my Soulful Radiance Retreats, which I run a couple times a year. I do that through workshops and I do that through things like this and my brand new book, which is uh, all about how to bridge the gap between, what you want and connecting with others so that you can do it in a way that feels good for you and actually connect you to others. And so let's get the elephant out of the room. Why did you choose the title you chose for your book? So the book is of course, called How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling like a Dick, and that's really how I felt about boundaries. I felt like either I could stand up for myself, be heard, and feel like a complete jerk, or I could stay quiet and everyone likes me, but I'm not happy. And most of us, that's what holds us back. We want this, we know we need to stand up for ourselves. We know we're supposed to set boundaries and, and use our voice, but we don't wanna feel like dicks. And so that's kind of how I talk to myself about it, and that's how I decided to put the book out. And that's true, and I think that a lot of people might identify that as being a people pleaser. You know, we're, we're people pleasers, so you know, we're just going to make everybody else happy and who cares about us. A hundred percent the, uh, I see it's a nice person when we're being nice. And so the very first chapter of my book is welcome fellow, nice person, the whole quiz to find out just how nice you are. And nice is not really the goal. Nice means everyone else is more important than me. Uh, but NICE doesn't really leave room for us to exist. So I wanna teach people how to stop being people pleasers, how to stop being nice and instead be compassionate. Show compassion for a fellow human being. Get curious about them, but not at the expense of ourselves. Yeah, and it's something that I've always told my kids. I've always told my kids. And in fact, I recorded with someone else, uh, a couple weeks ago and I mentioned this and I feel like it's something I need to repeat. It's, you cannot love anyone else until you learn to love yourself. And, and that's what it is. Isn't it? Well, you can love others without loving yourself, but what's the point? The whole point of loving others is to love them from ourselves right. Not just to love them and give them love at the expense of ourselves, but to love them in a way that honors who we are that is part of the love. So we can love others while hating ourselves. But it's not the rich tapestry that love could be. It's just a linear thing, and I wanna teach people how to get more dimensional about their connections. So tell me what inspired you to become a breaker of people pleasers? So, of course like all journeys, it came from my own. Um, I was raised in a household where boundaries; it's not just that they weren't encouraged or allowed, they were threatening to some members of the family. And so I wasn't allowed to have them. I was taught that love meant having no boundaries. That's what love is. When you don't like people, you put up boundaries to keep them away, and when you love them, you take all your walls and you drop them. You let everyone had full access to everything. And so I thought that's what love was. And then I went out into the world and I got married and had friendships and blew up a whole bunch of stuff cause I forgot about my part of the equation. And so, it really came to a head though when I was 19, I was diagnosed with seven different mental health diagnoses, including anorexia, including bulimia, including generalized anxiety disorder. Like the list goes on. I saw lots of specialists who all told me that I was just broken. You know, I was born without certain neurotransmitters, at the right levels. I just am gonna, I'm doomed to live my life. Um, I could get into long-term recovery and I could survive, but thriving probably wasn't going to be for me, what it was for other people. And that I should kind of learn to manage that. And that's kind of what the focus of therapy was for years and years and years. I was in and outta therapy, in and out of hospitals and out of crisis teams, uh, until about my mid thirties. And then it all, yeah, quite a long time, quite a long time to, to struggle and I kind of got to a place of, I guess this is just my life and I just have to tolerate it until I don't have to be here anymore. But, as it started to get worse and worse, I started to be unable to leave my house. And that's when I developed phobias of bugs and insects, which I don't know how California is, but in Ontario, Canada, where I live, things are constantly flying around in the summertime, like it's gross. And so I wouldn't leave the house and traditional therapy doesn't really have any help for that kind of thing. Like they have exposure therapy. So I'm gonna pay money to have someone expose me to my, biggest terror. Um, no. And so it took me on a path to find different tools. And on that path, I found people who weren't talking about how broken I was, but were telling me anyone can find healing and I didn't believe them. And I listened and did what they said anyways, and