Hi everyone, and welcome to the Best Ever Youth Show. I'm your host, Elizabeth Hamilton Garno here with the marvelous Terry Cole, the author of multiple books. Her latest one is called too Much. We're going to be talking about that, but Terry, welcome to the sixteenth season of The Best Ever You Show. Can you believe that?
Wow? Congratulations and Elizabeth, good for you.
It's right here, all in the office here with all tiny kids. Now they're all grown up. But I want to do take a moment, as I was telling you, just a serious moment for a second. Mel the podcast kitty has passed away, and I put him in you, I put my heart. I put a video out on Friday and Saturday and Sunday too, I think. But she was lovely, a lovely cat that we rescued down in Kittery, Maine. And I smile because she would want me to smile.
I think she was just so pretty and she lived in here, and she was a feral cat, and we just applied love. You know how you applied love to a faral cat and they turn into just your love. That was Mel, and she loved our guests and Terry. She would have loved you right about there, and she would listen. She was like her own master life coach in a way.
So let's just say that we're calling in the spirit of mel right now to be with us during our podcast experience.
Yeah, thank you very much for that. And I know you like you have a rescue You said you had a rescue pitbull. I do special. That's a special breed to rescue as well. Right.
Yes, she was a baby though, so it's a little bit easier than you know. So we had her sense of puppy. She's turning two in October.
Oh, so cute. So thank you for being here. I know the best ever you network is going to love you. I wanted to just start everybody. I always say the website up upfront, So we go to Terrycole dot com. It's spelled t E r R I c O l E dot com and right off the bat you can go get a free gift. Well to mention it at the end too. Maybe a few times actually get you all over to Terry's website. But if you type in Terrycole dot com slash HFC, she's got a gift for you. Tell us about all about it. Terry.
Sure, it is a gift for a high functioning codependency. So that's what my last book was about. And in this little toolkit, I discreted a high functioning codependency toolkit because there's usually we talk about so much that can be overwhelming. So I have a video and a PDF called Simplify and Do Less. I'm also in there that package is a self love Meditation and the Power of No Meditation, and also a link if you want to go by the book Beautiful.
Now I saw you, I was like, oh, I've got to have her on the show. Please, please please. I saw you on Good Morning America. I think that was the coolest thing ever. I'm like a colleague is right there. I was so proud of you in that moment.
Thank you.
I hope you could hear me screaming because my husband's like, what are you doing. I'm like, she's on.
I was so nervous, but thank you.
Oh was that just so much fun?
So much fun?
You're racking or just every big cool No.
It was so much fun. I had a fun an interesting experience that was like that. Because that was a few years ago. Now, that was one of the biggest shows that I had done, and I like blanked out for a second, like which I had never had happened to me ever, Like, and I've done tons of television, but this was a big show, you know. And she asked me a question. I had just slowly repeated the question and then the answer came and I was like, oh,
thank god. And I did not watch that video of me on that show for about two months, like I couldn't. My team was like, no, you look normal, what are you talking about? And I was like, I thought I looked like a deer in the headlights. But when I did finally watch it, it was fine. It's amazing what's happening on the inside of your body can be very different than what's happening to the outside world.
You know. Yeah, I know. I was really really proud of you, and I think those moments are just are so important for us as authors to It just gives you. It shines a little spotlight on all your hard work and everything that you've been doing. And because it's not easy, especially during the pandemic and after, to just kind of sit alone here in our offices and write books and do podcasts and do all these things, and so do you get a little lonely every once in a while.
I mean, I'm grateful that I live with my husband and my chickens and my geese and my dog, so there, and I live near my closest sister, so work wise, and I have a great team that you know, So I'm interacting with people all day, but I do love to get out and travel. I make sure that, like I'm going to LA in my two weeks where I'm going out to do some podcasts, and I make sure that I socialize enough because I really am a social person.
So when I'm writing a book, I find that becomes very isolating even though I'm doing you know, someone on my team is helping me. I've got, you know, an editor who's helping me. But it's still like that is like lone wolf work for me writing books, And I know you have your own experience of that. For a social gal and for an extrovert book writing, Wow, it's like the least natural thing to do in the world because I just wanted to be done everything to be done by committee, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I sometimes have to force myself to be like super extroverted. But you know, I get what you're saying, though. It's like, Okay, I'm really laser focused in on this process. Got to kind of be quiet and not a lot of distractions and things like that. I actually, I actually just started teaching gymnastics and for all the little kids, and it
is so much fun. I'm in my third week now, and that has kind of helped a little bit, just to just to get out there and do things a little bit more stuff. So yeah, but we do leave, so I heard you travel. We leave the East Coast actually and leave for the winter and go down to South Carolina for three months. Do you ever do anything like that? We started doing this in COVID. We're like, you know, we can work from anywhere.
