Episode 02: Sharon Martin, LCSW
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Jessica Fowler: Hello listeners, welcome to What Your Therapist is Reading. I'm your host, Jessica Fowler, LCSW. Today we are talking with Sharon Martin, MSW, LCSW about her book The Better Boundaries Workbook, a CBT based program to help set limits, express your needs, and create healthy relationships. Sharon Martin, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in co-dependency recovery with an online practice serving California residents.For the past 20 years, she's been helping perfectionists and people pleasers, overcome self-doubt and shame, embrace their imperfections, and learn to set boundaries. Sharon is the author of two books, the CBT Workbook for Perfectionism and The Better Boundaries Workbook. She also writes the blog, Conquering Codependency for Psychology Today, and has been featured in various media outlets.
Please note the information shared in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
Sharon, thank you so much for coming on What Your Therapist is Reading.
Sharon Martin: Oh, thank you. My pleasure. Great to be here and happy to talk a little bit about this book with you.
Jessica Fowler: Yes. And I'm so glad to finally meet you because we've had some interaction before.
Sharon Martin: Yes.
Jessica Fowler: So it's nice to actually have a conversation with you. Um, I was wondering if you could start with maybe sharing a little bit about yourself for our listeners.
Sharon Martin: Sure. Um, I always feel like this should be the easiest questions, but sometimes it's the hardest one. So I am a, a licensed clinical social worker by training, um, which means I'm a practicing psychotherapist seeing clients in California. Um, I'm based in Northern California, but my practice is online at this point. I love what I do. I love being a therapist and I, I love self-help books too, which is, is partly why I write them, because I also like reading them. But I'm, I'm really excited about this podcast too because it's, it's such a great, um, source of information for folks cuz there's so many good ones out there. We were chatting before we started recording. And, you know, no shortage of, of good self-help books. So, um, I love that. And I mean, I, I love reading in general when I get a chance and spending time in nature and spending time with my family and all that good stuff. So yeah, that's a little bit about me.
Jessica Fowler: Well, thank you and thanks for the compliment. I am excited about the podcast. So, do you wanna share a little bit about your book?
Sharon Martin: Sure. So, um, as you mentioned, the book is called The Better Boundaries Workbook. And so first thing you know right off the bat is it is a workbook. So it is a combination of practical exercises for people to do. Um, you can get the book in digital, formats, but quite honestly, my preference is the, is the paper copy so you can actually, you know, write in there. Although I guess you can, you know, fill, fill in the answers on the digital ones, but it's not quite the same. But in any case, so. So what I love about it is that you get that combination of the information that you're looking for, but you also get the strategies and the opportunity to sort of put that into practice and say, you know, here's how I actually use this information that I'm getting about setting boundaries. Um, and really get walked through the different steps so that you learn the skills. Um, and part of that is, um, you know, as you had mentioned, part of that, you know, the subtitle. It's based on CBT, which stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which, you know, to sort of a really abbreviated, you know, understanding of that is that what we're doing is we're looking at the connection between, um, what we're thinking, the cognitive piece and the behavioral piece, what we're doing and how that connects with how, how we feel. So that all sounds kind of complicated, but, but I assure you, when you get into the exercises, you start to see how we, you know, we kind of look at how the way that we're thinking about boundaries gets in the way of us actually taking you know, the steps and doing the follow through to being able to set the boundaries that we want in our life. So by sort of undoing, you know, untwisting some of those, you know, thoughts, you know, and feelings that we have that might make us feel guilty about setting boundaries, for example, um, or afraid to set them, then we can sort of move forward in that process and actually set the boundaries and figure out, um what boundaries we need and ultimately feel good about doing that and understand that it's, you know, it's a really healthy thing to do. Completely okay and we don't need to sort of get, you know, muddled up in, in feeling bad about doing something. Um, you know, and again, the, the workbook sort of helps you work through understanding why you might be stuck, you know, with your boundaries, a variety of reasons, um, and, and situations that that's difficult for folks.
Jessica Fowler: I liked that you brought that into, well, I guess two things. One, right? Why, why is this, you know, a problem or a barrier, right? Understanding that about ourselves I think is really important. But, um, that self-compassion piece, right? And understanding that that can be really helpful for us and self-compassion in the way too, about how we don't have to feel guilty about setting a boundary. And even some of the things that you put in there about working through the fears, right? And understanding why we might have those fears. Um, how it might impact your relationship. Um, fear of losing the relationship, things like that, that you tackle and, you know, laid it out in a way that made it very understandable I think for the readers.
Sharon Martin: Great. Great. Yeah. I mean, that, that's my hope is that it's, you know, that it, it's straightforward and easy to use. I mean, it really is designed, you know, for really anybody who's struggling with boundaries to be able to pick it up, you know, and start. You know, from the beginning and get an understanding of, you know, what boundaries are, what's the purpose, why are we even, you know, going through this?
