Simple, powerful conversations to help you set boundaries, protect your peace, and apply to your daily life.
Not in My Bucket is a practical and uplifting podcast hosted by Sarah Bentz—licensed counselor, therapist, trainer, and owner of the Hope and Growth Center in Keller, Texas. With over 15 years of experience helping thousands of individuals grow, heal, and create healthier lives, Sarah brings both expertise and real-world wisdom to every episode.
Introduction
Welcome to the Not in My Bucket Podcast!
Not in My Bucket is a practical, encouraging podcast I created to help you live with greater balance, purpose, and fulfillment. I’m Sarah Bentz, a licensed professional counselor, and I’ve seen how easily our “bucket” of time, emotions, and identity gets filled with things that don’t belong— trauma, expectations, and other people’s “stuff.” In each episode, I share simple truths and real stories to help you recognize what’s yours, what isn’t, and how to create healthy boundaries that protect and empower you. Whether you feel overwhelmed or running on empty, these brief conversations are designed to meet you where you are—and help you move forward, keeping your bucket better balanced.
Bucket Basics
In this debut episode, we sit down with Sarah Bentz, a Licensed Professional Counselor and owner of the Hope & Growth Center, to explore a unique and powerful metaphor for mental health: the bucket. Sarah breaks down the complex world of boundaries by visualizing every person as a bucket, specially designed for what truly belongs to them.
Bucket "Not" List Part 1
In the second episode of the series, Sarah Bentz digs deeper into the invisible nature of boundaries and how we often don't realize they are broken until our lives feel like a "hot mess."
Sarah explains that just as a piece of land needs a surveyor to mark its limits, we need to identify the specific behaviors that signal when our buckets are overflowing with things that don't belong to us.
This episode serves as a diagnostic guide to identifying the symptoms of poor boundaries.
From sacrificing your own desires for others to the exhausting pursuit of perfection, Sarah provides a roadmap for listeners to begin cleaning out their buckets and reclaiming their personal space.
Bucket "Not" List Part 2
In this episode, Sarah concludes her breakdown of the "Boundary Not List"—the top ten behaviors that signal your bucket is overflowing with things that don't belong to you.
Following up on the first five signs discussed in Episode 02, Sarah unpacks five more patterns that drive us to overextend ourselves, ignore our own well-being, and sacrifice our peace to manage other people's expectations.From the exhausting reality of masking our pain with a happy face to the art of saying "no" without actually using the word, this episode offers practical strategies to reclaim your limits.
Sarah challenges listeners to stop carrying around hypothetical reactions and remember a fundamental truth: protecting your bucket is your responsibility, because no one else will do it for you.
The Rescue Bucket
In this episode, Sarah Bentz introduces the first individual bucket profile: The Rescue Bucket. Inspired by a vintage 1940s firehouse bucket from eBay, Sarah uses the imagery of first responders to examine our own tendencies to rush in and save others.
While rescuing is vital in real emergencies, acting as a constant relationship rescuer often crosses the line from genuine help into unhealthy enabling.
Sarah breaks down the exact moments where rescuers go wrong—such as stepping in for irresponsible people and working harder than the person they are trying to assist.
Through relatable examples spanning parenting, workplace dynamics, and addiction, this episode challenges us to stop dipping into other people's buckets and to start letting them face the consequences that promote true personal growth.
The Overloaded Bucket
In this episode, Sarah introduces a profile that many kind-hearted individuals struggle with: The Overloaded Bucket (also known as the "Yes Bucket"). Unlike the rescue bucket—where people actively go out looking to fix or steal someone else's problems—the overloaded bucket belongs to those who simply cannot say no when asked for help. Driven by a massive heart, people-pleasers continuously accumulate simple, "five-minute" tasks until their personal space is completely buried under everyone else's cares, concerns, and schedules.
Sarah explores the critical warning signs of an overloaded life, explaining how unchecked commitments deteriorate our mental health and manifest as irritability, brain fog, and severe compassion fatigue. To counteract this, she introduces the beautiful visual metaphor of the "Olive Bucket" to teach listeners how to step back, establish clear boundaries, and actively strain out the daily grime that doesn't belong to them.
