60. Unlocking Self Worth: The Power of Boundaries in Personal Growth with Ronda Wynn

What if the narratives you've carried since childhood aren't actually true? Join us on "It's the Human Experience Podcast" as we explore this transformative concept with empowerment coach Rhonda Wynn. Rhonda opens up about her deeply personal journey of confronting negative childhood beliefs through therapy, and how she redefined her self-worth to become "Rhonda in real life." Discover how recognizing and addressing these internal stories can lead to profound personal growth and authentic living.

Ever found yourself drained by one-sided relationships? We dive into the critical importance of understanding personal values and setting non-negotiables. Rhonda and I discuss the challenges that reformed people pleasers face when learning to set expectations and create standards. From finding meaningful engagement in daily interactions to giving oneself permission to receive, this conversation is packed with insights on honoring self-worth and fostering healthy, balanced relationships.

Setting boundaries isn't just about saying no—it's about preserving your self-worth. We tackle the tough but necessary task of setting boundaries, especially around accepting apologies. Rhonda shares anecdotes and reflections that illustrate the power of standing firm in your core values, even when it means hurting others' feelings. We also explore the value of collaboration and strategic positioning in professional and personal settings, emphasizing how leading from a place of service can ultimately strengthen your self-worth and bring value to any table. Tune in for a compelling episode that promises to leave you empowered and inspired.

Chapters

• 0:00 Self-Worth and Community Cultivation
• 12:10 Setting Boundaries to Honor Self-Worth
• 17:00 Navigating Boundaries and Core Values
• 27:38 Strengthening Self-Worth Through Collaboration

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to. It's the Human Experience Podcast Hosted by Hazel Brown, a healthcare leader, wife, mom and career coach. If you're big on authenticity, personal development, perseverance and transparency, you're in the right place. Get ready to be uplifted, inspired and empowered as you become fearless in pursuit of the life you desire and deserve. Our goal is to help you level up by creating a safe space to learn and reflect, while listening to transparent stories from our host or successful professionals and business owners who've agreed to share the parts of success that typically gets X'd out on social media, because that's the part you need to see and hear the process. Go ahead and subscribe. You don't want to miss out on these transparent stories and discussions that reveal highs, lows, aha moments and nuggets that'll help you to grow and glow.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Hey, hey, hey, you are now tuned into the. It's the Human Experience podcast. I'm your host, Hazel Brown. Today I have Rhonda Wynn on the podcast. Listen, we're going to jump into all things. We're talking self-worth, removing self-doubt, aligning yourself, positioning yourself to great opportunities, because you're deserving of them. Hey, Rhonda, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:34

Hey, girl. Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. This is one of my favorite topics. I love talking about this journey.

Speaker 2: 1:41

Yay, Listen, I'm excited for it. Before we jump into the conversation, listen. Tell the people who is Rhonda.

Speaker 3: 1:49

Okay, Well, my name is Rhonda Nguyen. I am an empowerment coach and a learning and development specialist. My motto is live your best life in real life. So what I do is I teach corporate professionals and women in general how to use simple strategies to make a huge impact and move the needle in their life.

Speaker 2: 2:09

I love it. I love it and I think that, like online, it says Rhonda in real life because, listen, we got to be Rhonda in real life. We're not just out here in these social media streets pretending to be who we're not. We are living our life online in person and all the things. So I'm so here for it. Yes, thank you. Listen, I wanted to really unfold like some of the layers as we kind of get to the place where you are able to be Rhonda in real life. Let's start there, like what was the journey that you had to go on when it comes to removing self-doubt out of the picture, like turning that sound down, if you will, and putting the sound up on self-worth and making sure that you are able to become the person you know you're deserving of becoming.

Speaker 3: 2:55

I think the beginning of my journey started with therapy. I had to face the narrative that had been created in, you know, in my head, based on my surroundings, about who I am and what I deserve. You know, you grow up and our circumstances, our life situation, will cause us to believe certain things about ourselves, and these are things that could have been, you know, told to us by our parents or friends or certain situations. So I think for me, the journey started with facing who I thought I was and why did I believe these things about myself? So I had to go really really deep, really all the way back to childhood, and really kind of face those I'm hard to love or I'm difficult, or people always leave. I had evidence that I did not deserve the best. In my mind, this was evident. So I had to go back and kind of re-evaluate what I believe to be evidence about my work.

