Bev Barnes shares her take on this too-familiar story: Have you ever tried to be what you (thought you) were expected to be, only to find out it was exhausting? Until one day life sends you another direction, and you start to reclaim the life you were meant for, and your gifts the way you were meant to express them.
Bev Barnes is a Soul’s Calling® Coach, Instructor & Life Coach Mentor. She coaches Life Coaches, healers, creatives, and meaning seekers, to outwit their fear and self-doubt so that they can shine their light and do the work that they were meant for.
Bev holds a master’s degree in the Human Behavior Sciences, a graduate diploma in Brief & Strategic therapy, graduate training in Career Counseling, and Master Life Coach certification. She’s the creator of the Soul’s Calling® Method and is known as a highly intuitive yet grounded Facilitator & Coach.
https://www.soulscallingacademy.com/
https://www.facebook.com/barnesbev
Soul's Calling® Academy on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/soulscallingacademy
Amy Hallberg 0:00
Maybe you are also one of these people, one of these sensitive creative souls who can sense the energy of the people around you, can sense their expectations and adjust yourself accordingly. And then, you know, that doesn't go that well. And so you start to figure out what you actually want to be doing, instead of what you should be doing. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. You're listening to Courageous Wordsmith, Episode 67. This podcast presents conversation with and for real life creatives on how we find and keep walking our unique paths. I'm your host, Amy Hallberg, welcome to my world. Today, I'm talking with the brilliant Beverly Barnes and this one is a topic close to my heart.
Amy Hallberg 0:53
So I am here today with Beverly Barnes, and I am so excited to have you here, Bev. And we're going to talk about highly achieving women who step outside of the traditionally successful roles that our society has for us. And we suddenly feel like we're failures. You have a few things to say about that.
Bev Barnes 1:20
Oh, yeah. I do. so I work with a lot of clients, they tend to be life coaches, healers, creatives, at least they want to be life coaches, healers, creatives, they're not yet, they may have taken training to do all those things. They're not yet. And there are women who have, usually women and there are women who have done lots of other things, you know, have multiple graduate degrees, they have PhDs. And as they are moving into the life coaching realm, because most of my people are trying to move into the life coaching realm or something around life coaching, they, they get hit by, they can't do it, something's wrong with them. And they start saying something's wrong with me. I have a problem. Something's wrong with me. And I'm always thinking, wow, these are women who have done all this other stuff. And yet, it comes to life coaching or something like and they say, I don't know how to do it. And I had this client who was, you know, I was working with her and she said, "You know, I'm just really afraid of putting myself out there," which is always the thing. I just don't want to put myself out there. Right. And she said, I just don't think I have a background for that. And I said, Well, you have an MBA.
Amy Hallberg 2:51
Yeah, MBAs don't want to put themselves out there, right.
Bev Barnes 2:55
I don't know that much about business and you have an MBA. And that's what I learned. This was like, years ago. Okay, so this is like, probably 2008. Or the first time this happened. And that's what I learned. Okay. Never look at somebody's, like, credentials, degrees, whatever that is, because for them, it means absolutely nothing. I mean, absolutely nothing.
Amy Hallberg 3:22
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think this is a great time to just mention how you and I met, which is that I aced life coach training, because I'm a good student, right? And so I was able to get through that after I quit my teaching job. But then I went into master coach training, because that's what a gifted kid would do. That's what a good student would do. They would take the accelerated track, right? So I jumped straight into master coach training. There were reasons why that was actually a really good thing for me. But I got there and I was like, What am I doing? And I remember I had to teach a class, and you had to listen to it to observe what was going on in there. And you were so clear about, oh, well, you're a teacher. And I was like, No, I'm not no. I quit teaching. But also, it made me feel seen. Right, so like, here, I am floundering and you looked at me floundering and said, and you're a teacher?
