How To Create Boundaries For Your Mind – With Whitney Kroneberger

I recently interviewed my business coach, Whitney Kroneberger, for my podcast and I wanted to share the interview here on the blog because it’s just packed with wonderful advice about taking our thoughts captive during real life. This is a theme I keep re-visiting because it’s one the skills I think produces so much fruit and is one of the ways we can show our love and trust in God. 

Without further ado, Whitney Kroneberger, my friend and coach:

Whitney: I’m pumped to be here. I’m so glad you asked!

Leslie: Whitney, tell me why you are so drawn to ambitious entrepreneurs who need peace in this present moment?

Whitney: Oh, that’s a good question. I love the Proverbs 31 women. There’s something about women who are faithful in their walk with the Lord, who were never just completely complacent and who are always wanting to grow, whether that’s monetarily or in their mind or as a parent or in their marriage, I just really appreciate those women. The reason I love ambitious women is because there is always something to work on. I feel that way about myself. I’ve never arrived and I’m always in a process of becoming. We’re also called to ask the Lord what he has for us and be faithful and take those risks and that gives him room and opportunity to show up in a big way and to show us his miracles and show off a little bit.  Then we get to be witness to that and we don’t get to take credit for it. And that’s what I love the most–that there are women that are faithful that are not all about I’ve done this, I’ve created this, but I’m a vessel, I’m being obedient. And I get to just be a witness to what the Lord is doing. I get to see how he moves in women who are faithfully running towards him and I’ll never get over surrounding myself with that kind of person. Especially in this season, as we’ve talked about a little bit, there’s a lot of uncertainty. It’s not super predictable right now. And as women, female entrepreneurs, these can be waters that we have not been in before. I think pursuing the Lord faithfully and wanting to stay aligned with him and wanting to continue to move forward and achieve and grow and learn–these are the traits I want to have and surround myself. I want to be in the pool with those women all the time. Sign me up. I say yes to those. I love that. 

how it all started

Leslie: How did you discover your love for ambitious Christian entrepreneurs? 

Whitney: Before I started coaching, I worked at a nonprofit for 10 years. I did a lot of recruiting for the executives. There was a headquarters is in Colorado Springs where I live. One of the reasons I loved that job was because I got to see what it looked like for high level men and women–how they put teams together and how they thought about other people’s strengths and abilities, what they brought to the table and then putting those teams together and building out a department. Because I was working with  managers and directors and the CEO, the CFO–it was really fascinating to just see how their brain worked. And while I was doing that, I joined a network marketing company and I figured out, okay, I really love coaching here. I did that for a while and found success in that. I love the aspect of coaching of being able to help people discover the blocks that they come up against and then to help them remove those roadblocks. When I started coaching, I quickly recognized that I really liked the women who were aiming for something who had goals and dreams were the people I wanted to spend time around and help. It wasn’t that I have a problem with women that aren’t goal-driven. I love them, too, of course. But when I was sitting with a woman who was expressing her heartfelt desire of there’s something more for me, I know I’m not fulfilling my purpose or I feel like I’m burned out, I realized she’s the one I want to be around. She’s the one that I want to help. She’s the one that I want to sit with and hold space for. So I got really clear on this: I work with Christian women that are aligned with the word of God and that love him fully and I want to work with women who have goals and dreams. I just kept asking the Lord who are you wanting me to speak to? And he just kept putting them in front of me. 

The Lord urged me to listen to their stories and cultivate the relationship and curate the information and then push it back out. There were similarities among all of the women I was talking to daily. They were experiencing shame because they were isolated. They had thoughts like: 

if anybody knew what I was really working through or experiencing, they wouldn’t pay me

​I don’t have any friends because all I’ve done is work my business for the last five years and so now I’m really lonely  

I feel like I’m the only one who’s walking through this

I am too scared to be in a community because that’s feels way too vulnerable

I don’t know if they’re going to be confidential with that

creating safety

These were the themes over and over and over again. And the Lord said to me, “you’re supposed to be the one to create safety for them.”

I pushed back and I told the Lord I didn’t want to do it, but he was persistent with me. So I’m just being obedient. So, not laying down your peace looks like getting in alignment and honoring the Lord. 