Speaker 2: 3:57

Yeah, I love that. I love that so much because many of us to your point. It's not just your inner critic, it's also childhood triggers and trauma and things that were said to you, whether it's in the home, it's at school, it's in the neighborhood or whatever the case may be that we start to own. And I think it's so important that you pointed that out to where it's like go back, go deep, go low, go wherever you got to go, but figure out what you are saying about yourself to yourself, so that you could then start to face it Right. Even when you think about therapy, we can't know what to bring to therapy if we don't go low and if we don't go deep.

Speaker 2: 4:37

So I love that you shared. Like that you were able to go back and really figure out, like what do I really think about myself? Like what is it about me that's showing up in the world? And then to your point yeah, I see some receipts about these things, but how can I hold myself accountable to make changes where necessary and to own the parts of me that I possibly and I'm speaking for you, but I possibly look at it as a negative, but maybe it's nothing wrong with it, right. Maybe this is what makes Rhonda Rhonda.

Speaker 3: 5:07

Absolutely and embracing it. It's a process to understand, you know, how our defense mechanisms have become a part of our identity and then to have that identity shift. I know for me, growing up I was bullied severely for being quote unquote different. I grew up as a military brat and then my parents got divorced when I was eight years old and moving from, you know, military life to civilian life is, you know, an adjustment and traumatic in itself. But then moving from suburban civilian life to, you know, inner city divorcee, child with divorcee, it was a culture shock and I wasn't prepared for that. I only knew how to be me in the settings that I was familiar with.

Speaker 3: 5:55

So moving to a new city, being the weird kid and getting bullied and not understanding why kid and getting bullied and not understanding why, the narrative was just that. You know I'm weird, I'm misunderstood and I didn't have the emotional maturity to understand that. It wasn't me. I was just in a culture that I didn't understand and didn't know how to adapt to and it took, you know, decades to kind of get some crystal clarity under. It's not that people don't like you or that you're weird. You're just in an environment that isn't best suited for your personality based on a number of things.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Yeah, I love that. I love that you brought it really to the level of the reality where people would easily resonate and understand what you're saying. From the perspective of that, it can literally be that you're raised in one area of the world in the way that you were brought up and the way that you're wired, based on even thinking about from a young age of eight and under. We're programmed well before that in terms of like who we are and how we're going to show up, and so when you think about that, then moving you to another place in the world, another way of life, it becomes like a shock to your point. But you truly stand out to everyone else because they weren't raised that way, they don't see things from that perspective. And so then you're like what's wrong with me? And it's interesting that nothing would have been wrong with you if you were still in the same space. But because you're in a new space, you stand out and I think the crazy part there in terms of like the gems is that actually made you more well-rounded over time because you were able to see things from different lens, where in the moment it just feels like child, bring me back to that other space Like why is it like this?

Speaker 2: 7:44

And I feel like people can resonate to that on so many different levels, not just from a moving perspective or not fitting in perspective, but understanding that sometimes you're in a different season of your life and it will feel like what's going on here?

Speaker 2: 7:58

But it's that lack of familiarity to what's going on in your current state. But it doesn't mean that you necessarily need to give up or feel like I can't do it. You just need to realize it's different and kind of get low to the point of what you said before so that you could better understand where you are and be able to move through it. So I love that. Yeah, listen, I know that you are big on really aligning yourself to what feels right to you from a self-worth perspective, like we've gone through the things we've done, the therapy, we've gotten low and now I know my worth, I know I embrace my being different. Now I'm unapologetic about who I am. So what have you had to do to cultivate like the right kind of community, the right kind of positivity in your life to hold space for who you are?

Speaker 3: 8:48

A lot. It's a lot of work and I think it's joyous work, but I think that people don't understand when you are stepping into your identity of a person who is in a place of self-love and self-worth and self-value and understanding boundaries, curating a community. It starts, it's a job, it's every day. I mean it starts from the content you consume to the events that you attend, to how much you invest in yourself, the events that you attend, to how much you invest in yourself. So me personally, I mean I really had to go through a reinvention of sorts because, like I said, I had this narrative that I'm hard to love and I misunderstood and you know people don't like me because they don't understand me and I really had to take a look at the type of people that I was surrounding myself with and take some accountability for the relationships in the community or lack thereof.

