272 | Self-Sacrifice vs. Self-Honoring: Tools to Thrive in Mind, Body, and Finances with Beatriz Victoria Albina

Hilary Hendershott: Well, hey there, Money Lover! Today’s conversation is near and dear to my heart because it pulls together the things I care about most: helping women author their lives and thrive, which means feeling good about your mind, your body, your heart, your relationships, and your bank account. That’s why I appreciate the work of people like Béatriz Victoria Albina, who is my guest on today’s show.

Hilary Hendershott: Béa, who you may know better as Victoria, she says in the interview that she has been going by Victoria, she’s going back to her given first name, which is Béatriz, shortened to Béa, is a Master Certified Somatic Life Coach and UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner with a passion for helping human beings who have the experience of growing up as a girl reconnect with their bodies and minds, so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism, and people pleasing and reclaim their joy.

Hilary Hendershott: She’s the host of the Feminist Wellness podcast, is trained in somatic experiencing, holds a Masters degree in Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College.

Hilary Hendershott: Béa’s been working in health and wellness for over 20 years, and today she joined me on the podcast to talk about the difference between helping from an energy of reciprocity and mutuality versus the desire to rescue someone.

Hilary Hendershott: Am I speaking to any of you out there? You’re going to want to tune in.

Hilary Hendershott: And why needing to be needed sabotages your wealth. We talked about the cost of falling into the quote unquote rescue trap, this place where we think it’s the noble thing to do to help others with their problems, even when it sidelines our own financial security or goals, and explored the difference between codependent financial habits and healthy and values-aligned spending choices.

Hilary Hendershott: We also discussed a very big, two-letter word, N-O, talking about why it’s such a hard word for women to face the consequence of acting based on that fear instead of an enthusiastic yes–and what you can do to rewire that survival instinct and replace it with neural pathways that will help you thrive.

Hilary Hendershott: I really enjoyed this conversation. I do feel that Béa and my mindsets and skill sets are very well complemented, our outlook on women and our reclaiming our emancipation, our freedom, really aligns well. And she brings something really neat and unique to the conversation.

Hilary Hendershott: She really has the ability to connect the intangible world of our beliefs and values with the tangible world of our behaviors and relationships with others. All right. So without further ado, let’s dive in.

Hilary Hendershott: Béa. Welcome to Love, your Money®.

Béa Victoria Albina: Thank you so much for having me here.

Hilary Hendershott: I am looking forward to this. I talk a lot about the fact that people overspend and spend and do things with their money to please other people.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: I’m excited to talk about why that might be, like, let’s dig in, and that’s your bailiwick. So let’s start with describing the problem. So why do so many people, especially women, self-sacrifice to such a great extent in order to make others happy? Why is it not okay for us to just make ourselves happy? And why do we aggrandize people who do this?

Béa Victoria Albina: Oof, I mean, the answer is so multifactorial, right? So I will zoom out and share with you a term that I came up with which is emotional outsourcing. So I wanted an umbrella term to talk about our codependent, perfectionist, and people pleasing habits, which are the habits that drive us to prioritize others with our spending, and not take care of ourselves or future us.

Béa Victoria Albina: But I found that so many of my friends, my clients, my colleagues–these terms weren’t really landing, right? Like I’d say perfectionism, people say, “Oh, I mess up all the time. I’m not a perfectionist.” Or people pleasing: “Oh, no, people are really displeased with me.”

Hilary Hendershott: Oh!

Béa Victoria Albina: And codependent just seems like, you know, not me. It’s somebody else, right? No, I don’t– I’m super independent, right?

Hilary Hendershott: It’s easiest to describe other people as codependent, for sure.

Béa Victoria Albina: Oh my gosh! Right, but like to take it in on yourself? Oh, no, no, it’s not me. And so I wanted a term that could help us to get the care and support that we need while eschewing the old terms that weren’t working. So emotional outsourcing, I define–and I trademarked it, which I know you’ll like–

Hilary Hendershott: Look at you! Serious, okay.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah, intellectual property over here. Gotta protect it. But it is when we chronically and habitually source our sense of the three essential human needs–safety, worth, and belonging–from everyone and everything outside of ourselves, instead of from within, to our detriment.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: Got it.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: Now I’m taking you off track, and not even letting you answer the question, but can we just do a teeny little tributary, and maybe I’m going to now elucidate my own emotional outsourcing. But how in the heck do you generate a sense of belonging internally?

Béa Victoria Albina: By believing that you are worthy of being in connection with others.

Hilary Hendershott: Ah, okay. I got that. That communicates.

