Are you tired of feeling like you’re responsible for everyone’s happiness but your own? You might be stuck in a codependency cycle. Join Jennifer Cassetta as she sits down with the incredible Terri Cole, a licensed psychotherapist, global relationship and empowerment expert, and author of the best-selling books The Boundary Boss Workbook and Too Much. Terri is here to help you break free from high-functioning codependency and find your own peace.

In this eye-opening episode, Terri and Jen dive deep into the hidden patterns of codependency that might be holding you back. Discover how to stop over-giving, set healthy boundaries, and create a life where you feel truly empowered. If you’re ready to ditch the people-pleasing and step into your own badassery, this episode is a must-listen!

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Break The Cycle Of High Functioning Codependency With Terri Cole

In this episode, I have a very special guest for you. Before we get started, I have three quick announcements for everybody out there. There are three exciting events coming up that you can join, and I’ve repeated them in the past. You might have heard of them before. The first is Create Your Future, my annual digital vision board workshop. There will be a date on the website that you can check out. It’s a visualization exercise. You will be building your digital vision board in a very powerful setting. That’s online. Anyone can join.

The second thing is the Burnout to Badass. This eight-week group coaching online program is happening again in January 2025 so make sure that you reach out if you’re interested. We’re going to be building those six habits of high performance, which are mindset, mindfulness, meditation, movement, nutrition, and sleep. You’ve heard it before. There’s an earlier episode of this show all about the six habits. If you are looking to start your year more powerfully, more peacefully, and truly make well-being your priority, make sure you jump in. We meet once a week.

Last but not least, the third very exciting announcement is the Art of Badassery Retreat is going to Tuscany in 2025. L’Arte di Badassery, Campo di Badassery. It’s six nights in a villa dating from 1570. It’s incredibly beautiful and magical. We’ll be doing the same type of programming as the first retreat in Montauk. It was such a success that I wanted to do it again but in an even more beautiful setting.

We’re doing mindset, meditation, and martial arts movements. Plus, hiking, biking to the walled city of Lucca, which is nearby, eating home-cooked meals, sipping wine, and connecting deeply with other badass women. If that sounds exciting to you, make sure you reach out because I’ve already filled some of the spots and rooms with past retreat attendees that I’ve already sprinkled the idea into. Make sure you reach out right away for all those details. They should be on the website.

Without further ado, I am so excited. I feel so privileged and blessed that these badass women or black belts in badassery are saying yes to my invitations to come on this show. I’ve been following Terri Cole for over a decade. I believe I first heard of her probably through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition where I went in 2005. She’s been out in the world. Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist and global relationship and empowerment expert and the author of not one book but two books, Boundary Boss, and her latest book called Too Much, which we’re going to dive deep into.

For over two decades, Terri has worked with a diverse group of clients that includes everyone from stay-at-home moms to celebrities. Can we find out who? Also, Fortune 500 CEOs. She has a gift for making complex psychological concepts accessible and actionable so that clients and students achieve sustainable change. She inspires over a million people weekly through her blog, social media, signature courses, and her popular podcast, The Terri Cole Show. Terri, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Jenn.

I’m so excited you’re here. I always like to get to know you personally before we dive into your work. It’s many years since you have been up to this. What got you started? Bring us back.

From Talent Agent To Therapist

I was a talent agent for supermodels and celebrities. I was negotiating contracts for movies and Pantene deals before I became a therapist. My trajectory was not the regular trajectory because I left a very successful career in entertainment. According to my father at the peak of my career, he did not understand why I was quitting my fancy, sparkly, and very lucrative job to get $100,000 in debt to NYU to get my Master’s to become, according to him, a social worker.

At that time, my therapeutic journey had everything to do with why I became a therapist. I stopped drinking when I was 21 and got into therapy when I was 19. That’s a whole thing, except for those long two weeks in ‘08. We don’t have to get into that. Sometimes you have to test to make sure you can’t drink. The answer was, “I can’t.” I felt like my own. There was a parallel process going on with my psychotherapeutic evolution and career. I had all of this ambition.

It’s interesting how I was able to decode that ambition because I did think, “I’m ambitious. It’s my nature. That’s how it is.” A bunch of therapy later, I’m like, “I’m trying to prove to my father that I wasn’t born the wrong gender.” I see what’s happening. I thought I was running towards something and doing a bunch of deep diving. There was a little part of me that was able to recognize I was running away from something.