Leslie: Yep. I love that. I love that so much. And I noticed that one of the ways that you love and serve your clients is around the implementation of boundaries. It’s a common theme, especially for us as entrepreneurs and women and homemakers who are just go, go, go, give, give, give. And honestly, our boundaries can be pretty much non-existent and this can be the cause for panic in a lot of areas of our lives. One of the ways that you are so helpful in this season is helping women create boundaries and making it safe for them to put boundaries on things. You remind women: you are in charge of your mind. So my question for you is what are some of the ways that you see women laying down their peace because of a lack of boundaries in their work or in their home? 

boundaries

Whitney: So I think of boundaries in a number of ways. It depends on what kind of boundaries you’re talking about. You’ve got emotional boundaries. You’ve got spiritual boundaries. You’ve got physical boundaries like you’ve talked about with your family, it could be boundaries with an ex who’s a narcissist. It could be boundaries in friendship. There are a lot of different kinds of boundaries. And I think there are really good steps in learning to identify an area that you don’t feel comfortable with or there is an area that you are recognizing as unhealthy. So it’s identifying, it’s creating a plan, it’s communicating, and it’s enforcing. The boundaries that I’m really passionate about are boundaries of the mind. I think of our brain as real estate and I think we tend to give a lot of real estate to worry and fear and overwhelm. What happens is if we don’t have boundaries in our mind of what things that we allow to come in and take up space, then we tend to find that we’re in overwhelm and our emotional well-being tanks. What I want to do more than anything is protect my brain space from things that are not of the Lord. I want to protect my brain space from things that are not going to be productive. When I get on consults with people, one of the first questions I ask them is what’s keeping you awake at night? What are the things you’re thinking about before you go to bed? What are things you’re waking up in the middle of the night and you’re dwelling on, what things are robbing you of your peace? What are the things you think about when you’re playing with your kids and you’ve had an entire day of work and you cannot shut off your mind? That is a boundary of your mind that you have not put in place because you’re still allowing all of the thoughts to come in and there’s no gate, right? A boundary is simply just a gate or a fence. It’s something that is keeping you from getting to the next area or it’s creating space or distance between you and something else. It’s the same thing with your mind. If you don’t have those gates in there, then you’re playing with your kids or having a conversation with your husband and you’re thinking about your lead magnet or your conversation with a client or your list of things to do. Boundaries of the mind I think are the most important. When I’m talking with highly ambitious, creative, high-achieving women, I find that there’s usually not a lack of ideas or a lack of work ethic, there is a lack of boundaries in the mind. 

Leslie: Even as you’re talking, I’ve felt conviction because last night about 3:00am, I was having dreams about formulating a program in my mind that had to do with an email sequence that I was busy working on. Some of the things that I have in my heart, which are not bad, but what you’re saying is that if I am thinking about that and I’m working on that in my sleep, then that in and of itself is an indication that I don’t have a boundary set in place that gives me permission to say, you do not have to work while you sleep. And because you’re not getting good sleep and you’re strategizing in your brain, you have not experienced a full picture of peace or emotional health yet because you are still believing that you need to be thinking about this while sleeping. You’re having a hard time letting go. Of course you know this, but this has a direct impact on your daily life and overall health, as well. Women, especially ambitious women, are pretty good at multitasking. When you tell me that I don’t have to strategize my lead magnet while I’m changing a diaper, I don’t really like you when you say that. Hahahaha.

rest and peace are available to you

Whitney: Here’s the thing, I don’t actually think that there’s anything wrong with that because I do think that the Lord shows up and gives us inspiration and creativity in some really unlikely places. So for you, we’ve talked about this, sometimes it’s like listening to a podcast, doing dishes, watching a movie, driving, at a conference, at a retreat, you know, he shows up in unlikely places and gives us these spiritual downloads, where I tend to find the most inspiration that comes to me is when I’m actually resting and it’s not sleeping. I think that’s where we get caught up when we are, whether you’ve got this successful $30 million business or you’re out in your garden or you’re changing diapers, rest and peace are available to you. But rest doesn’t just come because you decide to put down your phone and you’re going to spend quality time with your kids, right? Rest comes when you decide, Okay, Lord, my sufficiency comes from you. My identity comes from you and I know that you are in charge of it all. And so I’m going to lay this down and be fully present. And I’m asking that you set up those boundaries in my mind so that I’m not allowing the worry and the fear and all the thoughts creep in, in moments that I want to be present when I’m with my kids or with my husband or with my friends. A different perspective is that multitasking is good in appropriate situations. And then other times we don’t know how to turn that off and we don’t know how to manage that well and that’s just a lack of practice. And it’s also a lack of learning how to find rest for your soul. We discuss powerful techniques for developing ourselves in these areas during my mastermind.

