As part of our ongoing commitment to provide Education for a Better World, Booth UC has launched Toolkit Talks. This new lecture series is designed to share knowledge on a broad range of important and timely topics, with guests who are experts in their fields. The theme of the inaugural 2021/22 series is Self-Care and Personal Well-Being, and we are thrilled to introduce the first event in our line-up:
On November 2, 2021, Captain Barb Stanley will present Helpful Boundaries in Relationships.
We sat down with Barb to chat a bit about her background, her Christian faith, and her workshop.
“You can be a good Christian and say no”
As a young adult, Barb would try to listen and help some of her peers while they experienced difficult or distressing times. She recalled that sometimes she felt like she had nothing to offer other than listening well, and knew she wanted to do more. She asked herself the question, “how can I help”?
After she graduated from Booth UC (BA/88), Barb went on to achieve her Master’s in counselling. That experience was everything Barb wanted it to be. She knew she had found her place in the world. It was beyond listening well, it was having something tangible to offer that would help people.
Barb has a mission statement for herself and her team, “helping create space to grow and to flourish.” She has listened and counselled others everywhere from Bangladesh to postings across Canada.
While serving in Nanaimo, BC, Barb, along with Bob and Penny Armstrong, helped create The Salvation Army counselling program, Life Changes That Last. This program includes topics like anger management, setting boundaries, and divorce care. The program is like a toolkit for life. Whenever Barb teaches the boundaries material, she finds it particularly impactful, as it provides exponential change, growth, and potential for hopefulness. It is also why she chose it as her Toolkit Talk topic.
Barb recognizes that sometimes our Christian faith leads us to think that to be good Christians we should try to say yes as often as we can, to the point of exhaustion and burnout. During her Toolkit Talk, Barb will draw on the seminal work of Cloud and Townsend to explore how to manage guilt and set good limits within our relationships. We can be good Christians and say no.
The event is free and open to anyone in the Booth UC community and beyond! You can find more information about the series and how to register at www.boothuc.ca/tookit-talks
