Welcome back to the Self Love Fix. My name is Beatrice, and today I have Self Trust Alchemy alumni, Brittany Simmons, coming on to talk with me about setting boundaries, motherhood, and her experience inside Self Trust Alchemy! Please welcome Brittany!

Before and After

Beatrice: I’m so, so, so excited to have you here. Welcome!

Brittany: Thank you! I’m super excited as well.

Beatrice: So, for everyone reading, Brittany was in the most recent round of Self Trust Alchemy.

So Brittany, I’d love to know…what did life look like for you before Self Trust Alchemy, and what did it look like after?

Brittany: Before, I absolutely hated myself. I felt completely unworthy.

I really started listening to your podcast back in the end of 2021, when I was actually in recovery. I used to do anything I could to drown out all that hate I had for myself. I had tons of abandonment issues, tons of feelings of unworthiness…I felt that nobody cared about me, and that boiled down into me hating myself and feeling like I just wasn’t worthy of living.

I masked that with food, drugs, alcohol, everything. Then when I was listening to your podcast, I just knew I had to start making changes, because I just felt like my mind was always going crazy.

I was always thinking about what everybody else was thinking about me…or what I thought they were thinking about me.

I always thought I was so unworthy of anybody’s attention or love…I felt I was not meant to be here. I did not know who I was, and I just conformed to whoever I was hanging out with at the moment.

Drinking allowed me to have attention and be around people, and because my mind was always going, I had no peace. The only way to mask that was with the drugs.

So once I got into the program, I thought, “Well, what is it going to hurt if I get into this? I can only go up from here.” And my entire life has changed since then.

My mind is very peaceful. I can sit and deliberately, carefully think through why I’m being triggered and what kind of projections I’m putting onto other people. I’m not sitting in shame or guilt anymore because I have feelings.

That was a big thing. I wasn’t allowed to have feelings growing up, either. I was always put down and told I wasn’t supposed to cry. Nobody wanted to hear from me. So I had a lot going on.

Now, I’m showing up as my authentic self, and I don’t care what others think of that person. I know who I am now. I’m a very emotional person, but these days it’s all happy tears, because I never thought that I could care about myself. I never thought that I would ever know who I am.

I’m loving learning who I am. I’m loving becoming myself. And it’s just been such a magical ride. I actually enjoy when I’m triggered now, because I get to sit and unpack that and figure out those layers of myself.

There are times that I look in the mirror and I just start crying because I love the person that I am. And it’s somebody I never thought I could be.

Of course, this journey isn’t over yet. It’s a long ride that we’re going to be taking, but I am beyond grateful and excited for it now.

Beatrice: Wow. That’s amazing to hear. And I can feel it, too, that you are 100% telling the truth.

It’s one thing for us to say affirmations and go, “Yeah, I love myself.” But it’s another thing when you can sense that love in the way someone is saying it. I can feel that self-love radiating off of you.

from when someone’s saying it, that they really mean it and I can feel it from you.

Breaking Generational Trauma

Beatrice: I love what you said earlier too, about feeling your feelings.

For a lot of students in Self Trust Alchemy, that was a tough thing to tackle. They were like, “I don’t want to feel my feelings. Can we fix them? Can we get rid of them instead?”

What has that been like for you? How does it feel to feel your feelings now versus when a feeling would pop up before?

Brittany: I don’t have shame anymore. I don’t have guilt. I’m not feeling like something’s wrong with me. I don’t feel the need to shove those feelings out. I don’t feel like they’re not supposed to be here. I just tell myself, “All right, I’ll cry for ten minutes if I need to. I’ll feel it when I need to.”

My daughter even tells me now. She’ll say, “Mom, just cry it out. It’s okay. You need to get it out.” And she’ll pat me on the back and just give me permission to feel it.

Beatrice: I love that. We can make that wrong in our own minds, right? Crying, anger, all the things…we can easily convince ourselves we’re wrong for doing and feeling those things.

Speaking of your daughter, how is your relationship with her now? Has it changed at all?

