Transcript for this weeks message

Shane Jacob

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of The Horsemanship Journey Podcast. The Horsemanship Journey today is proud to present Sheryl Green. Sheryl is a speaker and author. As a teenager, she dreamed to be an FBI profiler and hunting down serial killers. She earned a master's degree in forensic psychology but decided against spending her days in the minds of criminals. Instead, she has worked in mental health, customer service, public relations, education, and the nonprofit world. This brings a unique blend of experience and insight to her audiences. Sheryl's the author of six books, including "You Had Me at No." She is also an avid animal advocate dedicating her life to providing a voice for those who cannot speak. Sheryl, thank you for taking your time to be with us today. Appreciate you.

‍

Sheryl Green

Thank you.

Shane Jacob

Right on. Well that's pretty brief. For those who might not  know, tell us  more about Sheryl, where you are and how you got to be here.

Sheryl Green

So I'm in Vegas. I moved out here in 2008 after a divorce. And I've been kind of reinventing my life ever since then. Gone through 12 years, 12 plus years of animal rescue. And I credit that with getting me out of a depression. And interestingly enough, I also credit it with kind of getting me into a depression last year. And that's how I came to write this next book that I've got coming out soon

Shane Jacob

Right on. Well, tell us about this next book. Tell us about your new book, the title, and tell us all about it.

Sheryl Green

Yeah, so it's called, "You Had Me at No," how setting healthy boundaries helps banish burnout, repair relationships and save your sanity. And it, you know, I never had any intention of writing a book about boundaries because truthfully I didn't have any, or I should say I didn't have any good ones. I think we all have boundaries in some form. But, I had this experience. I was, you know, I'm working at the rescue. I'm working fulltime, and I'm also running my own business. And I was just burned out. It was too much. I was working probably 16 to 18 hours a day and I was getting really short with people. I was super overwhelmed. I was just done.

And I was driving down the road one day, I was running an errand, and I saw the oncoming headlights of the cars. And I just had this thought, if I crossed over the median, this would all be over. I've never been so scared of my own thoughts. Even when I was going through the depression in my late 20s, I had never contemplated suicide. Just never even thought about it. And I pulled over to the road, realized something major had to change.

When I started doing all the research and talking to a therapist and figuring out what's going on, I took a break from the rescue. I took a break from some of my clients. And realized that boundaries, boundaries were a thing and I didn't have them. So I kind of set out on this journey of self discovery and to learn everything I could about boundaries and healthy boundary setting. I read everything I could get my hands on. I spoke to multiple therapists and I interviewed some women in my life that are really impressive and really successful and not you know, running around like their hair's on fire. And came up with this book and realized that it wasn't just my job to learn this, it was my job to teach this.

Shane Jacob

Awesome. I think I have your mission here, and I'd like to read it and then just see if you'd comment on it. It says, "I spent the first four decades of my life doing everything for everyone, everyone except myself. Now I'm on a mission to change the world, one boundary at a time. I work with people who want to unleash the power of healthy boundaries so they can make better decisions, improve their relationships, and reclaim their lives." Wow, that's a powerful statement. You want to comment a little further on that?

‍

Sheryl Green

You know, I do want to clarify something because when you hear the word boundaries, for some people, it brings up this, this thought of selfishness. Like, oh, well, they're just out there, you know, taking care of themselves and not doing anything for anybody else. And that could not be further from the truth. I did not embark on this journey and write this book as like a big middle finger to the world at all.

I still believe that our power and our purpose and everything comes from helping others. I don't think we should be on this planet if we don't want to help other people and animals and the environment, all the things. I think we can go too far, and we can come from the wrong place. And coming from that wrong place is fear.

You know, it's that and, I think we'll talk about this in a little bit, but it's that if I don't do for everyone else, I'm not worthwhile and I won't be liked. So I do wanna clarify that yes, boundaries are about protecting yourself, but they're about protecting yourself so that you're still available to help others. And that's what I realized that day on the road was, if I do this, I never get to help another animal.

Shane Jacob

Awesome. That's a great point. That's a great point. I'm glad that you brought that up. Sheryl, I was wondering if you could just talk about the different boundary areas such as physical, emotional, etc. What they are and what happens if you don't have them.

Sheryl Green

Yeah, so what happens when you dive into a subject like this is you learn all of the technical aspects of it. You learn to break it down into the things that maybe we inherently know, but we can't put our finger on. And for me, that was what these boundary areas were. And there's typically six of them, sometimes five, six, but it's physical, emotional, time, material, sexual, and mental.

And we're at a time right now where all of those boundaries, boundary areas are being breached. So just to give you a little bit more idea of that, physical and sexual. So, you know, physical, how people touch you. You know, are you being hit? There's always those people that when they wanna get your attention, they like hit your arm. Not okay, unless it is. If that's cool with you, great. If it's not, then that's a boundary that's being violated.

