Your Joyful Order With Leslie Martinez

#104 Setting Firm Boundaries to Break Generational Cycles with Brenda Rivera

• Leslie Martinez • Season 5 • Episode 104

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The podcast episode centers on breaking unhealthy generational cycles and setting essential boundaries for emotional and spiritual growth. Brenda Rivera shares her personal journey from burnout in a high-stress nursing career to discovering the power of boundaries to shape a new legacy.

• Understanding the signs of burnout and its implications 
• The necessity of setting boundaries in both work and personal life 
• How communication shapes healthier relationships 
• Recognizing and addressing generational fears and patterns 
• Creating a distinct identity beyond professional roles 
• The importance of self-care and curiosity for personal growth 
• Engaging in therapy as a tool for transformation 

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Connect with Brenda:
IG:  https://www.instagram.com/brendarivera1019/

Listen to The Lineage Change Podcast on Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lineage-changer-podcast/id1747647261?i=1000656342075


Connect with Leslie:

Follow on IG: @yourjoyfulorderstyle

Website: https://www.yourjoyfulorder.com/

Email: lmartinez@yourjoyfulorder.com
to schedule- Speaking Events, Interviews or Life Coaching Sessions

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Watch this Episode on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXoAYIM2mfclNtYiaOzIUw

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https://a.co/d/09Djvaw

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Speaker 1:

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of your Joyful Order podcast. Today we're diving deep into a topic that so many of us can relate to, but we often struggle to address it, and that's breaking free from unhealthy generational cycles and creating healthy boundaries that we need to thrive emotionally and spiritually. Hey everyone, I'm Leslie Martinez and you're listening to your Joyful Order podcast. Each week I will bring you joyful stories that will motivate and inspire you and, at the same time, bring order to your everyday life. Let's just say the show will be a mixture of preaching and teaching, with a kick of motivation from your girl here. Welcome to your Joyful Order podcast. Today.

Speaker 1:

Our guest is proof that it's possible to chart a new path forward. Now I want you to join me in welcoming Brenda Rivera. She is a nurse who has spent over seven years in one of the most high stress careers out there. So, while battling burnout herself, brenda discovered the transformative power of setting boundaries, not just at work but in her life. She's also been the first in her family to break some longstanding generational cycles, and she's here to share her story of courage and resilience. Her mission now is to empower women to do the same thing. So that's breaking free from the past, building healthy, fulfilling lives and creating a legacy of strength and change for future generations to come. So welcome to the podcast, brenda.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, leslie, for having me, and thank you for that introduction. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you for your yes. Now, you guys, I seriously, right before we recorded this, I pray with all of my guests. Right now, and as we're recording this, brenda is literally getting preparing for the second hurricane that is about to hit Florida right now and she's still showing up here. So, like my heart is just like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for being here. But it just goes to show her passion, just to get the message out, to serve people. Now, brenda, I want you to first give us a little bit of background about yourself and just kind of what led you to start pursuing, you know, this passion of yours of helping women to break cycles and create boundaries.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I am a nurse. Currently I work in the hospital setting. I work in a large city in Florida, so one of the major hospitals. And I think it all started when I went through my own experience of going through the same cycle of feeling burnt out and really having trouble balancing, wanting to live a life that I loved but then being pulled in this severe burnout with work and feeling like it carried over to my personal life and it would affect me so much mentally and even though a lot of people talk about the self-care and the things to do, it's still a very hard balance when you're in a high stress level environment all the time and it's all consuming.

Speaker 2:

So that really helped me see how can I help other women do the same, because I know a lot of healthcare providers go through this and in the other hand, with creating other cycles and being the lineage changer in a family, I realized that a lot of people have these deep parts of their story that they carry with them through adulthood and it's really hard to connect the dots, to then see what kind of life you're gonna create, moving forward and a lot of things that you carry over. You don't want to. You want a different life, you want a different path, but when you're the first one to say that I wanna do this and to create it, it's really hard to understand. Where do I even start? How do I break cycles that have been before me for God knows how many generations whether it's three, four, from what you can track past With all that pressure? How are you going to be the first one to really start making that change?