When I was telling my father that I was leaving this fancy business, I started to value how I felt. I was like, “I’m not happy.” He said, “Okay, it sounds weird.” I was like, “Good thing I don’t need anything from you as soon as I took out a million loans.” I did ask for his support. Eventually, he gave it. I think that if you have that work-hard gene, you’re going to do it. I don’t love that yoga saying, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”

I hate that saying. I totally disagree with it.

Me too. I don’t think it’s true but I do think, at least for me, when it came to work, that I would always find my way to the top of wherever because I was interested in a long game as I still am. I’ve been doing this for many years but I didn’t start writing books until a few years ago. I’ve been a real expert. I contributed to Kris Carr’s books, Gabby’s, a bunch of my friends, and a million people. I contributed to 40 books before I had my book.

I was committed to becoming an expert beyond a shadow of a doubt for myself. It wasn’t clear to me what I would write about in year eleven of my therapy practice. I was still in the trenches with clients and I still am but less and more expensive. It costs more money. You have to be famous and have a lot of dough. For me then, I felt like there’ll be time for that. I was writing a book for ten years before I wrote a book. There’s something valuable about having your life, ambition, and goals in a long game. Just don’t quit. If you don’t quit, you’ll probably get to the place you want to go. It’s not over until you go, “I’m done trying.” I will never be done trying. It doesn’t matter what it is. I will always continue trying.

There’s so much to relate to here. The high-functioning, as you say, is a lot in your book but before we even get there, I agree with the book part. I went to a nonfiction book proposal writing class years ago and I never wrote the book. It was called Health and The City back then, which I thought was so cool. I never wrote the book because I didn’t think there was much substance to it. Also, I was talked out of it by other people, which is the part I regret. I hear you. Having a whole life and decades of experience and clients to pull from makes it a lot easier. Let’s get back to that high-functioning or hyperachieving. I want to feel that. When you look back and say, “I was running away from something,” is that always bad?

It depends. Is what you’re running away from causing you pain? If the answer is no, it’s fine. I don’t think there’s one size fits all. For me, it was too much anxiety, fear, and lack driving my need to achieve. With my need and desire to achieve, it is because my whole game has changed. It’s all about meaning. I want to empower as many people in the world as I possibly can positively. Positive world domination is my goal.

Wayne Dyer used to talk about in different phases of our lives, we’re being driven by different things. The morning of your life, he would call, is the time for accumulation. We want a family, a partner, a home, a car, and stuff to a degree. We do. This is part of the process. You then get into the afternoon of your life. I don’t know if I’m in the afternoon of my life but his point is the afternoon is all about meaning. We want to create meaning.

When people talk about legacy, it always makes me say, “This is your ego.”  Maybe it’s the same thing but for me, it’s about what impact I want to have on the world. What work am I willing to do to have that impact? It’s not, “I can’t wait to be remembered. I’m so afraid that you’re going to forget me once I’m dead.” It’s that I hope that the waitress in Omaha, who has three kids and got out of that abusive relationship but is broken, feels like she’s up and screwed, picks up Boundary Boss or Too Much and realizes that she’s not. She can change that one next right action at a time in life and have it be better with less suffering and more joy.

My commitment is hardcore to women in particular. I like men, too. I’m married to a man. I’ve got three sons. I’m not anti man but who I know are women in most of my therapy practice and how this book came about. You attract who you are. Most of the women in my practice were very much like me, highly ambitious, highly successful, super capable, and exhausted. Many of them were coming to me because they were burnt out.

I realized as I was talking to them that if I said, “What I’m noticing in this relationship is a codependent behavioral pattern,” they would immediately reject the notion and say, “I’m not dependent on squat terror. You know that I’m making all the dough and moves. I’m moving all the chess pieces on the board. I’m the puppet master of my life. I’m managing all the people and doing all the things for all the people.” What I realized was that they were being unduly influenced by the myths and also by the early definition.

Melody Beatty is codependent no more, which has been the seminal text on codependency. The implication is that you can’t be codependent unless you’re enabling an alcoholic or the long-suffering wife boohoo sitting at home. None of these women are that or would identify with that because they’re fierce. They’re warriors. They’re building empires and getting things done in the world. I knew I was onto something. I was like, “I have to change this because I can’t help them if they don’t see themselves and the problem.”