Yeah, it's funny. We've been talking about it, but it's hard when you have barnyard animals.
Yep. Yeah. One of our older sons stays here with his dog and takes care of the cats. So I know, I know, I get the same thing. I worry about him the whole time too. So what I wanted to talk about is thank you for the personal personal side of things too. I want to go kind of professional on you a little bit here, because you didn't always do what you do now, And if you could for me, We've got a lot of young listeners, can you kind of I almost want you to take us back to kindergarten.
I always ask I always ask our guests what they are like in kindergarten. Take us there, but then jump a little bit. I really would love to hear your career path because I think one of the things I'm noticing as people people think, especially kids, they think they're supposed to have like all figured out at age seven, graduating high school and I'm going to college and I know what I'm going to do, and oh man, yeah, I just I told our kids, I'm like, you know,
let it simmer, let it percolate, let it do. Yeah, your own thing to get a feel for the world. Because yeah, all right.
So if I went all the way back, I would say in kindergarten, I had a crush. I'm Billy Roth that I remember very distinctly. I was always I was always interested in boys, even as a little kid, which is funny. I when someone asked me in third grade what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, I wanted to be a stripper and a bilingual secretary. So that was an eight year old's answer. I don't even know how I knew either one of those things, but no idea. I'm like, okay, but what you know
for me going to school? You know, It's like I feel like there was a lot of things that happened in my life in a haphazard way. I was the youngest of four sisters, and I was the first one to go to college in my family. Now my father went to college as well, but I mean of my sisters, and so there wasn't like some great master plan like today, like parents are so involved. It was I think it was April of my senior year of high school and a guidance counselor who was not even my own, said
are you going to college? And I said, well, I haven't applied to any yet. He was like, do you have someone who can pay for college? I said I do, and I was very lucky and privileged that my father had saved money. And he said, come in my office and we applied to colleges right there. That's how I ended up going to my undergraduate at Long Island University. He chose colleges that you know that basically would accept anybody,
no offense to me. So I'm not saying it was the greatest school, but you know, then I did my master's at NYU, so I feel like I made up for it. But I was very much in love with life all of my life as a little kid. I was a kid who was not supposed to be born because I was my mother's fourth cesarean section. I was born in nineteen sixty four and sixty one, and back then they were like, the way that they did cesareans
was like they cut your whole body open. So they were like, we don't think you're going to be able to carry this pregnancy to term. And she was like, oh, I think I will, but thanks for your advice. So they wanted her to a boorn and she was like, no thanks. And then I was the you know, this is this is these are the stories. This is the lure that I was the only one who is breastfed, that I was the first one to go to college. You know, all of these stories that I heard about myself.
But what my memories are is that my sisters like loved me, you know, and even when they were with their friends. They would want me to come with them. The friends would be like in Terry Cumbe, they'd be like sure. My mother was very attuned to me as a child, and so I can remember my earliest memories or my mother like bending all the way down and being like, what are you saying? You don't know? You don't want to wear that sweater? It's scratchy, you don't
like that, you don't have to wear it? All right, we'll just change It's okay. Like So I grew up believing with women in particular, that what I think, how I feel, and what I want should matter if these people are going to be important people in my life. On the juxtaposition of that was my relationship with my father, who was a very successful, white collar guy from a
very poor background. So him doing well was a big deal and he should have had sons and I was his last chance for a son, but I was a daughter, so I had the wrong gender vibe going and I was doing a lot of proving that I could be more successful than any stupid son he could have had. So there was a lot of that. And so my latest book that comes out next September of twenty six is about father wounds. No, that makes sense because I grew up with a father wound. Ye and so many of my clients as well.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
So back to you want me to go back to career, you know.
Yeah, you know, we have stopped. So we have so much in common. In a way, I like my parents a little bit different. But it's in one of my books too. My parents got divorced at a really young age, and then my dad, who who was my dad, was my dad forever from like about age three. Amazing, amazing, amazing human. But I'm in the middle of kids, and boy, my fast eater. But my mom did the same thing. My mom was so cool. My my ID never call
him stepfather. But my father was amazing too, So I had two really cool parents eventually started about age three. But otherwise it would have been a small nightmare.