Sexual, obviously, that's the one that's spoken about the most is, what kind of sexual contact is acceptable and consent. And that one's really been more discussed in popular culture and in life.

Material, your stuff. You know, would you like it if I came over and grabbed that hat off your head and stepped on it? No, it's your hat, it's your material possession and you have the right to decide how it and you get treated. Okay, so that's material.

And what we don't realize is that money falls into that category. You've got that family member or that friend that's always calling to borrow money. That's a financial boundary. Being able to say, no, I'm not willing to give that to you. No, I don't have the resources to give that to you. So keeping that financial boundary in place.

Emotional and mental. Emotional or having somebody tell you what you should and should not feel. And it's important to remember in this category that no one is responsible for our emotions and we are not responsible for anyone else's. There's a lot of, you know, he made me angry or she triggered me or whatever that going on right now. And it's important to realize that you and you alone are responsible for your own emotional state and your emotional boundaries.

And then let's see, mental beliefs. And the best way I can describe this is just pop onto Facebook for five minutes and you know, voice what, what you're considering to be your belief, political, religious, whatever it is. And watch, you know, the hordes jump on you and say you're wrong. That's not it. Well, that's a boundary. That is a boundary that's being crossed.

And then the biggest one in this was, this is probably my biggest challenge and still is, is that time boundary. You know, do you have the time to take care of whatever you need to do and help somebody else? And should you be helping them beforehand or get your stuff done, whatever that maybe, and then you can give of your time? So hopefully that's a little in a nutshell of those six boundaries. I would say, when you don't have them, you're angry, you're resentful. It brings up all of these, basically victim feelings of people are doing this to me. And it's important to realize that we are doing this to ourselves. By not having boundaries and not enforcing them, we're allowing other people to dictate what matters to us. So.

Shane Jacob

That's awesome. And I'm glad to know you're not going to grab my hat and, my good JW hat, and stomp on it. I'd have to say that's a boundary. No, that's super helpful. I mean, just all these ideas that you just said and all these different types, your book sounds amazing. I'm so interested. I haven't read it yet. Is it released? What's the status?

Sheryl Green

So it is in pre-sale right now, and I actually created a meditation to go along with it. So if you do pre-order it during this period, you'll get a free meditation to download right away. It will be officially released into the world on August 21st. So got a couple more weeks.

Shane Jacob

How do you get the, what can we do now? How does the pre-sale work?

Sheryl Green

Yeah, so go to, "youhadmeatno.com." There is a pre-order link and then below it'll give you instructions on how to get your download.

Shane Jacob

Awesome, awesome, good to know. Okay, moving on here, let's see. I'm gonna just quote you and see if you'll comment on it. I think this is quoting you or this is from your media. It says, 20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones that you did do. I think that's maybe Mark Twain, but you'll also regret the things that you did that you wish that you said not to. So, what can happen internally when you do something that you didn't want to.

Sheryl Green

So I'll just give you an example of this because it happened 18 years ago and I've been remarried since. So I got married for the first time about 18 years ago. We were, the night before the wedding, I wanted to get everybody together at the hotel, go out to dinner, have a good time and then go to bed early.

My mom was living about 45 minutes from the venue at the time, and she decided very kindly, it was, you know, it was coming from a good place, that she wanted to host a little get together at her house. I should have said no. It did not make sense for me to take 15 people that were staying at a hotel, pile into cars, drive 45 minutes out to her house, eat pizza, and then drive 45 minutes back to the hotel. Did not make sense, but I didn't knowhow to say no. I didn't even know that no was an option. So I dragged not only myself, but my 15 person wedding party, family, friends, all the people, out 45minutes. We didn't get home back to the hotel until late, nobody got enough sleep.

It wasn't as much of a disaster as the marriage itself, but it's something that 18 years later, I can probably let go, but it's still there. I'm still kicking myself almost two decades later for this. And that's what happens with these boundary violations that we allow is we lose a little bit of respect for ourselves in the process. You know, there's all the external issues that can arise. You know, if you agree to something you don't have bandwidth for, you might do a half-ass job. You might let people down. There's all these external outcomes that can occur, but the internal can be so painful. And just filling yourself with resentment and anger and depression is sometimes called "anger turned inwards." So, you know, it just, it sticks with you and it kind of degrades how you feel about yourself in the process.

Shane Jacob

Yeah, this next question goes right along with that Sheryl because what it sounds like what you're saying is when we don't use a boundary, when we don't establish one and use it, then we're just we're doing things that don't serve us. You said that a boundary is designed to protect that which is valuable. If a person has lower self-worth or doesn't value themselves, then they'll have tremendous challenges with boundaries because they won't know what they're actually protecting. So  wanna jus explain that a little more?