Béa Victoria Albina: So like now, I know that people want to be in belonging with me, right? And that I belong to communities, because I give from my heart to those communities. Right?

Béa Victoria Albina: I show up, and I have dinner parties, and I take care of my friends and meow meow meow right.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah, I have a lot to offer as a friend. I may not be your cup of tea, but I have a lot to offer.

Béa Victoria Albina: Sure, exactly.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay. Thank you.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. But what a great question.

Hilary Hendershott: So why do we do this so much?

Béa Victoria Albina: Well, if the locus of our worth and value, and belonging, and safety and everything else, is in everyone else, and what they think, feel, believe about us…

Béa Victoria Albina: If we are not–by our smarts, by our looks, by our weight, by our– whatever parameter you want to use–if we’re not good enough, worthy enough, maybe we can buy our way into it.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, I so tried to do that for so many years. Yes, I did. So many dinners and drinks purchased for people I didn’t even like.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah, I mean, and then add, you know, there’s a martyr complex that’s super common within emotional outsourcing. “Oh, no, no! I just take care of you. I’m… I’m self-sacrificing. You’re the one who matters.”

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? And the secret hope there is that the tables will turn, and someone will take care of us.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh! Is that the secret hope?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. Uh huh.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, okay.

Béa Victoria Albina: Well, because you so often hear, “After all I’ve done for you, you can’t pick me up on a Wednesday? With all I’ve done for you…” Like that’s the flip of that martyr role, right?

Béa Victoria Albina: “Oh, after I bought you all those beautiful holiday presents? Really?”

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, wow!

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. And a little love here for all of us. This is subconscious. No one’s like out here, maliciously trying to like F up all their relationships. This is survival skills from childhood. This is early learning in our nervous systems.

Béa Victoria Albina: And it, of course, affects everything else until we realize it and change it.

Hilary Hendershott: And we put it on a pedestal. The nicest thing that can be said about a woman is, “Oh, she’d give you the shirt off her back.”

Béa Victoria Albina: Oh, my goodness gracious. Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: Right, and I’m like girlfriend, keep your shirt on.

Béa Victoria Albina: Keep your shirt on, sister. Yeah, mmhmm.

Hilary Hendershott: I had a huge alteration, sort of a tear in my own universe, when I really internalized the phrase, “No one cares more about my money than I do.”

Hilary Hendershott: And how that applies to me is, I’m very clear–and I try to impute this to my clients–I’m very clear, no one is amassing assets in my Charles Schwab account except me. No one is deferring into my 401(k) except me. No one is managing that I’m on track for retirement except me.

Hilary Hendershott: Right? And so I’ve got to manage that first, because money is a constrained or scarce resource, right? And so that kind of thinking, that was just not a thought I had ever had. I had even probably said it out loud. But when you really grapple with it, it’s like, “No, I now need to order my money choices.”

Hilary Hendershott: Kind of “me first, and then whatever is left over.” Would you share from your experience, working with your clients– And, by the way, do you work with clients one on one; in groups? How does that happen?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah, I run two groups. One is called Anchored. It’s a 6-month container where we do deep dive coaching. I’m also a somatic experiencing practitioner. So I bring somatic experiencing in and we form a really beautiful supportive community to do this work because our nervous systems need each other so much. And then for folks who want to sort of learn the more didactic, the more just the nerdy nervous system part. I have a 12 week program called the Somatic Studio.

Hilary Hendershott: Is it all women, or all genders?

Béa Victoria Albina: It’s humans who are assigned female at birth.

Hilary Hendershott: Got it.

Béa Victoria Albina: So folks who have the experience of growing up as a girl.

Hilary Hendershott: And how many of those people would you say are overspending to please people?

Béa Victoria Albina: If we’re talking financially, I would say a significant portion. I think 100% are overspending when we look at time as a resource, energy as a resource, hope as a resource. Doing a grown kids laundry as a resource… When we broaden it, I would say, between 100-127% of them.

Hilary Hendershott: Lovely. I love that percentage. Okay, great.

Hilary Hendershott: So, you know, I sort of interjected and shared an insight that changed how I think.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: In your experience, clearly what made the difference for me isn’t going to make the difference for everybody. How do you realign the folks you work with, so that they’re able to think differently about that?

Béa Victoria Albina: So the key question that I teach them is, “What am I asking X to do for me?” So what am I asking that gin and tonic to do for me? Take away my sadness. What am I asking over functioning in this relationship?

Béa Victoria Albina: What am I asking it to do for me? Make me feel safer. What am I asking rescuing someone by spending money on them to get them out of the hole that they got themselves into? What am I asking that act to do for me? Ingratiate me in their presence. Right? So that when I’m in need they’ll take care of me, right? There’s a lot of tit for tat thinking and emotional outsourcing.