Jessica Fowler: Yes.
Sharon Martin: Yeah. You know, um, because, you know, let's be honest, I mean, I think anytime you, you approach a self-help book, it's because you're having some sort of, you know, problem, a challenge, you know, a stuck point in your life. And you know, there's something that's difficult about that for us and so we're looking for some help with it. So, you know, if I'm asking you essentially as the reader of the book to do something that's gonna be tough, you know, I need to explain to you why you should bother doing this. Like why should you do all these exercises and, you know, put in the time and the effort to learn how to set boundaries? So,we definitely need to, you know, start at, start at the beginning and, you know, work our way through, you know, just sort of more difficult and more advanced, you know, boundaries, setting skills, if you will.
Jessica Fowler: Well, and you're right that it's done in a user-friendly way. I think somebody um, hasn't had therapy before, even thought about boundaries, can pick up the book and read it and understand it, you know, as a therapist, that's one of the things we talk about a lot is setting boundaries. So, if you've been in therapy, you've, you know, you've experienced that conversation before and this is either, it could go in, in line with that or just somebody who's never even thought about it before and is realizing maybe they have to set some boundaries, can pick it up and read it and follow along and understand it.
Sharon Martin: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it, it, it, it is designed so that, um, it stands alone, you know, as a, as a self-help book. But, but I think it, it works very well, um, to be combined with therapy. If, if somebody is already in therapy or they're thinking about it, or, you know, certainly, you know, sometimes therapists will recommend it to a client and, and then kind of work through it together. And I think, you know, you know, for therapists who are listening, you know, it can also be adapted quite well to be used in a group context as well.
Jessica Fowler: Yeah.
Sharon Martin: Um, because again, you know, sort of lays out the material and the activities, the exercises that people can, can do to implement it.
Jessica Fowler: I can definitely see that. I've done a lot of group work, especially in chemical dependency and used those kind of worksheets a lot, and I could definitely see that being useful as a group therapy exercise.
Sharon Martin: Yeah.
Jessica Fowler: What made you decide to write this book?
Sharon Martin: Well, a couple of things, you know, one is, is like you had mentioned as a therapist, I was always coming back to the concept of boundaries and trying to help people understand and learn how to set boundaries like that ended up being just a core theme that you know, comes up over and over again in the work that I'm doing with clients. You know, boundaries are such a fundamental piece of, I would say, like life in general. I mean, it's, it affects our personal relationships, it affects our, um, work situations, our physical health. You know, so many elements of our life really come down to issues of boundaries. And so, like I said, I was just, you know, sort of. You know, around to the issue over and over again and looking for resources that I could use to, you know, give to my clients or help them understand it in, in a different way. And, and really there was not anything out there that I felt was a good fit, you know, that I felt good about recommending. You know, there are some other books out there. Some had a real, um, religious, you know, theme to them, which wasn't something that really integrated well with the approach that I take with my clients. And so, it was really just that you sort of need for the resource that wasn't out there. So, I decided, you know, I would put it, you know, together, you know, and after being a therapist for, for a lot of years, I had figured out, you know, a lot of things from a lot of different, you know, sources and, you know, experiences that I've had. So, yeah, that was ultimately it, it was, you know, really came out of that need for the resource.
Jessica Fowler: Thank you. What would you say are one or two things you would want your readers to walk away with when reading this book?
Sharon Martin: Well, well, one thing is, is certainly that I want them to learn the skills. So like we had mentioned earlier, I, there's certain just sort of, you know, the ability to make some actual behavioral changes, um, in the way that they approach setting boundaries in their life. So, you know, there's that set of skills that I hope people will learn, um, from the book. And then the other thing, you know, that we touched upon too, I think is really that I hope people come away from the book you know, I would say those skills, but also sort of the change in their thinking so that they feel like setting boundaries is a positive thing in their life, right? Not only that, it improves the quality of their life, but they also feel like this is good for everybody who's involved. Even though you're not always gonna get a positive response from everybody that you set boundaries with, but that I think, you know, at your core that you understand that this is, you know, something that is helpful and necessary in all areas of our life. Um, so that helps to sort of alleviate, you know, some of that guilt and, you know, the negative, you know, feelings that we have around boundaries. Um, so I hope, you know, ultimately people feel better about, you know, setting the boundaries that they need in.
Jessica Fowler: Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Sharon Martin: My pleasure. Thank you.
Jessica Fowler: Where can our listeners find you?
Sharon Martin: Um, my website is Livewellwithsharonmartin.com.
Jessica Fowler: Great. Thank you so much.
Sharon Martin: My pleasure. Thanks.
Jessica Fowler: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of What Your Therapist is Reading. Make sure you head on over to the website or social media to find out if there's a giveaway going on.
The information provided in this program is for educational and informational purposes only, and although I'm a social worker license in this state of New York, this program is not intended to provide mental health treatment and does not constitute a patient therapist relationship.