Speaker 2:

So those are the things that really prompted me to start this journey, and it's going to be a forever journey because there's a lot of things to address. But I think it's a beautiful thing for future generations and for children to see that you are able to create a massive change and even if you can't address all these things that you're thinking of because it's a lot every generation is going to be able to target certain things within the lineage and create this beautiful compound effect of one generation to another, creating change for the greater good of the whole lineage of the family. So that's really where it started for me.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's so amazing. Now I just there's two things that I want to point out here. One I have to say this there's a quote. I don't know if you're familiar with Jamie Kern Lima. There is a quote that she often says you're not crazy, you're just first.

Speaker 1:

Because a lot of times we get this like you're trying to do things for the first time, and that even goes breaking certain cycles, right, like you're trying to break what for generations has been done, because it's not healthy, it's not a healthy way of living, and it always takes that one person. And then you have like your family kind of like, oh, she's crazy, she doesn't know what she's talking about. That's just the way that it's always been. But you're like no, this isn't how it has to be. I want to, you know, break that cycle and move forward from it. But I want to go back a little bit here.

Speaker 1:

Before we get back into, kind of those generational cycles I want us to touch upon a little bit. You're a nurse and that is a very stressful, high-demand job and just thank you for serving and helping others in that capacity. It is a huge undertaking to be in that career field, first off. But what I want to know, because I know that there are so many listeners that can probably relate to you, brenda, in being in a high level career, what were some red flags for you when you realized you were starting to get burnout? What were those red flags in your career? And then, how did you start to create boundaries around a very stressful job and you know, take us through like the burnout red flags and what were the boundaries that you began to create?

Speaker 2:

So for me personally, what I started seeing in myself were very dark thoughts when I would head to work. So they would be thoughts of and I know a lot of healthcare professionals can relate to this. This is even like sad for me to say out loud but thoughts of I wish I would get sick so I just wouldn't have to go to work. I wish that if, maybe if I could just get into a car accident, I would have an excuse not to get to work. Maybe if something life-threatening would just happen to me, I would have a reason where I wouldn't have to step into work. And that's very hard for me to even say out loud right now.

Speaker 2:

But a lot of other nurses and healthcare workers have gone through that same deep, dark process of their thoughts. Because you have this deep hole of not wanting to even arrive at work. Because once you arrive at work it's almost like you lose all of control with what's about to happen and it is all consuming. So once you step, for example, for me I work in a hospital setting, in a large hospital where it's just very chaotic, fast paced, we have a lot of very chronic sick patients and so once I step into work, anything could happen. And then everything just happens so quickly that you don't have control over and a lot of people say, like well, you just need to make sure you get your bathroom breaks and you get an actual lunch break and you're drinking your water. And it's a lot easier said than done when you're in an environment where people are depending on certain things to happen. You have to manage your time so well to even make your personal things possible.

Speaker 2:

And I know in different states they have different regulations for nurses, but where I live in Florida there's not a person that comes and like relieves all the nurses for the breaks. You need to figure out your own breaks and when things like that happen, the day kind of controls you. So I started noticing the dark thoughts. I started noticing so much anxiety the day before my shift would start. My day off before my actual shift was not a real day off. I was just thinking about the patients that this is sad to say, but like the patients that I would dread to have because they were just so difficult that the assignment that we would be given was not appropriate to have such a sick patient and so it makes us stretch so thin, and that anxiety would build up of me even thinking about that. Anxiety would build up of how hard and demanding the day would be and just the emotional roller coaster that I would have and me feeling like I hate my life and I hate me having to be there. And that happening over and over again was a huge red flag for me and just me noticing that my days off were not even days that I could relax and enjoy. It was always me thinking about things that happened at work and me thinking about how bad it would be when I would go back, and I felt like my life was being controlled, even my personal life. When I'm not at work it was being controlled by work itself. And that cycle of that repeatedly happening, with the no relief that, no matter what I would do with the self-care stuff, like the massages and the manicures and those things that people talk about it would be a very short relief, but then the thoughts would still come back and that was a huge red flag that I noticed.

Speaker 2:

And so how I started to step into trying to make a change is really realizing what is going to fulfill me on my days off. And do I really feel like nursing is my identity? Because that's another thing that I feel. Like a lot of people in health care, they, whatever their title is whether it's a doctor, a pharmacist, being a nurse, a therapist, whatever it is that could feel like it is your identity in every aspect, like that is all you're good at, that is where your knowledge. You wouldn't be good at anything else, even if you tried to leave the field. And so when that becomes your identity and you are burnt out at work and you feel miserable at work, then it makes you feel like, as a person, you're just always going to be miserable because work is miserable, because now it's embedded in your identity, because work is miserable because now it's embedded in your identity. So I started thinking what if nursing is not my plan A but it's actually my plan B?