Why did I know this so intimately? Their flavor of codependency was my flavor of codependency. It was the same thing. I rejected the notion when my therapist first said it to me many years ago. I was like, “What?” When I changed the name and expanded on codependency, pretty nervy of me but I did, all of my clients, as soon as I added high-functioning to codependency, were able to identify with that. They raised their hands saying, “I’m the problem. It’s me.” I won’t take it from you but that’s what they were saying. They were feeling unashamed.

Can we go back a bit about codependency? First of all, this is all laid out in your latest book, Too Much. Can you give us the subtitle real quick?

 

A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency.

HFC is your acronym for High-Functioning Codependency. Can you even break that down for people like me? I haven’t been to a whole lot of therapy in my life. I dove deep into the self-help world and personal growth. Wayne Dyer was my first love. Tony Robbins, back in that era, me and my dad bonded over that. Codependency, break that down for us in a way that we can relate to it and maybe see ourselves in it as well.

Understanding High-Functioning Codependency (HFC)

This is you being overly invested in the feeling states, outcomes, circumstances, situations, finances, and careers of the people in your life to the detriment of your internal peace. It’s precise. Make the distinction about your internal peace. We’re all lovers, friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, and citizens. We want our people to get what they want and be happy in life. We’re invested. When you’re in HFC, you’re overly invested and you feel responsible for them. When we think about it, at its core, any kind of codependency, regular garden variety or high-functioning, the foundation of it is a covert or overt desire or attempt to control other people’s outcomes.

Can you be that way, say, in your partnered relationship but not with your parents or friends? That’s how I’m seeing patterns even within myself. I might be a little bit of that with this person but not in the rest of my life.

You can. For some people, it’s with everyone. With some people, it’s not. I have some clients whose certain relationships kick up their codependency in a different way than others. A lot of times, it’s what I teach you in the book. It’s about repeating relationship realities. We’ll be doing something familiar. We recognize something. Let’s say in your family of origin, the adults, and you had a traditional family system. It’s not traditional anymore but what used to be considered traditional.

If I’m thinking about my family, my father had all the power because he made all the money. My mother had to drop out of college. She got pregnant with my oldest sister. It was at a time when there was no other choice but to have that baby. I don’t know if she would have if there had been another choice. It was 1958 though. I’m glad she did because I’m with my sister. What I saw was this imbalance in power. My father would come home late from work and ask my mother to make him a sandwich or food. She would make it and bring it to him sitting in his chair.

If I found myself in a way subjugating to another person in a romantic relationship, how am I in a relationship like this? I came up with these three questions that you could ask yourself. This is also in the book but say you’re wondering, “I wonder if I’m repeating something from the past that’s unresolved.” That’s what we do. This is part of the process. Freud called it repetition compulsion. It might sound counterintuitive but we repeat dramatic or traumatic experiences in our lives.

I always see it as the little kid in us seeking a do-over. “This time, I’m going to be good enough. Even though this partner reminds me of my dismissive father, I’m going to make them pay attention to me or be pretty or smart enough,” or whatever it is that you’re thinking about. How can we make this a distinction? You can ask these three questions. It’s very simple. “Who does this person remind me of?” The second one is, “Where have I felt like this before?” The third one is, “How is this behavioral dynamic?”

Let’s say the behavioral dynamic would be me walking on eggshells and pandering to the partner. That’s a form of management because that’s what I saw. This is how you manage the man in your life. Not how you relate to them with an open heart but how you manage. They think they’re in charge but you’re in charge and managing them. If I’d asked those questions in early relationships in my life, it would have been revealed that I was repeating this pattern that I had seen with my parents.

I call them the 3 Q’s for Clarity. You can use them in any relationship. Here’s the thing. It’s not just romantic relationships where we repeat things. It can be friendships or work relationships. You constantly find yourself with an abusive boss and you have an abusive parent. You go, “Who does this remind me of?” People go, “I discovered that I have an abusive boss. I’m repeating something with my abusive parent. What do I do?”

 

It’s not just romantic relationships where we repeat things. It can be friendships or work relationships.

 

Why it matters is that when we have unresolved injuries in the basement of our mind, unconscious, and in our physiological self, we have to talk about or act them out. These are your two choices. They don’t resolve themselves. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. We need to get this thing up and out. Picture that I’ve got a little miner’s light on my head. I’m holding your hand down in the basement. Don’t be scared. Whatever you’re going to find is already there. All we want to do is make sure that the basement doesn’t stink and that smell isn’t ruining the rest of our lives.

All those dead bodies down there.