But that secure attachment to your mother, yes, and my own secure attachment to my mother always made me feel like it set me up to do what I do in life, because I always felt like there was enough love. Not for my father, but I was so inundated with positive regard from my mother and my sisters that I just grew up thinking, not thinking I was effingingrat, just thinking I was valuable, just thinking I was a worthy person and that hopefully I could add value to the
world in some way, And so I ended up. My first career was in entertainment, where I was, you know, I became very successful at a young age. I was running a bi coastal talent agency in New York. I was thirty one, I think, and you know, I was literally it was celebrities and supermodels. I was negotiating contracts with lawyers, even though I wasn't a lawyer. But that was my job and I loved it until I didn't and I got too healthy. Right, There was a parallel
process of my own psychological evolution in therapy. I started therapy at nineteen, quit drinking at twenty one. I was still in college when I stopped drinking, and I was a huge drinker. From twelve to twenty one. I did a lot of drinking, very a lot of addiction within my family. And through therapy, I had this massive realization about my career, like it just started happening naturally, where I just didn't care about the movie deal or the
Panteen deal. All I cared about was the mental health of the models and the celebrities that I was working with. I was getting everyone into therapy, eating disorder clinics, druggery in clinics. Like long before I was a therapist, I was doing this, and so I just realized, yeah.
Cat compassion.
And it's you know, it's interesting though where to make. The decision to leave was obviously a defining moment to leave entertainment and to go to NYU to become a clinical social worker. Basically, my father was like, what the
effort you're doing? Like why what is going on? And I said, you know, dad, I'm actually not happy in this industry, Like I had become too mentally healthy to stay in entertainment because it was so misogynistic and a million bad things obviously, and he literally said, sounds weird. That's what he said, sounds weird. I was like, well, good thing for you. I don't need anything from you. So yeah, and then I went on to get this
education that I absolutely love. This second I started going to school, I was like, yeah, this is my destiny, without a doubt. And that was in nineteen ninety seven. I graduated.
I love it. Yeah. I quit the financial services industry started best ever You and everybody did the same thing, like what are you doing?
Yeah?
Really seriously, and I'm like, well, I've got this vision that I'm supposed to do something else. Same quite honestly, And for me, it was really feeling like I couldn't be like seven people at once. For me, it was like having four small children at home trying to hold down a job, then do their sports and do this and do that. I'm like, you know, I need to be like seven clones. I can't do this. And that was with my helping and everything, because my husband's amazing
and we were both like wow. So we both ended up quitting our jobs in a way and working from home the whole time the kids were so we never missed anything. We felt like if we kept going, we were going to miss things and it was going to be not good. So we've always worked from home and things.
Like that and so amazing.
Interesting. Yeah, but between us, I think you and I we have. What I'm hearing is if I do my math right, which I'm not so good at me. Seven we have seven kids, seven boys between us. Yes, we need to do a boy podcast podcast about boys, oh much?
Seriously?
Yeah, so, yeah, how old are yours?
My kids are in their forties now. I love it. So when I came in as a bonus mom, right because their their mom died when they were little kids. So my husband was widowed when he was twenty nine with a five to three and a one year old.
Oh wow.
And then I came in about twelve years later. Yeah, So he did a lot of solo parenting. He had a terrible second marriage that was totally brutal, that wiped him out financially.
Yeah.
And somehow my husband, through all of this still managed to be an incredibly successful political artist that he still is today, had a massive career somehow. I don't know how. He just never slept for those years because he would work while the kids were sleeping. He would work, Yeah, and then during the day he would clean the house and wash the clothes and make food. And I have seven grand babies now too.
Wow, that's amazing. And boys, girls.
Grand babes. We actually have two girls and then the rest of them are boys. So many freaking boys. But it's funny. I grew up in a family of girls, and so it's it's interesting coming into a family of boys. When I knew nothing. It was like I skipped the terrible twos and I just went headfirst into the terrifying teens because that was the situation. And I was so in love with my husband that I thought he could
have forty four teenagers. I do not care, like love is will find a way, buddy, Like It's all fine. And of course it was a crap ton of hard work, right and family therapy and all the things that you do. But the thing is, to this day, my worst day with Vic and the boys is better than any other day.
Oh I love that. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Yep, I love it. I love it. I love it and that I can't imagine a worst day and these are all pretty beautiful. So right, yeah, now, were you a model? I'm looking at you and you look like you're a supermodel in your own right.
Well, thank you?
Yeah, Oh my god, you're so beautiful and I love your girl energy. I can tell you're a huge supporter of other girls. I can just feel that vibe. I'm like, oh, I love yeah, not a mean girl at all. So thank you for being the way you are, because it's so cool and that neat when we love each other instead of like, yes.
I never and I don't identify with that at all, Elizabeth. When people talk about, well, you know how mean women are to each other, I'm like, I don't. Yeah, I literally don't. I've had the same friend since Nixon was in office. This seven friends since I was five, and a million other friends along the way. But I've had the most supportive women in my life. And I always talk about this that my girlfriends, my sisters are as essential to my happiness as my husband and my children
and my grandchildren, like literally as essential. I travel with my friends still. We all turned sixty year and a half ago, and so we went on a big, massive vacation just the girls. We didn't bring our husbands, just us, you know, Like that's a part of my identity too, is being a part of a tribe of women so important to me.
And we have four there's four of us that have hung out since we were ready. Betty, we just got in a zoom the other day and A're like, we need to go somewhere, yes, So where do you guys go when you take a trip that my Puerto Rico overseas I'm.