Speaker 2:

And that's what really led me to move into the right direction of realizing life is so much more than work and I started setting things in place outside of work that I would look forward to, like the podcast that I'm a part of, and just focusing on community outside of work and realizing I could probably create something else outside of work that I could focus on even more and slowly move out of nursing for then nursing to require less hours and less time so I could be fulfilled in something else. So the podcast has been a start to that. The podcast that I now host and I started. That brings me so much joy. The community of that is so beautiful and fulfilling and I feel like that is something I can look forward to. And also setting a lot of things in place during the days that I'm off to focus on my health, so making sure that my nutrition, that I take that seriously, exercise I take seriously, and being outside a lot more, because being in the hospital setting you're inside for 13 plus hours, just being outside and hearing the birds outside and feeling the breeze on my skin makes such a difference on my days off.

Speaker 2:

So I would really encourage anyone that's in any high stress level job whether you're an engineer, an architect, a lawyer, you're in corporate, you're in marketing and you feel like your job is all consuming and you feel like you're meant for more.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you're not going to stay in that forever With the type of life that we have now.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people evolve and they do different things at different seasons of their life. If you feel like that's you and you want something that's more, I encourage you to be curious about other things. Look into podcasts and of people who are moving in that direction. Ask them questions, see how they're doing it, how they're doing what you would want to do, and start thinking about the career that you have as something that could be your plan b and you actually focusing now on a new plan a. So, like that, it feels like you're actually moving into something more fulfilling in your feels like you're actually moving into something more fulfilling in your life and you're not being all consumed in this identity of nursing or you know, whatever it is, whatever your career is, because we are all really meant for so much more and I truly don't think most of us are probably not meant to stay in one career for 40 plus years are probably not meant to stay in one career for 40 plus years.

Speaker 2:

That's just not how life is anymore. It's not how it works anymore. So I really encourage you to at least be curious, even if you feel like you're not good at something else. I've heard those phrases often too. I'm just not good at anything else. I've only done nursing or whatever in healthcare and I don't think I would be good at another career or another thing. I would be good at another career or another thing. I would challenge that and I would challenge you to just try something, even if it's a little bit, for one day a week on your days off, and see. If it's only fulfilling as a hobby, then great, it's something you look forward to. But even if it's fulfilling enough for you to start for it to be something else, I would challenge you to look into that even more, because that could be your segment and your your pathway in finally feeling like you're not stuck where you are.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh, brenda, so dang good right now, Like I'm just like I was letting you go and go and go because I'm like, yes, yes, yes, just like I was letting you go and go and go because I'm like, yes, yes, yes, like. So, for the person that is listening to this right now that feels stuck, and maybe you're where Brenda was right now, like you, or where she she was, and right now you're feeling everything that she's saying, that's how I felt. I feel like I wish I could, you know, get sick so I didn't have to go to work or something tragic would happen to me, so I had an excuse. Those are all major red flags right there. And when you are constantly thinking of work on your days off, another huge red flag and I have been in that position.

Speaker 1:

I was in that position at a job and ironically, brenda, it was a job working at a church, I was working in ministry and I was feeling that high level stress that I felt like I had no life outside of that role that I was in at the time. You hit it right on the head of making your career your identity, and I think so many people have fallen into that trap. I was in that trap. Like, I carried that title of ministry director children's ministry director for nine years.

Speaker 1:

That was my identity, that was all I knew and I quickly realized actually I shouldn't say quickly, it took me nine years but I should say, like God is the one who really forced me out of that role and this was the more difficult role for me is that, especially when it's something that you're doing, when you're serving others, right, and here you are serving others, you're a nurse, you're caring and you're loving for others and when you feel that God has put you in this career or role of serving others, you identify with it and you feel that, well, this is my calling. But then it's easy for us to lose ourselves in that and I know that that's what happened to me and I started finding my identity in Christ in my role in serving right. I don't know, can you relate to that?

Speaker 2:

Yes to that. Yes, I feel like I have felt God speak to me specifically in. It's not exactly what you do, but it's about your heart and what you're learning and how you're just letting God lead you to whatever it is. So, whether it's staying in nursing for X amount of time or whether it's stepping into something else, I have felt for me it's almost like God just wants my heart to be open, because he can really take us anywhere at any point, any day, and really that's the journey that he wants us to live by, like the disciples of having to give up everything and then literally taking every day as just the new day, open to anything that happened, open to traveling anywhere. I really feel like that's where he wants our hearts to be.