We’re dead mice or whatever the hell it is. Who knows what’s down there but we got to figure out what it is. If you go, “I am repeating this,” let’s go back to the original injury. What happened between you and that parent? How did you feel about seeing your parents interact that way? What was your interaction with that parent? I give an example in Boundary Boss. It was an experience I had in an internship that I had when I was in grad school.

I had this guy who was very famous. He was an addiction specialist, especially when Coke was popular. This was in the ‘90s. He wrote a book called Willpower’s Not Enough. It was about cocaine addiction. His name was Dr. Washton. For whatever reason, I hated his guts. I felt like he was judgmental, scary, terrible, cold, and awful. I was complaining about him in therapy. That was three weeks in a row we’re talking about this guy who I’ve interacted with very little. I don’t see anything.

Keep in mind, I’m in grad school so I’m already in my early 30s. This isn’t like I had this all figured out in my twenties. My therapist was like, “Could you describe him again?” I was like, “He’s tall and great-looking. He has dimples and with deep voice. He’s like Brooks Brothers suit-wearing, martini drinking, weekend golfing, that type of guy.” She was like, “Terri, who else would you describe exactly like that?” I was like, “This is so embarrassing. I’m having a transference to my boss as my father.” She said, “Terri, do you know why it matters? You turn into your ten-year-old self when you’re interacting with him.”

He would be in a meeting and I wouldn’t even talk. If I saw him coming down the hallway, I would jump into the bathroom to avoid him. She goes, “Do you understand why this is not good for you? Do you want a job at this place after you graduate?” I go, “Yeah.” She’s like, “If you never talk in front of this guy, he’s never going to know how smart you are and how capable you are. Being your ten-year-old self with your potential boss is not optimal.” I shared that story because I feel like it illustrates the concept so well. It can happen to anybody because I had tons of therapy at that point.

I’m sure everyone reading is going back to excavating their past. For me, it’s red flashing lights. In many of my relationships when I was younger, I always put this guy on a pedestal. Not only did I put him on the pedestal but I chose men who were already on the pedestal for some reason, whether they were the manager at the restaurants I worked at, the master in my martial arts school, or the guru. These are the men that I was attracted to.

I was getting into relationships that were completely unhealthy and toxic. Probably because they might have the narcissistic behavior trait that you talk about in the book. I look back at it and feel like I’m a smart person. I was raised by great people. How could I have let myself be so hoodwinked and treated so poorly in these relationships? Your book is shining this light that’s so helpful.

I will shout out Dr. Joe Dispenza because I’m so deep in that. I had an experience that I haven’t shared with everyone on the show yet because I’m still processing it. I was having these nightmares in a row about being in high school and I got boys at the time. I was running into one in the Delta lounge in the airport randomly. I can’t explain it yet but it was an opportunity almost for me to heal those parts of me. After that experience, I felt so complete, whole, and great. I feel like I called that whole experience in.

I love what you’re saying, though, about calling it in. I do think that there is something to it. What we focus our attention on grows. The universe, I believe, is endlessly conspiring in our favor and is influenced by what we think, say, and hold in our minds. Not to be paranoid but it’s important to pay attention to your expectations. What is it that you want? What do you think you’re worth and value?  Understand our past relationships and choices. I always say, “The cracked pot finds the perfectly cracked lid.” Harville and Helen Hendrix’s work on relationships created Imago Therapy. They wrote bestseller books.

How High-Functioning Codependency Affects Different Relationships

I’ve done Imago with a couple of therapists with my husband and it was cool.

They cracked the code of effective communication in relationships. They’ve been married for many years. They’re wonderful. I had them on my show. What they talk about is that we have these early childhood wounds. He’s got a hopeful frame that we see through, which is that we’re attracted to people who together can heal these wounds. It doesn’t have to be the same outcome. It’s maybe a less hopeful thing from my perspective but without intervention, new tools, and new insights, how will we make a different result? A lot of times, we end up with the same unsatisfying result, which is why therapy and self-help are very important. That can be the new tool that shifts you to a new outcome.

I remember my couple’s therapist saying what you said but in a negative. “You’ll attract the partner who will scratch the wound unless you do work together to communicate better essentially.” That was pretty eye-opening.

With high-functioning codependency, if people reading are like, “What does that mean?” We get it. We got the description but let’s talk if we can a little bit about the traits. What is the behavior in our everyday lives? I feel theoretically, it’s one thing but what does it look like? The number one thing is feeling responsible for fixing other people’s problems.

That feels familiar to most women I know.