Like, okay, whatever, right, Puerto Rico Costa Rica and then we then we gather throughout the year too. So a lot of my friends live down the Jersey Shore. I grew up in Jersey, so I just get I literally just got back from I handed in my manuscript of my book. My husband was going to Quantico to do some kind of work with the military because he draws live wars for whatever reason. And I left my house and went down the shore to see my girlfriends. I was like, this is how I want to celebrate.
That's so fun. All right, I'm pivoting again. How how do we go from all of that to like the topic like codependency, Like what what's the draw Where's that coming from? Because that's a that's a word. There's a couple of words that people throw around, and I am always cautious. I'm like, please don't throwd around anxiety, narcissism
and codependently codependency. Lately they get like used in everyday conversation, and I'm like, we need to know what these words like, even me, Yes, So yeah, take it away.
So let's let's start with right the way that the trajectory happened about the topics that I write about. So my first book is called Boundary Boss, and it was about women and boundaries. Why don't we know what they are? Why don't we know how to set them? Why don't we know how to enforce them? Why are they so terrifying? Why is it a language we are not fluent in help? Right?
And I knew there is no definable there's no book that makes it easy where you just go because people talk about boundaries, but nobody knows what the hell it means. So I changed. I just made the definition be what I think it is, which is which is your boundaries? Right? I want you to think about your boundaries as your own personal rules of engagement that let other people know what is okay with you and what is not okay
with you. That's but according to Terry Cole, your boundaries are comprised of your preferences, your limits, and your deal breakers. I love it so not all boundaries are created equal, because a preference is less important than a deal breaker, right, And we need to know what those things are. And those things don't just make up your boundaries. They make up who you are. Your preferences, your desires, your limits,
and your deal breakers in life. They make up who you are as a person, and many of us were taught that to be the cool girl, to be easy breezy, to have no preference. Whatever you guys want, you know me, no fuss, no muss. And what we're doing when we do that, right, is that we're denying the people in our life the privilege of intimately knowing who we are. I'm interested in my friend's preferences. I'm interested in my husband's preferences. It's not everything has to be a problem.
It's I'm interested, do you like this or this? There's nothing wrong with that. So I created this entire step by step process where people can become fluent in the language of boundaries. I give a million scripts, but like everything I teach, we have to go in before we go out, because we have to understand why is it so friggin hard? Why don't we know? Why are we so conflict avoidant? Why are we afraid to rock the boat? And for women in particular, because that is what I know.
You know, lots of men read my books, and I super appreciate that, and yet and they're like, well, why do you write it from the lens of a woman. I'm like, because that's really what I'm an expert at that's the female experience, and gaze is what I understand that we were. Most of us were raised and praised to be self abandoning, codependence. This was socially sanctioned behavior. Be a good girl, where's my happy girl? Turn that frown around. If you don't have anything nice to say,
don't say anything at all. So we start from this deficit as women when it comes to boundaries, because we were taught that if you had boundaries, you were bitchy, you were mean, you were selfish, you were self absorbed, you're hysterical, you're all of these things, which of course is not true. So the myths about boundaries come ahead of the boundaries. So the way that I teach it is that we we deal with people. You have boundary first timers. These are people that you've never asserted a
boundary with. You have boundary repeat offenders.
Boundary okay, boundary first timers yep, okay down, and we have repeat offenders repe defenders. Yeah.
And then we have boundary bullies oh yeah. And then last but not least, we have boundary destroyers yeah, amplers. Yeah. And you know, so in the book, I just walk you through, And I also have a course where just walk you through the process of understanding that you like, it's not enough for you to know your preferences, your limits, and your deal breakers. You have to know them and then have the ability in the language to communicate them
when you so choose. Yeah, therein lies the rub for most people because they don't They might know it, but they don't know how to say what it is. They're afraid of being confrontational, they're afraid of being mean, you know. So that's what I walk you through in the book.
I love that, you know. I have an experience with a boundary. I'm I have chosen from a really young age to not drink alcohol ever, but one bad year in college, my freshman year of college not so good. But other than that, just was like in high school and everything. And it was just kind of a boundary for myself because I know I'm similar to you. I
probably almost wasn't here really. I was born with meningitis and premature and all these things just never made my body feel very good, and so I'm like, I can't. I just it feels like poison to me kind of thing. And so I was just like I just am not
doing that. So I've gone through my life with like no drugs, no alcohol, really not prescription drugs unless it's something for like strep throat or something like that, really really super clean in that regard, I do like ice cream, I will tell you, but anyway, ice cream with my drug. But anyway, so very interesting. But when when I when you do something like that and you're like, Okay, this is just kind of one of my things, you get all sorts of comments, You get alienated, you get are
you are you with this? Are you with that? What's wrong with you? I don't want to invite you. You don't you know, just as funky behaviors towards you. That's one of the reasons why people might be afraid to set boundaries. Where does that fall in? Because I know people feel that way. They want to they want to stop doing something, or they want to change their life or whatever it is, but they get met at every turn with somebody something or here it won't hurt you have a drink or like.