Speaker 1:

Yes, Dang Brenda's so good. Yes, and your heart. And that's where it like for my kind of journey that I went with in that, in learning to create the boundaries that I needed and not put my identity in my career. It was God wants your heart. And even in that role of working at the church and, you know, being at the church six days a week, like all of this, my heart wasn't right with God. Because I was identifying. I was putting all this work into the role where I was allowing myself kind of like an out to not spend one-on-one quality time with God. Like my nose wasn't in the Bible then, like it is now. I had to step away from a ministry role to say, hey, god, okay, now I'm ready to give you my heart. But you said it so well of God wants your heart.

Speaker 1:

And when we look at the disciples, yeah, I mean, these were people who had very prestigious roles in the communities that they were in and God's like, no, I'm taking all of that away from you. You're coming with me. We all are equals, no one has title. I want your heart. And sometimes God has to do that to us unwillingly, right, he's just going to take something away from us like a title, a role, any of that, anything of where we are at right now. God can take it away like that, you know.

Speaker 1:

And seeing how I love just to go back a little bit. I love how you said that to make your career your plan B. What is the plan A that God has for you? Is it, you know, serving others, but in what capacity? But the plan A is always where's your heart Right Now.

Speaker 1:

And then you touched upon just some of the ways that you learned outside of doing things, of realizing that you need to make your career your plan B. But then also nutrition, like what you eat, exercise, getting outside time, being curious I love how you said just being curious is something so simple. Now I want us to transition a little bit. So we touched upon your career and some of the boundaries that you created there, and boundaries I mean it's more of what you realized, right, like, hey, I need to make sure that I'm putting my nutrition, my mental, physical, spiritual health first and creating your boundary as a plan B Now in your personal and relationships, if we can transition a little bit into that. And how you started to create boundaries and see that some of the generational cycles that you were carrying over into your life, how that even maybe carried into how you were approaching your career, but what were some roles that you had to break that were more in your personal life, not in your career.

Speaker 2:

So one thing I do want to add also before I answer. That is with your career. I think a good question to ask yourself is if it were to be taken tomorrow, if, for some reason, you couldn't do nursing anymore you couldn't be a lawyer anymore, you couldn't be a doctor anymore, you couldn't be a doctor anymore tomorrow how would that make you feel and would you still fully trust God that he still had something greater for you? I think that's a good question because I think we feel this like responsibility of nursing is what's gonna make me successful and take me to this place, and really it's not about that. It's just a vessel and a gift that God has given you, maybe for a season, but really he has something else more for you and you just have to trust that even if everything was taken away from you, he is still good and you'll be able to figure it out with God leading you.

Speaker 2:

So I wanted to add that, oh, thank you. Yes, so good. And then to answer your question, I started noticing things, I think, when I made the transition of being with my family all the time as a single person and then transitioning to getting ready to be married and moving away a few hours from my family and realizing that I carried a lot of fear and just different things of how I viewed marriage into being a newlywed and for me, what helped me was I started seeing a therapist even before we got married and then even in the beginning of a marriage, our marriage I saw an individual marriage therapist by myself, because I knew there were a lot of things that I had to talk through that were from my perspective of the only thing I saw growing up, and to me a lot of things were normal that I even felt silly to like ask her. I have to ask you if this is normal, because this is the only thing that I've seen, but it sounds odd to me. Do you think this is normal? And then, what is like the appropriate, healthy thing to do with this? And I had to ask questions like that because I really didn't know and it was really silly things like if because I travel for work, like would it, am I bad for leaving my husband alone? And if something happened where god forbid something got in between us, whether it's another person or you know, I never felt like this was real, but these were things that I would hear from my family, so I had to say, like if another person got involved and if something bad happened, was that my fault, because I'm the one traveling and I'm leaving quote-unquote, leaving my husband alone, like those were things that I really thought was normal, but to me it sounded wrong and so I didn't know how to talk about those things.

