Show notes
What happens when betrayal forces you to stop fixing everyone else and finally start protecting yourself? G-Rex and Dirty Skittles sit down with Barbara Parker for a raw, funny, and deeply honest conversation about healthy boundaries, emotional safety, perfectionism, rebuilding self-worth, and learning that protecting your peace isn’t selfish—it’s necessary.
Awards & Downloads
Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads is a 2024 People’s Choice Podcast Award Winner (Best Health), 2024 Women in Podcasting Award Winner (Best Mental Health Podcast), 2026 Podcast Tonight Award Winner (Best Mental Health Podcast), and 2026 NYC Podcast Award Audience Choice Winner (Best Hosts), with over 4.5 million downloads and listened to in over 160 countries.
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Trigger Notice + 988 Crisis Reminder
This episode includes conversations about infidelity, toxic relationships, emotional trauma, alcohol misuse, suicidal thoughts, and intense emotional distress. Please listen with care.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States and Canada for immediate support. You don’t have to carry the heavy shit alone.
Mental Health Quote
“Anything that comes between you and your peace needs to be removed.” — Barbara Parker
Episode Description
Barbara Parker knows what it feels like to lose yourself while trying to hold a relationship together. After discovering repeated infidelity in her marriage, she found herself facing heartbreak, anger, financial instability, and one brutal realization: she had spent so much energy worrying about someone else’s happiness that she had stopped paying attention to her own.
In this powerful conversation with G-Rex and Dirty Skittles, Barbara shares how those painful experiences became the foundation for rebuilding her identity, strengthening her boundaries, and eventually helping others do the same. She explains why boundaries start with knowing what you want, why two perfectly good people can still be completely wrong for each other, and why protecting your peace sometimes means accepting that somebody simply isn’t headed where you’re headed.
Barbara also gets real about perfectionism, anxiety, emotional triggers, and the wounds that can sit beneath our awareness until something slams directly into the panic button. She shares her “good enough” approach when perfection falls apart, her tea-kettle analogy for bottled-up emotions, and how her POWER method helps people communicate more clearly, rediscover their confidence, and create lives aligned with what actually matters.
This isn’t about pretending heartbreak was some magical gift wrapped in a bow. It’s about realizing the shit that hurt you doesn’t get to own you forever. You can learn from it, rebuild from it, and become fiercely protective of the peace you worked so damn hard to find.
Keywords: healthy boundaries, self-worth, emotional safety, toxic relationships, relationship healing, betrayal trauma, divorce recovery, self-love, perfectionism, anxiety, emotional wellness, confidence building, personal growth, women’s empowerment, mental health podcast
Meet Our Guest — Barbara Parker
Barbara L. Parker, MA, LPCC-S, is the Founder and CEO of BF Empowerment Center, where she helps people build confidence, improve communication, set healthier boundaries, and move through emotional healing and major life transitions. Drawing from both professional expertise and her own experiences with heartbreak, divorce, financial hardship, and rebuilding her identity, Barbara brings a practical, empowering approach to helping people create healthier relationships with themselves and others.
Connect with Barbara:
Official Website:
https://www.bfempowerment.com/
Instagram — BF Empowerment:
https://www.instagram.com/bfempowerment/
Facebook — B F Empowerment Center:
https://www.facebook.com/bfempowerment/
LinkedIn — Barbara L. Parker:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/queenblparker
Key Takeaways
Healthy boundaries begin with knowing what you want before somebody else starts deciding it for you.
Two people can both be good humans and still be completely wrong for each other.
Protecting your peace sometimes requires walking away from situations that keep pulling you away from yourself.
Perfectionism can steal the joy from moments you worked incredibly hard to create.
Anger can be the surface reaction covering a much deeper emotional wound.
Rebuilding after betrayal means investing energy back into yourself instead of endlessly investigating somebody else.
Emotional safety, self-worth, and identity matter just as much as what a relationship looks like from the outside.
Actionable Items
Ask whether it’s on mission or off mission. Before saying yes to a relationship, commitment, opportunity, or another obligation, ask whether it supports the life you’re trying to build or pulls you away from it.
Practice the “good enough” reset. When perfectionism starts convincing you everything is ruined because something went wrong, remind yourself that successful doesn't have to mean flawless.
Empty the emotional tea kettle. Make regular space to talk, journal, rest, seek therapy, or process what you’re carrying before one small trigger sends everything boiling over.
Important Chapters
00:01:06 – Meet Barbara: Spunky, Sassy, and a Recovering Perfectionist
00:04:21 – What Healthy Boundaries Actually Look Like
00:06:29 – The Heartbreak That Taught Barbara Boundaries
00:08:53 – Facing Infidelity and Talking to Nine Mistresses
00:13:30 – Poor Boundaries, Lost Identity, and Inviting Chaos
00:15:15 – When Betrayal Made Barbara Disconnect From Herself
00:16:28 – Turning Pain Into Purpose
00:19:01 – Stop Investigating Them and Start Investing in You
00:21:53 – The POWER Method and Finding Yourself Again
00:23:51 – Anger, Old Wounds, and the Panic Button
00:25:26 – The Tea Kettle: What Happens When We Never Empty Out
00:30:22 – “This Is Going to Hurt, but It’s Going to Be Worth It”
00:32:04 – Loyalty, Fidelity, and Emotional Safety
00:34:06 – Anxiety, Perfectionism, and Never Feeling Productive Enough
00:35:12 – Favorite Word, Least Favorite Word, and Why “Can’t” Gets No Love
Closing CTA
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