Speaker 3: 9:54

Because, as a defense mechanism previously, before my self-love journey, I was putting myself in spaces that I thought would be easier to fit in. You know, I'm trying to fit in, I'm trying to be normal, I'm trying to be like everyone else. So I was putting myself in spaces where a lot of people had not faced their trauma. They were in not a place of feeling, not in a place of high emotional intelligence, and I ended up getting burned because I was choosing people that I deemed to be non-threatening instead of actually seeking out community of people who had similar values.

Speaker 3: 10:33

So when I went on my self-love journey, I really had to identify my core values and say, okay, if my core values are what's getting me judged, necessarily, or what's making people misunderstand, where are the people that share these core values? So if the core value is being extroverted, if the core value is luxury, if the core value is family self-care, I really had to do a deep dive and say, okay, if these are the people that relate to me, where are they and how can I surround myself with those people? So I started attending events, events such as your event. I invested in a high-end spa, I started traveling and just really curating my social media, using social media as a way to find that community, without feeling intimidated or worried that I wasn't going to fit in.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Yeah, I love that you really kind of share the road that you had to take to really get there and I think that's so important to call out. And so, yes, Rhonda has come to previous events and she will be at upcoming events, both as a panelist and an attendee and all the things right. But, to your point, I think it's so important that we find those spaces and really identify our core values in order to be able to feel so indifferent from everyone else from the perspective of having that community. And, like you, I've definitely gone on the journey in terms of figuring out who I am, embracing who I am and honoring who I am, because I've recognized that I'm not for everybody, but everybody that is for me will get the poor that they deserve. And what I had to understand, particularly for myself I'm a poor, I am going to pour left, right and center, I'm going to run your cup over, because that's just how I am.

Speaker 2: 12:37

But I started to realize that in certain instances, when you're around somebody who is a receiver, and only a receiver, you're going to always be depleted. So I had to make sure that I started to, to your point, think about values Like I don't want to be around gatekeepers. I don't want to be around people that is all for self or selfish. I don't want to be around people who don't reflect and don't think about how they can hold themselves accountable and what they can do to improve themselves in terms of the decisions that they made. So I have to find out what were deal breakers for me, if you will, non-negotiables, because then I will not put myself in situations to where I feel so different.

Speaker 2: 13:17

Not because we're not open to differences within people, not because we're not open to being more well-rounded in associating ourselves with people who have different values from you. But in that moment you really need to readily understand that this is what I'm going to. So I know I'm going to stand out here. Things are going to be a little different here, but for whatever those purposes are, the importance is to make sure you know who you are. That way you don't lose who you are right, you don't feel to yourself that, oh my goodness, like something is wrong with me. You just recognize like I know who I am, I know what's important, and you're able to quickly cut and create that boundary in those situations because you're like OK, I see what's the problem, I see the red flag, I know what it is and I'm going to be able to move forward from there, so I love that.

Speaker 3: 14:19

I think a big part of a self-worth journey is learning how to vet a situation you know, really paying attention to what your needs are and what your expectations are, and saying it's okay to have expectations. I think a lot of people that struggle with self-worth are like myself. I'm a reformed people pleaser, so I never set expectations for myself. What do I want? What am I getting out of this? What do I expect? It was just give, give, give, give, give and we don't give ourselves the permission to receive. And because we don't give ourselves permission to receive, we're not really vetting situations. We're not creating standards for ourselves. We're just kind of taking whatever is given to us because we don't want to deal with abandonment or conflict or getting hurt instead of saying you know what? Who all going to be there?

Speaker 2: 15:17

This is going to be worth my time Listen it's going to be worth my time.

Speaker 3: 15:21

Is this something that is beneficial to me of the self-worth journey? Is understanding this is who I am. This is what I bring to the table, this is what I want for myself, and is this aligned?

