Better Boundaries w/ Terri Cole

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Straw Hut Media. Hey, everybody. Our next show is with none other than... Terry Cole. Terry Cole. Listen, if you are wondering about your boundaries, if you want to know what your boundaries are, if you know that you are crossing your boundaries, listen to this show because you're going to find out how to keep them, get them, and win with your VIP section. Well, welcome. Terry Cole is a licensed...

psychotherapist and relationship and empowerment expert. For more than 20 years, she's combined the best of practical psychology and Eastern mindfulness practices, making complex psychological concepts accessible and then... actionable so that you can achieve sustainable change in your life. She's the author of Boundary Boss, the essential guide to talk true, be seen, and live free, which teaches readers how to assert and maintain healthy boundaries.

She developed four steps to simplify boundary setting, how to recognize when your boundaries have been violated and what to do about that, how to create proactive boundary plans and how to master conflicts and so much more. So lucky to have you here today. Terry, welcome. Thank you so much for being with us today. How are you? I'm great. Thank you guys so much for having me. I appreciate you.

I have to say, I kind of went into a world with you because once you start listening to what you do and what you say and how you propose different issues that we are facing, both men and women, and how we handle, let's start with boundaries. You've obviously been a therapist for years. You've done over 300 podcasts around how to get us to be healthier, more loving human beings to ourselves. Can we start with where Boundary Boss came from? I think it's just...

What a helpful book that everybody should be purchasing immediately. And where did that come from? Where did the idea stem from in your brilliant mind? Well, thanks. I would have to say, you know, what do they say? You teach what you most need to learn. So I just was a boundary frigging disaster in my life. That's the truth. I didn't realize that so much of my pain in relationships and my feeling taken advantage of and thinking other people were entitled. I was so angry.

and resentful and I considered myself like a loving person so these there was a cognitive dissonance we call it like this conflict of why I'm over-functioning, over-giving, over-doing, and then mad at the other people for it. I had no idea that that meant I had disordered boundaries. And so really how Boundary Boss came about is that I was a talent agent for years before I became a psychotherapist. So I don't need to tell you that.

Entertainment is not exactly a hotbed of mental health. And at that point in my career, I was getting too healthy for the business to a degree, right? I had been in therapy since I was 19. I quit drinking when I was 21. And I got super into self-help and wellness. And I couldn't even believe that I could just go to therapy and change my life. I was like, why isn't everyone doing this? This is unbelievable. And I was young when I was doing that. So as my career.

kept getting more in the entertainment business, I was like, oh my God, this place is a shit show and I have got to get out of here. I was becoming too healthy. In the end of my career, I was negotiating contracts for supermodels and celebrities. for endorsement deals, basically. And I did not care about that. I only cared about getting people into therapy, eating disorder clinics, drug treatment clinics, AA, NA, Al-Anon. My whole trip was like...

how's your mental wellness? And I was like, I need to get out of here before I really become a terrible agent. Well, you had a lot of clients, I bet, who needed all of that help. Yes. I mean, I can't tell you how. It was more urgent to me, though.

their mental well-being. So, of course, I wasn't as good an agent as I should have been towards the end because I was like, we cannot ask her to do that. That is terrible. And they're like, what? She has to do it. It's a contract. So anyway, I decided to go to grad school and i just applied to one school i was living in new york and i was like i'm not obviously going to ohio

to go to grad school. So I only applied to NYU and then I got accepted and was like, holy crap, I guess I got to go because you can't get in and not go.

Before we get started, can you, because the goal here, the goal here is for everybody to read the book, Boundary Boss, but in this time that we have for people to really take away some concrete things that they can.

apply right now so can we start by like defining what boundaries is because people might be wondering what are we talking about when we talk about boundaries yes so i want you to think about boundaries as your own personal rules of engagement it's how we let others know what's okay with us and what's not okay with us your boundaries are made up of your preferences your limits and your deal breakers like your non-negotiables right because not all boundaries are created equally some things

are just a preference. They're still important, but they're not as hardcore as a deal breaker. Things are an absolute no for you. But the problem comes in, A, most people don't even know what their preferences, their limits, and their deal breakers are. But even if you do know them, you must then have the capacity to communicate them with transparency and whatever you so choose. And I feel like for most people, that becomes the problem. They may know it, but they don't know how to talk about it.

Well, you said transparency and I want to take people into one of the things that I've learned from listening to you, which is that our parental patterns, the things that we have set up are perhaps the distance between us and our capacity. know what we what we want and what we think we may see that in another and go oh i'd really like to have a

her self-esteem and be able to stand up for myself when I don't want to be on that date or all of the different things that you have outlined in your book as different possibilities we get ourselves into. But can you talk to us about the parental pattern that starts, the thing that starts in one of the...

things i love about you you're like we don't have to talk or define about all that stuff about what happened that's kind of a waste of time and i'd like for you to talk about that patterning a little bit well and along those lines to answer that you you talked about making a list of emotions that you were not allowed to have

have as a child that I found to be really, really interesting. I think those relate to each other. Yes, totally. What you're talking about, Anne, is your downloaded boundary blueprint. So this is in your unconscious mind down here in the basement where we don't even know that we have a choice.

