Say The Things

This week I'm covering the first four of ten deathbed regrets shared with hospice nurses—not to depress you, but to give you a roadmap while you still have time. Includes research from Blue Zones and the Framingham Heart Study on how connection and purpose add years to your life.

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Mary Oliver's famous question might make your throat tighten. That's because most of us have never actually been asked that question - not in a way that expected an honest answer.

Instead, we've spent decades answering different questions: "How are the kids?" "What does your husband need?" "Can you help with this?" Until one day, we wake up and realize we don't know who we are anymore.

In this episode, we explore what happens when the roles that defined you - mother, wife, daughter, caregiver - shift or disappear. We talk about why asking "Who am I?" feels terrifying, and more importantly, how to actually start answering it.

This isn't about reinventing yourself. It's about coming home to who you've always been underneath the layers of conditioning, performance, and people-pleasing.

If you've been living everyone else's life and you're ready to reclaim your own - this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways:

✨ Your mind has been trained to lie to you. Your body tells the truth. Start with somatic awareness - notice what your body actually feels, not what you think you "should" feel.

✨ You're not broken - you're out of practice at being yourself. The neural pathways for self-knowledge weakened from lack of use, but neuroplasticity means they can be rebuilt.

✨ Identity emerges from boundaries. Sometimes it's easier to know what you DON'T want. Make a "not me" list.

✨ Give yourself permission to try things and quit. You're gathering data, not signing blood oaths. Exploration doesn't require commitment.

✨ When you reclaim yourself, your relationships will shift. Some will deepen, some will struggle, some will end. This is painful and necessary.

✨ The terror is the threshold. That fear you feel when asking "Who am I?" isn't a stop sign - it's the doorway to freedom.

Resources Mentioned:

Poem: "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

Concept: The "Fawn Response" - Pete Walker's trauma survival strategy of appeasing and people-pleasing

Science: Neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to form new neural pathways throughout life

Over the past nine weeks, you've done the work. You've set boundaries, clarified your values, and practiced giving yourself grace. But now you have something you might not have had in years: space. And if you're like me, that space can feel more uncomfortable than the chaos ever did.

In this episode, I'm talking about what happens when we finally create room in our lives—and then don't know what to do with it. I introduce Brené Brown's concept of the FFT (the F*cking First Time) and why doing something new always feels awkward before it feels natural. I share a recent snow day that reminded me how easily I default to filling time rather than asking what I actually need. And I challenge you to befriend the quiet instead of running from it.

This isn't about adding more to your plate. It's about learning to trust that empty space won't swallow you whole.

In this episode:

• Why the space you've created might feel harder than the chaos you left behind
• Understanding the FFT and why discomfort is part of growth
• The four-second rule that reveals our addiction to noise
• A simple practice for befriending silence this week
• What's coming in the next episodes (spoiler: Blue Zones research and wisdom from hospice nurses)

Resources mentioned:

• Emily P. Freeman's The Next Right Thing podcast
• Brené Brown's concept of the FFT (F*cking First Time)

If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. What does your empty space want to tell you?

https://www.instagram.com/nicole_bachle/

As we do the work of letting go of beliefs, patterns, and behavior - as we stop performing to earn value and set boundaries - something sneaks in like pre-dawn fog: grief. Grief is unexpected and often ignored, and it can hold us exactly where we are. This week I'm normalizing grief in personal growth and helping you namen what you're actually mourning. We're not just taking about capital G Grief (the profound loss of someone we love). We're talking about lowercase g frief - the ways grief weaves in and out of our lives as we grow and change. Including the strange grief of mourning someone who's still alive, still physically present.