Same. Hence why I wrote this book. We do feel responsible for that. If you’re a mother, it’s complicated. We are tasked with being fully responsible for kids until we’re not and then you’re like, “How do I do that?” That’s very challenging but possible. It’s our mandate to be fully responsible for them in every way until we’re not. Nobody tells us how to go from full-on to, “This is appropriate. Let them make some decisions,” and then move into something else. You should not be paying the rent when they’re 30. “Should I not? I can’t let them get evicted.” You can and you need to because if not, they’re never going to work out their money. Stop.

I’ve seen this in my practice but feeling overly responsible for far too long and not going into the next phase. We have different seasons of life. All my kids are grown. I’ve got seven grandbabies. Your relationship with your grown children is different. A lot of times with high-functioning codependency with parents who can’t stop parenting, what we’re doing, even though this is so painful but it’s true, is that we are inserting ourselves.

 

For parents who can’t stop parenting, what we’re really doing is inserting ourselves and centering the other person’s life and situations on ourselves.

 

We’re centering the other person’s life and situations on ourselves. That can be feeling like you have the answers. Another trait is auto advice-giving. This is anywhere. I was completely indiscriminate. I did not care. It could be a stewardess, hairdresser, or anybody. Anyone had a problem. I’d be like, Hello. I had the answer. I have too much to share.”

Have you tried that?

“I have so many good ideas. I’ve got a great oncologist. I have read a book. I’m googling it.”

It’s hard not to want to give advice.

It is but we need to unpack why and unpack the cost. Here’s the thing. If there wasn’t a cost, there’d be nothing wrong with it but there is. The cost is to your relationship. When you are auto advice-giving all the time, you are trampling on the autonomy of the people in your life. It’s much more loving to say, even to a kid, a six-year-old, “What do you think you should do,” and then shut up and listen.

This is coaching 101. There are a lot of bad reps for coaching because people think it’s just about giving advice and guiding the person. True coaching is exactly what you said. It’s listening, sometimes repeating back, and having the person find their answer. It’s hard to do.

If your best friend is going through something, it’s not to say we never give our opinion or say, “I went through something similar. This helped me. Maybe it will help you.” It’s not that we never do that. It’s that when you’re in HFC, this is the first thing you do. That person’s anxiety, pain, and suffering are so intolerable to us that we can’t even sit with it for a second. We need to tie it up in a neat bow.

Personal Experience With Codependency And Setting Boundaries

I tell this story in the book about where this concept was born for me when I was in my twenties. One of my sisters was in an abusive relationship. She was living in a shack in the woods with no running water and electricity. She was an active alcoholic and this guy was abusive and doing crack. You don’t need to embellish that experience because that’s a five-alarm fire for an HFC who is over-functioning, hyper-responsible, and hyper-independent.

Even though I was so busy in my life at that time, all I could think about was how I was getting her out of that horrible situation. I would talk to her and feel terrible. I would talk to my therapist Bev and cry my eyes out. “I’ve done everything. I don’t know what else to do. What am I going to do?” She looked at me very compassionately and said, “Terri, let me ask you something. What makes you think you know what your sister needs to learn and how she needs to learn it in this life?”

That’s deep. It’s zooming out to see the soul’s purpose and journey and saying, “That’s not mine to fix or even guide sometimes.”

It’s not my decision but that was hard to hear. It’s obvious to anyone normal that living without a water tank is not how she needs to learn this lesson. I said, “We can agree on that.” She was like, “I don’t think we can, Terri. I’m not God. I don’t know but do you know what’s going on for you?” I was like, “No. Clue me in what’s going on.” She was like, “You worked hard to create a harmonious life. Your sister’s dumpster fire is messing with your piece and you want your pain to end.” I was like, “You are not wrong. That is accurate. I do. I want it to be cleaned up because I know how to do it. I’ve got all the answers. Why doesn’t she let me help her?”

The thing that changed my mind and had me step back and draw a boundary with my sister was when my therapist said, “Terri, I’m not saying you shouldn’t save your sister. I’m saying you can’t. It’s an impossible task. It won’t last if you get her out of there because you do it.” In the end, I step back and say, “If you ever want to get out of this horrible situation, I’ll always be your person.” Less than nine months later, she called me and said, “Are you still my person?” “Of course, I am.” I got in my car. I helped her. She went back to school and got into recovery herself. Instead of her youngest sister wearing the cape and being the hero of her story, she got to be the hero of her own story.  That’s love.