Béa Victoria Albina: It’s not the most reciprocal environment. It’s very, “I did for you; do for me.” And so what are you asking money to do for you? What are you asking spending to do for you? Are you asking spending to take away your anger?

Béa Victoria Albina: Like are you going rage shopping? Are you going grief shopping, right? Instead of learning how to be with the feelings; learning how to be with the emotions, so that you can actually widen your capacity to be a human in the world, and to feel all of your feelings.

Hilary Hendershott: And we also have this well of a history of programming. Right? I mean, we’re sort of talking about this messaging like, oh, I can say, keep your shirt on your back, sister, but that’s deeply ingrained for people, right?

Béa Victoria Albina: Deeply. Certainly.

Hilary Hendershott: And I certainly hope that it’s lesser ingrained for my daughter’s generation. You know she’s 8 now.

Béa Victoria Albina: Aw!

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah, I hope, and I certainly am talking to her about those things. How do we unravel those words that are– feel like I’m coded with them? They’re in me, right? How can we move past that stuff? Does it begin with saying it out loud? What comes after that?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. So that’s where the nervous system work comes in. And that’s where remembering how to regulate our own nervous systems to support ourselves as a daily practice of self-reclamation has to happen. Because you’re right, reclaiming the words helps because our mindset is super important. There’s copious evidence to support that. But if our bodies and our nervous systems don’t believe us, not much is gonna change. You know what I mean?

Hilary Hendershott: Right? Right? It’s just words in the mirror. And so let’s dig into this somatic… thing. What does that look like on a daily basis?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah, for sure. So let’s start by defining terms. So somatic: Soma means of the body; the body and its wholeness in Greek. So somatic practices are anything which returns us into presence with the body in its wholeness. I think it’s really important to define it, because I think there’s so much confusion out there. I got an ad on Instagram the other day for a somatic workout.

Béa Victoria Albina: It’s a bit of a head scratcher. Like what exactly are other workouts? You know what I mean?

Hilary Hendershott: Right. They’re workouts that take you out of your body.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right, exactly. A little silly there with the marketing. So the goal of somatic practices is to–there’s so many–but really return to an understanding of what the body wants; what the body holds; what the body’s able to teach us.

Béa Victoria Albina: It’s really a move away from the primacy of the brain, right? And we can throw Descartes the whole way under the bus with this one. Right? “I think, therefore, I am.” Isn’t the whole story. We know that our enteric nervous system–the nervous system in our gut–as well as our autonomic nervous system, they hold memory, as it were, right? They hold the stories; the lessons; the learnings about things like safety from the past, and they impact us wildly today.

Béa Victoria Albina: So, with that clarified, the best way to develop a somatic bodily awareness is through presence practices. So that can be meditation for some people. Meditation doesn’t work for everybody. It’s not always the best choice.

Béa Victoria Albina: We can really start with things like mindfulness. Meaning, moment to moment, present moment awareness. Right? So really simple ways to start are putting an alarm on your phone and once an hour, taking a breath. Feeling your feet wherever they are. If you’re seated, feeling the seat, holding you up. Look around where you are–that’s called orienting your nervous system. It takes two seconds.

Béa Victoria Albina: And just being. So, taking the focus off of productivity as the goal of living and taking a moment to just be. And to be present, which down regulates the autonomic nervous system, down regulates things like adrenaline and cortisol, which, like too many of us have those hormones and neurotransmitters running amok our body.

Hilary Hendershott: I have no idea what you’re referring to at all.

Béa Victoria Albina: No, you’ve never heard of it. Stress? Never. Me? Never. Stress, who’s that? No idea. No, no! Folks in finance are often very chill. Y’all are just like a chill group.

Hilary Hendershott: I’ve heard that.

Béa Victoria Albina: Super chill; casual. No big deal. Just wicked sad. So, great, well, it’s been nice talking to you. Bye.

Hilary Hendershott: I need a nap now.

Béa Victoria Albina: Night, everybody.

Béa Victoria Albina: But yeah, I mean, how often are we giving our body like even one breath?

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Béa Victoria Albina: To like really just be present.

Béa Victoria Albina: And the more often we’re present, the more our body begins to slowly, with time, believe us that we’re listening.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right?

Hilary Hendershott: That’s the link. I get it now.

Béa Victoria Albina: That’s the link! So I have been, for–he’s now crossed the Rainbow Bridge–but for quite a while I was a mother to a very ornery Chihuahua, who wore diapers, not because he was incontinent, but because he liked to look you in the eye and pee in the house. What a jerk! God, I love my dog. Chihuahuas. They’re monsters.