In this episode:

• What we're actually grieving: the version of herself we'll never be again, relationships that didn't survive our growth, the years we lost, and the beliefs we're releasing
• Why growth requires goodbye—every time we step into a new version of ourselves, we close the door on who we used to be
• The four frameworks that explain grief and growth: growth requires goodbye, we grieve our unlived lives, anticipatory grief lives in liminal space, and joy and sorrow are dance partners
• How grief actually shows up: unexpected crying, exhaustion, anger, nostalgia for hard times, feeling lost and untethered
• Why we can't skip the mourning period—and what happens if we rush to fill the void with new commitments
• How to hold space for your grief: name it, feel it without fixing it, explore it, and create ritual for release

Quote of the week: "There's a Zen teacher that said what's holding you back is what you're holding onto."

Practice for this week: What identity, attitude, behavior, mindset, action, or belief are you holding onto that's holding you back? Notice the negative thought that says "that's not gonna work." This message kept you safe at some point—safe from ridicule, failure, the spotlight—but does it still apply? Thank it. Allow yourself to grieve it. And prepare yourself, because over the next few weeks we're gonna talk about building a life that suits you now.

Here's the reality: when we create boundaries and make changes, we will disappoint people. There's no way around it. But until two weeks ago, I'd never really acknowledged why I worked tirelessly sacrificing myself, my time, my energy, my peace to make sure no one was ever disappointed in me. This week I'm telling you the truth about why we avoid disappointment, what we're actually afraid of, and how to sit with someone's disappointment without abandoning yourself. This one goes deep—I share how 18 years of marriage to disappointment taught me to make myself invisible, and how I'm finally learning that my needs, wants, and desires can have value too.

In this episode:

• The four patterns that keep us trapped: the family project manager, the woman making up for something, the problem preventer, and the woman who measures worth by what she does
• Why disappointing someone feels like moral failure (because we absorbed that our worth equals our usefulness)
• What we're actually afraid of: they'll leave, they'll confirm we're selfish, conflict, or becoming like the people who disappointed us
• The difference between being kind and being available—and why availability without boundaries kills kindness
• How to tell if you're trying to control their feelings versus actually being kind
• The five steps for sitting with someone's disappointment: separate their feelings from your responsibility, acknowledge without apologizing, don't re-explain, feel your feelings but don't let them override your values, and give yourself permission to care while holding the boundary

Quote of the week: "A world where we disappoint no one is a world where we prioritize nothing. If your priorities never seem to matter, this could be an episode that brings answers your way."

Practice for this week: Notice where you're making yourself small to avoid someone's disappointment. What boundaries have you been too afraid to set? What would it look like to prioritize yourself just once and let someone else figure it out?

Understanding you need boundaries? Fine. Setting them? Different story. This week we're getting practical—I'm walking you through exactly how to set boundaries, what to say, how to hold them when people push back, and what happens when you start protecting your time, energy, and peace. Spoiler: it gets worse before it gets better. When you set a boundary, people are going to test it, question it, call you selfish, tell you you've changed. But here's what's actually happening—what you were doing benefited them, and that benefit is going away. This is Episode 200, and it's only fitting that it's about boundaries.

In this episode:

• The extinction burst: why boundary-testing gets louder before it stops (and what happens if you cave)
• The five-step process: get clear on the boundary, communicate it without over-explaining, hold the line, expect the guilt, and notice who respects it
• Scripts for setting boundaries: "I've decided [boundary], and I understand if it's disappointing, but this is what's going to be"
• Mantras for holding boundaries: "No is a complete sentence," "Their discomfort is not yours to fix," "Boundaries are not mean, they are clear"
• What boundaries look like with kids (teaching them how to treat you), parents (protecting yourself from what they didn't give you), partners (equity and shared responsibility), and friends (balance on the ladder)
• The three outcomes when you hold boundaries: some adjust, some resist then accept, some leave—and what each tells you about the relationship

Quote of the week: "Their disappointment is not our failure. Their struggle is not ours to fix. It is not our job to make them happy. Your job is to raise them to be capable, respectful, and independent adults."

Practice for this week: One boundary. Just one. Ask yourself: Where am I the most resentful? What am I tolerating that I no longer want to tolerate? What boundary would protect my time, energy, or peace? Write it down. Practice saying it out loud. Then hold it, even if it's uncomfortable.