That’s a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. There’s so much to cover in this book. I released an episode on boundary setting. You are the boundary boss. Can we dig into it a little bit? Codependency to me sounds like we’re putting everybody else’s wants, needs, and desires above our own. When I talk to audiences on this subject all around the country, sometimes all around the world, people are raising their hands like, “That’s me.” One woman in my group stood up and said, “I call that approval whore, pouring out approval all the time because it means so much to me.” What are some basic takeaways that we can think of around boundary settings to protect our peace?

It’s interesting. The way that I wrote Boundary Boss, a lot of it was from the perspective of how we get other people to respect our boundaries and have better internal boundaries. That’s what that book is about. What’s interesting about this book is that the more I dove into high-functioning codependency, the more I realized that we, HFCs, can be boundary bullies and boundary tramplers inadvertently, not intentionally.

Codependency is a desire for control. Things feeling out of control makes us incredibly uncomfortable. Being in the not knowing makes us incredibly uncomfortable, which is why we’re usually good decision-makers and we don’t like surprises. Don’t throw me a surprise party ever. Thank you. Even being an HFC in recovery, a lot of the traits that I had when I was active are great traits.

The irony with being an HFC is that the more capable you are, the less codependency looks like codependency but it’s still codependency, which means you still have disordered boundaries. It is bringing it back to the boundaries. There are two things that we can do that would be helpful for anyone who’s like, “I don’t know where I need boundaries. I don’t know where I’m going to bend and help.” Number one, do a resentment inventory.

My sister and I call that a big book of grievances.

What does this do for us? We think, “Who am I pissed off at? Who am I feeling underappreciated by?” This is a very common feeling for an HFC because we do so much for so many. Even when people are grateful, they can’t be grateful enough because we’re giving from a disordered place. If we’re giving to feel okay about ourselves, to control, and we’re afraid if we don’t what will happen, I always say with being an HFC, we have to learn our side of the street and what is someone else’s side of the street.

We have to learn to let the chips fall where they may when they’re not our chips. Someone else has a right to thrive, succeed, fail, and flail. When you are a HFC, we do not like anybody flailing. We’re like, “There’s a logical way to figure this out. Let’s take those steps.” We get mad if people don’t take our advice too. We have a right. We’re spending all this time giving our grade-A advice to people. This leads us to feel exhausted, resentful, and bitter.

The better boundaries for ourselves are when we realize that we can put down other people’s stuff and we’re not on the hook. How Bev, my therapist, let me off the hook was she was so smart to tell me, “It’s not that you shouldn’t save your sister. It’s that you can’t.” She knows me. If I was doing what I was doing would eventually have saved my sister, I would have kept doing it. That’s a fact. I would not have been able to stop myself. When she was like, “It isn’t going to work,” I was like, “Wait a minute. If it’s not going to work, I need to stop doing it.”

You’re spinning your wheels for no reason.

I’m quite efficient usually. I was like, “That does not make sense.” I was relieved. Let’s go back to the resentment inventory briefly. All of you guys reading have to give yourself permission to handle those things if you’re resentful. You’re going to see a pattern because so much of the time if you’re an HFC and you feel identified with this, we’re not talking about how we feel that much. We’re always willing to take one for the team.

We are expert problem solvers. We’re amazing in a crisis. We’re the best people in the world in a crisis. We know what to do. We do not freak out. We’re like, “It’s fine,” and the next right action but we’re not prioritizing how we feel. What we prioritize is “peace,” meaning we don’t want any conflict or problems. We want everyone to get along. We want peace in the bedroom, valley, and everywhere. It’s so funny. I was interviewing someone and she said, “No, I don’t want peace in the bedroom.” I was like, “Heat in the bedroom, peace everywhere else.” She was like, “Exactly.”

What happens to us if we are self-sacrificing or self-abandoning? I say it in Boundary Boss and this book too. It’s so true. We’re raised and praised to be self-abandoning and codependent. In this book, you are unlearning that process. It’s what we do naturally. We problem-solve at the moment. Let’s say it was back in the day when two people who were married both went to work somewhere. Remember when people left their houses to go to work? We don’t do that anymore but we used to.

Let’s say you have two cars. Your partner goes out first and there’s a flat tire in the car they usually use. Immediately, you’d be like, “Take the other car. I’ll get an Uber.” Not even a thought. I wouldn’t even let him walk back into the house. I’d be like, “Okay, go.” It’s because I can handle that. We’re always willing to take one for the team but it’s more than that. It’s not just that we’re willing. It’s what we want to do.