Bev Barnes 4:21
Yeah, that's such a good point. Because um, one of the things I held myself back from doing for a long time, because we're told in life coach training, you're not supposed to do this, right. I held myself back and I'm a good rule follower, like all of the people I work with are and so many women are. I held myself back from actually saying, what I knew to be true about who people were. That's actually my gift, right? Being able to see who people are and give them feedback and don't give them feedback. Usually by saying this is you, and you have to be that I just, well, this is what I see. And you know, you can agree or disagree, but I have to say it when I see it, and when I, I feel it. And what I noticed in this environment, and after with so many other people that, especially women, especially women who are high achievers, really smart, especially women, smart women, who are empaths, who are used to really feeling into other people before they feel themselves, because they default is to know how other people feel. They can't see themselves, right, and see themselves. And what they're used to doing is fitting in, on the road because they can, it's easy. And they've had lots and lots of feedback for that and society programs women to fit in and to serve others. Well, society rewards that to a point to a point. rewards it a lot. I mean, you're a disrupter if you don't do what's expected of you. And everybody has their roles in this society and women, smart women who are impasse have the ability to do a lot of things
Amy Hallberg 6:21
Can I ask you a question? And you can say no. But my question is the fact that you are doing this work says to me that you probably experienced exactly what you're describing of, of fitting yourself to a mold. And you touched on that a little bit. But I wonder if you would unpack that a little bit like, when did you realize for yourself that this was important?
Bev Barnes 6:41
Yeah, well, I only realized it was important, didn't really get it. Probably my early 30s when I started working. So I always fit in, I always did everything to fit in. Because I'm black. I grew up in a white environment. I was born in England. My parents are Jamaican. I never had any identity with any culture. We moved to Canada when I was seven. My sister and I were the only two black kids in the school with a British accent. God! at seven years old,
Amy Hallberg 7:24
both of which are fabulous. But like, what a combination, right?
Bev Barnes 7:27
Not at seven years old. So no, I suppose I just tried to dump the accent and anybody who's had who's like a first or second generation immigrant knows sort of the gap between what your parents understand or what you understand. So I was constantly figuring out the rules like right, little empathic child didn't know I was an empath, either, okay, like, we did not have that language back then, you know, no language, but I was constantly figuring out the rules, giving my mom telling my mom what to do. I was like, my mother's counselor, she would come home from work, I was a coach seven years.
Amy Hallberg 8:04
It's not a common experience. I don't mean to like, like, I want to stay with your story. But I just want to sort of sidetrack and say, is that a common experience with life coaches, that they have been their parents life coaches, often?
Bev Barnes 8:14
I don't know, I don't know. But I know that it's how many 1000s of hours doing something, we've probably all practice doing it in some way, shape, or form. I know I practiced it from you know, early, very early on. And when we come home from work, and she, she would talk to me and I would give her advice. I would tell her what to do and what was happening. And, and I know I'm going off now, but I'll just
Amy Hallberg 8:38
No, no, stay with it. It's great.
Bev Barnes 8:40
I'll tell you this one story. So she always tells it now too, but it's ridiculous. She's just telling you this story. It's always a story about the people at work and, and the head nurse and the problem she had and every day there's a different story. or she goes through different environments, the same thing. So I'm sitting there eight years old, okay, maybe nine? Okay, I'll give myself nine. So I'm sitting there. And I say to her, you know, because I've been thinking this. I said to her, you know, you keep repeating the same story. And it's all in different places with different people. And the only thing these stories have in common is you. Do you think maybe you should look in the mirror? What are you doing? That's what I was doing at eight and nine years old.
Amy Hallberg 9:30
Like there are people my age now who are like just getting to the people who are telling those. That's pretty profound.
Bev Barnes 9:36
I know. So she tells that my mother tells that story to people. No, and I go, Oh, my God, what a heavy burden.
Amy Hallberg 9:42
Did that go over well at the time?
Bev Barnes 9:44
It did. I think that was the thing about my mom. So this is a really fascinating thing. The thing about my mother, she listened to what I had to say,
Amy Hallberg 9:53
Wow, that is unusual. I think it's really, really unusual.
Bev Barnes 9:58
So it was like that was both good and bad. It was a big burden. I was doing it all the time. But at the same time, I was recognizing that I had something to say. Anyway. So I didn't know who I was. If people weren't talking to me about it all I did I would, they talk to me, I would give advice, I would help them to unravel. That's all I did, unravel what's going on with people, know who they are, help them see who they are, and help them to deal with situations. All I did, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Because I didn't know something else. I didn't know who I was, first of all. And I thought that doing this was just easy. Like, this was just something I did like, right. I didn't need any training in it, is what I believed. Because I already did it. So I figured I had to do something else. I didn't know what that was.