Sheryl Green

Yeah, I mean, if you don't have good self-esteem. If you don't believe that you are worthy of respect, of concern,  worthy of having and expressing your needs, it's hard to protect that. And a few years ago, well, two years ago, I was going through this whole mess and I sat down with a therapist and she said, "Okay, what do you need?" And I got this like deer in headlights expression because nobody had ever asked me that. And I sure as hell never asked myself that question. And the process of discovering what I needed couldn't come until after I got to the realization that I had the right to have needs, that I wasn't on this planet to take care of  absolutely everyone and everything. But, I was here as me. And I think when we know our value, we're more likely and more able to protect it. If that makes sense?

Shane Jacob

It makes a lot of sense and it's great. You know, when you were on our show earlier, you said this and you also in "Surviving to Thriving," another one of your books, you said, no, wait a minute. So, but yeah, "How to Overcome Setbacks and Rock Your Life." That one, you said, "The way I see it, most of the world problems..." I think you might've amended that to say, "All of the world's problems are due to alack of self-esteem." I mean, I quote you all the time with this because you're a great independent thinker and a good author. And when I heard you say that that day, and then you also said it in your book, is... I mean, it's like all of this extracurricular nonsense that doesn't service comes down to that. Right? Yeah.

Sheryl Green

Yeah, I mean, really, if you and I know it's oversimplifying it with all the world's problems. But if you look at everything going on, you know, look, people with high self-esteem, people that are secure with who they are, they don't bully. They don't attack. They don't feel like they need to take over everything. People with healthy self-esteem are, they're confident in who they are and they don't need to put anyone else down to feel that way. And you know when it when it comes to boundaries... So I also studied anthropology in college, so I have this like psychology like individual and anthropology group think in my head. And it sounds really silly, but we're all afraid of being eaten.

What happens when we're not liked, when we're abandoned, we're cast out of the tribe, we're pushed out onto the fringes of society? And honestly, that's where the predators are. Back in the, not the olden days, but back when we were truly in danger of being attacked and somebody had to wait up and watch the camp and make sure everybody was safe while others were sleeping. We were afraid of being eaten. And that part, that lizard brain is still there. If we're not liked, if we don't do what others want, if we don't people please, if we're not constantly looking to make sure that we're making everybody around us happy, we could be cast out, we could be abandoned and we could be eaten. And it sounds crazy when you think about that. And if you sit down when there's a situation and you're wondering like, oh man, should I really do this? And you can actually break it down to what am I afraid of if I don't? Oh, I'm afraid of getting eaten. Yeah, that's not as big of an issue these days. So yeah, I think self-esteem really is like that, that lint pin for everything.

Shane Jacob

Where do we begin or continue? I mean, if that, if it's such a big thing, I mean, it seems like it's just an ongoing progression. You know, it's not really something that you arrive at. So any, what's your thoughts on, you know, how do you get there? How do you become more of the person that you're describing that, that doesn't bully because you, you really value yourself.

Sheryl Green

Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm not sure that I'm 100% there yet. No, I'm sure I'm not 100% there yet. It's still an ongoing battle for me. I've recognized the problem. I've researched the problem. I'm working on it. I can help others, and I can help myself at the same time. But I think one is being you and knowing that's okay. Surrounding yourself with people that appreciate who you are. And going back to that being afraid to be eaten thing, removing people from your life because they don't respect you, they don't respect your boundaries, they put you down, whatever the situation may be, doesn't mean you're gonna be alone. It just means you're making room for the good people to come in.

And I, you know what, I could say that with my own relationship because man, have I, I call my exes the island of misfit boys. I have, I've had some dating stories out there, but when I finally got rid of the ones that weren't right, the right guy came in. So, you know, surround yourself with people. Don't be afraid to, to not cut people out of your life, but to gently remove them.

And you know, that's part of what I did with this meditation was to, you know, just, just have that constant reminder and that constant work that you're worthy. We're all worthy of love. We're all worthy of having an expressing our needs. And we're all worthy of having our needs met or having the option to walk away and not sticking around people that belittle you and make you feel bad. So that's where I'm at right now. Ask me again in a few months. Maybe I'll have more to share.

Shane Jacob

Excellent. I think that was helpful as is. Sheryl, tell us about what happens to the brain when we hear yes and when we hear no.

Sheryl Green

Yeah, so when you hear yes, you want to hear more. When you hear no, we have a tendency to shut down. It's kind of just this you get defensive, you stop listening. It puts you into this aggressive offense, really. And you that's part of the challenge of being able to say no when you want to say no. And that's one of the biggest parts of boundaries, is, you know, like, if you're given an opportunity, and I like to call them, what is it? "It's a time suck in sheep's clothing." Because we get all these opportunities around us, and it's like, well, is that really something we need to do or want to do, or is it more just a time suck and somebody else's priority?