Béa Victoria Albina: And when he would go and bark wildly at a squirrel, it didn’t help anybody if I completely ignored him because he’d bark louder, or if I screamed at him, because he’d… bark… louder.

Béa Victoria Albina: But if I went up to him and I said, “Aw, Ziggy, yeah, that’s a scary big squirrel, huh, baby?” He’d look at me and he’d go, “Bark.” And I’d go, “Yeah, baby,” and he’d go [Chihuahua noises] and he’d curl up on a pillow and go back to sleep.

Hilary Hendershott: You did that little Chihuahua noise pretty well.

Béa Victoria Albina: Thank you.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Béa Victoria Albina: I really appreciate it. I feel very seen in this moment.

Béa Victoria Albina: What we do is we ignore our bodies; our inner children; our nervous system; ourself, and then wonder why we’re so effing stressed. Or we scream at ourselves, “God! Why aren’t you more chill? Why are you always flying off the handle?”

Hilary Hendershott: “Why can’t you sleep?”

Béa Victoria Albina: “Why can’t you sleep? Why don’t you exercise? Why do you spend your time and money on everyone else, instead of taking care of you, you dumb Chihuahua?”

Béa Victoria Albina: Neither gets us anywhere pleasant, anywhere useful, anywhere helpful.

Béa Victoria Albina: But taking that moment to say, “I hear you barking at a squirrel. Yeah, look at you. You’re worried about that, huh? Tell me.”

Béa Victoria Albina: Like the way you do with a toddler, right? Like, “Oh, yeah, you hit your finger. Oh, let me kiss it up.”

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? You’re not going to turn your back on the crying kid. My intuition tells me you’re not going to start screaming at her, either.

Hilary Hendershott: Correct.

Béa Victoria Albina: So we need to remember to treat ourselves like taller toddlers, cause it’s what we are.

Hilary Hendershott: The first thing that I think when you say, “Take time, be present, acknowledge what’s happening inside you…” I think, how long is this going to take?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. So it’s only gonna work for you if your goal is self-knowledge in this deep way–

Hilary Hendershott: I’m so sorry. What I meant was, I’m guilty of self abandonment and over productivity. So I’m resonating with what you’re saying. So that was an incomplete communication. Thank you and I’m sorry.

Béa Victoria Albina: Good! Oh, good! Oh, good, my love! And I would like to take a moment to relieve you of the burden of the phrase, “I’m guilty.”

Béa Victoria Albina: Because I would posit that you are doing that; that’s your reflex from self-love; from attempting to take care of a tender part of you that maybe you haven’t wanted to look at. Maybe “busy” has covered up beautifully for you.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? Maybe it’s been a wonderful survival skill.

Hilary Hendershott: Busy gets a lot of things done. It really does.

Béa Victoria Albina: Listen. Come on, now. I get more done by 9am than most people do in a lifetime every day.

Hilary Hendershott: Look at you.

Béa Victoria Albina: But we gotta find the balance.

Hilary Hendershott: Find the what?

Béa Victoria Albina: Find the balance. But you were going somewhere else.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, gosh! Ba-lance. ballance.

Béa Victoria Albina: Ba-lance. It’s fake French.

Hilary Hendershott: You said a few minutes ago that meditation doesn’t work for everyone.

Béa Victoria Albina: Oh, sure!

Hilary Hendershott: How do you know if meditation doesn’t work for you?

Béa Victoria Albina: If you try to meditate, and your nervous system gets flooded and you have a panic attack. That’s a good way to know.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, oh, okay.

Béa Victoria Albina: There was a study. I think it was at Brown. We’d have to look it up. I did a podcast episode on my show, on Feminist Wellness about it. But about the small population, that percentage of the population that does lose their cool; has panic attacks from meditation. It makes sense as a nervous system nerd, right?

Béa Victoria Albina: If the amount of sort of space between you and anxious; you and panic is very, very small, then, getting silent and still, and not having all the buffers against your emotions. Not having anything to like filter life, is going to be too much for you.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, that is really interesting.

Béa Victoria Albina: Isn’t it fascinating? I believe it can be overcome if–

Hilary Hendershott: It seems that way.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. And I would imagine that a process of mindfulness; nervous system regulation tools; practices like somatic experiencing to really get to the root cause of why the tether’s so short between you and and flipping your lid, as it were.

Béa Victoria Albina: I think, could really make meditation available for everyone. But again it goes back to volition, and if that’s not your route? Life’s short, maybe do something else. You know what I mean. I’m not here to like push meditation. I think it can work for everyone. But if you’re not interested, there’s so many other beautiful ways to start to show your body that it’s the Chihuahua that can trust you.