So what influences you? I want you to think about that as like an architectural blueprint for a house that someone else designed a really long time ago. So what is your boundary blueprint? It's the way we think or we were taught that we should. interact in the world, in our romantic relationships, in work relationships, in our friendships. So if you were raised by a maternal impactor, let's say, who had the disease to please, who was a people pleaser, then you learn, oh.

To be a good person, I should do what other people want me to do. I should not make anyone mad. I should not say no. If I'm kind and giving, then I'm a good person. But so much of the time, that comes with... being self-abandoning, right? That comes with prioritizing the wants, needs, desires of others over ourselves. We were all raised to be good girls.

Right. To not be troublemakers. Don't be a big mouth. Don't be a drama queen. Don't stir the pot. And that the way that I was raised and all of my clients and women in my courses is basically. Niceness was this like fake virtue above all other things, right? It was so important to be perceived as being nice. But when we really think about it, saying yes. when you really want to say no. Is that like being nice or is that just...

mine. Well, you say that about kindness. We talk about living and loving kindness here, but you're like, there's a difference between kind and self abandonment. And it seems that self abandonment and boundary goes hand in hand. Could you expand on self abandonment and that relationship?

and then we'll get into the emotion, then the emotional pack that goes with that. Yeah. So the self-abandonment piece, I always say that most of us were raised and praised for being self-abandoning codependents. Right? It was like you just won an award. for the more that you could give to others. I mean, I was interviewed by someone the other day and they were talking about that they were a Girl Scout. And one of the Girl Scouts creeds was always put others above yourself. You're like...

Nothing like setting us up to just never be happy. Thanks. Like a culture around never being happy. So how it's connected is that is having a disordered emotional boundary, a disordered physical boundary. Because saying yes when you want to say no, or acting like you're the cool girl, right? Being like, you know me, I'm easy breezy, no fuss, no muss. Never sharing your preferences because you just want to be like, whatever you guys want is good.

That can't always be true. Some people are more particular than others, but we all have preferences. So that's where the disorder boundaries comes in. And Heather, what you were talking about was forbidden. emotions. And so how this comes into the disordered boundary game is that I grew up in a house where anger was not allowed, a forbidden emotion. So then what happens when you're angry?

Well, A, you can't recognize it. B, you literally turn it into another emotion that's more acceptable. So I would turn my anger into sadness. I would turn it in into depression because it was okay if I cried. But it wasn't okay if I got mad. And imagine how that screwed up my relationships and my boundaries as I'm growing up and going forth in life. Because anger is one of the essential emotions that you literally cannot live a healthy life without knowing yourself.

Understanding your relationship to anger. But tears represent a weakness or that's okay for a girl to be feeling because it's self-deprecating and it doesn't have any strength behind it. It's not threatening. I have a question because I think that for some people, myself, I don't know that I grew up in a family where certain emotions weren't allowed, but there were certain emotions that I did not see.

So is that the same thing? I didn't see a lot of anger in my family. I didn't see a lot of sadness in my family. So those are like two emotions that I don't really, you don't really see me display. You weren't familiar with because it was hidden. Yeah. Here's the thing. Why it's the same though, Heather, is that it's the same end result.

because it's foreign to us. We are not masterful at experiencing and expressing those emotions, whether they were strictly, like in my house, it was strictly forbidden, like there would be a consequence.

If I were to display anger, I would get in trouble or I would be rejected by my parents or whatever, right? It doesn't have to be that extreme. If you were in a family system where anger and sadness were more repressed emotions, it would still impact your ability to access those emotions in yourself and in your relationships.

I see our producer, Ryan, who's nodding and shaking his head. And Ryan, we're talking about a female point of view. And I wonder if you could jump on in here with, is this a similar thing for a boy child who's growing up? And I know you speak, Terry, to all.

of us. But to me, it's always very interesting. Women aren't the only ones who are interested in self-help and the recognition of what the patterning is as a child. Is this ringing true to you? Did you have emotions that weren't allowed growing up? We never said, you know, right. But yeah, I think so. I think.

Of course not. Well, were you allowed to cry? Yeah, I was allowed to cry, but I definitely tried not to. Right. Well, I don't know if this is too revealing, but I know that you said you hadn't seen your father. you know, until your, until your wedding and, and how we, the patterning that we see.

In our, in the one that we want to be, you know, I think, I mean, that's that, it's that unconscious patterning. Well, he didn't do it, so I shouldn't do it either. He didn't see him cry until his mother left. I didn't see my father cry until one of our horses died. It wasn't the divorce? It wasn't the divorce. But it's a weird thing to see that emotion. And I know as a child, like whenever I was really, really sad, I hid it from my mother.

And I see my daughter did that with me. She wasn't totally comfortable when she was going through a breakup coming to me, but it's been a little bit different with my son. He's more open to come to me with his emotions. And so it's just an interesting dynamic that we set up without quite realizing that we do.

Well, I want to go into that question. Of course, we're unconscious in some things. And of course, that's why we have Terry Hunt and these incredible people to come on and help us teach and understand what... What we're doing, part of it is bringing the awareness to the table. And I really like, Terry, that you talk about both male and female because I think we…

We assume as girls, self-help is kind of a cool thing for girls and women to get into. And you talk about it. It's obviously for all genders. And the way that we experience our change or our transformation, which you talk about, which is why this book is so important, the transformation into the healing of…

learning what these boundaries are, and we have different ways to approach them, men and women, I think. I don't know if you want to talk about what you see in your practice that can illuminate that. Well, I think that it also depends on when you were born. and how old you are. Because I do think, thankfully, that some things are changing now. There's still though this collective consciousness around gender.