I'm now been recovered; and I don't say long-term recovery. I've been fully recovered and medication free for, I lost count actually, I think 12, 13 years. December's my recovery anniversary. Um, and I think I just celebrated 12 or 13 years. So it's kind of cool that I've lost track. But I, I started to think like a four year degree in psychology. Years and years of in and out of therapy. No one told me this was possible yet here I am. Why is no one talking about this? Why is no one helping? And the universe just started placing me in ways that made it so that I was able to start helping people and show them what I learned and teach them how to find that. So the path brought me here because the path has its own plan and no matter who I'm working with, no matter what program I'm running, eventually people come up to me and say, I know I need to speak up. I know I'm being trampled. I know I deserve better. I don't know how to do it, which is boundaries. And so that brought me to writing the book. Wow. Path in the nutshell. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. One that you seek treatment for so many years with no resolution other than you're broken. I'm a taurus I'm stubborn. I love it. I love it. I mean the fact that you're, that you're, uh, stubborn is a gift. Because without that gift, you would've never been where you are today. And helping other people, set boundaries. Set boundaries know themselves. What we don't realize about boundaries, what makes boundaries so hard is we think it's about saying no to someone else. And that doesn't feel good because none of us like to be told no, right. And so when we're told no, we get our backs up when we tell other people no, they get their backs up. Now it's a confrontation and we don't wanna be confrontational. Especially if we're used to people pleasing. But what boundaries are really, it's about where you are and where you are not, right. It's about what's in your control, what is not in your control, which means in order to set boundaries, you need to know: Who am I? What makes me different than other people? And where do I end physically? So I know where I end physically, cause I can tell my body's not yours. I can tell the difference, right. I'm not the computer. But where do I end, and others begin emotionally? Where do I end and begin mentally, energetically? And so my job is to teach people how to use boundaries as a mechanism for self-healing. And knowing yourself, has nothing to do with the other person. And I teach people how to do it in a single sentence without ever having to say the word no. That's nice because then it avoids that, apprehension that people get. Yeah. Well, no one wants to tell other people no. No one wants to be confrontational. But if I say to someone, no, you can't do that. It's gonna start an argue. It's gonna, we don't like being told no. So how can I get curious about what someone else needs? Get curious about what I need? Share what I need, and do it in a way that builds a bridge to someone else versus puts us on opposite teams. Cause if I say no to you, now you have to go on the defense, cause I went on the offense and now. That's no fun. That sucks and it messes up our relationships and it's not necessary, there's better ways. So how, how do people do that? The big question, right? So, um, so in my book, I walk people through the process, not just of like what boundaries are, how to set them, but how to know yourself. Each chapter has its own activity that helps you figure out what is the story I'm currently telling myself? How do I define myself? What are my core needs? Who is the person that I wants to protect with these elusive boundaries? Cause until I know that, then what am I speaking up for? I'm just trying to control someone else's behavior. I'm trying to tell them not to yell at me, not to be rude to me. But they're allowed to do that. So I teach something called The Boundaries Blueprint, it's a three step formula. Four steps is a fourth magic step. And it allows you to speak up in a single sentence. And where we often go wrong is we'll say things like, I understand where you're coming from, but, and then we'll, tell people our side of it. And now they're going to do the same thing to us. And that's basically an argument. I'm not wrong, you're wrong, you're not right. We've gotta go back and forth. In The Boundaries Blueprint, the first step is it's multiple choice. I take all the guesswork out of it. You just have to pick one of four options. Either I appreciate, I respect, I agree, or I love. Pick one and then validate this other human being's experience in some capacity. We all wanna feel seen and heard and known, and the best way to set a boundary is to acknowledge this other person and help them to feel seen and heard and known. Because if they feel that they're more likely to see you and hear you, and to know you. So I appreciate and, avoid lying in this first part. Like I appreciate what, just, even if it's something like, I appreciate that you're really upset right now. I respect that you have a right to yell and be angry right now. Something that