Hilary Hendershott: I’m glad I asked into that, because I mean, so many people are talking about meditation. You know it literally, to use your word, it’s being pushed everywhere. And so that was really great distinction to bring to that topic. You talk about something called the rescue trap.

Hilary Hendershott: What is the rescue trap, and why do we fall in it, and what are its implications?

Béa Victoria Albina: And it’s so multifactorial, right? I’ve said that word twice now. I’m gonna aim for a third time before the end of our conversation, so somebody keep count.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay. Great.

Béa Victoria Albina: The rescue trap is really the hole within which self abandonment lives, where we see someone who is in need–

Béa Victoria Albina: And when we’re talking about it in this really problematic, sort of enabling based way, it’s usually a crisis of their own creation. So a really good friend of mine’s husband was never happy at work. Everyone was always bullying him; everyone was a jerk; everyone was mean to him. They moved to seven different states.

And everyone was a jerk.

Hilary Hendershott: Everywhere you go, there you are!

Béa Victoria Albina: In fact.

Béa Victoria Albina: But my dear friend, couldn’t–we were in our thirties, right? She couldn’t see it, and then he wanted to start a business.

Béa Victoria Albina: So her 401(k) became his money bags.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh.

Béa Victoria Albina: I know. I know it’s heartbreaking now, in our mid forties. I’m like, oh, girl. But that’s what Gretchen did. She just was like, I’m gonna take care of Mike. I promised to whatever.

Béa Victoria Albina: Without realizing that she was constantly putting herself, her career, her work, her friendships, her comfort, her community, her money last and last, and last and last, and last.

Béa Victoria Albina: Moving every time he hated a job. Funding what anyone could have told them was a not great business plan.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Béa Victoria Albina: And then, when the business wasn’t working, she put more and more and more money into it, and time into it, and energy into it until everything collapsed.

Hilary Hendershott: And in fact, she didn’t ever rescue Mike.

Béa Victoria Albina: Not in a lasting way.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Béa Victoria Albina: Because no one could, right? No one can fully rescue you.

Béa Victoria Albina: So, when it becomes this pattern where we’re putting ourselves last to try to pull someone out of their baloney, that’s that rescue trap.

Béa Victoria Albina: And it can be–I told you like a very sort of grandiose scale of this, but it can be the little thing, right?

Béa Victoria Albina: A client was telling me recently that her mom would write her papers in college. Like, in college.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? Right.

Hilary Hendershott: I would actually be so bold as to call that disempowering, but, yeah.

Béa Victoria Albina: That’s what the rescue trap is. It’s profoundly disempowering. Because Mike never had to put on his big boy pants and get his life together. He would just, “Gretch. More money, more money, more money. Let’s move. More money. Let’s move.” Right? And she would just do what she thought a good wife, and a good girl, and a good daughter, and a good and a good and a good, was supposed to do.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? You know, you spoke earlier about how, when we’re spending money on others on like without profound intentionality, we’re not putting money where we need it.

Béa Victoria Albina: I think when we’re talking about emotional outsourcing, we need to go even more basic. And remember the laws of physics. When you’re doing one thing, you’re not doing another.

Béa Victoria Albina: And this blows my clients minds to be like, wait, you’re totally right. I’ve been saying I wanted to read that novel; take that bath; go in the sauna; garden; yoga… list after thing after thing. But here I am, making the cupcakes, running the PTA, doing the things for everyone else.

Béa Victoria Albina: We forget that we can’t do two things at once. And the reason we’re never getting to ourselves is because we’re taking care of everyone else.

Hilary Hendershott: Right. That is physics.

Béa Victoria Albina: And it does sound so simple, but it’s impactful, no?

Hilary Hendershott: It sounds so simple, and I sometimes have to remind myself when I’m plaguing my brain with, “I’m not getting it all done” is like, “Hilary, there are an infinite number of things you are not getting done, right? You don’t suffer about those!”

Hilary Hendershott: Right?

Béa Victoria Albina: Isn’t that wild, though?

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah, and you brought up an interesting subject which is a juicy one, and that is women saying no!

Hilary Hendershott: Why can’t we do it?

Béa Victoria Albina: I mean, yeah, because we have been conditioned and socialized in the patriarchy; in white settler colonialism; in late stage capitalism, to not say no, right? It is sinful to be a selfish woman. It is a very bad, terrible thing, right? And we take that in, that the woman who says no, who has an opinion, who–God forbid–disappoints someone, or…

Hilary Hendershott: Or sets a boundary.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right. Or a limit, or makes a request, is a terrible person, and is not–

Hilary Hendershott: Selfish.