Speaker 2: 15:48

with that, yeah, and holding yourself honest, right when it comes to those things. It's funny because, as you're talking, like towards the end, I started thinking through, like how that showed up for me in my life, to where, like over the years, to your point of events, I've done events where now I realize that I'm not willing to do events, to where we're going to come and have small talk. I'm not doing it. It has to provide value, exactly. It has to give people the breakthrough, it has to help them get unstuck, stuck.

Speaker 2: 16:17

If I'm not providing real value and people are not getting a breakthrough and they're not feeling a sense of feeling heard, understood and valued, I'm not doing it because it's not valuable to me and I don't feel like it's providing them what they need. And so, even from the perspective of going to events, I have to understand too that I'm not the kind of person that goes to an event and say, hey, rhonda, how are you, what's your name, where are you from, what do you do, and then by the end I just know everybody's name and what they do and where they're from and I've gotten no value. I can't even attend it, let alone create it. So you have to know what that looks like for you, because otherwise you'll always feel depleted, you always feel like what is wrong.

Speaker 3: 16:56

Right, no, I completely, completely understand that. And allowing yourself to be okay with saying no, I think that's one of the hardest things that people go through on a self-worth journey. I recently had a discussion with someone and at almost 50 years old, I've come just now, come to the realization that you don't have to accept an apology just because it isn't. Realization that you don't have to accept an apology just because it's given. And we are taught that, as you know children, someone does something to you and the parents like, oh well, say sorry. And then the person says I'm sorry and it's considered swash. And we grow up with this kind of mindset that well, as long as someone apologizes, everything's okay.

Speaker 3: 17:39

But when you go on this self-worth journey and you understand that I don't have to accept a sorry just because you said it, because saying sorry and being sorry is two different things and I don't think that we understand that when we're not focused on our, our work, you know. So someone does something and we teach people how to treat us based on how we treat ourselves, and there's go, oh, I'm sorry, I'm just not a place where I'm going to say you know, I don't accept that apology and it took a long time to be able to not, out of obligation, be like, oh, it's fine, but it's not fine, because when you say, oh, it's okay or it's fine, that speaks back to your self-worth. I don't deserve nor a lot of apologies, aren't it's just as Americans, we're trained to just apologize and expect people to receive it. A big part of my self-worth journey is learning that I don't have to accept an apology just because it's good.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Yeah, no, I love that, Listen, and I know that you're a Leo too and the Leo in me, like I will take your apology left, right and center, but we are done and I've definitely had to do that many times. Like, I appreciate your apology, I appreciate us talking through this, me and you, the absolute best in life, but we will never talk to each other again. Thank you and goodbye. And it's good because, to your point, you're creating boundaries for yourself and you're creating that self-worth for yourself and you deserve to be myself in that situation. I'm setting myself up for another problem right down, you know, further down the lane. So I love that.

Speaker 3: 19:42

And it goes back to your core values. I think that it's very important for each of us to understand that we all have different values. You know and when you can stand on business and your core values, like that's why my online name is Real Life by Rhonda, because everyone that knows me knows the Rhonda you get at work. Is the Rhonda that you're getting at the conference. Is the Rhonda that you're getting the coaching call? Same Rhonda you're getting at church and at home.

Speaker 3: 20:11

And when I went on that self-worth journey and I started looking at my core values and I said, ok, if I'm being honest, if I'm being authentic, I have to learn to be OK with boundaries that are going to more than likely hurt someone's feelings by me being honest and saying you know, this is how I feel about the situation and there's really no soft or. I'm not going to say those are soft way, but sometimes, when you're being authentic, feelings get hurt and the hardest part of my self-worth journey was to learn to be okay with potentially hurting the feelings of someone who is not evolved or isn't healed yet, for the greater good of how I feel about myself.

Speaker 2: 20:57

Yeah, I love that. I think that what comes up for me is trying to better understand how you navigate friendships, relationships, partnerships and collaborations where, maybe, to your point, that person's not healed yet right, they don't understand how to love in the way that you need to be loved. So how do you give grace in those instances?

Speaker 3: 21:20

So the way I navigate. That is, I had to learn through therapy that I'm going to hurt people's feelings but I still love them and they may not understand the difference between me setting a boundary and saying no. I had to be okay with being looked at as being mean to people that love me, but understanding that you know what it is, what it is. I'm so sorry that you don't understand. Sorry that you don't understand, and I equate it to like a parent and a child. You know we've all probably had those experiences.