Amy Hallberg 10:49
I mean, so I just want to stop and pause for just a little moment and say, I think that is such a common experience that like our greatest gifts are so easy to us that other people like wow. And we're like, oh, that's nothing and we're like no, really that like huge deal. No, it really can't be right. Like, that's just such a natural thing for us to do.
Bev Barnes 11:06
Because we can't see ourselves, right? We're seeing it to other people's lives, can't see ourselves, we get no feedback, because we're always giving it, you know, that kind of thing. So I had no idea who I was, irrespective of the fact that I was doing this all the time, irrespective of the fact that my friends from high school. So I have a friend from high school, when I was 14 years old. As a present. She gave me a silver chain with a telephone on it. Because we spent hours on the phone, dissecting what was going on. And what would happen is I would pretty much say well, this is happening this having this evidence, and this is why in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was years later, I spoke to one of my friends and I said oh, I remember when we would do that. And we both did this blah, blah. And she looked she said to me and she said, No, I didn't do that you did that? Oh, really? No, you did that you were really good at it. That's why I'd call you talk about it, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, could you have told me?
Amy Hallberg 12:16
Yeah, it's and I think that's the beautiful thing about like meeting up with people later, who tell you these things. And you're like, it was that obvious?
Bev Barnes 12:25
You know, it's maybe obvious. For other people, but I didn't know what that was. And the other thing is, you don't know how to translate that into what you're supposed to do with it.
Amy Hallberg 12:35
Right? Right. And I've actually heard you talk about this, how you went into life coach training, to do more what you were meant to do, and then ended up recreating the rule, the corporate rule that you had left that you didn't like, because it wasn't a good fit for you. Because that's how you do business.
Bev Barnes 12:55
Yeah, because you kind of repeat over and over and over and the same things until you get it and you get a little bits and little bits. I mean, you know, inevitably in my corporate stuff, I realized I wasn't doing what I needed to do, and that I Oh, oh my goodness, it's all related to facilitating change and development in people. I finally got that I did some inner work, I did a lot of inner work, and then started being self employed, and then became a life coach afterwards. So in between those times, I did you know, master's degree and all that other stuff? Because you know, don't we all have? Don't we have to?
Amy Hallberg 13:28
We have to certify ourselves. We knew we absolutely. And you know, the thing about it is like I look back at the trainings I've had, that I'm not exactly doing what those trainings were supposed to get me to do in a career, but the skills is still out there. They're still invaluable skill sets. It's just maybe you do it in a different way. So I wonder if we could talk about your soul's calling roadmap, because I think this is the key to everything. I mean, for you. I know that it's central to a lot of your work, but I think it's key to the conversation we're having right now. Actually.
Bev Barnes 14:04
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So for me anyways, when I started being a life coach, well, the work wasn't life coach. The work was what I got to do. When I called myself a life coach, because when I call myself a life coach, I could do whatever I wanted, right?
Amy Hallberg 14:24
A life coach is carte blanche, isn't it?
Bev Barnes 14:26
Right. I don't think you'll realize that like, it's not a thing. You've you just do whatever you want. And you can name it, like you know. So what I recognized was that I help people to see themselves. Why they need to see themselves is because that's the only way that they can do the work. That's their sacred work, their soul's calling, can't do it if you can't see yourself because you have to be congruent the same person on the inside as you're on the outside. And if you're not that, forget it. It doesn't work. And that was the issue. I think that was always the issue for me. And that's the that's the thing that nobody was really saying. So I had this dream, might have been a dream ,was kind of like a vision. It was how I saw the world. Okay. And, and it was like, a long time ago. And I thought that, you know, we are going through a massive, massive change. And it felt to me like, we're on this island. It was like a metaphor, we're on this island of volcanoes erupting. We've got to get off the island. And there are people who don't want to get off the island. And they keep saying No, nothing's erupting, everything's fine. We're gonna stay here. And then there's people that know and they are deciding, I call it daring to decide. We got to get off the island. But they're confused, uncertain, don't know what to do. They have their whole job is to get off the island, get down to a boat, choose a boat, and go. The destination is the journey. There's no new island they're going to it's like, there's a shift between being what was a land dweller and now being a sea dweller, and it's a huge shift.