validates that you see this other human being. Okay, so that's step one, nice and easy. Step two, you don't have any choice at all, you just say the word ''And''. That's it, that's step two. Usually we say, ''But'' linguistically that cuts off anything that was said before it. So they didn't hear our pretty validation if we say, but, so, and. And then step three is the part where we have to actually do some work. We wanna say the words I would love; and then tell this other person what it is we want, without making it a command or a to-do list for them. So often we'll say things like, I want you to stop yelling at me. I want you to take out the trash, right. The second I put the word you in there, I'm making it a to-do list. I'm making a command. Hands up to anyone who likes being told what to do, I don't. I really don't. And so if I'm telling someone what to do, they're gonna end up again on opposite sides. When I put that together, I end up with a sentence that lets this human being know that I see them and what I want. So I respect that you're really angry right now, and I would love to be spoken to with more respect. There's really nothing offensive in that I am agreeing with them and then putting my hat in the ring. And then I said, there's that fourth magic step. That fourth magic step is once we say the sentence, we have to be quiet. And it's the hardest step. We have to let this other person process our request. And then I also teach what to do when they challenge and inevitably stomp over your boundaries and how to hold the line again without feeling terrible about yourself. But it's really, it's about using our language to connect with another person, to empower as opposed to appease; which is what nice people like to do. We like to appease the other person, and then fold, and that's no fun either. So that's, that's the, the main crux of it. And that's a lot easier to do when you know, what is it you want? Who are you? And so that's what the book walks you through as well. And I think what's really important to point out here is that a lot of times if we have been accustomed to people pleasing, we don't even know who we are. We've No. We've lost the vision of who we wanted to be. Who we aspire to be, who we were before we got into this people pleasing thing. Yeah, and for some of us, I was born into it. So I had no idea. I had no idea, I just thought that's what being a quote unquote good person was; was to, you put everyone else's needs first. You know, it's the martyr syndrome. But you know, spoiler alert, the martyr dies at the end. And so that's kind of the path we're choosing when we're being nice. It was really kind of highlighted for me so long before I got into this line of work, I actually managed animal hospitals. So I worked in veterinary medicine and you know, one, it's puppies and kittens all day long, it's amazing. But also it's a hospital and you, you know, stuff happens. And I remember there was this one woman named Yvonne, and we'd hired her and I was manager. I was the first time being manager. I didn't know nothing. And I come from a background where you have to be nice. That doesn't work in management sometimes. And Yvonne wasn't doing her job very well. She'd sit and read instead of like doing anything frankly. But we were friends and she was nice and I liked her or whatever. And so when my boss came to me and said, you know, you need to go tell her to like go do stuff, I'd be nice about it. I'd say, hey, you know, maybe it would be a good idea, like I'd allude to things. And so she didn't listen cause I wasn't telling her anything. And eventually after doing it a few times, my boss would come, he's like, did you talk to her? I'm like, I did. I did talk to her. But did I? And eventually he's like, it's clearly not working, I need you to go fire Yvonne. Yeah, and so I had to fire her and it stuck with me that in being nice, I wasn't compassionate. I didn't even give her a fighting chance. I was so afraid of making her upset that I cost her her job. But I mean, I didn't cost her job. She could have worked. No, but I didn't give her a fighting chance. I didn't let her know what we needed from her. And so had she known or she still chose to fine, but, and at least give someone the fighting chance. And so that's when I learned that compassion is different than nice. Compassion sometimes means feeling weird about something, but being honest and being vulnerable. And that feels gross sometimes, but when we use the right linguistics it, it smooths out the process. Our words can be the bridge. You don't have to heal now. You don't have to know everything about yourself. You don't have to be in a place of ultimate self love to do this, your words can happen even with the doubts in your head, even with the fears. And then you can program from the outside in that way. And that's kind of my goal to help people do that. Well, that's good. Do you think, that maybe, you know, as we are children, our parents are always teaching us or telling us you need to be nice, be nice. And so, we become overshadowed by what does it mean to be nice? Does it mean that we