It’s to your detriment.

Why do we do it? We don’t trust other people to step up or are going to do it the way that we want them to do it. A lot of times, we suffer from perfectionism.

As simple as cleaning the kitchen. How many of you out there will do it yourself? Even though you cook the dinner, you’re also going to clean because someone else can’t do it as well as you. I’m only saying this because it used to be me until I said, “If there are some crumbs and a little grease, so what? I’m not doing it anymore.” That was it. It makes such a difference in my peace.

You’re not walking around resentful. If you cook, the other person cleans. That’s it. Why do we have to do it all? There is so much. It’s the emotional labor and the invisible unpaid labor that all of us do to keep our lives and the family life going. It’s not just our lives. You have children, aging parents, siblings, and a family of origin that you’re still very involved with. It’s all of this stuff. The toilet paper doesn’t replace itself, as we know. The food needs to get ordered and all of those things but that can create a lot of resentment in us.

If you’re looking at being overly self-sacrificing, what is the cost of that resentment? Auto advice-giving as we said. We’re so invested in people figuring out their problems and we’ve got great ideas. Auto-accommodating is different from the garden variety of codependency. If you are auto-accommodating out in the world, our antennas are so high as HFCs. We see everything. We’re very into our environment.

I tell a story in the book about that. I was at my hair salon in Manhattan on a Saturday, which I normally don’t go to because it’s so busy. I hate going there when it’s so busy because I’m such an empath and highly sensitive person. I had no choice. I have a 30-minute mask on my hair. I’m lying in a sink waiting with the mask. All of a sudden, I see that there’s a line for the sink. Every person that gets on that line with their little robe on, I’m more and more stressed like, “I don’t need to be laying in the sink. I could be sitting somewhere else. They could pin my hair up and I’ll go wherever. I don’t care.”

I’ve raised my hand to get an assistant to come over and I’m like, “Hi, I could move.” She was like, “Hello, we do this every Saturday. We got it. You’re fine.” The next day I did a blog on that because I was like, “This can’t just be me. I’ve been in therapy for many years and I’m still doing this thing.” That went viral. People were like, “Me too.” Why do we care? What is the cost of that?

I could have been lying there resting my exhausted brain while listening to a podcast, meditating, or calling my mother but instead, I’m worrying about something that has nothing to do with me and is not my responsibility. It’s the bandwidth that we bleed with these behaviors and all this over-functioning and under-functioning dynamic that we create in our relationships.

I used to say that I could have a regularly functional boyfriend and I could turn him into an under-functioning in 2 weeks or less in my 20s. I’d be like, “I got it. It’s fine. We’re good. I made the reservation. I did the thing.” The HFC mantra is, “I got it. It has to be me.” We don’t. There is a hyper-independence that comes with this affliction. We’ve already talked about the cost. We get the cost which is burnout.

Why HFC Leads To Burnout And Exhaustion

It’s sucking your life force energy away from you day by day.

What’s so funny is that we’re willingly bleeding it. It is sucking it but nobody’s making us do it. I hope that this interview is a wake-up call to realize that you can do it differently and better. It’s not mean to the people in your life to have better boundaries and set limits. Keep in mind that it’s the less bitter you are. All of this creates martyrs. All martyrs are bitter. That martyr mom or grandma who’s 75, when she was 20, she wasn’t like, “I can’t wait to become a martyr.” This is a behavior that slowly but surely turns us into martyrs but it’s avoidable.

How do we avoid it? We have to acknowledge that we’re going to disappoint people. It has to be okay. Cheryl Richardson has a book called Let Me Disappoint You. I like it. My feeling is it’s either self-sacrifice, self-abandon, or disappointing other people sometimes. You’re not that fragile. Neither are your relationships. It’s okay. Raising your awareness is step one. You’re already doing it. Get the book. Go to HFCBook.com. There are a million bonuses. I also have a toolkit for the audience. I feel like people get overwhelmed like, “Where do I even start?”

 

You’re not that fragile; neither are your relationships. It’s okay to have better boundaries and set limits.

 

I’m like that.

Toolkit For High-Functioning Codependents

You can go to TerriCole.com/HFC. There’s a toolkit, meditations, lessons, and PDFs. What else can we do? This is something that Mel Robbins talks about. It’s a concept that she originated where when someone is telling you some terrible idea that they have about some terrible thing they’re going to do and you can’t wait to tell them not to, instead of that, in your mind, you’re going to go, “Let them.”