Béa Victoria Albina: Selfish, which is a bad thing, whereas I would posit that selfish is pretty much as good as it gets.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah?

Béa Victoria Albina: Well, yeah. What’s the opposite of selfish?

Hilary Hendershott: No, no, I’m with you. I want to hear how you think about that.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? Yeah. Well, so, when we’re thinking about codependent thinking, we think about the super enmeshed, super overly controlling, overly controlled, like deep in it, right, codependent. And then the polar opposite is independent. Oh, I don’t need anybody. I’m fine. I don’t need you. I don’t need vulnerability. I don’t need friends. I don’t need community. I’m fine. I am a rock. I am an island, right?

Hilary Hendershott: Right.

Béa Victoria Albina: And what I want to invite us to aim for is the middle ground, which is interdependence. So interdependence is when two autonomous humans live in mutuality and reciprocity.

Béa Victoria Albina: So we pick up the slack when someone else is sick, knowing that the vibe is always that they’re going to take care of us, the care flows, right?

Béa Victoria Albina: And so within that flowing care, and recognizing that the other person–as an autonomous animal–will say yes, and will say no, we can trust the yes, because we can trust the no.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? And so I think if we’re ever to have real vulnerability, real intimacy, real connection, relationships that really work, we have to say no to both support an interdependence, and to prevent resentment. Healthy boundaries are resentment prevention.

Hilary Hendershott: Healthy boundaries are so so good, so so good. And the truth is, you know, I decline to stay in my mother-in-law’s house. I just said that on my podcast.

Béa Victoria Albina: Good for you.

Hilary Hendershott: I won’t stay in that house, and I will stay in a hotel nearby, and she doesn’t like that. That’s never going to be okay with her, right?

Hilary Hendershott: I wish it was. But I’m also really, really comfortable with my boundary.

Béa Victoria Albina: I love that.

Béa Victoria Albina: It’s a really healthy limit, right? And so if you don’t set that limit and you don’t say no, what’s the opposite? You stay at her house. You don’t sleep well. You wake up pissed off. The food’s not right, the water’s not right, the shower’s not right, the bedding’s not… nothing feels right.

Hilary Hendershott: I fight with my husband, and it’s not his fault.

Béa Victoria Albina: Sure.

Béa Victoria Albina: Sure. Yeah, yeah, it permeates everything. Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: It really does. It’s a miserable experience. Do you think about being selfish and then self less? Or how do you know when you’ve been selfish enough?

Béa Victoria Albina: Hmm.

Hilary Hendershott: How do you know how to allocate?

Béa Victoria Albina: It all comes back to the somatic practice of somatic presence, and really trusting my body; my intuition; my discernment to let me know.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? So to know the gestalt of whether something feels good and right and true or icky, yucky. Yeah, staying at your in-laws. No, thank you.

Béa Victoria Albina: And so part of that is really deeply trusting that I’m a good person, and this is so much of the work we do in Anchored, is working to restore that trust and faith in ourselves. I will never be a meany pants. It’s, it’s not my flavor, it’s not my style, it’s not who I am. I will always be generous. I will always be loving. I’ll always be kind, right? I will always think about others.

Béa Victoria Albina: But not to my detriment.

Béa Victoria Albina: And so I know the felt sensation of that line, right? Where like, living in New York City, I’m not driving you to the airport. I love you, but I’m not driving to JFK or Laguardia. Absolutely not. If you can’t afford a cab, I got a crisp 50 for you. Chill. Cool.

Béa Victoria Albina: But an hour there, an hour back. No. And the stress? No.

Hilary Hendershott: It’s not happening.

Béa Victoria Albina: Not happening. You can ask, and I’ll tell you how to take the Air Train.

Béa Victoria Albina: You can log into my Lyft from your phone. Great. Let’s make it happen. But there’s a limit that protects my love for you.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? My ‘no’, my self-ish having a self and believing that that self is worth protecting; worth taking care of? That protects love.

Béa Victoria Albina: Cause if not, I pick you up at JFK, and I’m already pissed off and want you out of my apartment. Come on, that’s not love.

Hilary Hendershott: And I’m resentful for days, and I don’t want you to come back.

Béa Victoria Albina: Come on. Come on. Yeah, that–right? I’m gonna say no to the next moment of connection.

Hilary Hendershott: How does this sense of selfishness help you prioritize your spending?

Béa Victoria Albina: Hmm, yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: How do you think about that?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. So I think about myself as part of the global whole, right? And I think about my money as a really important way to vote; as a really important way to show corporations what my values are.