But in the past few years, we've had so many different gender expressions and actually more progress towards more inclusion. But when you think about there's still this, it's going to take a long time, like another. 50 years probably, until the mindset about gender roles, how should straight men act, how should straight women act, let's just say. Now, there's a lot that's, you know.

shaking this up right now which is amazing but really what we're talking about is what what was the expectation there's an expectation like working women were looking in a heterosexual way are considered more of the softer sex. We're the bridgers, the assuagers, the fixers, we're the soothers of life. And men are supposed to be making the money and doing the thing. Now, I think a lot of folks now are rejecting those roles and becoming way more dual.

right? Because we have yin and yang, all of us have both the feminine and the masculine and everything in between in us. But I think that there's a different kind of pressure put on men. Because you're raised more, at least back when I was being raised, so anyone in their 50s, let's say 40s, 50s, 60s, where there's an expectation of you being more independent, more of a leader, be strong.

girls and women, it was more about be a team player, take one for the team, make sure everyone else is okay, be dialed in. You wonder why we have antennas that go up to frigging Mars because we're so, you know, someone walks into a room. And I don't, it doesn't matter. I mean, if you're an empath or a highly sensitive person, which so many people in my audience certainly are in yours too, I imagine. I could, the second someone walks in, I could sense.

If something is wrong, I don't even know you. And I'm like, I think that person might be violent. They just walked in the room and didn't say a word. But it's almost like we felt or feel responsible for the. feelings, the outcomes, the decisions, the relationships of other people, which is where codependency... Right.

Yes. Like, how's everyone going to feel at the end of this Thanksgiving dinner? Everyone's going to be happy. And everybody, like, dreads the next Thanksgiving dinner because nobody said the truth and nobody talked about anything and nobody asked Aunt Mary why she was wearing a mustache. You know, you just, you're like, why?

all of that conditioning that puts us in the center of oh shoot i i forgot who i was and next year i'm not going to remember either well i think a lot of it relates to conflict avoidance Right. So I know like for me personally, my whole life is centered around conflict avoidance and I'm trying to be better about that. I'm making her better at it. But in somebody who is really, really conflict averse.

That really fucks with your boundaries, I would imagine. It does, but here's the thing. The first thing, anybody listening, anybody watching this who's like, oh my God, that's me. I'm conflicted versus help. You're going to change your mind. Because we're really just talking about effective communication and talking true.

When we talk about boundaries, all the myths around boundaries is like it's you just being like no and all aggro and kicking people to the curb and my way or the highway. And it's not like that at all. What we're really saying is. It matters. Who you actually are, Heather, Ann, matters. Thank you. How you feel. matters. What you want matters. And if we go through life prioritizing this desire to avoid conflict because it makes us so uncomfortable, we are constantly self-abandoning.

to fulfill that directive of avoiding conflict. So part of it is we've got to change our mind about what conflict is. It's not a dirty word. It doesn't have to be mean or terrible or abusive. It can be, hey. I'd like to make a simple request that if you're going to be more than 10 minutes late, you give me a call.

Because when you don't, I find myself seething all night and then it ruins our evening and I love you and I don't want to seethe for four hours when this thing is so avoidable. So can we agree that you're going to let me know? Because it makes me feel very... not considered when you don't. And I think that as we get older too, I can speak for myself in this conflict avoidance, resentment builds.

I think because you've been at it for so long. And so that becomes a thing too. It's just a file cabinet. Warning to the youngins out there listening. Well, I want to then. For real. For real, I want to say that on your website, you can go and you can take a style quiz. And the style that we have in our abandonment also, what it is.

The reason I want everybody to take it, did you take the quiz? I did. Okay, so I asked for my results to be sent back to me. That's why my computer was on. I had a feeling and assumed that Heather would take it because there's no way in a million years, but she didn't tell me to take it or anything. Well, that's so funny. We did our separate.

I was going to tell you last night, but, but, but there's this, this style quiz. And I was like, wow, this is really interesting. Terry's getting into clothing and that fashion, which is, it was such a contradiction to what I, you know, I'd been listening to. I was like, that's weird. That's cool. wait a minute what how does our style reflect what our abandonment issues are okay anyway but it's not it's the style with which the style with which you are interacting

through your abandonment issues and helping you understand what your boundaries are. She's asking these questions and she gives you these five choices. I swear to God, everybody should take it. What's not only interesting, I want you to explain the quiz, but I also... O S1.

as you are defining for us, what you're doing is laying out language in the five different things that you're proposing is choices, options. She gives us options to how we interact in the world. Like, say this situation occurs. Your friend's always late for 10 minutes, like she just said. So how...