Speaker 3: 22:00

As children we felt like our parents didn't love us because they did something that we didn't understand and it seemed very mean. I know there were several times I threatened to run away for a little bit of nothing Very similar situations. You know we know what's best for us, we know what we need and we know that sometimes our friends and our loved ones are never going to understand this. So there has to be a level of acceptance, just like a parent accepts that you're four years old, you don't understand why you can't wear a tank top and shorts in the snow, but I'm not letting you do it and I'm sorry if I'm the bad guy. I still love you and understanding that when that child says to that parent, I hate you, that they don't really hate you, they just don't understand.

Speaker 3: 22:47

And this is very similar. So when it's situations where it's someone that you can't really be with a long handled spoon like a partner or a parent, that level of acceptance of this is who this person is and I'm going to have to have a fixed in and meet them where they are because they are only capable of so much. But I'm also going to have to be okay with setting the boundaries that possibly more than likely going to hurt this person's feelings because they don't understand. So it's not easy and I think that a lot of people are always looking for those kind of like soft, easy ways to navigate those relationships. So when you're dealing with people who are not equally yoked emotionally, it's always going to be a blow.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Yeah, no, I love that, because I think, to that end, if it's a family member, if it is a loved one, whether siblings, mother, father, whatever the case may be, then it's going to have to be you addressing and navigating. How healed are they? Not from a judgy perspective, but from a perspective of, okay, I think that their intention is good, but I'm going of. Okay, I think that their intention is good, but I'm going to leave this alone. I'm not going to expect this from this person and I know that they love me in terms of their intention, so I'm going to let them stay where they are without cutting them off. But when it comes to the point of, maybe friends and people that you don't necessarily have to have in your life, if it becomes a constant thing to where your energy is being depleted and you're constantly feeling not your best self every time they're around, then you have to enforce those boundaries and, to your point, be that mean person.

Speaker 3: 24:24

Absolutely. I always say that everyone does not deserve the VIP ticket to your life. When you think about a concert and you think about people who have front row and backstage passes and all of those things. Those people put in a lot of work. They were like Amex platinum holders. They waited in line on Ticketmaster for 24 hours ahead of time, they paid triple the price so they have access. But those folks that have not met that standard sometimes you have to reposition folks to the nosebleed section of your life. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:57

No, for sure Not the nosebleed, but I completely understand where you're coming from. Listen, I also want to find out, in terms of positioning yourself to opportunities into places that you know you're deserving of, when you think about kind of feeling different, kind of feeling like I know I deserve this life, I know I'm called for this, I know I deserve better, like, how do you position yourself for the right opportunities and to ensure that you're aligned with the kind of life that makes sense for you?

Speaker 3: 25:30

Definitely curating a social circle that is aligned with my core values. I do a lot of research. Online Networking is huge for me. You know, relationship building. I position myself to make sure that my name is being said in rooms that I'm not in, and one of the best ways to do that is to nurture relationships with people of similar values. So this is how we find out about events that are exclusive or, you know, becoming a plus one at an event that you couldn't get into because you nurtured that relationship.

Speaker 3: 26:04

In a nurturing relationship, the best part of positioning is putting yourself in a place to serve someone who has a similar value. So if you guys have similar mission, similar goals, similar avatars, you know and you are already in a place where you can serve someone who can help position, you take the opportunity to do it. And I think a lot of people miss the mark on this, because when you are in the beginning of your self-worth journey, you really don't know what you have to offer. You know they're like what do I have, what can I do? Especially if it's someone you're trying to level up and there may be someone that you want to connect with or someone who is in a position to elevate you and you're not seeing yourself as worthy.