Béa Victoria Albina: My money is a tool to physically enact my integrity and my dedication to dignity for all living creatures, and to support this planet. There are so many companies I do not give my money to. I try not to shop online if there’s absolutely anything I can do to prevent it. I shop at small, local stores.

Béa Victoria Albina: Because that’s what I believe in, is keeping money in the local economy, not giving it to billionaires and trillionaires.

Béa Victoria Albina: I like to take care of my community. It really matters. And so I point my money towards that. My spending is a reflection of what I value.

Béa Victoria Albina: And if friends need money, sure you can have it.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah?

Béa Victoria Albina: Until that line inside me says, “Okay, basta, let’s slow down.” Right? So it’s always that checking in with my internal compass which I nurture, which I trust, which I value, and which I believe in.

Hilary Hendershott: Do you have a rule, for example, about people asking you for loans?

Béa Victoria Albina: You know I don’t, because it’s never happened.

Béa Victoria Albina: I’d have to think about it, you know. I mean, of course, Shakespeare comes to mind: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”, but… you know.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean the most common one you hear, you know, is, don’t lend to a friend something you can’t afford to lose right?

Hilary Hendershott: And I think I think that’s a decent rule. It’s simplistic; it’s rote. It will keep you happy.

Hilary Hendershott: It won’t have you being mad at someone for not paying you back. Ever spent on something you regretted?

Béa Victoria Albina: I can’t believe my Master’s in public health just popped into my mind.

Béa Victoria Albina: Anybody want to buy a Master’s degree? I got a fistful of them. No, you know what? I don’t do regret, because regret is disavowing past me, who, within her capacity, thought it was a great idea.

Hilary Hendershott: Yeah.

Béa Victoria Albina: Right? And like, there’s definitely–I can think of an ex who I financially took care of, and I could regret a lot of those choices, but like, why bother, right?

Hilary Hendershott: Well, that’s very empowered of you. But would you say, for example, there’s a decision in present you that kind of financially taking care of a partner, you know, probably wouldn’t do that again? Are there things that you did in the past that you don’t do anymore?

Béa Victoria Albina: What I do now is really again feel into my body, right? And really ask myself–Yeah, I’m gonna stick to the party line here, you know.

Hilary Hendershott: No, I got it.

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah, like my partner’s in grad school. And so the lion’s share of our finances is on me. But it feels really energetically balanced. And so it feels great.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, good!

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah, it’s awesome. Yeah.

Hilary Hendershott: Okay, all right. Is there an exercise… Listeners are listening to this interview, and they’re gonna start your process of being present once an hour. But they’re not quite there yet. Right? We’re at the beginning. So is there some practice that someone can take on–”Hilary, I’m listening to your show, and you know, I know that I’m giving my kids way too much of an allowance. They’re 40 years old, you know.”

Béa Victoria Albina: Adopt me!

Hilary Hendershott: Is there an exercise, or a practice, or a journaling prompt that they can take on to get to that place of honoring or recognizing that compass that’s within themselves? And then and then empowering themselves to actually do something about it?

Béa Victoria Albina: Love it, love it. So, the first practice is as simple as it can get. And it’s the coffee question. So most of us wake up in the morning, and we make a cup of coffee, because I don’t know, that’s what I’ve been doing since high school. Why would I question it?

Béa Victoria Albina: The reason to question it is when we’re working with the nervous system, we want to go with the low hanging fruit; the stuff that’s unlikely to send you into that meditation-induced panic attack. So like, the question’s not, should I stay at my mother-in-law’s…

Béa Victoria Albina: The question is, it’s a Wednesday morning. Dear body, do you actually want black coffee today? Do you actually want a latte today? What do you want?

Béa Victoria Albina: And start the process of listening in for the answer. And like, what could be lower stakes in your morning beverage? Like whatever, it’s irrelevant. But that’s the point. Right?

Béa Victoria Albina: So even just starting with, do you actually want coffee? Do you actually want tea? And then expanding that out so that several times a day you’re asking your body, what do you want? What is right for me as a body, right? As a person living in a body.

Béa Victoria Albina: And it supports that move from, I have a body to I am my body, which is that place of empowerment. So.

Béa Victoria Albina: The next thing I’ll teach you is if someone’s asking you for money or asking, you know the kids saying, “Oh, Mom, I want an Xbox, whatever.” And you’re in that moment where that people pleasing habit is likely to kick in, I want to invite you to do the following: If you’re feeling revved up and anxious and like you’re supposed to say yes, and you’re going to be a good mom, and you’re a good partner, and you want to bah bah bah bah bah…

Béa Victoria Albina: You’re going to take your hands, and you’re going to tap your thumb to your first finger so slowly and count it. One.