Leslie: Do you think that there’s an element of feeling unsafe if I’m not being productive on a regular basis? I’m going to be in trouble or I’m supposed to squeeze every single minute out of my day, as unto the Lord. That if I’m not doing something or I’m not being that productive, there is an element of panic to it because it doesn’t feel safe? It’s a stress response bound up in loads of negative self-talk. I know for some these are new things to think about and question. 

Whitney: Oh, for sure. For sure. And whether it’s business and the thought is if I don’t work, I don’t eat. Or if I’m not creating and if I’m not generating income, I can’t feed my kids. If it’s home related, it could be a thought like if I’m not cleaning, if I’m not getting the house tidy, then my husband’s going to come home and  ask what am I doing all day? And then there’s shame associated with that. These unwanted thoughts are the beginning of the shame cycle. And then when we get in a shame cycle, we begin to associate what we do with and what our output is with our value and our worth. And I think instead we get in the shame cycle when we don’t understand our identity fully. And that doesn’t mean being lazy, but it does mean working really hard, while also understanding that at the end of the day, our identity is not connected to what we do. It means having control of your mind.

valuable without having to produce

Leslie: That is so good. I banged the drum of rest over the last couple of years we’ve implemented rest day and that is on purpose to say, I am valuable without having to produce. I think if you don’t weave that into your week, your day and your mindset, then you will burn out. I think I’ve said this in another episode, but one of the things that women, especially mothers, think is, I never get a day off or I’m never getting that moment to turn off. The human mind is so powerful and you can foster this view of yourself as the victim in the story. And what you’re saying, Whitney, is you have the ability to partake in rest in your mind and your thought patterns anytime that you want. You said something so curious. You told me that putting away my phone is not enough. Maybe I’ve learned to put my phone down, but I haven’t learned how to shut my mind and my racing thoughts down. 

What is one way that you like to trigger the thought in your brain? Hey, It’s safe for you to turn off your mind on this. Like what is your thing that you say that communicates, “Hey Whitney, it’s good enough today”?

helping your brain feel safe

Whitney: Yeah, I feel like I’m not an expert in this area, but I’m really great at this sometimes because I’m a Seven on the Enneagram and I like to play a lot. And so turning off my brain is usually not a problem.  I really like to rest. So two things come up. Number one, I think there needs to be a system for getting some of the thoughts out of our brain because often what will happen is we are done working and then we have this brilliant idea and I don’t have my phone in my hand and I’m going to lose it and what if the Lord doesn’t bring it back to me. So there’s an aspect of like, okay, Lord, I’m going to ask you to bring it back at the right time, or there’s a faith involved and trust involved in that. And then there’s also an aspect of having a good system and a tool in place to be able to write it down, put it in a place where you know your brain feels safe, knowing that its safe. So for me, that’s a note on my phone and if an idea comes, I call it the dryer method. Like when you stuff your dryer full of laundry, it’s not going to dry as efficiently if it’s stuffed full with all the things. And so there has to be a process to slowly take out the things from the dryer so it can dry more efficiently. Different things will appeal to different people. Whether that’s a note, whether that’s a piece of paper you carry around, whatever, like for me, sometimes it’s voice memos or you know, voice recordings on my phone.  But I like to have some sort of method to pull it out of my brain so my brain knows, okay. It’s safe. I took it out. I’m not going to forget it. It’s not going anywhere. And I trust that the Lord will bring it back to me in the appropriate time.

Leslie: So what you just described there is a mindset of abundance. Is it not? I feel like that’s a great way to think about it.

Whitney: Yeah I’m never without these ideas. The Lord will always bring them to me when it’s the right time.

Leslie: That could be actually a big culprit for ambitious women is if I don’t do this now, it’ll never get done. Or if I don’t do it now, I’ll forget about it. And what if that genius goes away? So therefore right in that moment, we have laid down our peace and we have picked up this I need to hurry, hurry, hurry mindset and hurry is  the antagonist of peace. Yes. It says that these cannot coexist. If you’re in a hurry, it’s one thing to be quick, cunning and methodical. And it’s another thing to be in a hurry. So, put your phone down, but also take a note in your phone. Haha. And that’s the tension, right? It’s like the phone is not bad. Technology is good. Are you a slave to it or is it your slave? That’s a boundary in and of itself. I am not a slave to my technology. My technology is 10,000 servants in the form of apps, so I can accomplish the goals that God has set before me. That’s a boundary for sure to say, I will not bow down to the things of my phone. I will not be entangled or enslaved to whatever it is I’m working on. It will work for me and assist in better performance. I have been gifted. I have a purpose to be here. Oh my goodness. Talk about a powerful, conscious decision. So, if you had a word of encouragement for someone who is feeling overwhelmed by all they have on their plate right now, what would you like to tell them? 