Speaker 2:

Just different things with like dynamics of being married and just feeling like I had to fix everything in the beginning, because I heard also a lot that if you don't address things in the beginning, you're gonna be stuck and your spouse is just gonna to repeatedly do the same things and they're going to force you to just deal with it, and then you're like that for 20 years. And so I had this. I went to the opposite extreme and I had this focus on I have to say, everything that's bothering me and everything that's going wrong, all when it happens, all in the beginning, because we need to address all of it so it all gets fixed and everything that's going wrong, all when it happens, all in the beginning, because we need to address all of it so it all gets fixed and everything is okay, moving forward. And that caused so much damage.

Speaker 2:

My poor husband. My poor husband like just hearing me with all this anxiety at the beginning, feeling like we had to fix every little thing. And I had to talk through that too and realize that if he's showing effort to fix things even if it's not exactly how I'm asking, but that he's putting effort into it and there's even 20% improvement, then he's already showing me that things will get addressed. It doesn't all have to be at one time and things will slowly just get better as the marriage progresses. Hopefully, god willing, we have the rest of our lives to address those things, so I don't need to focus on everything all at once. That was another thing that sounds silly for me to say now but was really hard for me in the beginning, and those were all things that my family would say as normal, that I really had to work through to not carry it over.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, as you're saying that. So how many years have you been married now, brenda? Three. Okay, I've been married 23 years. And as you were saying that, I'm laughing on the inside because I'm like, oh no, that must have been a crap show side. Because I'm like, oh no, that must have been a crap show because it will.

Speaker 1:

And it's so funny because I want to say, like in the beginning of our marriage, that was almost like a mindset that I had too, because you see so much like wrong in your family dynamics and you tell yourself I don't want any of that to carry over here, so let's just fix it now. Let's just let me tell you now, like all of this stuff and that is not the healthiest of ways to start a marriage and I'm, you know, I'm glad to see that you figured that out, and it's something. If for the listener right now, you guys are listening to this and you're soon to get married or anything don't do what Brenda and I did, because I did a very similar thing we're just like, let's just unleash it all now. Look, I don't want us to do this, this, this, this and this Like. No, it's learning to be healthy emotionally, spiritually, all of that Because as we evolve, as people, we change, right, I tell my husband you've probably been married to 10 different people in the 23 years that we've been married.

Speaker 1:

Because we grow, we evolve, things change. Like where my husband used to be the most patient man ever and I was the impatient one, 23 years in our roles have flipped, like I'm super patient and mellow now where he's a little more like impatient, you know. So things evolve. But I want us to get to focusing on the topic of boundaries in this, so creating some of those boundaries in work, in relationships, and bringing that kind of all together. So being your nurse okay, there is so much to try to balance there, even just with that role of being a nurse. So how do you balance being a compassionate and caring nurse with even just maintaining your own personal and emotional you know, spiritual boundaries?

Speaker 2:

I think one important thing is to have the awareness of your own limitations and not look to the left or right of anyone else. Because me personally, I can say for myself I'm more of the introverted person, I'm more quiet, I am not very high energy. I can have higher energy, but it's for a certain amount of time and then I get drained very easily. And so for me it was very easy for me to look to my left and my right and see these people that look like they were doing so much more. They look like they could be happy all the time and I just felt like if I tried to do that I would exhaust myself so much to then I am working 10 times harder to try to catch myself up to my baseline and my normal. So I have learned my own limitations and been aware of that and have really respected that. If I can only give this much, then that's all that I can give, and if I need some time completely alone, away, separated outside, however that looks like, then I have to give myself that, because that is nurturing the best part of me and I can't try to be high energy all the time like someone else, because in reality it's going to take me a lot longer to recharge and then it's even worse for me. So if I would respect to the time that I have to give everything that I can and then fill up my cup the way that works for me, then overall I'm going to be giving everyone around me my family, people at work, my husband the best version of me, and most people they understand and they respect.

Speaker 2:

If you say, hey, can I take a walk by myself for 20 minutes? Or if you say, hey, I am tired right now I'm just feeling like I need to recharge for a second. I want to spend time with you guys, but I just have to separate for a little bit. I might be in the bathroom a little bit longer, or however that looks like where you can get away. I'll be in my room for a little bit longer, I'll be outside a little bit longer, but most people understand when you say things like that. So you having the awareness and just communicating that with the people that you love and people at work, most people are going to understand that and then you're the best version of yourself for those around you.