have to be a people pleaser? Does it mean we have to get along with others? Right, we're taught that. So yeah, we're taught that, nice is the goal. But you know, I talk about in the book, we've been sold a bill of goods, cause always being on. Always smiling, always being willing to give up everything for other people is really, really great for the other people. But, it slowly erases us from our own life, and then we wonder why we feel sad or anxious or like unmotivated. We don't actually exist. We haven't given ourselves any space to exist. We exist physically, but emotionally, there's no space for us. Our thoughts mentally, there's no space for us. Energetically, there's no space for us, which is kind of the magic of boundaries because by knowing who I am and then being, will we all talk about like, let's take up space in the world. What space, what space is yours? That's literally what boundaries are, knowing what space you can take up. And knowing that when you start to infringe on someone else's space, that's not a deal breaker, that's a point of overlap where you can now collaborate with another person and elevate each other. Cause I guarantee you're not always right, and there are going to be times that other people are smarter than you and no more than you. And if your boundaries are too rigid, you're gonna cut yourself off from, that beautiful gift as well. And so having that balance is key. But yeah, we're taught from a very early age to be nice cause that makes us compliant and easier to parent and control. But that doesn't necessarily make us more fulfilled in our life and it certainly doesn't work as we become adults and now have to help others? Have you found that sometimes people build boundaries that are too rigid, too strong, and people think they're jerks because these boundaries are just like, it's almost like a fort. Yeah, a hundred percent, I have a whole chapter about the difference between boundaries and walls. So boundaries are, are flexible and negotiable, but walls or conditions are these rigid things. But here's the thing, think about a wall. So if I build a wall around myself, I have this fortress. So good news is, is that I will feel safe and empowered and I'll take up space. But what happens when I grow? Eventually, I can't grow any farther than the walls I put up a decade ago. So now that thing that's keeping me safe; walls are immovable, they're permanent, they have no flexibility. And walls need to be guarded. You don't just build a wall of a fortress, you then have to put like barbed wire and guards and moats and whatever. I'm getting a little into the fantasy world there, right? But you, you have to a lot of energy to protect your walls. And then when you have a relationship, it's a constant, battlefield. But when we have boundaries that are flexible, that it means that I can be open to your influence. I can take parts of what you share and integrate it into who I am without losing the essence of who I am. And most of us don't know how to do that. And so we go from being really nice to, oh, I found my voice. And then we use our voice and everyone leaves us. And now we're empowered, but lonely and it's great, if you wanna like, you know, take off and, you know, eat, pray, love it, move to Bali and be away from people. But what if you don't? What if you actually want to be around and work around and exist with other people? So yeah, a lot of times we go from nothing to like solid walls and conditions. And so I talk all about in the book how to know which ones which, cause if you don't know, you don't know. But a hundred percent a lot of people make that mistake in the beginning. Yeah, I could see that happening because I have seen people that have gone from being this meek, person who's always a people pleaser. And then one day they say, I grew up, I grew up and I learned to speak for myself. And then no, they have nobody. When before they were surrounded by people and now they're all alone. And they're like, nobody wants to be around me. And I'm like, what happened? That, that's why the subtitle, How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling Like a Dick and without acting like one. In ways that actually connect us with other people. But yeah, a lot of us do that. And I talk in the book about how there's different stages of development. There's dependence, there's codependence, there's independence, and then there's a step that we don't get taught, which is interdependence. So when I'm codependent, that's the people pleaser. I don't know me, I will find my magic one who will fill my void, and then the all be whole and you complete me in that whole thing. Which the whole you complete me is great. It means I'm not complete without another person. So that's the codependence. That's I can't manage my own emotional reality. I need you to do it for me. And then that backfires. That doesn't work out well sometimes. And so then we go into the independence phase, which is a very important stage. This is where we're like, I now know who I am and I don't need you, and I don't need to tell, I know everything and I can find my voice. But