would you how would you respond and in laying out the five different options that you have you realize you're literally going through first of all yes you realize you have options and you're going through the differences in language that you've seen people interact with how you've been treated and the way with which you answer difficult situations or conflict or whatever so can you explain the importance of this of this quiz and this and i really appreciate simple language in helping us

a guide and you say that you have a guide and that it is by the way before you answer that the best the best response to one of those for people who don't drink because i'm always sensitive about this but i actually i actually do drink and i don't think it's fair to people who don't drink when the bill comes and they have to pay for everybody's drinks and one of the questions on there is what do you do when the bill comes and you haven't

had any cocktails and everybody else is drinking and they got paid for their drinks and one of your responses is you know i'm not paying for y'all's tequila shots you know in a funny way which i just think is a great response rather than being like you know well i didn't have you know like make it funny like that i just really liked that right so the quiz anyone can take it it's totally free you just go to boundary quiz

dot com right just everybody has to take this quiz do it for yourself do it for an understanding of how you interact in the world go go do it and it's also fun and fast but go ahead it is fun and fast there's only 13 questions But with it, you'll get an archetype. So some people are more of a peacekeeper or a pushover. Some people are more of like an ice queen or a loner.

your answers to those 13 questions, it should probably take you about seven minutes to take it or 10 minutes. You'll get an actual answer and they're all videos. So if you, whatever you got, because I'm going to guess Heather. I'm looking at you. You're definitely one of the peacekeeper pushover or wait, there's one, there's another third one. Hold on. Peacekeeper.

I'm afraid. Or the chameleon. It was tricky for me because I haven't gotten it yet. I did it last night. I struggled with what I knew I shouldn't click. Oh, yes. Another. There you go. Peacekeeper. Chameleon. Like, I don't want to be that. But I mean, shit, I think I am that. But I feel like I am that. And I bet you're the ice queen. So we're going to see if those things are correct. My place in tech changes every day, but I don't fear the future.

Because I'm with the leader, Pluralsight. Their online learning platform has the hands-on, expert-led courses I need to master new tech skills and create bigger impacts. So I can learn quickly. And stay ahead. With Pluralsight, I don't fear what's next. I embrace it. Tap in at Pluralsight.com and see for yourself. This is the story of the one.

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I, of course, could answer every question very quickly. I think what it what it one of one of the one of the questions put me in it in um there wasn't a response that i really liked and which i also thought was really funny because it's like well if you're in a conflict in in business you know what would you do and there wasn't one like

Like, oh, I'm going to like handle this. I'm going to negotiate. It's more like, no, I'm going to say what I fuck I want. I'm going to make people understand that my point of view is better because it usually is. And there was no other option. And I was, and I take it or leave it. I'm kind of a bitch. And I was like, oh.

my god the one option and and it's not that people think i'm a bit but of course that's part of why taking the quiz is so interesting because i knew that that how i'm what it also does is help you reflect and receive yourself be in a truthful

in a truthful way it's not about condemning yourself it's about shining shining light on and i'm pretty obviously confident about who i am ice queen i think being could you describe that because i think that probably would be the category i don't think any of these categories i don't think you get

winning remark like yeah you got 100 you're a really good person that's not what you're doing you're you're showing us no archetypes of our but i knew how to get 100 i knew i knew the right answers on every single page isn't that amazing Because one of the archetypes is having healthy boundaries. So here's the thing. What the quiz does, it's basically saying when you are not at your best.

When your boundaries are disordered, when you're under pressure, because here's the thing, it's easier to have better boundaries. When we're not in conflict, right? When we're not under pressure, when there's not a situation. Because those are more positive boundaries. You can say, I really want to do this tonight or whatever. And that is also.

some kind of a boundary. But we're talking about boundaries where you need to push back. And that is where this archetype comes in and shows you when you're under pressure. Are you more of a peacekeeper or not? And the reason why it matters for those of you listening, boundaryquiz.com is that when you have insight and go, oh, because not all boundaries are disordered in the same way.

you can have two loose boundaries which are called porous boundaries. You can have two hard boundaries which is called having rigid boundaries. And then in between those things that's like The healthy boundaries are somewhere in between, but there needs to be a certain amount of flexibility. And the misunderstanding that most people have about boundaries is they think that rigid boundaries. Someone who's like my way or the highway is having healthy boundaries and it's not.

Because having healthy boundaries means you can talk to someone else, even if you disagree with them, and you can agree to disagree. Heather would appreciate if I had that. Heather would really like if I had that skill. I was literally just thinking that you do.

saying that because i let her say i mean i i know i appreciate i like i like we we were on a phone call to be completely honest with you where i was i was doing it's kind of a little bit more it's my way or the highway attitude i do feel like i i do so thank you for I was about to say that about you because you will be very strong in a position, but you will...

If it makes sense to you, you'll come off it. You won't hang your hat on a certain position and never come off of it. If it makes sense and we get to it, you'll… you'll move on it right right i like the better idea i appreciate that because that's obviously something that i've been working on in our in our i mean we we like to learn that you said that because i was literally just saying that but i do think i i do put my i like to stick by what I do but also that's because I you know work hard at

structuring what I do. And if you don't have a better idea, then you better listen to mine. And that was one of your options. But I would love for you to talk about these rigid boundaries. I have so much appreciation for you. The ice queen, the rigid boundaries, and again, going back to parental habiting and patterning, because so much of that comes from...

I mean, how we pattern ourselves and how we interact is from what our childhood was. For me, you know, it was fight or die. I mean, that's all there was to it. And a lot of my, what I believe in. comes from that fight. And there are some things that you're just not going to, there's cloaks that I wear that. I mean, honey, you don't stand in my way. And those badges of honor, but also those things that you can't sometimes change in yourself. I'd like to talk about that because I...