I think that fear of rejection, right, is probably the biggest reason why we don't set boundaries, right. So from a biological point of view, we don't want to be excommunicated from the tribe right, right, because back in cave people days, you would die if you were kicked out of the tribe. You needed the tribe to live, So it makes sense. But I think that part of what I teach my clients and my groups is like now
is not then, right. You can be uncomfortable for a moment, you can have an uncomfortable conversation, and nobody's going to die, because ultimately we're all going to die. But I'm saying
that uncomfortable conversation is not going to kill anybody. And so I think that allowing yourself to be a little bit uncomfortable, when you start putting boundaries into place that have not been there, when you start putting limits on things that you hadn't put limits on in the past, obviously people are going to notice, right because our relationships are dances, as doctor Harriet Lerner talks about them in the Dance of Anger, the Dance of deception, the Dance
of intimacy. And so when you start doing a new move on the dance floor with these people you've been dancing with, especially the people you've been dancing with the longest, which is usually family of origin. They're going to be like, hey, now I do this, Now you do that? Why are you not doing that? So we have to expect that as we start to change our boundary dances that people are going to notice, and we just have to stand firm. It doesn't mean they're me and it doesn't mean they're jerks.
It means they feel threatened because if you change too much, maybe you won't love them anymore. Right, maybe maybe you will reject them or whatever their unconscious fears of your changing. So expect they.
Might have to change a little. Huh.
And actually, but Elizabeth, they will change. The thing is when you change your boundary dance, the people that you're in relationship with have no choice but to also do something different because you're not doing the same old dance. And so you know, the pushback is real. You know
you'll get some pushback. But we always start with lower priority people, So you're not going to start with like your most difficult and most important relationship, Like, no, how donut we just start send the friggin salad back when it's wrong?
Right?
Why don't we just start with like basic easy stuff and it gets easier and easier. I feel like for people if they're wondering, you know, first of all, how do I know where I need a boundary? Because this is a question. I get a lot. We can you can do a quick resentment inventory.
What's that mean?
It just means bring it to mind. Yeah, bring to mind people right now. You can and I probably could too. Anyone you're feeling any kind of like residual resentment towards and then write down why what is the situation? And then you're going to write down what is your fifty percent right, like what could you do? What have you not done? So I give an example in the book that my sister and I both lived in New York City for many years. We each had keys to each
other's houses and we would share closets. But I would always tell her if I was going over and telling me asking her can I borrow this kind of bar and that? But she would just go into my house and take what you want and not tell me. So then I'd be like looking for the thing that she
had because I didn't know she had it. So I had to finally put a consequence and say, hey, this is the third time I've asked you to tell me if you're going to borrow something, and if you don't, if you do it again, I'm going to take my
key back and then we can't share closets anymore. And my responsibility in that was for the first few times, I didn't say anything, yeah, right, So I just was pissed off about it or made a snarky comment, but I didn't make the boundary ask hey, please let me know so that I'm not looking for some shit that you have at your house. That would be great, you know, yeah, And we need to be able to say that exactly where is my scarf is what I want to know.
So that's something that you guys can take away right now to do, which is just do a resentment inventory and then decide you don't have to take action right now, but look at it, and what you're going to see is that there is an empowered action that you can take to resolve that resentment, right to do something to make it better. Sometimes it means we need to have less contact with people. And I'm not saying go no
contact with everyone in your life. I am saying if someone doesn't respect your boundaries, if someone hurts your feeling, if someone doesn't appreciate you. Certainly have a conversation about it if you can, But we have to be very mindful of who we allow in the VIP section of our lives, because not everyone belongs there.
Yeah, that that close circle around you is so important. I'm like, surround yourself with love. People surround yourself with love. I mindes are really nice. Spin on that, like who's in your room? He's been really good, Like who are you closest people? Who's there? You know kind of kind of thing. He's pretty clever, he's the head of B and I. He's really nice. He's been the best ever you for forever. So I love this what if fun?
What a what a fun and enlightening conversation. Actually, I like how you put it into real life terms too, So it's not like some some concept that people have to really go go googling and figuring out more So that's really practical and thank you for that. Do you want to I know we have we're kind of funky on time. We said a half an hour, but we're kind of going on. Do you want to keep going? Yeah? I'm kind of with it, so I would love to.