Speaker 1:

That's so good. You touched it right there. It's communication, I think, is huge in creating those boundaries, and I think that people struggle with proper communication because they internalize things rather than being more external with what is going on on the inside of them. So they hold on to things because they don't want to offend someone, they don't want to hurt someone's feelings. They're people pleasers and they want to make everyone happy. You know they're people pleasers, so they want to make everyone happy. They want to be non-confrontational and telling someone like hey, no, I don't want to hang out tonight, I just I need alone time right now.

Speaker 1:

I remember both of my boys I have a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old right now and when they were little they both would tell us I need alone time, mommy, I need alone time. And I don't even know that it's something like that. I think about it right now. I don't know that it's something that we taught them or if it's just something that they felt very comfortable in telling us like I need alone time. And it was something that was just kind of like it was an aha moment for my husband and I when we realized that our own kids started doing this. So then we started telling each other like I just need some alone time right now. And we go to our room.

Speaker 1:

I, by nature, am an extrovert, but as I've gotten older I have realized that people drain me, like if I'm in very social, you know settings, or like I love going to conferences or retreats and you know networking with people. But after three days of peopling I say I'm drained and I'm like I need alone time. And I'm like I need alone time. And my husband will know like if I go away for three days to a conference or something, I need like two days to be like don't talk to, I don't want to talk to anybody right now.

Speaker 1:

That's what it is and it's not hurting anyone's feelings. It's just like I gave so much of myself externally for the past three days that I just I need to. I don't, I don't want to think right now and it's all about communicating that. And I think oftentimes people don't communicate what they're feeling and that's where people tend to spiral and not creating those healthy boundaries and then you see yourself in a cycle, right? So in your experience, brenda, how can healthy boundaries at work actually kind of make a healthier version of yourself at home and in your relationships?

Speaker 2:

Well, when you have those boundaries at work and you're preserving that energy and you finally feel like you're not miserable when you're leaving work or the anxiety that builds up right before work, I think in turn that's going to make you more happy and fulfilled on your days off, because you're not dreading something in the back of your mind excuse me, 24-7.

Speaker 2:

So you are looking forward to things on your days off and you're not constantly thinking about the overwhelming high stress that you just went through or that's about to come or however your days look like, and you have more energy within yourself to properly serve and properly give to those around you, because in all of us we all want to be a support to our community and the people that we love.

Speaker 2:

But if we're giving from an empty cup, from being miserable at work or being burnt out at work, then we have nothing to give, and so everyone loses. At that point you lose because you're burnt out, you're miserable and you want to be happy but you can't, and then the people around you are not getting the best version of you and they're not getting what you wish you could give them. So everyone loses when it's like that. But when you focus on, even if it gives, even if it requires a little bit more work with focusing on the nutrition and separating that time for you to be alone and separating the time for you to focus on working out and being outside, even if that requires a little bit more time, you're going to feel the reciprocal energy from that of you being able to be happy and fulfilled with your community and those around you.

Speaker 1:

That's so good. Yes, and I just want to add the whole of Brenda, touching upon the nutrition and the exercise and all of that. That just triggers the happy endorphins that we need in our brain to allow our brain to process things a little bit more or to bring the stress and anxiety level down. When you start releasing those happy hormones, it triggers the stress levels to just keep going down and down and down. You're releasing the stress through exercise. You're releasing the stress through a walk. You start to process things more clearly, also because your brain is getting those endorphins that it needs to kind of flush out the stress, flush out the anxiety. So, yes, I can't agree with you more on that, brenda, as we begin to kind of wrap up a little bit, there's so much at play with being emotionally and spiritually healthy, and boundaries, I think, is a huge factor.

Speaker 1:

Now there's probably a listener out there that is like, well, yeah, this is all great advice, but how do I start creating boundaries in my workplace and all of that? You gave some great insight, but I want to touch upon how can someone that wants to start creating these boundaries start breaking generational cycles of you know, things that have trickled down, certain fears and stuff that are carrying into the relationship. How do they start having conversations Like what is a conversation, maybe, that you started to have with your spouse? Where did it begin with the boundary setting when you have to start at home?