Béa Victoria Albina: New York finger, 2.

Béa Victoria Albina: Ring finger, 3. Pinky, 4.

Hilary Hendershott: By the way, the New York finger is the middle finger for those of you on audio.

Béa Victoria Albina: It’s fun when somebody catches, so yeah. And then you just come back, four, three, two, one.

Béa Victoria Albina: And you can do that under your breath. You can have your hand under the table, you know you don’t have to like put your hands up. I’m just putting them up so you can see them.

Béa Victoria Albina: We do this to start to regulate the autonomic nervous system, to bring a little calm into the system, to bring us down from sympathetic activation; that adrenaline you’ve never, ever experienced, ever in your…

Hilary Hendershott: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Béa Victoria Albina: Who is it? Don’t know, don’t care. But if you’re feeling a little racy and you don’t want to make a decision that you might regret, calm the nervous system.

Béa Victoria Albina: Bring it back down to the ground. And then apply the 24 hour rule.

Béa Victoria Albina: So if it’s over X dollars, whatever your threshold is, could be $19.99 or $9,000–whatever, you know your budget.

Hilary Hendershott: Right.

Béa Victoria Albina: Don’t make a decision for 24 hours.

Béa Victoria Albina: And that just becomes the rule. And I teach people to do this with making those cupcakes for the PTA, or being class mom, or leading that boardroom meeting, or whatever it is. Wherever the places where your codependent, perfectionist, and people pleasing habits come to the fore, putting you in that rescue mode, in self abandonment… no decisions for 24 hours.

Hilary Hendershott: I love it, I love it.

Hilary Hendershott: You are publishing a book.

Béa Victoria Albina: I sure am. It’s so exciting.

Hilary Hendershott: I know it’s not till later this year. But what’s your book about?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah, so it’s called End Emotional Outsourcing, A Guide to Overcoming our Codependent, Perfectionist, and People Pleasing Ways. Hachette is publishing it. It comes out at the end of September 2025.

Béa Victoria Albina: I’m thrilled. It’s been, in many ways, 40 plus years in the making, right? And the last several years of intense study and thinking, and it’s a guide for folks who want to live interdependently in every area of their life. I’m excited because a book is such a diplomatic way to share things, right?

Béa Victoria Albina: You just buy it and share it with your friends and have a book club and…

Hilary Hendershott: Books are fantastic.

Béa Victoria Albina: They’re the best.

Hilary Hendershott: I’ll have to have you back because I’m super curious. My biggest fear about publishing a book is the work of doing a book tour, and I know that you’re going to manage your book tour magically, so you’ll have to share your secrets.

Béa Victoria Albina: Okay, will do.

Hilary Hendershott: I appreciate this. And I do just wanna reflect on the number of times I asked you questions in this conversation and your answer was, I’m gonna come back to the practice of asking myself; of recentering with myself and asking what I’m capable of, what I want to give; what is my answer to this question.

Hilary Hendershott: And you know the redundancy is very powerful and so I’m taking that away from this conversation. I hope my listeners do as well. Before I ask you my signature question, where can people find all things you on the interwebs and places?

Béa Victoria Albina: Yeah. So I have a podcast myself. It’s called Feminist Wellness. And it’s free. And it’s for humans of all genders. Every single week. My programs are Anchored and The Somatic Studio, and you can learn more at my website, Béatriz, B-E-A-T-R-I-Z albina.com. And I have a present for you and your listeners.

Hilary Hendershott: Yay.

Béa Victoria Albina: Isn’t it exciting? I love presents. So if you go to my website, beatrizalbina.com slash your last name, Hendershott, you can find a suite of nervous system orienting exercises; inner child exercises. It’s just a delight, and it’s for free.

Hilary Hendershott: Aw!

Béa Victoria Albina: Just to say thanks for having me on the show.

Hilary Hendershott: Oh, well, thank you for thanking me and my listeners thank you. So we’ll put the link in the show notes and thank you again for that. And now, since I’m sure you’re in a reciprocal, loving relationship with your money, if your money were thanking you or honoring you; writing you a love note. What would it be in deep gratitude to you for?

Béa Victoria Albina: For recognizing that money is a form of energy. It’s a way to take care of ourselves and each other, and that when we want money to flow towards us, the most important thing we can do is give it away, and be really thoughtful and generous with it, and let the energy flow to those who need it.

Hilary Hendershott: Amazing. Thank you for your time and your resources. I have been deeply impacted by this conversation and appreciate you being here.

Béa Victoria Albina: Thank you.