I would love to know on your book did you feel personally where you're like, oh, I need to learn this. Where were you Did you have any of those moments where you're like, I'm going to do a deep dive on this or that because this would be really helpful for my own life too, or we're like, I'm just going to teach this to everybody who have moments like that, because I know, like one of my books, the Change Guidebook,
Well Perkolate. Even when my dad had his stroke, it threw me for a loop, really for a loop, and I'm like, ah, I don't know how to navigate change very well at all, really, and this is a big one and I didn't ask for this at all, So how do you navigate this? And so I just kept going on the topic of change right to the point where I'm teaching all about change now and how to deal with change, navigate change. Were you like that with this book or or was it something you just innately knew?
No, I did not innately know. And every single thing I've ever written about you know, you teach what you most need to learn, is what they say. I think so too, and for me it's extremely true. So I struggled mightily. I was a boundary disaster in my young life. And it's the same thing with the book on Codependency Too Much, the latest book. I was so highly codependent, but because I was so highly functioning, it didn't look
like codependency. That's the irony of high functioning codependency, which is a phrase, a term that I coined because nobody. My therapy practice was filled with extremely capable women just like me, just like you, who when I would say to them, Hey, what you're describing this is a codependent pattern, they would immediately reject the notion of codependent. Immediately. They would be like absolutely.
Because that sounds like taboo words like anxiety, narcissism, and codependency. It's like, what do you mean exactly? And wow? And how are they? Yeah?
Yes? And with codependency they were like, Terry, I'm making all the money, I'm making all the moves. Everyone's dependent on me. I don't know what you're talking about. And I realized that my clients did not know what codependency was. Ye, So let's let's talk about the definition. How I define it.
It means that you are overly invested in the feeling states, the decisions, the outcomes, the circumstances, finances, careers, relationships of the people in your life, to the detriment of your own internal peace, interesting, could be to the detriment of your financial wellbeing, could be to the detriment of your mental health. So what does that mean that that's the difference between your best friend calls you up and she has a crisis. How quickly does that crisis become your crisis?
Probably immediately, right, Which is different than saying, of course I'm going to help my friend. It's different than saying, of course I have compassion for my friend. What happens when you're a high functioning codependent is that now you take on that problem, you feel responsible for solving and fixing that problem.
Yeah.
So the behaviors that we see in HFC is because for me, when I went back to my therapy clients after coining this phrase and really doing lots of research on it, and I was able to say I think you're a high functioning codependent, they would go, I am right, they I'm the problem. It's me. Not to quote Taylor Swift, but.
I will Okay, right, good company, there we go.
I love it. So what does it look like, right? What does it look like to be a high function codependency. A high function codependent, it's feeling responsible to fix other people's feelings, like immediately right. It's feeling exhausted, resentful, kind of bitter when people don't take your advice.
Right.
We give all, we put all this time and energy into other people's problems, and then they don't do it really.
Right for other people. It's like here it all.
Of course for you, right, we know what you should do, Just bring and do it please. So we have auto advice giving, we have being overly self sacrificing. We have auto accommodating, where you find yourself out in a situation and it's not even your situation. Two people want to sit together, You're like, I'll move right. We're managing our environment,
not just our personal relationships. So I saw this as a different quality than the regular garden variety of codependency, which with regular garden variety is not, you know, high functioning. The problem with high functioning codependency is that the more capable you are, the less codependency looks like codependency, but it's still codependency. Yeah, so nobody thinks of you, right if we say garden variety. If we're talking about codependent no more, we would say it's somebody involved with an
alcoholic waiting at home and yeah, calling the hospitals. Yeah right, So it's there's the dependency. We are desperately trying to control someone else's behavior, which is present in both high functioning and regular codependency. We well, at its core, if you were going to take one thing away about codependency, high functioning or otherwise, at its foundation, it is a covert or overt bid to control other people's outcomes.
Interesting.
We don't want you to feel bad, We don't want you to fuck up your job, we don't want you to get fired, we don't want you to marry the idiot. We are constantly trying to control what other people do, and we think we're doing it out of love, and we are, but we're also doing it out of fear.
What I hear right now is the world of a helicopter, Like, like, does it go into parenting as well?
Of course that's what you know it does.
Yeah, because you know you we all want our birdies to fly, but we want them to you know, fly and be okay and fly, and you know, don't.
Make that yep, but would anyone who's identifying with this right now, If you're identifying with this, if you're like, oh my god, there's me, don't worry. I'm going to give you one thing that you can start doing right now that if this is the only thing you changed, I sincerely believe it would change your life. If if you are I have functioning codependent, if you are an auto advice giver, if you are an auto fixer, instead
of doing that, you're going to ask expensive questions. So, whether this is a six year old, a sixteen year old, or a sixty year old, if someone comes to you they have a problem, before you weigh in, and I'm not saying you're never going to give anyone your opinion. Again, that's ridiculous and unrealistic. But it shouldn't be the first stop on the bus. So the first thing you're going to do is say, all right, before I say anything,
tell me what you think you should do. Beautiful, six, sixteen or sixty, it doesn't matter.