Speaker 2:

I think when you have the awareness now of what you see, that you're repeating subconsciously, that you don't even realize, like, why am I doing these behaviors? And it's because it has been ingrained in you since you were a child and now you see it being being shown in, either with your friends or your spouse, when you have that awareness, I think it's important to start the conversation of this is how I feel, this is why I feel this way, and then saying this is what I'm doing, to work on it. And if you could help me in this way for example, when you see me reacting this way, I am working on it. So if you could either remind me of who I am and God and reminds me of giving me affection and giving me a hug, and just having that communication like that of this is why I'm doing what I'm doing, I'm working on it, and then this is how you could best support me. I think that's a good way to start in a simple way. And then also, if you have some kind of access to a therapist whether it's through church or your insurance covers it or you're able to find someone and connect with them, I think being able to have these conversations and specifically talk about your past, how your dynamic is with your relationship, your marriage, your children. When someone is able to know all those specifics, it really helps with knowing how to communicate the best way and how to find a new rhythm and a new healthy dynamic to then move forward in a healthy way and to show your children that healthy way too, or your future children, for example.

Speaker 2:

My husband and I don't have children yet, but we always have the conversations of what do we want to show and who do we want to be right now, before we even have children, because that's very important to us Like, what are the things that we want to work on before they're even here? Because once they're here it's never too late. But it's a little different when you're doing it in front of the child and they're seeing it. But there's also a good side to that too, because they're seeing you work through things and they're seeing you be resilient and still work through it. So there's two parts to that, but I think communication, saying where you're at, saying what you've seen in the past and why you're doing what you're doing, but you're working on it, and then speaking to a therapist to really get into the details of what you've been through and how it's affecting you. I think all of that is a great way to start.

Speaker 1:

That's so good. Yes, I couldn't agree with you more. And, Brenda, it all comes down to communication, right? I mean, it's so hard, yeah, it's so pivotal in you being able to communicate effectively to your loved ones, even to your managers at work. You know the people that you work with and being real with yourself.

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of times people kind of get in this cycle of hustle culture, so to say, of being caught up in, of hustle culture, so to say of being caught up in their identity, in what role they are in, you know, in their career, and they cycle into that oftentimes as a way to kind of shut out what internally is going on. And that's where, at any minute, God can take away your role and then he's going to make you sit with who you really are. It's like, nope, you're no longer a nurse. Nope, you're no longer a ministry director, You're no longer a lawyer, You're no longer CEO. That can be taken away in a heartbeat. And then it's like, well, what's left? And that's the hard part of sitting and figuring that out. I know I recently, in the last couple of years, have been sitting deep with everything was struck away from me. You know all of these titles and stuff and it's sitting with who am I and it sucks. I'm not going to lie Like when you're sitting there and you're really internalizing this stuff. It sucks, it's hard and stuff gets unpacked that you put away for a really long time.

Speaker 1:

But in order for us to live fruitfully in what God has called us to and in order for us to be emotionally and spiritually healthy, we unfortunately have to unpack that stuff that we've buried and we have to create healthy boundaries to fulfill God's calling on our life. You know, and sometimes those boundaries are hard boundaries and I know that not everybody has the privilege to communicate the boundary to a family Sometimes you just have to completely cut that person out of your life because there has been some type of physical, emotional, sexual abuse or something you know, and people have just had to like well, nope, we're done here and I know I had to do that. I had to just completely eliminate people out of my life because of emotional and physical abuse and create really strong boundaries about that and not even having the conversation, because sometimes those people are not at a level where you're at to even have those conversations. And I've been there, so for the listener that's there. I know what it's like to just completely cut those people out and it's really hard.

Speaker 1:

But in order for you to fulfill the calling that God called you to do, you have to be physically, emotionally, spiritually healthy to do that. And if it means cutting certain people out, you got to follow what God is, you know, putting on your heart. And it was really hard for me to cut, you know, a very close loved one out of my life. And over the years things have, God has allowed opportunities for, you know, somewhat relationship to be there, somewhat relationship to be there, but still with very hard and clear boundaries that are in place.

Speaker 1:

And I just I want to encourage the listeners that are in a really hard place right now to just really press into God right now. Press into God because creating healthy boundaries is probably one of the more difficult things that we have to go through in this thing called life, you know, and it's learning how to create healthy boundaries also. Now, Brenda, you've gave us so much insight and I do kind of want to turn the tables as we start to wrap up here and I want to shift to a little more enlightened, fun conversations. First, I would like for you to maybe give the listeners we're definitely going to refer them to your podcast that you can go deeper into generational, breaking generational cycles and creating healthy boundaries, because that's what her podcast is all about. But is there a book that you have read that you would recommend to the listeners on this topic?