Because I feel like there's a gap between us understanding our boundaries, our ability, our capacity, and telling the truth. not about the tell everything wrong. One of the things you say about parents is they were probably doing the best they could. We've learned a lot here on Better Together. Everybody is doing the most usually.

doing the best they can and i and for me to say that from the background i came from that's giving a lot of forgiveness i gotta say folks because wow you look at my parents i mean whoa were they really doing but if you take that point of view and look back at the story about telling the truth yourself, I feel like there's a gap between our self-esteem and being able to tell the truth about what our interaction with that truth was.

And can you kind of merge that for us? I can. What I was going to say, though, is that I feel like, listen, it's very generous to say people were doing the best that they could, right? Thank you. My two cents is this. It doesn't even matter at this point because what matters is you and your life and what you're going to do now. And I think that people really like to jump over the part of healing.

That requires us to be really honest about the ways our parents failed us. We can talk to them. They could be dead. They could be alive. It doesn't matter. The kid within each one of us. Can't just skip over that and be like, you know, I would have therapy clients come to me and be like, I should be over it. It happened 30 years ago. I'm like, you're never going to be over it unless we honor.

We have to tell the truth to ourselves at the very least. You don't want to involve anyone else, you don't have to because it's your healing journey. Kids in dysfunctional and chaotic and abusive family systems, we are trained to abandon ourselves and be like, well, I mean, I understand why my parent did it because they had a terrible childhood too and blah, blah, blah. Here's the thing.

I don't care. The kid within you needs the acknowledgement of like, that sucked. That just was really bad. That was very bad for me. I want someone, the child within us, want someone to just honor. Like, hey, that sucked. And look at where you are now. And this is amazing. but with the parents, like, I don't know, people really get into this whole trip on forgiveness. And I just got to say, it's not like my thing.

I'm not into it. I love you. I love you more. I love you more every second you talk. Well, here's the thing with forgiveness, though. It is so, it is so. corrupted with ideas of it's like we're giving up something someone's getting over on us and then there's the whole religious connotation there's just so much crap what i say is

It is our jobs to let ourselves out of resentment prison. Haven't we been in it long enough? Yes. Wow. And that's what this healing work does, is us waking up to the fact that we have the key. to the resentment prison and we can just open the door and go forward from here. But I never, I only ever will take people back to things that.

we must go back to in order to go forward. I'm not interested in talking about third grade for 10 years because who the hell cares? What I care about, if something happened in third grade that is blocking you from creating the life you want right now, well, then I'm super interested in that unpacking. that experience honoring integrating that experience so i think that there's

Is that the resentment inventory that you talk about in the book? Yes. Okay. So, yes. So that's actually a perfect segue to the resentment inventory. And scene of the crime. Yes, exactly. Because we just got to go back. I hate to say it, but this is just where it all starts, is the scene of the crime, which is the family of origin, according to me. But people, when they go, I don't know where to start with my boundaries. I don't even know how my boundaries are. So you go.

boundaryquiz.com and take that beginning exactly and then you're going to take a resentment inventory because that will tell you right now what relationships in your life need your attention most urgently. So I'll tell you what that is. You're going to write a list of your sort of the VIPs in your life, your closest people. And then you're going to put, there's a whole thing that says resentment I'm holding on to.

And then you're going to be really honest. And in that little box next to your best friend's name, you're going to say what resentment you're holding onto, if anything. And you know what you should say and you know what you want to say, but this is a quiz for you to tell the truth. Yes. And it's also a quiz for you to not, it's not resentment. If we just go with the resentment, right? We can get so wrapped up in blame and shame and guilt. We're not going to do that. We're going to look.

at that resentment and go, okay, this resentment was created 50% by me, 50% by them. So what can I do differently? Where did I collude? with this other person unconsciously to make this thing happen or to allow it to happen. I didn't say anything. I lent my friend money and then she said she'd give it back in a month and then she didn't give it back for six months and she's still not giving it back. But what is the onus is on me.

maybe I didn't say anything or I didn't have a clear and clean agreement about lending money. NPS, just never lend money. That's it. It's just the worst. It's always going to go back. If you lend money, don't ever expect it to go back. If you can't afford to give it, you give it. Yeah. We can all agree on that. And if you can, fantastic. Yes, it's just the worst because money is not just dollars and cents. Of course, it's fully loaded for whatever it meant in your family system.

Right, because it becomes an exchange. You want something back from that scene of the crime or whatever that was back in your childhood. So you're supposedly lending the money. But what you're asking for is the healing of something that you have had broken. And then when they don't do that. for you then you take it out on them because it's all the resentment that you build up from the from whatever you saw when you were

In the book you talk about, I think it was a, maybe it was a patient or somebody who in the workplace kept getting into fights in her office, no matter what job she was in. you know would have these rivalries with with somebody and then when you dug deeper you found out why i think that maybe talk about that now would people could relate to that yeah

Yes. That actually was such a fascinating story and I've seen it. I've actually seen it before. So I call this repeating boundary realities or repeating relationship realities. So I had this client.