Beatrice: Oh, absolutely. I am so much more patient and understanding with her. I let her feel her feelings. I just tell her, “Hey, when you’re doing, you can come talk to me. We’ll have a conversation to see if that feeling was a little too strong for that instance,” and things like that.

That was one of my big motivators behind doing this self-work; I didn’t want my daughter getting caught in this cycle of generational trauma.

My parents were just doing the best they could with what they knew at the time, of course, and I know that. A lot of the pain and hate and anger that I had towards them has abated. I reflected on the fact that they did their best, and I reflected on how their parents were, and they did pretty good in comparison to that.

So, I’ve let that go. I delved into your thing about remothering with astrology. I did your month meditation for inner child healing with affirmations. And since then, our relationship has gotten way stronger—my relationship with my parents and with my daughter. I’m just so excited to be able to help my daughter thrive as a human being.

Setting Boundaries Is Beautiful

Brittany: This work has such far-reaching benefits. My parents and I have a better relationship because I’ve learned about setting boundaries. Setting boundaries is fantastic. So is being able to say no.

I always thought that I had to be the people-pleaser who did everything for everybody, just so I could get the attention that allowed me to feel worthy. I never thought about setting boundaries. And now I’m able to say no, not today, or no, I don’t have the capacity for that.

Another example of how this work stretches from me to others is that my family has also been setting boundaries with me, and I love it. I’m so excited.

And if they don’t respect my boundaries, I’m honestly okay parting ways at this point. That’s something I never thought I’d be able to say, either.

If somebody does not fit into my life or respect that I’ve been setting boundaries, no matter how we’re related or how long we’ve known each other…that’s okay. My life matters enough for me to hold that space. How I feel matters and how I show up matters.

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The Foundation of Setting Boundaries

Beatrice: I can really tell how much you care about yourself. I think that’s the foundation for setting boundaries.

People often wonder why they can’t manage setting boundaries and why they always overextend themselves. And it sounds like the simplest thing, but it really comes down to this: do you actually care about yourself enough to start setting boundaries and holding them?

Brittany: Absolutely. And the other thing is…honestly, having my family start setting boundaries relieved a lot of pressure for me, because I didn’t have to overthink things anymore. I wasn’t worrying about, “Oh, am I making them mad? Am I pissing them off?” Now we know exactly where we stand on different matters, and it relieves a lot of stress for everybody. It makes things a lot simpler.

Beatrice: Yes. I love that. I feel like people think setting boundaries is mean, but to me, I think, “Thank God for making things clear.”

The Surprise of Self Trust Alchemy

Beatrice: So, I’m curious: what was something that you got out of Self Trust Alchemy that you didn’t expect to get?

Brittany: Honestly, I didn’t expect to really figure out who I was and accept that person. I didn’t expect to accept where I was at in my life.

I was just hoping to learn something that I could do with my thoughts to find some peace in my mind, and that was really it. I didn’t have too many expectations, but I knew it’d be fantastic because you were teaching it, and everything you do is absolutely fire. So thank you.

Also, the biggest thing is that I am comfortable going out and meeting new people and doing new things and sitting in discomfort. That is exactly what I never expected to learn, how to sit in discomfort and love it. And if I reached the end of the event and I didn’t meet anybody or click with anybody or didn’t enjoy it, I can say, “Okay, at least I experienced it. Now I know.” And I just walk out happy.

I showed up as myself, and if people liked me, they liked me. If they didn’t, they didn’t, and it’s fine.

Thank You, Brittany!

Beatrice: I love this so much, Brittany. It was so incredible having you here and hearing your story about breaking generational trauma, setting boundaries, and transforming how you show up. It was even more incredible having you as a student in Self Trust Alchemy. Thank you so much for joining me!

WORK WITH BEATRICE:

Join Self Trust Alchemy, a 16 week group program designed to help you alchemize self-doubt, overwhelm, and overthinking to NEXT-LEVEL self-trust in your ability to set boundaries, achieve your goals, and use your voice: https://beatricekamau.thrivecart.com/self-trust-alchemy/ 

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