it's independence, there's no other people around. It's all about self. What we're meant to learn in that stage is who we are so that we can then go onto a final stage of interdependence where I know I don't need you, but I'm open to your input because I recognize that you probably know stuff I don't. And you can help elevate me, and I can help elevate you. And so a lot of the world goes from that codependence people pleaser into independence, we think that's the goal. It's the goal. I wanna be an empowered woman. I wanna empowered person, I wanna be independent. Yeah, but then I also wanna have friendships. I wanna have relationships, and so we wanna take the lessons of it and move into interdependence. The hard part is when you have wounds of codependence and you haven't found any healing from them, interdependent is gonna trigger the snot outta you. You gotta, there's some skill sets that you need to learn to take over interdependence, otherwise everyone's gonna be a trigger for trauma for you. So that's kind of where my specialty is in my private practice is to help people, not just find their voice, move into independence, but to heal the wounds that kept them in the codependence in the first place so they can move into this collaborative vulnerable space without it being a constant trigger nightmare for them. So, yeah. Yeah, cause I could see that where somebody is in the interdependence and then all of a sudden this person over here hits that trigger. That trigger that they thought they recovered from, and all of a sudden there goes the big wall Yep. Yeah, a hundred percent. They, might bite the other person's head off. And they're like, what the heck, where'd that come from? Yeah, it's very unbalancing. People need consistency. Like if you look at attachment styles for like in psychology, how people attach and love. Secure, functioning attached people, it's consistency, not perfection that the goal is. And when sometimes I show up as a people pleaser and then sometimes randomly I just bite your head off. I'm being inconsistent. I'm now the toxic one. You know, the whole, hey, it's me. Yeah, that's kind of the problem. And one of the chapters in the book, or one of the exercises is, I call it the trigger neutralizer. How to when you get triggered, cause it's gonna happen, welcome to being human. When we get triggered, how to use our response to find out what deeper work we can do so that we are no longer triggered by that other person's behavior. There's a little chart that kind of walks you through it to help give you guidance. But triggers are, triggers are unhealed wounds. They are the best guides we have. We all want, like gimme a sign of what to do next. Your triggers are your sign. They are your, your little things telling you this is where you need to do some work. But, when we are in independence and we think that's the goal, we have no need to. I can just block, I can just put up a wall. I don't need you, so I can just, you piss me off. You upset me. I'm gonna put up a wall. I put up a wall here. I put up a wall here. I put up a wall here. I put up a wall here. Now the only people I can hang out with are the ones who are identical to me. That's a very limited world where I have no chance to be elevated by others. And so that's where it becomes tricky. That's where it becomes tricky. You know, and through us talking about this, I remember for a long time I had this issue where I didn't trust people touching me. You know touch was a big thing for me that, if my kids touched me, that was different. You know, it didn't, generate any triggers. But if someone else touched me, a man or a woman, it just like freaked me out. And I remember I had a really sweet friend and he came up to me, cause Latin people, they kiss people on the cheek. It's, it's a way of greeting, kind of like the French. And so he came up to kiss me in the cheek and he like kind of crossed within that certain boundary for me. And I pulled my arm back to punch him in the face and he said, whoa, what's that? And I said, I'm so sorry. And I said, I have this thing with touch and and personal space. And I said, and I was not prepared for you, even though I know you're, you're friendly and we're friends. But he kind of hit that trigger and that was that personal space for me. Yeah, so we have physical boundaries that, you know, some of us are more comfortable with being up close and talking, and some of us need a little bit more physical space between us, that's where our physical boundary is. And sometimes we don't know it until something triggers us. Trigger lets us know, okay, this is where that edge is, so what do I need to learn? What is it I can do in the future and how can I neutralize it? But it's the edge of where your boundary is and when any kind of boundary is crossed, whether it's physical, emotional, mental, or energetic, the way our system lets us know, is by moving rapid energy in our body, which will feel like anger. Anger is your body's own built in, you need a boundary alarm system. And so it's fight or flight, right? So when someone gets too close and, and moves too