And so when you have a hard time saying no, part of it's because you're afraid of how people are gonna react to you. And so I like to say that there's actually a couple of ways to answer a request for your time, money, materials, whatever it may be. And there's this straight up yes, for sure, I can help you with whatever that is. I've gone through my little, I call it the "clash question," should I yay or should I no? You know, there's that process that you can go through, and you can come to yes. Yes is a perfectly acceptable answer.

You can come to no, if it is a straight no, absolutely. Or you can do, I call it the improv answer, the "yes and." And first of all, we hear yes, we're like, ooh, we're leaning in, we're like, they're gonna help us, they're gonna give us what we want. And then we can put our own conditions on it. So yes, I will lend you money, and it's going to be less than you had asked for and I'm not going to be able to get it to you until next week. Or yes, I would love for you to come and stay at my house, and I can only host you for three days instead of 20. And I'm just totally making this up off the cuff, you know? And I'm going to need you to watch the dog while you're here, whatever it may be. So you're putting your own conditions. It's not just a blanket, yep, whatever you need, absolutely. I will give up everything I have to help you. It's, I can help you in this way. And you know what, if that's not acceptable, then they're actually giving you the no.

Shane Jacob

Okay, right on, good. So, let's just, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about the person who you, whom you uphold the boundary may be disappointed, or you just make up a story about them being disappointed, and either way you're gonna have to deal with your feelings. Because when we go about this, you know, it seems like at the forefront of our mind is, "Oh, my big concern is how they're going to feel about it." And we really don't like go to the core of why that matters to us. It's probably because of what's going on here, but either way, right. We still have to deal with the ideas that we have or what they were, you know, us upholding the boundary and how that affects the other person. So talk to us about that.

Sheryl Green

Look, people fear change and they don't like it. So if you have been asking for my help for the last 10 years, and I have without question given you that assistance in whatever way you want for the last 10years, the first time that I tell you no, I can't support you in that way ,that's gonna hurt. But it's not my responsibility, and it's not my fault that you hurt. That is, like I said earlier, your emotions, your responsibility. So people may not like it at first. Some people are gonna get used to it. Some people are gonna smile and go like, "'Damn, she got some boundaries.'"

You know, and they're gonna be proud of you because they've been watching the world step all over you for years. You know, those are the people you keep in your life. Some people it's gonna take a little adjustment. It's gonna take probably some reinforcing the boundaries to reiterate like, you know, I know this is what it was like for 10 years, but this is what it's like now. And it's gonna take some time and it's gonna be a little painful and they're gonna get mopey.

When my dog doesn't get his way, he goes and sits in the corner and mopes. And you might have that from your friends and your family. And then you're going to have some people that straight up do not respect your boundary. They will not adhere to your boundary. And they will do everything in their power to manipulate it, to manipulate you out of your boundary. And those are the people you have to say goodbye to. It's painful if somebody's been in your life for a long time, you know, removing them hurts. But ultimately, you are responsible for yourself. And sometimes that just has to be done to uphold, you know, your boundaries and maintain your self-respect.

Shane Jacob

Yeah, that's a big one right there, Sheryl, because I mean, if you're, you know, you can't just stick your, it doesn't, I don't, it doesn't sound like a good idea to stick your toe in the water and throw out a boundary and then backpedal on it if somebody says, well, I'm done with you now. Because, I mean, we have to be willing to say that this really is a boundary and what you do with it, you know, what the, the consequence that you, you know, let's just say, well, they're never going to speak with you again. We have to, if we're going to, if that boundary is real and we're gonna do it, and we're resigned to do it, we have to be probably willing to deal with whatever the repercussion is, right?

‍

Sheryl Green

Absolutely. And remember, deep down, you're not going to get eaten. Probably.

Shane Jacob

Right on. Wow, that's awesome. I'm excited to read your book. Again, that's YouHadMeAtNo.com, right? That's where we go. Awesome. Tell us about what's going on with Sheryl in the future. What would you like to leave us with today on The Horsemanship Journey? Last thoughts?  

Sheryl Green

What's going on? Okay, so you have the right to your boundaries Please please uphold them. And because I'll never fully get away from animal rescue because it'll always be a part of who I am, please spay and neuter your animals. It's super important, and we've got enough little creatures running around. So that's a boundary too But yeah, just you know what, remember that you're worthy, that you have the right to self-respect and to respect from others.

Shane Jacob

Awesome. Sheryl, we so much appreciate your time and your thoughts and the independent thought that you put into the world. We wish you continued success. Ladies and gentlemen, Sheryl Green.

Sheryl Green

Thank you so much.

‍