Amy Hallberg 16:17
So there is no arrival is what you're saying.
Bev Barnes 16:19
There's no arrival, the arrival is the journey you are, you're navigating around, because before happiness was based on what we had. Now, it's based on navigating with who we are. Because that's not going anywhere now is to navigate with who you are. So this journey down the roadmap that the metaphor of the roadmap is that they have to, people need to stop, they have to stop denying who they truly are, and who we truly are as spiritual beings living a human life, right? Not the other way around. And so that's the first step in this journey. And then start owning our genius, what makes us different, like we're stopping trying to fit in, we're owning what makes us different, we're owning that we actually have a unique purpose that we're like, you know, an oak tree or an apple tree, that we're not a blank slate that we can't be everything and do everything.
Amy Hallberg 17:22
So what you're seeing is if you come in as an acorn, it's not really realistic to to expect that you would grow up to be let's say, a coconut tree.
Bev Barnes 17:29
Exactly. Exactly. And that's what we're told, right?
Amy Hallberg 17:33
Yeah, go be a coconut tree. Okay.
Bev Barnes 17:36
Yeah, right, you can be everything. Except, of course, if you're marginalized and get no opportunities, then you can be nothing. But that too, is part of the system. Right?
Amy Hallberg 17:45
Right. And I want to say there's this thing that's been kicking around in my brain, this, this phrase, earning a living, and I don't even know what I want to do with it yet. But I just dropped it into my book two days ago, because it feels like it needs to be there. The idea that we somehow need to earn a living, we don't earn a living, we are born and then we are alive. What are you going to do with that life? And I think what you're speaking to is that sometimes our greatest gifts are squandered, because they're not fully developed. And we feel like they should be developed. So I can go out and earn a living, as opposed to, here's this gift, take a little bit of time to decompress from the island, and figure out what that gift is, in the context of the boat.
Bev Barnes 18:28
Absolutely. It's like, yeah, I love that earning a living. And another thing that I always kept me stuck on was the job market. It's like, what the heck is that this place? Let's like a market where there's a bunch of jobs and you go and you say, I'd like to have this one, please. Like, what is that? It's like a whole commodity thing, the job market, which the truth of the matter is, anybody who feels really good about what they do and how they do it, they've created their work. Hmm.
Amy Hallberg 19:03
Now, I want to tell you, that feels really really rich to me now, and very freeing. But I remember in high school, when I was the honor student who cared a lot about that external stuff. I remember hearing that, you know, 20 years, however much into the future, the jobs would not even be jobs that were created back then, you know, I graduated from high school in 1988. Like, like, the jobs of the future haven't even been created. And that terrified the crap out of me.
Bev Barnes 19:33
Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't told that. I was before that time. I wasn't told that we started telling people that afterwards. But so this is what I thought I had, I thought I had to know every single thing that existed, so that I could pick one that was right for me. Know all the things, all the things so I had to know all the things and then I would have to pick one. Oh my god, that was a nightmare. It was a nightmare, because I didn't know any of the things.
Amy Hallberg 20:04
Right? You need a specialist before you even start. That's, that's so backwards. We also talked about, you know, before we were recording, we touched base on the idea that like, when people have been really, really good at something, then maybe they get out and there's sort of this initial, okay, I'm fine now. And as they go deeper into the ocean, you know, they start to crash and burn a little bit. So can you talk to that a little bit where it looks like, it looks like they're failing at this thing, when actually, that might not be true at all. Yeah.
Bev Barnes 20:37
And before I get to that one, I just wanted to go through another one of the steps that people actually need to do before they get into the ocean.