Speaker 2:

Not, specifically on boundaries. But there is a book that I'm reading right now that is about discovering God in a more adventurous way and looking at life as that. You're living out an adventure every single day with God, and it's called the Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson. Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson, and he just talks about how to see prayer in a different way, how to see life just in a different way, even giving one quick example that completely blew my mind and has been on my heart so much is. He shared a study and I'll try to summarize it and make it very brief and quick, but he looked into a study of seminary students that were creating a speech about the Good Samaritan, and they were all in a college campus. The study would show them preparing, and then the two groups were divided in two. They were either told two things one, that they would have to hurry because they're running late and they would have to go to the next building to give the sermon on the good samaritan. Or two, they have some time, they're gonna be early, but why don't they just start walking over there? And all the students prepared for the same thing, but the students that were told you better hurry because you're already late.

Speaker 2:

They set up an actor the people in charge of the study along the way that acted like the man from the good samaritan that's on the street and he's moaning loudly and he's very clearly like in need of help, someone that we would imagine on the side of the street that we usually see.

Speaker 2:

And he was strategically placed along the way where these people would have to walk from one building to another, and so the people that were in a rush, that had prepared for the same sermon, would usually I think he said like 90% of them would just walk past him.

Speaker 2:

Most people would even like walk over the man to go to the building because they were in a rush, and the people that were told that they had some time, those people had a higher percentage of stopping and speaking to the man. That really opened my eyes to. Are we so focused on what the Bible says and like, I guess, a legalistic way, that we're not even doing ministry itself when it comes down to it in life? We're just reading the Bible and doing what we think we're supposed to do, but then, when it comes down to it, to real life situations, we're not doing what we just read that we would do so. That's a one example, but the book is amazing and it really opened my eyes on how God is just so fun, so adventurous and our life can look so much different.

Speaker 1:

That's so good, brenda. Okay, first, I love Mark Batterson. His books are so good and that's not one that I have read. And now I'm like I add to Amazon cart like immediately, because just that story alone I'm like I want to read that. And it goes back to your heart. Right, god wants your heart, and where's your heart?

Speaker 1:

I myself, being a coach, I'm very goal driven and I think that's where these last couple of years, god has been in a reality check with me. It's like I want your heart, leslie. It's. It's not about the goal, it's about the people that you're going to help along the way. And if we're so focused on the end goal, then like, what are we even doing? You know, like, yeah, you're walking over the people that God sent your way to help, and then it's like where's your heart? And we think that, oh well, god, my heart's for you. I'm going to go preach to all these people and give them the sermon of the Good Samaritan, but yet you just stepped over that opportunity to help someone. You know, and, oh, that's so good, brenda, I'm so glad that you mentioned that. Okay, next question that I have for you what is something that brings Brenda joy?

Speaker 2:

I think just my health, being able to be alive. As a nurse, I see so many chronic sick patients with a lot of complications, a lot of things that maybe they could have controlled, but then a lot of things that just happened to them and I am so much more thankful for life itself because it's so fragile. I'm so thankful for my body that I'm able to move and all the simple things of being able to speak and eat normal. So I'm grateful for life and I'm grateful for the simple things of being able to speak and eat normal. So I'm grateful for life and I'm grateful for the simple things like being married and having my family alive.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so good. So many things to be grateful for, for sure. Now, Brenda, let our listeners know where they can find you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I'm usually most active on Instagram. My Instagram is brendarevera1019. And then, if you guys want to listen to more of similar topics that we just talked about, I talk a lot about these type of topics on the podcast, and the podcast is the Lineage Changer Podcast. It's available where any podcast platforms are available, and the most common ones are Apple and Spotify.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, and all of those links will be in the show notes so you guys can connect with Brenda Well, thank you so much, brenda. Thank you for just your story and for so much wisdom that you brought today For the listeners. I just hope that Brenda's story just reminds us that breaking generational cycles and setting healthy boundaries is not only possible but necessary for emotional and spiritual well-being. And as we take these lessons into our own lives, let us remember that the change really starts with us. The boundaries that we create today can really impact generations to come, and Brenda is doing her best that, when she begins her family, that these cycles have been broken and that this is something that she's not going to pass on to her children. So I hope that this podcast has been a great help to you and if it has touched you in any way, can you please do us both a favor and go and share this message with somebody you love. And until next time, just keep taking care of yourself, keep building that legacy in health and strength and continue to chase joy.