close in your physical boundaries, your body instantly is like, boom. Yeah, and that's, a natural response. There's nothing wrong with that. Doesn't mean anything's gone wrong in the system. It just means you now know where your neurology is, okay with. And you can, you know, with a good friends, be like, just next time, gimme a heads up. So yeah, yeah. Oh, I was so embarrassed. I mean, I wanted to cry. I mean, that's how embarrassed I was, I was like, oh my gosh, what are, you're so barbaric. You almost punched your friend just because you know he was greeting you in a way that is, naturally it's part of the culture. He wasn't passing a move or anything. Yeah, but our bodies don't always know people's intentions, right? And so it responds the way it responds, and it's designed to keep us safe. So yay for your body, for keeping you safe, and yay for you recognizing in time to not have to go through all the paperwork that you have to fill out if you punch someone. Too, too much of a headache to punch someone. I actually teach something, it's in the book, and I teach it at my events, it's called A RAGE Dynamic Meditation and RAGE stands for Release, Anger Gain, Empowerment. And so I always say, if you're frustrated, go like vent into a, you know, punch a pillow, strangle a cloth, then write in your journal. It's a whole process I talk about in the book. But it's better to punch a pillow, thinking and pretending it's the person than it is to punch the person, cause there's so much paperwork if you punch the person. So much to do. So Jen, tell me who are the people that might struggle more, is it females or males? It's funny, they each struggle in different ways. Females, I don't wanna get too, like gender specific cause it's, it's more open than that nowadays. But in general, people who identify as women who have been raised in that system, we're more on the codependent side. We're praised for being nice. Whereas people who identify more in the male energy, they're praised for being loud. It's acceptable for them to get angry. And so I find that, men are more likely to have walls. And that they need to learn how to trust others, and that's how it manifests. Whereas I find more women are on the passive, like, I'm gonna just be nice and do whatever wanted, and then once in a while, zip our toes into like, ah, and then blame it on our hormones. Which sometimes hormones are weird. So I find that men and women, it's, it's different for them. Men need to know how to speak up in a way that encourages collaboration because they are, evolutionary speaking, they're hunters. They go out on their own. They don't need to collaborate. Whereas women, traditionally, we're the gatherers, we're always in some sort of pack. We don't know who we are, separate from it. And so it's the same issue, but different sides of the coin. Hmm. And who do you think, who have you found are more challenged by the, communication. You know, like, like you've initially said, you know, without straight up saying no. Who struggles more to relay that or practice that message of not saying no, but using the, the step that you talked about earlier? Moms, right? Anyone who, parents of any kind. Any kind of parent, but anyone who's the primary caregiver who's taking on the majority of the emotional and workload of a household tends to go the all or nothing, either fine, do whatever he wants, or like no, as we tend to flip into that cycle. I find that in workplaces, certain environments do teach us how to get our needs met if you have strong leadership. But most of us come from a management system where obedience is praised, where you have to be a cog in the system. So anyone who's in a system, healthcare, teachers, where you're expected to toe the line because that's what the system needs. Your whole life is based around you being compliant and pliable. And so I wanna teach people how to be, not pliable, but negotiable, flexible, vulnerable, how to be able to bring yourself to the dynamic because your magic is needed in the world. And, but I find anyone who works in a quote unquote system are the ones who struggle. And I think that's very important to, point out is that we all have special gifts and talents that we need to share with the world. But if we are too busy, people pleasing and we don't get to explore who we are, what we want, what is it that we want to put out into the world; the world is robbed. They really are. There's, something I talk about, so I run a virtual healing circle. It's the third Thursday of every month and it's completely free. No RSVP. You can just pop in. We do different fun stuff. And we always start with a candle meditation. I do, this at my retreats as well, and it's all about this idea that our only job in the world when you take away all the noise is to learn how to shine our light so bright that we ignite the light in others. And that requires me to know my light. That requires me to heal the shame that I associate with my light because it was inconvenient to others growing up. It requires me to respect the light of others, right? And so knowing that our job is to shine our light, not