She had a job. She had like an arch enemy, Mary. She hated this lady. Everything. Everything about her, she hated. She's like, she's disgusting. She doesn't wash her hands after she was in the bathroom. Like everything. She just hated her. So then I thought, well, maybe. And she would always say things like.

well, everybody, everybody has this. And I would always say, no, not really. Just right now, we're just talking about you. Like people will try to normalize their behavior by being like, I'm sure everyone has this experience. I'm like. not somebody they hate some some rival like that same exact situation yeah yeah same thing and but her name wasn't mary but it was literally the same thing where she was like i hate her blah blah blah right and then finally i was like okay the common denominator

And this lady's story, of course, is her. It's most often us, isn't it? Who else could it be living our lives, right? It's pretty much got to be us, especially if it's a repeated situation. It's definitely you. Meaning. Doesn't mean the other person may not be acting like a jerk. Maybe they are. But why are you drawing that into your life multiple times? That is an un...

healed something in you. So I gave her these things that I call the three cues for clarity. So these three questions you can ask yourself anytime you're in a repeated situation where you're like, how am I in another relationship with another unavailable person or whatever it is? And I said to her, so of these arch enemies you've had, who do they remind you of? Where have you felt like this before? And how or why is the way you're interacting with them, is it familiar to you? And she was like,

Oh my God, this is so embarrassing. Just like my sister Beth. And I was like, tell me more about Beth. And this was what it was about. And I promise you, when we were done unpacking the Beth arch enemy story. Yeah. She did not have. Like that, there was no more need because we can only talk things out or act things out. Wow. So when she talked it out, she was no longer compelled to act it out.

I'm going to repeat that one. We have two options. We're talking it out or we're acting it out. And this goes back to, I think, the scene of the crime, telling the truth about your story. Once you and we talk about this a lot on Better Together. Once you speak the truth, the good thing is then you don't have to keep gossiping about somebody else and why they did it wrong for months and months and months.

Once you tell the truth and you are witnessed, and I think that is also a part of the beauty of therapy or the beauty of having a best friend. Once you say the truth and you're not bullshitting yourself, it becomes something you can look at and then make a conscious choice. about how you're going to organize your emotion to activate the purpose of what it is that you want to commit to that's next and further. And I just want to...

Squeeze you. These are the things that we need. We need so many reminders of. But when we're told what our choices are, like, listen, you're doing one or two things. You're acting it out or you're doing it. I mean, you're telling the truth about it.

It just simplifies for us so much. I have to, if I can just bother you, to talk about the manipulative person. You talk about signs that you're being manipulated. Oh my golly. I mean, I still want to get back to the list of emotions. We want to talk about the meditation at the end. You've given us the three cues. Everybody's got to take the quizzes. But I know for a fact that when you start listening to Terry, you're going to be able to organize.

yourself in terms of where you are when you listen to any of the stories of this issues that she's talking about about where you could have been and whether or not you went through that same exact situation i'll tell you what when you talk about being

emotionally manipulated and again this is part of how we don't understand our boundaries so we don't know how to say no or she talks to you on the quiz and says hey listen when you're on a first date and it's 20 minutes in and you really don't like that person

What do you do? Do you stay and have dinner anyway? Or do you, you know, get up and say, excuse me, I think it's time for you. Wait, what did you, did you go in the bathroom and just leave? What was your answer? No, of course. I said, hey, listen, it's probably not good for me, but I'll see you later. You know, I don't, you go into the bathroom. No, no, you know I suffered through dinner. You suffered through dinner. See, but so all of these things are helping to organize this.

I had been, my patterning was so much so that I got involved in being emotionally manipulated. And every single thing, I want to encourage our listeners to go on. If there is a topic that you think that you're in the midst of. that's and terry you've done over 300 those signs because i've recognized a lot of emotional manipulations the love bomb the love bomb love that word too can you talk about emotional manipulation and of course we're all we're talking about

boundary boss, Terry Cole's book here, and all of the different things that are pathways into not understanding our boundaries. And being emotionally manipulated is not something that I recognized. Well, that's somebody burrowing into your boundary without you quite realizing that they are, right? Yes. Please, please illuminate emotional manipulation. Sneaky, yes. The way that I called it in the book, right? I talked about… Boundary destroyers. So everything that I teach you in the book.

even about boundary bullies is different because none of those rules that I teach you how to have a proactive boundary conversation. I give you a whole chapter of just scripts. None of that really applies if you are dealing with a master manipulator. It could be narcissistic personality disorder or any of the other untreated cluster B personality disorders. It could be histrionic, it could be bipolar.

untreated though keep in mind where if you go to them and are authentic and are earnest and honest about how you feel they will for sure use it against you. So let's talk about sort of the top manipulation tactics that we see that people need to be aware of. So the two probably most damaging. So we have love bombing, which a lot of people are familiar with. It means that they

pour it on, you know, want to fly you to Paris for dinner on like date three. Can't wait to ask you to go to a wedding in like 2028. talking about the future, having the most amazing sex. Like everything is just so awesome. And it's like addicting. But then you're moving into. This accelerated timeline with Love Bombing 2, usually, that they're amping up the timeline. Like, well, my lease is up and we're going to move it.