Speaker 3: 26:48

You're like, well, what can I give this person? But you'd be surprised how? Just offering moral support, offering a prayer, making an introduction. So for me, I've been able to position myself and align myself with some amazing A players just by offering moral support, just by saying, hey, you know what, I know someone, I know a venue. If you need this, sometimes something as simple, as I noticed, you didn't have any reviews on your website. Would you like a Google review? Or how can I help further your mission, further your goal the return on that is amazing. When it comes to aligning yourself with the right people and the right mindset and, most importantly, the right energy, yeah, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2: 27:38

I think that the reality is that we're all people, at the end of the day, and we all need help with something Right, and then realizing that it's not all about what you can receive, but how can you help. Because I think that when we lead from a place of serving, oftentimes not everyone else is leading from that place. They're leading from a place of what can you do for me as opposed to what can I do for you, and so it's different from people. Pleasing is from the perspective of we have the same values, we're trying to make the same impact. How can I help you and how will this benefit me? Because I'm still not a fool and within that, it's not from a place of ulterior motives, it's from a place of collaboration is going to help us get further on our mission, from a sincere place to where you're not over there, burnt down in what you're doing, but we're actually able to move together collectively and make more impact. So I love that and I think that, from the perspective of even work, so many times, from being a people pleaser at work, people will take on whatever other people don't want to do and then start talking through the fact that they can't get a promotion because, girl, you're doing busy work, you're not doing what the people are really trying to solve high level problems on.

Speaker 2: 28:48

So when you think about positioning yourself from like a nine to five perspective, it's also important to make sure you understand, like, what are the company's pain points in the same space of growing yourself on your entrepreneurial journey. What are these people's pain points? What strengths do you have? That's going to help put out some fires in your nine to five world, in your entrepreneurial world, in your day-to-day community world, and then that's what's going to help strengthen the toolbox, if you will. That's going to help sharpen each other when it comes to iron, sharpens iron. And so I love that you're able to point that out, because sometimes, when we think about our ability to get to where we're trying to go, it's so much clearer than we think it is. It's simply what are your strengths, who are you, what are you owning, what are you not owning and who needs what I have and what is it that they're weak in but I'm sharp in? And simply doing that alignment in terms of putting the puzzle together, often helps make life so much easier for everybody.

Speaker 3: 29:49

It does and it helps to strengthen your sense of self-worth when you look at your strengths and you look at your values and you look for solutions to other people's problems just through those strengths and values. I know I'm a public speaker and I understand that the majority of people that's their biggest fear in the world is being the speaker. I am not great with technology. That is not great with technology. That is not my strong point. I would tell people all day long please do not send me an Excel spreadsheet and expect anything, but if you need someone to deliver the message or be the bad guy or whatever, this is something that I'm comfortable doing. So I think for positioning at work, one of the best things you can do is know your value, know your strength and apply it. When there is a solution to a problem, you look for those opportunities to solve those problems through your core strengths. It fills your cup and you understand like I am valuable, Like I deserve everything that's coming to me, because I'm bringing something to the table that no one else has.

Speaker 2: 30:56

Yeah, absolutely. And when we think about just even the positioning part, I just want to circle back and repoint out make sure that you're speaking to the right people, because sometimes we'll lend our solutions to people who are not decision makers, can't do anything in the fight, and then we wonder why we're not where we need to be. You're talking to the wrong people. So make sure that you're talking to the right people. Be observant and understanding who are really the doers and movers, whose voice is really heard, and then, with those people, you're making sure that you're the solution in those situations. But don't share those ideas with any and everybody. They'll just take your ideas and you'll be right where you were when you started.

Speaker 3: 31:35

Surely will, surely will.

Speaker 2: 31:37

Where can the listeners find you online if they want to connect?

Speaker 3: 31:41

Everywhere. So it's Real Life by Rhonda on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram, on my website it's reallifebyrhondacom. I am completely branded and easy to find. You just type in real life and more than likely it's gonna come up and that's Rhonda without an H. So just Real Life by Rhonda Love it.

Speaker 2: 32:01

Well, thank you so much, Rhonda, for joining us on the podcast sharing the gems. Listen, I am so here for it. If you are not already following the podcast, scroll up to the top and follow the podcast. Make sure you follow us, rate us five stars, leave a comment and all the things. Share us with your besties, Don't just hold us to yourself. Again, Rhonda, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

Speaker 3: 32:23

Thank you for having me, Hazel. It was a blast. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 32:26

You're welcome.

Speaker 1: 32:29

We hope you caught all those gems. So here for all of it. Be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss a gem. Write a review so that we know to keep bringing you episodes like this. And check us out online at itsthehumanexperiencecom to keep up with us. Keep growing and glowing. Catch you on the next episode.