just to shine our light, but to shine it so bright that we actually can ignite someone else's light. That's really powerful and I think our world really needs that right now. They do, they do. I always tell my son, cause my, my son's in recovery right now. He was an alcoholic and I thank, thank God every day that, he's been sober for more than a year. And, and he loves, he loves helping other people, cause now he's a, he's a sponsor. Yep. And I always tell him like, you know what, you have so much to give to the world. You have so much to give to the world. Just be, just be you. Just be you and bless others. You know, you got the opportunity to have someone, sponsor you and get you this far, you can do so much more than what that other person did for you. Because you're, I don't know, there's just something about his energy and I'm like, but you gotta like be, you don't, you know, don't try to please other people. Don't try to be the person you think other people want you to be. Just be you. Yeah, it really is so simple, but it is not always easy. It is not always easy because other people are, lights will not always ignite the light in others. Sometimes people are used to the darkness and when you're used to darkness, light hurts your eyes, it makes you squint, it makes you turn away. So the brighter the light, sometimes the more people have to adapt to it, and sometimes it takes them a second to adjust to it. And I love this idea, you don't have to do anything, you just have to be. And again, it's so simple. It's not always easy. Not always easy. That's why I like to help people with it because when you have the right tools, it becomes easy. We're doing it the hard way. We're trying to do it kinda like we're running up an escalator that's going down. You can do it, but I like to help people find the elevator. Cause there's other ways to get to higher floors than just running up escalators or stairs. Hey Jen, have you ever had somebody who did one of your sessions, one of these light sessions that you talked about and felt, so bright, so amazing. And then they went and they wanted to share that light with others. And those people that, they shared it with were probably negative people or were in a mood. And now they felt that that light just suddenly started dimming. So it really depends on your intention and purpose. Am I shining my light so that I can make other people light because that makes me more comfortable? Cause I wanna be surrounded by light, or am I shining my light just because I wanna experience myself as someone who shines their light. And if no one else is ever inspired or gets lit by my light, that's okay, I'm not doing it for them. So I think if we're doing it for another person that's codependence in disguise, it's sneaky. It's the people pleaser. I'm gonna shine my light so that I can make other people do stuff. Or I'm going to heal myself so that I can passive aggressively make someone else do it. That's different. But if my intention is I'm shining my light because I wanna experience myself as someone who shines their light, no matter what's going on around me, that's different. That's different. So that's the key the key find balance. Yeah, boundaries. Boundaries, where am I? Where am I not? What light is mine and what is not my responsibility and someone else's light is outta my realm of control. It's outta my sphere of influence. So Jen, give me three pieces of advice that you would give the listener or the viewer that is struggling with boundaries. So the self, you know, fulfilling one is buy my book, read my book. It will walk you through it. So do that cause you need to learn the skillset. It's a skillset and you know, there's a lot of books about boundaries out there that will tell you what they are and why you need them, but not how to know the person you're protecting. So figure out who you are, and if you're not sure, like I said, my book will walk you through that. So, step one, figure out who you are so you know what you're protecting with your boundaries. Number two, work with someone who can help you, let go of past baggage. It's really no fun bringing all the baggage of codependency into interdependence into that space, it's not necessary there. And so rather than be like, a lot of us are like, okay, from this moment on clean slate, I'm gonna, from this moment, I will stop being a people pleaser, and I will conveniently forget all the years I people please, and all the people who are used to that version of me. And then when I show up different and they don't react well I get triggered and spiral. So work with someone, find someone. So I always say, you don't have to work with me as a coach, but please work with a coach who has a coach. Like I have a coach, I work with her regularly, cause my life is my blind spot. I have zero perspective on my life. So find someone who can give you perspective and it's better if it's not friends or family because some of them have a vested interest in you being nice. So find someone who's not somehow connected to it. So that would be step two. And then step three I think is set an intention. Set