The uncomfortable truth is when you change your values, the people who benefited from the old ones resist. This week we're talking about boundaries and the messy, guilt-inducing, relationship-testing reality of them. I've struggled most with boundaries around my time and energy—the assumption that because I'm home, my time is everyone's time. But being home doesn't mean being available. Your time still has value, even if nobody is paying you for it. If you've ever asked yourself "why are boundaries so hard?" this episode explains exactly why—and what you can do about it.

In this episode:

• Why we struggle with boundaries (spoiler: nobody taught us, we were raised to be nice, and we watched our mothers operate from obligation)
• The critical difference between nice and kind—and why you can't be nice and have boundaries, but you can be kind with them
• What boundaries actually are (and what they're not): protection of your time, energy, values, and peace
• The survival-level fears that keep us from setting boundaries: what if they get angry? What if they leave? What if I'm selfish?
• Why the people who love you for your compliance don't actually love you—they love what you do for them
• Where you need boundaries: with kids, parents, spouse/partner, friends, and yourself

Quote of the week: "Boundaries are not mean or selfish. Boundaries are limits on what is acceptable, what we tolerate or participate in. They act as a protection of our time, energy, values, even our peace."

Practice for this week: Notice. Notice where you need a boundary. Where do you feel depleted? Exhausted? Resentful? Where are you saying yes and then upset that you didn't say no? Write it down. Get curious.

You can do all the deep work—understand your should storms, clarify your values, honor your seasons—but on a random Wednesday when the old patterns come screaming back, you need something you can reach for quickly. This week I'm sharing the mantras that ground me when I feel stuck or out of control, and how to create your own that actually work. These aren't stolen from Pinterest or forced affirmations—they're short, believable statements that meet you exactly where you struggle and bring you back into alignment with who you've chosen to be.

In this episode:

• What a mantra actually is (and why it needs to sound like something you'd actually say)
• My most-used mantras and where they came from: "The sun doesn't shine on the same dog's ass every day," "A candle loses nothing from lighting another candle," and more
• The four-step process for creating mantras that work: name your struggle, identify the truth you need to hear, make it yours, and pair it with your values
• Why repetition rewires your brain—your old thoughts have years of momentum, your new mantras need intentional practice
• How to use mantras as armor when growth feels tender and life keeps pulling you back

Quote of the week: "You can't think new thoughts by accident. They have to be chosen again and again. And that's what mantras do. They give you something to reach for when life busyness, anything is pulling you back."

Practice for this week: Create one to three mantras. Write them down. Say them out loud daily. Find yourself seeking deeper into a state of calm and to a sense of who you actually are underneath all the noise.

I used to think something was wrong with me when I couldn't keep up with other moms who seemed to be thriving while I was barely making it to bedtime. Looking back, nothing was wrong—I was just in an emotional winter while they were in summer. This week I'm sharing the four emotional seasons we all cycle through and why your capacity to live your values changes depending on which season you're in. If you've been exhausted, depleted, or wondering why you can't do it all anymore, this episode will give you permission to stop forcing summer capacity in a winter season.

In this episode:

• The four emotional seasons (fall, winter, spring, summer) and how to identify which one you're in
• Why we've been conditioned to operate at "summer capacity" year-round—and why that's impossible
• How my postpartum depression and grief taught me that survival is sometimes the only value that matters
• What each season requires from you and which values you can realistically tend to
• Permission to let go, to survive, to move slowly, and to thrive without guilt

Quote of the week: "Be aware of what season you're in and give yourself the grace to be there." —Kristen Dalton

This week, we're choosing what comes next—your actual values, not the ones you inherited. I'm sharing the moment my therapist asked what values I wanted to bring to parenting and I sat there, speechless, realizing I'd been operating from survival instead of intention. We're examining the heavy list of values we downloaded from the 80s and 90s—perfectionism, productivity as worthiness, self-sacrifice—and exploring a new list that includes rest, joy, enough-ness, and boundaries. Because you can't decide what to release until you're clear about what you need to hold onto and why.