It always makes me so nervous when clients are like, it's amazing. I'm madly in love. I'm good on three dates and we're getting engaged. I'm like, hey man, pump the brakes. Because if it's good. On the third date, it'll be good on the third week and the third month. but if we're accelerating it so fast it is being driven by something other than love or lust it there there is a way of trying to grab you and sink their teeth into you which is what they're doing

So that's love bombing. Another one is gaslighting, where someone who is denying your reality, your lived experience, they will either boldface lie to your face and be like, I never said that. I never said we would do that. No, you misunderstood. Or they'll use fake concern. They'll be like, babe, I'm worried about you. I really am. Listen, I wasn't going to say anything, but Bob said that he's worried about you too.

Right. I mean, right? I think we should cover one more thing. Please, please. For the audience. This is a question I always get. Do we have time? Yes, please. And I have one more thing, too. Okay, great. So how about you do your one more thing? Because it might be the same thing. Okay.

I really liked when you talked about body wisdom and when you step away from something to note how you feel after the interaction. Can you talk just a little bit about that? Because I think that's something that everybody can recognize within themselves to make a change. Is that the same one? Yes. And here's the thing. That was what I was going to talk about. Yes. I swear to God. That's so funny. Because everyone always asks.

How can I tell when a boundary has been violated? How do I know in the moment? Because I'm always confused. I feel something, but I'm not sure. So when it comes to decoding when a boundary has been crossed, Um, and really what you can do about it, you're going to dial into your body and you may not be able to do it in the moment. And that's okay. You can eventually learn to, because if you have a flight.

fight flight freezer fawn response because you feel threatened by the boundary violation you may not be able to handle it in the moment but i want you to think back right? You'll think back on something. So the possible signs that a boundary has been crossed, you can have physical sensations like a constriction in your chest, pain in your throat, you might freeze.

You can't really talk in that moment. You vomit. You want to vomit. Maybe you actually vomit. Gut or head pain. Accelerated heartbeat, right? Where your heart now is slamming. Maybe you're sweating. you might feel resentment. So the emotional things that might come feel irritated, feel annoyed. You might want to run away. So you want to like shut down the conversation. You might feel sudden, like a flash of anger.

You know, like where your face will get hot for a second and then you just sort of keep on going. Now, here's the thing with what you do after. You're going to start to, and you guys who are watching and listening, I want you to start to take note. of what happens in your body and maybe you know right now like with you guys what happens when a boundary gets crossed where do you feel it physically oh well are you asking i can feel it in my in my chest in my like if if if i'm

If I'm on a call or if I'm treated in a way that I don't speak out for myself, I feel like a constriction. I know this because I do. Yep. I try very hard to not act on my emotion until I can put some intelligence on it. What happens to me when my boundaries are being crossed is the egg. I go back to the original crime. I go back to the crime scene and put that person right there.

to fucking kill him i can't i can't i can't stand it and i also feel the same exact way when i see somebody else's boundaries being crossed and they don't have the understanding that we're talking about, knowing I want to protect them like I'm a fighter. I don't like when somebody's being hurt and I don't like being hurt. So you get hot indeed. Yes. And you both know.

Like your body wisdom. You both know that there's something that happens. Then you can go back and revisit it. Because a lot of people think, oh, I missed my chance. I should have said something in the meeting. Right. That's not so. There's no statute of limitations on going back and being like, oh, hey, Bob, remember the summer of 78? I want to talk about it.

You can always do that, right? There's no statute of limitation. And it's important. The last thing, you guys, I want to say about this is that making a boundary request, telling the truth about what we experienced or how we feel, it's not... a lever to control others right your healing is in having the courage to negotiate for yourself your healing is in acting in a way in your life where you're saying

What I think matters. How I feel matters. What I want matters. And I'm going to live my life that only people who agree with that can be. in the VIP section of my life and have close access to me. Because if you do not think that what I think and how I feel and what I want matters.

then you do not belong. You're generally mission only for those mother efforts. That's right. Find your own crew. Well, also what you're doing is repatterning yourself. So you're taking away the parental patterning. You're saying, okay, now I recognize my behavior. I can look back at that. That's part of why we don't want to.

the resentment thing over the pool of resentment over years and years because then you're like wait Bob in 78 so if we keep if we keep up to it and are encouraged to say look yes you walked away from dinner you didn't do anything but when you recognize that what happens is the next time you into a situation like that because you brought your story forth. So then you're telling it, you're not acting it out.

And then when you go back into that situation, you're reconditioning yourself to be aware. You go, uh-oh, I'm starting to get hot right here. What am I feeling? Let me take a step back. I'm going to be intelligent about this. I'm going to go use the restroom for a second. Come back, take a breath, and go, I don't want to. who have to remember this in a week, I want to activate this now because I do matter, because the people around me matter, because I've made the choice to say,

You're a VIP section. I really like that. I want everybody to be encouraged. This is so amazing to have had you on here, encourage you to be surrounded by only the VIPs. I just want to say it reminds me a little bit of what we learned a couple of weeks ago. with Dr. Martha Beck told us, don't ever let somebody treat you in a way that you wouldn't treat them. She has a big show on that too. Yes, Terry has a show on that. To boundaries, yes. Yeah, so.