a different intention in your life that you're going to intend to stop shining your light for other people. That you're going to learn what it means to shine my light, just so I can experience that part of myself. Focus on your experience of your light versus how that light's affecting others, cause when you focus on the experience, the other stuff will happen. I love it. Jen, based on the conversation that we have had here today, what is the one thing, the one thing that you would like the listener, the viewer, to hold close to their heart and just remember it? Remember that being nice is not the same thing as compassionate. Remember that the best thing you can do for the world to show up compassionately, which means knowing who you are and knowing where you're separate from other people, and to stop being nice. Stop being nice, but that doesn't mean becoming a dick. So Jen, people are gonna purchase your book and say they wanna attend these free little, light sessions that you have. How do they do that? Sure so they can find everything on my website. My website is BTG wellness.com. So BTG stands for Bridge The Gap, because that's my goal for everything, and you can find information on my healing circles and register. There you can find information on my Soulful Radiance Retreats. There's information about my private coaching and I do offer complimentary meet and greet phone sessions if anyone wants to just chat. So if you're like, I don't know what I need yet and I want some help with that, reach out to me through my website and contact me. I'm also on the socials and we'll just chat and see how I can support you. And so real quickly, this just came into my mind. Are all of your, retreats in Canada or do you do any of them here in the US? This moment everything's in Canada, in my home province, and I know that weird things are happening in our countries and stuff like that. I know it's all weird and at this point, but such is life, such is, such is life. But yeah, at this point everything is on this side of the border, cause frankly, it's a lot easier for me. And this retreat center, I've been holding retreats there for, I think this will be my 10th year. Ninth year of running retreats there, it's like 45 minutes from where I live. It's beautiful. So purely selfishly, I'm running it there cause I like it there. But you know, I've, I've thought about going more international, but at this moment everything's local here. However, my online, that's the only in-person event, I do. My, eight day life mastery training program, which is where you get like everything all in one and all the tools of leadership in your life, that's all virtual. So, and all my sessions with clients are all virtual, so outside of the retreats, everything else is online and easy to access. That's great. I am so happy that you are stubborn and you give up. Because you have so much to offer the world. And I'm glad that you put the book together, cause it gives people that maybe some people are a little too shy to take that step cause they don't want others to know that I'm out there seeking boundaries. Gives them an opportunity to dip their toe, quietly. Yeah. Like I said, help them bridge the gap between their head and their heart. I'm trying to do as much as I can to get it accessible to not everyone wants to work privately with me. Not everyone can come to a retreat. Not everyone wants to do the other stuff, but books are easy. And the audio book is three quarters of the way done that will be coming out hopefully in the next month or two. It's just being edited, which is apparently a lot longer process than I estimated for. I didn't realize that, it's kinda like contractors that they tell you that the building's gonna be done in four weeks, you double it. So, but that will be coming out soon. So that, you know, a lot of people like to listen to audio books, when they're walking, when they're exercising. So why not use that time to learn more about who you are? And how to use your voice in the world in a better way. Great. Well, Jen, I will include all of your information in our show notes so that people can learn more about you and maybe join one of your retreats. That would be wonderful. Yes, come hang out with, I'm biased, but I think I'm fun to hang out with. And thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful chatting. All right. Thank you. Alright friends, after today's chat with Jen Febel, I'm definitely ditching nice for compassionate. Who knew that setting boundaries could feel so empowering without losing friends or your mind. Now remember, if you wanna dive deeper into Jen's strategies, grab a copy of her book, How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling Like a D*ck. You'll find the link right below in the show notes. And hey, if you're curious about more from this episode or want to connect with Jen Febel, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep123. Make sure to come back next week for another incredible episode just for you. Until then, keep dreaming big. Take care of yourself. And remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.