Amy Hallberg 20:44
Do you see how I did that? I don't want to know the middle stuff. I just want to get to. Yes, please go back. Thank you
Bev Barnes 20:51
Because that's the inner journey that we all need to take, right? We all know is so brutal, and so that you you're owning your genius, maybe, but you might not do anything with it. If you haven't unpacked your programming, if you ever haven't unpacked what you've been told you're supposed to be. So I was told I was supposed to fit in. I was also told, like entrepreneurship was just not the thing, like I was supposed to, for my Jamaican parents, the way for us to get ahead, was to have a university education. At three years old, I knew I was going to university. And there's nothing wrong with that, honestly, it was my parents, that was their goal. Their kids were going to go to university, and we were going to do better than they did. And they bought me. Someone was, and I was like 14 or 15, I got a briefcase, like really? Because they saw me that way. Like I was good at everything. And I worked hard and well, hard enough, hard enough, hard enough to stay under the radar. Gotta say, I didn't know, to try. I knew like I wasn't stupid, right? I knew that if I got about 80% in everything, people would say it was good. But I wouldn't get a whole lot of attention. And I wouldn't get a whole lot of attention for not being good. So I was it was easy for me to get about 80 in everything. That's from sports, to everything. No, I played basketball, I wasn't the top five, I was number six, right off the bench. So I get to play. fascinating. And it's funny because I had a client who said that to me too. And I was like it. So I not the only person who thought that? Well, I really thought anyways. So you do this unpacking your programming, and then you decide what is your truth and what isn't? It's a big deal. It's like rewriting what is true for me and what is not true for me. You know, when Amy, when you were saying about you're talking about what you were told, or what you expect it to be being better good and everything and it's not your truth, like, maybe you're really good in the thing.
Amy Hallberg 21:58
I mean, I'm a lot happier since I quit trying to do that. Really, really exhausting. It's exhausting.
Bev Barnes 23:23
And it's like trying to be really good at something for what, or good at everything, and not focusing where you want to be. But anyway, so then you do all that work. And that's when you start to lead with love inspired action, lead with your genius, you're using your genius, and you're leading with that. And that's where we take your vote, it's what's guiding you, when you're in the boat is your inner really your truth meter that what you know is true for you. And you have a direction and you're really following that path, which is really hard. I gotta say, it's really hard because it's not like, Okay, here's the plan. This is where I'm going, this is what I'm doing. Right? It's a different way of living.
Amy Hallberg 24:11
Well, and I'm guessing for a lot of the people that you're I'm going from my experience, but also people I know, you start succeeding and then it's like no, I couldn't possibly be on the boat doing what I'm and you start to like almost like the conditioning comes back. Like you have to test it again a few times, just to make sure is this really true, like this new thing? Can I count on this now because I couldn't count on that. Like, there's sort of a thrash that happens. I think
Bev Barnes 24:35
you're continuously doing this work. You do it once to get going but you can continuously because the human desire, we desire we want to belong. We want to belong and we fear being abandoned. And that's why even life coaches that start life coaching they do all the other things that life coaches do, even if it's not what they want to do, because they want to belong there. Right. And so the same might have fitting in, try not to make waves happens, even when you're doing your thing, because it's such a huge force that you're constantly dealing with. And so you, you have to keep doing the work. You have to keep doing the work.
Amy Hallberg 25:18
So, I have ideas on this anyway, but I'm sure you do too. What's the benefit? If I mean, it sounds like you know, you have to keep doing your work, you never arrive? Why do it then?
Bev Barnes 25:29
I get facetious.
Amy Hallberg 25:32
Okay, well, yeah.
Bev Barnes 25:35
For, for me, it's like, it's not meaningful, nothing, nothing else is meaningful. It's that there's a fake, I truly, and it's not everybody, there's like a 16 17% of us, statistically speaking, looking at the Myers Briggs, who are motivated by meaning and purpose. Not everybody is motivated by meaning and purpose. But if you're motivated by meaning and purpose, doing something that not is not going to motivate you, it feels like life is not worth living. From the time I was four years old, I kept saying, Well, why am I here? Why am I here? What is this? What is this? Why are we here? And I was always looking for an answer. And now I know, oh, you're just supposed to be you. And do you. That's why we're here. But in order to do that, we have to overcome everything that we're told in our society is, which is wrong, everything. And so our job is to add more love to the world, period. That's it. We add more love to the world.