I have a whole chapter in the book on nervous system regulation and emotional self-regulation. If you are an HFC, what you’re not is an expert on your feelings. We’re experts at other people’s feelings. Our whole thing is we just keep going. We have this ability to suck it up and keep going being like, “What else am I going to do? I’m going to lay down and die. I’m going to keep going.” Our feelings matter. I walk you through how to become more intimate and nuanced knowing your feelings.

The last thing I want to say of something that you can do for all of your relationships, children, adults, or anybody, is if you are the auto advice giver, even if people come to you and want that from you, I will invite you to ask expansive questions instead of providing answers with the honest knowledge. The truth is you don’t know because you’re not God and neither am I. Once you create all of this beautiful space for the people you love to share with you who they are, it deepens the intimacy in our relationship so much because we stopped treating people like projects, children in particular. “Your success is my success and your failure is my failure.” No. You’re not the same person.

It’s funny. My mother always had this Erma Bombeck quote on her refrigerator that says, “I promise not to take credit for your accomplishments if you promise not to blame me for your failures.” I always thought that was a good deal. I’ll have my own and you’ll have your own. We all have the right to that. If the only thing you did from reading this episode is a resentment inventory, you downloaded my toolbox or my little free gift for you, and you started asking expensive questions instead of auto advice-giving, it will change your life.

This is such a different take on boundary setting than the previous episode. When I’m teaching, it’s more about self-defense and protecting yourself against toxic behavior. You’re talking about setting boundaries within yourself. This is such a beautiful take. I’m so excited that we get to share this with folks. It’s going to help so many people. Everyone, you have those three invitations from Terri and myself to go out into your life and try on.

Report back. Terri and I want to hear how this changes your dynamics and relationships, and how it fills you with more peace. To me, that is the biggest takeaway in my life after doing some of this work. Thank you. Quickly, we’re going to do our four rapid-fire questions and then you’ll share where everyone can find you. Number one is what was your favorite food as a kid?

Believe it or not, it was butterscotch pudding.

It sounds delicious. Jello, that kind of thing?

Yes.

Number two is if you could have a drink, it doesn’t have to be alcoholic, with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? What would be the drink?

I would probably have a kombucha with Oprah or Barbra Streisand. It’s a toss-up.

We’ve had Oprah say before so let’s go with Babs. I love it. Number three is what’s your favorite self-help book? I know that’s going to be tricky.

There are so many. I’ll still stick with my tried and true because it was so long ago and it put me on the path, which is Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.

I have two copies for some reason of it. Last but not least, your favorite hype song. What song is your go-to to get you going?

I still like Fight Song. Every time I hear it, I’m like, “That’s right on.” I do have a lot of fight left in me always.

Yes, you do. That is why you’re a black belt in badassery. Thank you so much, Terri,  for coming on. Share how everyone can connect with you.

Connect With Terri Cole

I spend most of my time on Instagram so I’m @TerriCole. I have a pod, The Terri Cole Show. I have a beautiful community. If you want me to walk you through unpacking your high-functioning codependency, it’s TerriCole.com/Membership. Those are the places to find me.

Thank you so much again. Everyone out there, thank you for reading, hitting the subscribe button, leaving us a review, and letting us know how this episode is working for you. That’s all for this episode. Protect your peace and power.

 

Important Links

• Create Your Future
• Burnout to Badass
• The 6 Habits Of High Performance With Jenn Cassetta – Past episode
• Art of Badassery Retreat
• Boundary Boss
• Too Much
• The Terri Cole Show
• Willpower’s Not Enough
• Imago Therapy
• Harville Hendrix & Helen LaKelly Hunt – How to Make Your Relationship Flourish – Past episode on The Terri Cole Show
• Set Boundaries & Protect Your Power With Jenn Cassetta – Past episode
• Let Me Disappoint You
• The HFC Toolkit
• The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
• @TerriCole – Instagram
• The Terri Cole Membership
• Terri Cole

 

About Terri Cole

Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist and global relationship and empowerment expert and the author of Boundary Boss and Too Much!

For over two decades, Terri has worked with a diverse group of clients that includes everyone from stay-at-home moms to celebrities and Fortune 500 CEOs. She has a gift for making complex psychological concepts accessible and actionable so that clients and students achieve sustainable change.

She inspires over a million people weekly through her blog, social media platform, signature courses, and her popular podcast, The Terri Cole Show. For more, see terricole.com.