always a choice

Whitney: Thoughts that come into our brain are always a choice. Like you say, worry is always a choice. Right? So I literally think of all the thoughts coming into my brain. Most of the time we feel like they’re just default. Like we just, we’re a victim to them. They just happened to us. I don’t have a choice. It just happens to me. I think that’s where the enemy likes to keep us and lie to us. He likes to remind us that we don’t have power, but what the truth of the matter is that we have a Holy Spirit living in us and that allows us to tap into discernment. So what I remind a lot of my clients of and especially the ones that experience perfectionism and don’t know how to field some of those thoughts is whenever we experience thoughts that we’re not good with or that are coming out of nowhere or that are I like to call them unproductive, I don’t think they’re necessarily negative thoughts, but I think of them as unproductive or productive. If these are unproductive thoughts that are going to keep me or allow me to put down my peace or they are going to put me into overwhelm or I’m going to go down a black hole or a rabbit hole or I’m going to get distracted. It is important to remind myself that the Lord ultimately has control here and my mind does not belong to the enemy. It’s the Lord’s. It’s kind of that gatekeeping of what am I allowing in?  I always have a choice what to indulge in. I always have a choice what thoughts to dwell on. So if there are thoughts coming in or if I’m in a conversation or if things are coming at me and I don’t feel good about it, or I know it’s a waste of time or it’s unproductive, there is always the choice in that moment to pause and say, this is not helping me right now. And I’m not necessarily an affirmations person. I believe we take our thoughts captive and I believe in anchor thoughts. So what’s the anchor thought that I need right now that is believable, it’s biblical and I can choose to swap out. And so it’s number one, recognizing we always have a choice. We always have a choice what gets to take place and dwell in our minds. Then having tools, having the people around us that are reminding us of truth and that are infusing that in us. And we are always in the word of God–we have that as a base, as a foundation. So even if we don’t have that anchor thought, we can go to scripture and say, I’m not supposed to worry.  I always have an option to choose the thoughts that are good and peaceful and that we can always find joy and that he promises us that we are never without him. Those are always available to us. It just takes time and it takes practice, but the main encouragement there is that we always have a choice what we’re going to dwell and indulge in our mind.  

we’re not camping

Leslie: I love that. And it’s such an invitation to take back control. That’s called taking your thoughts captive. That takes time to learn, but it’s such a needed skill set to have in any season of life. You say, I choose in advance not to sit here and camp here. I’m reminded of that passage where David said, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He did not camp. He did not set up shop. He walked. And I think sometimes walking looks like choosing to think on things that are lovely, ponder things that are good, keep your eyes on Jesus. If I can bring it to a little bit of Christian cliche, and that’s not just a cute verse on a cup, that is being clothed in strength and dignity. The woman with strength and dignity has a major impact on her family and her community.

Whitney: Yeah. It is crying into the peanut butter and jelly. It’s like moving even in the darkest seasons. 

Leslie: Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on here I know we have a lot of ambitious women who listen to this podcast and read the blog and are thinking to themselves, I need more peace in my life and the positive outcomes it brings. And everything that you have echoed is everything that we’re on mission here to do. And I just appreciate your friendship and what we do behind the scenes. Where can my ambitious women around here find you and where can they follow you and where can they find your amazing resources?

how to find Whitney

Whitney: Oh, yeah, thank you. So glad to be here. I talk a lot about rest for your soul and I have a free download where you can have some beginners steps to walk through–how to actually find rest, info on boundaries is in there and identity and shame cycle. It’s a powerful tool that’s available on my Instagram account, @whitneykroneberger. And I have a mastermind, so if you want to learn more about group coaching with me, that is available to learn more about at my website, whitneykroneberger.com. If you want to be a part of that, I would love to have you.  

Leslie: Well, thank you so much. I love you. And I will talk to you on Marco.  

Friend, the good news is that you never have to lay down your peace. God is with you and he is giving you strength for the moment. He wants to meet you on a daily basis and give you what you need for the day. If you are new to the blog and podcast I pray that you are blessed. The best way to connect is over on Instagram @Leslie__burris and give the Peace on Purpose Podcast a listen!