Amy Hallberg 26:46
You know, and it's funny when you say that the reason that we do it is to belong? But how do you find the true belonging by dropping the other stuff, and just being yourself?
Bev Barnes 26:58
And that's love, like, who are we really, we are love by just being that it seems so simple and obscure at the same time. But that's why we're here. That's the problem. That's what's going on. We're moving in a direction that's towards what I call pirate world. The pirates, you know, decided to take over and just that, that all that's important is money and power over people. And that's not why we're here. We're not That's not it. And I think that the reason that I work with life coaches, healers, creatives, is because they have something to do. They know this, when they get beyond their angst. They know they have something to bring to the world might not be life coaching, you might be writing, they have a message, they have something to bring to the world, and the world needs it. Like we need this, we need these people who are hiding and fitting in, we need the silent majority. We need those people. There's so many of us.
Amy Hallberg 28:11
You know, I want to share this with you. I had an experience, just maybe a week or so ago, some things happened. And you know, I brought the message out of it was there are people in our lives, who show up to get us where we're supposed to be, because we're afraid to go there. But we need help. We need to get there. And as I'm listening to you, that's what you do. That's your role. That's who you are in this role on your journey. It's really cool. Thank you so much for being here
Bev Barnes 28:46
Thank you, I kind of almost seem to always see myself as opening the door. Like just opening the door for people
Amy Hallberg 28:55
Right, Because we have to walk it ourselves. We get about yourself. Yeah, they walk you up to the door and go, you're just go on, go along, and you can do this, right? They might be somebody that's with you for a long, long time. Or they might be somebody that's, for example, like I said, the time when I just met you and you just sort of showed up in my world, and we're like, Hey, me, your teacher. Please remember that you're still a teacher. Wow.
Bev Barnes 29:20
You know, yeah, yeah, I think so. And that's what's so cool about that all of this, like, we all have something we're supposed to do, we're meant to do in this huge transition that I think that we're in, and it's just not categorized as a job. It's not defined in the way it was always defined. But we also do still need to survive, right? So that's why I talk about survival work and sacred work. You might have to do some survival work to survive. You might have kids you have you know if stuff you need to pay things we actually do live in this concrete world. We can't bypass it, and pretend we're on a spiritual plain, we're not, right. But it's trying to figure out and put it all together about how can I either do my sacred work and still survive. So you might have a combination of them both. There are people who sacred work is something that pays really well. And that allows them to live the way they want to live. Fine. And there are others who have a certain survival work is their job. And after hours, they're doing the thing that they know they're here to do. Or maybe raising their kids is their sacred work. And that's not everybody. Because for a lot of women, that's what they're told is their sacred work. But for some women, and some men too, it's raising their kids is their sacred work. So that might be what they do. And then when they're not doing that, they do something else. So it's really super flexible. It's following your truth.
Amy Hallberg 30:51
That one more thing that you said, and you might do that for a while. And then you might do something else.
Bev Barnes 31:00
Yeah, we get so tied into, you know, what we're supposed to be doing forever. And this is the plan and this is what I do forever, but it just doesn't work that way. Something else happens. Life happens you get a yearning inside, you know, or something a volcano erupts in your own life, you know, somebody dies or gets sick and stuff. But our life all is always guiding you. I do believe that it's gotten you to where you need to be. Might not be pleasant, but it's still guiding you.
Amy Hallberg 31:37
Thanks for listening to Courageous Wordsmith. Today's episode featured Beverly Barnes. You can read about her and check out her links in the show notes. Backstage at Courageous Wordsmith: My editor is the talented Will Queen. And my producer is the fabulous Maddy Kelley. If you enjoy this podcast, you can help it thrive and grow organically. Please subscribe right on this page, share it with your friends and sign up for True Lines. My letter for real life creatives so that you can stay current with future episodes. And if you're feeling called to write and you would like writing companionship, you can find more about me and my community and the people who tend to work with me. Often they're those overachieving smart women who have decided to stop overachieving and do what they actually want to do. Yeah, we're those people. Find out about us at Amyhallberg.com. I am Amy Hallberg and until we meet again, travel safely