The Collector's Bucket Part 1
In this episode, Sarah Bentz introduces what she considers the saddest profile in her series: The Collector’s Bucket. Unlike other buckets, this profile represents individuals who don't even realize they have the right to establish limits. Visualizing it as a large, five-gallon home improvement bucket left out in a garage, Sarah explains how a collector’s life becomes a catch-all for random debris—other people's unvetted opinions, emotions, and unresolved issues.
To help collectors stop acting as dumping grounds, Sarah unpacks the first four foundational "Boundary Rights". She challenges the common misconception that prioritizing yourself is selfish, reframing boundaries as a selfless practice that allows you to show up more effectively for others.
To conclude, Sarah introduces the beautiful imagery of a vintage 1940s Shaker "Sugar Bucket" to demonstrate how we can finally put a lid on our lives and selectively choose what we allow inside.
The Collector's Bucket Part 2
In this episode, Sarah Bentz brings us the second installment on The Collector's Bucket, continuing the vital breakdown of our core human boundary rights. In the previous episode, we learned how collectors act like open garage buckets, accidentally accumulating the emotional trash, unvetted opinions, and expectations of everyone around them.
Today, Sarah introduces four additional "Boundary Rights" designed to help you build a protective lid for your life. From demanding basic respect to overcoming the fear of acknowledging your own competence, this episode dives deep into how we value ourselves. Sarah shares practical strategies on balancing your own sanity against the urge to make others happy, reminding us that you get to choose exactly when, how, and if you step in to help someone else.
The Collector's Bucket Part 3
In this episode, Sarah Bentz celebrates a massive milestone: reaching over 500 followers in just five weeks. She expresses deep gratitude to the listeners before wrapping up the final installment of her three-part series on The Collector's Bucket. While the collector's profile represents the painful reality of living without an understanding of boundaries, Sarah reveals that it also holds the greatest potential for beautiful redemption once you learn to clear out the emotional clutter and secure your protective lid. Sarah unpacks the final set of foundational "Boundary Rights," shifting the focus toward real action and accountability. She challenges listeners to stop making life choices based on the heavy, unvetted opinions of others and to embrace the freedom of making mistakes, delaying big decisions, and utilizing "No" as a complete sentence.
The Very Serious Business Bucket-Part 1
In this episode, Sarah Bentz introduces a highly guarded and complex profile: The Very Serious Business Bucket. Visualized as an industrial, industrial-strength yellow mop bucket found in a janitor's closet, this bucket is built on wheels, heavily reinforced, and wrapped in strict rules and explicit warnings like Caution: Wet Floor.
Sarah reveals the poignant reality behind of the exterior: the rigid guardrails and warnings are actually a form of deep protection to keep people away from the "dirty water" hidden inside. Whether it is early childhood trauma or the paralyzing fear of being blindsided, carrying this heavy burden colors how we view the entire world.
Sarah bravely shares her own internal narrative as a recovering survivor, highlighting how unresolved trauma impacts our bodies, blocks deep relationships, and creates false systems of safety. Ultimately, this multi-part series maps out how to abandon industrial armor and rediscover the light, joyful freedom of a simple sand bucket.
The Very Serious Business Bucket-Part 2
In this episode, Sarah Bentz concludes her deep dive into The Very Serious Business Bucket. While the first part explored the rigid external armor and warning signs we construct to hide our internal struggles, Part 2 goes straight to the core of what truly drives this profile: unresolved trauma. Sarah openly rebrands this industrial mop bucket as the "Trauma Bucket," explaining how our past pain constructs false safety nets that ultimately keep us isolated.
Sarah breaks down the deep-seated, fear-based motives that keep the box of dirty water camouflaged—ranging from the crippling fear of abandonment to the heavy burden of giving back before doing your own internal work.
Ultimately, this episode offers a compassionate roadmap out of rigid legalism and toward the liberating, playful freedom of a simple sand bucket.