You just lobbed it back. Yep. Falls in your court.
And then what happens you learn about your six year old? Maybe your six year old says, I think I should go intomorrow own punch Timmy in the face. You can go Okay, So let's think about that critically. What would happen like what we're getting when we ask expansive questions and then create the generous space to really listen and be present with our people. Because here's the thing about love.
People think that, you know, being there for everyone and fixing all the problems like that, that's some big flex on love, and the truth is the biggest flex when it comes to love is being with someone during a dark night of the soul in the fox hole and being willing to compassionately witness them, ask them, Hey, babe, what can I do? Is there anything? How can I best support you right now? I can do nothing. I
can just lay here with you. I can make you a cup of teas or anything I can do instead of assuming.
You know.
What they need, which you don't. Yeah, you know. And what happens when we start asking these expansive questions and we listen with our whole heart is that we deepen the intimacy in our relationships so much. It's so beautiful. Because your attention is the most the most expensive coin you're ever going to spend. That is the greatest gift to give someone. Get off your phone. I have a basket in the front of my house. Everyone walks in. I'm like, put your mother phone in that basket. I
do not care. I'm not looking at the top of my niece's heads while they're visiting me. I could be doing something else too, So I don't need to you. You don't need to be scrolling Instagram while you're in my presence. You don't I need you to listen with your ears and your eyeballs call me extra. I don't care, no, no, no, I agree.
We have these discussions all the time. Like I've literally seen our entire house in the living room with everybody on their phone at once. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute, time out, everybody hand them over, you know kind of thing. Everybody's home and just for a little bit, you know, it doesn't have to be too crazy, but you know, are working or whatever.
Of course, but even just making sure dinner time.
Just hey, we're all right here. Let's let's look up on smartphones.
Okay, if you're watching a movie, watch a movie, yeah, watch it. Don't watch a movie and scroll Instagram.
Yeah, it's pretty crazy. These little things are all the time everywhere. I'm going to take this just for our listeners because we have a lot of parents out there, and I want to talk about who had a lot of parents and I've been going through this too, and we've all been talking about it when the kids are out of the house where I met this moment in my own life where the kids are twenty four, twenty six,
twenty eight and thirty. And one of the things that COVID did was it brought everybody back for a little bit, so had some bonus time and they went back and everybody was kind of back and forth a little bit because they were all all in college at once and then all at home on college on zoom at once, and yeah, just all sorts of stuff. And now they're really actually all out but for one and it's a real big change that we really literally have empty rooms.
I mean there's empty rooms. There's there's I noted the laundry the first time when everybody went to school, but now it's really actually like quiet. Everything's just changing and so forth. And you it's it's really interesting because your relationships with your adult children shift as well. They don't need your advice for every little thing. You know, they don't need shopping, they don't need you know, there's all sorts of things that change. Any advice there for us wonderful.
I don't I don't love the word empty nester. It bugs me. But you knows got be a better term than empty nester. It's so so like. But because my kids, Yeah, I love Gretchen Rubin.
She came up with a new term, I need it called open door.
Yeah, like that's what I feel like. I'm like, you're welcome back anytime, come for dinner, right, launch, but laundry, whatever you want to do. But for the most part, we're real, like you're good, you know, flying And because we had one son who was a professional baseball player, he was overseas for a year with his fiance and just they're all over the place. So canny because boundary, because you can really muck that up.
You can. Yeah, I think you have to have you know, part of it is realize that you're going to have. You know, there's going to be what I call the in between right when we're in transition things. What happens is we have homeostasis in the family system. When the kids were all home, even though it was crazy, but there was a certain amount of equilibrium there. Then they start moving out and you're you know, the apple cart gets toppled, and then we come and find our new normal,
our new equilibrium. So give yourself a minute if you feel sort of disorder oriented around having your open door as we'll call it now, and start really focusing on reconnecting if you're if you're still partnered, you know you want to focus on reconnecting with your partner and planning things because when we raise children, we spend our lives prioritizing children just naturally. Good parents just do it naturally. Like a healthy family system when you have children is
that it is children focused, but not children obsessed. And those are two different things, right, children focused meaning if you have something to do in school, we're aware of it. We will drive you where you need to be. You will have the right clothing and the right food, and everything will be clean and all those things exactly.
And project is your science project, even if it's correctorrow.
That's right, I guess you're going to be tired. Good luck. Here's some aluminum oil. I hope you can figure it out.
Did you have kids ever do that to you, of course do tomorrow. I'm like, what if you see my own science project, Like you're barking up the wrong tree, sweetheart.