Can we just say thank you? And everybody has to get- I have one more thank you before she goes. Go and do the quiz. We ended the thing. No, but-

I think it would be fantastic. Please, I'm kidding. I could have one all day. Go. I know. But if you did the four breaths with us before we go. Oh, is this a meditation? No, we're going to end with your two-minute meditation. But the thing that you do with four breaths.

is so easy for us all to do now. And as a matter of fact, I told my son, who's a pitcher, a high school pitcher, and he, you know, in the middle, he turns around on the mound and can do this. And it's just a very simple thing. Because it's 16 seconds. Exactly. So can you. us through that to close us out lovely lovely i stroke in close your eyes and we're just going to breathe in for a count of four go one two three four now hold two

Three, four. Exhale. Two, three, four. Hold it out. Two, three, four. Amen. Hallelujah. Terry. Cole, you are a master. I am so honored to have shared this hour with you. And I feel our guests are so lucky. We're so lucky. Everybody go listen to Terry Cole. Please get her book. The Boundary Boss and go take that. And it's all at terrycole.com. Is that where we find you? Yes. And boundaryquiz.com. And they can get all kinds of bonuses at Boundary Boss Book.

And if you want to check out my mastermind, go to terrycole.com forward slash. I want us to go sign up. I mean, I wanted us to go sign up for, you know, this, this flourish, this flourish. It would be such an incredible, such an incredible intensive with you. Thank you so much You have made us better today Terry Cole God bless you Amen Hallelujah Have a terrific day Better together with Terry Cole Thank you

There's so much to take away from this show. I feel like listening back to it to understand. That was a good one. I think Terry is just a master of wisdom about how we make changes in our lives, telling our truth about ourselves. about understanding where we are and being present in it. I mean, just understanding our body language, understanding which has to do with our boundaries, understanding what creates the patterning of our initiative to not have boundaries.

And she puts everything into such simple, easy, wonderful, helpful solution. There's just a lot of ways to identify. After interactions. I mean, it goes on and on and on. You guys all heard it. So, I mean, this is one that... listen to it back myself. Yes. And there's a lot more nuggets on her website. And we're going to leave at the end of this one of her two minute meditations. She recommends that you meditate in the morning.

and at night you know i'm not a very good meditator i don't like to sit still very long i can do two minutes and i did this two minute meditation and it's really great okay well then that's a challenge that's how we're going to activate our purpose on this one we can do two minutes we are asking ourselves to set

boundaries for ourselves understand and recognize and part of that is in thinking and contemplating and being still with ourselves and that's why this meditation is going to be so helpful and i will challenge you and myself uh to do it this week everybody have a great great week cheers

Well, hello and welcome to this week's tune-up tip, which is a summer meditation from my heart to yours. So I'm going to ask you to sit down, gently close your eyes, turn your phone off first. Of course, unless you're watching this on your phone. And let's start by taking a couple of deep breaths, breathing in through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Do this a few more times.

And we're going to start with a full body relaxation. Starting from the top of your head, I want you to see a beautiful amethyst light. This is a protective light moving from above to below. See this light behind your eyes. relaxing all of the muscles around your eyes, moving into your jaw muscles, releasing. See and feel this light moving into your neck muscles, relaxing your shoulder muscles. If you need to drop your shoulders, do it. If you need to roll your neck a little bit, do that.

Feel those muscles releasing. Now I want you to see and feel this light moving into your biceps and your triceps, your elbows, your forearms, your wrists, all the way down to your hands and your fingers. Feel this relaxing light moving to the back of your body, relaxing your upper back, releasing your middle back, relaxing your lower back and your buttocks. And now you feel the warmth of this light moving into the front of your body, relaxing the big muscles of your chest.

your side body, your obliques. And then you see this light pouring into your entire torso, illuminating all of your internal organs as well, detoxifying and relaxing. And now you see and feel this light moving into your hips, relaxing the big muscles of your thighs, your hamstrings, your knees, your shins, your calves, your ankles, all the way down to your feet and your toes.

And now your entire body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes is completely and totally relaxed. And now I'm going to ask you to conjure the feelings of summer right in the middle of your chest. Think about all of the things that you love about the summertime and allow yourself to go there. So do you love the beach? I want you to see yourself on the beach. Do you love watermelon? Do you love all?

corn and all the foods that we get to eat during the summer. The bounty is so rich during the summer, and depending on where you live, depends on what is local to eat, but look for it because it's amazing. Feel that feeling of expansion that you get to feel on a summer day if you're somewhere at a lake or you're somewhere at the beach. And even if right now you're just sitting in your office, I'm going to ask you to conjure that feeling.

right in the middle of your chest. Expansion and relaxation. Now I'm going to ask you to take two more deep breaths. I'm going to count backwards from 10 to 1. 10, 9, you're feeling rested and relaxed. 8, 7, feeling incredibly grateful. 6, 5, feeling regrouped and renewed. 4, 3. Feeling ready for what's next. Two, one. So just stretch your hands and rock your feet and give yourself a nice big full body stretch.

And welcome back. I hope that you use this little meditation whenever you need to get away, whenever you need to feel that feeling of rest, relaxation, and expansion. I hope you have an amazing week. And as always, take care of you. And a big, big thanks to our Better Together team, Ryan Tillotson, Silvana Alcala, Daniel Ferreira, and of course, Anne and Heather. If you haven't already, please subscribe on whatever device or platform you're listening to this on. And as always, see you next week.