That's like, trust me, I'm sure my husband and I stayed up until two in the morning to finish that friggin thing. But but now that you have your open door, though, YE see it as a time to reclaim because here's the thing, and I feel like a lot of parents are missing this. This is another transition, another life transition. How do we relate to adult children. You have a lot of parents who want to be perennial parents, and they don't respect the adult child's right to autonomy. And
they have a right to autonomy. I expect Mike started getting married and started whatever. I was like, here's the thing, Joyce is now your first family. Me, Dad, and your brothers. We are your family of origin. So all the decisions you make now you make together with Joyce about what is best for your union with Joyce is before they had three kids, you know. And then.
I really love it because that's what I'm trying, you know, that's what like we're doing. But that's a really good way to put that into words, because I can feel I can feel us doing that and like he'll call, like somebody will call home, So what do you think you should doing? Like that decision does not belong.
With me, and I'll yep yep, which is great because what you're what you're saying though, when you do that, Elizabeth, is your saying I have faith in your capability. I have faith in your ability with your partner. But to decide what is the right thing for you?
Why, well, yeah, it's like this. It is a dance like when do you need me? When do you not? When do you You know, it's really interesting. So yeah, I'm learning. It's and and they're pretty young still. So they're in their twenties, and I think the twenties are brutal.
I think twenty I agree, And I would call twenties I'm like, oh my god, I call them young adults. So right in the in the twenties at least till their mid twenties for sure. Yeah, you're still young adults. So it isn't about abandoning kids. It's about giving them the tools they need to negotiate life, which means we have to let them fail and we have to let them fall, and not too far you can still be a safety net. Of course, we still helped kids out.
We still would now if they need help. You know, it's not that, but it's not centering your adult child's life, not expecting them to center their life on family of origin.
Beautiful, beautifully put. Thank you, this is so much fun have and you on. Thank you for doing this, and thank you for sharing so much time with us. I mean, it's fabulous. Do you want it to?
I loved it.
People. A little bit of your new book? And are you in pre order yet? With the new book? Everybody, we're gonna we're going to put all the links to her books up. We're gonna put her by over webs. Don't worry, we'll get you in a blog and get everybody.
Yeah, fine, I love it.
New one? Where are we at with that? Are you? Are you?
The new one doesn't come out until September of twenty sixth, yet I don't even think it's pre ordering now. I'll try.
Yeah, please get one behind you? Yeah?
How too much? Definitely? Is it's too much?
It's too much? Out right, it's it's out.
It came out October of twenty four.
Okay, yeah, so it's been around for like a year, almost a year. You're about to have a birthday for your book. I sure am book birthdays. All right, there is there anything else? So I'll put all your links up and I'm going to go get your books too, and I'll leave little Amazon reviews fun stop.
Thank you, I did. I want to make sure that your audience gets the free gift free Terry Coole dot com forward slash h FC for your free gift.
Okay, and maybe we'll do a little book club with your book or somebody. We'll figure it out over on best Ever. You great because our audience wraps around people and their books and so forth.
Well, I super appreciate you having me on.
Thank you for being here. Is there anything else?
I feel like we covered it all?
Okay, all right, everybody, thank you so much for being here with us in both video form and audio form and social media form. Will make sure that's what we should do. We should let people know where you are on social media. Oh yeah, you like Instagram or LinkedIn? Where are you?
I hang out on Instagram the most. It's just at Terry Cole. Okay, that's really where I go. And it may I also have my website Terry Coole dot com, which you said at the top, And I have a podcast that I've had for ten years called The Terry Cole Show. You should come on there, Elizabeth.
Oh my god, I would love to be on there. If people want to get a hold of you. Do you like people to DM you? Email you put a go through your contact form on your website. What do you Where are you on that?
I'm in contact? Go to the website contact form. And I have a really amazing community that people are welcome to join as well called TCM, where we meet every single week and just I answer questions. I do live coaching every week in my community.
Is it how much does it cost?
Twenty nine dollars a month?
I think something like that. That'd be fun.
And I go live every single week.
Oh neat. How many people are in a group.
Like, meaning in that group? I think probably the whole community is probably three hundred people.
Oh that's lovely.
That's but the people who show up live though, you probably have like forty to fifty people every week live on the calls. So every I answer every single question, like every question gets answered me.
Okay, beautiful, all right, Well, big hugs, Thank you so much. For being here. Thank you everybody in our sixteenth year, and thank you. I wanted to just really quick shout up Mel again too, and then we'll do your free gift again one more time too. But you know you guys, really, I have thousands of messages from you all in my DM. I read every single one of them over the weekend and yesterday, and we had gifts showing up at the house here.
Oh my god, baby, god, my baby.
So thank you all, because she really she was like her own life coach. I swear by the end of it, she would come out here and like what she would have listened to this whole conversation, Terry, the whole entire thing. She would have been right here, going she's cool, we're honed in. I could always tell you I had a cool guest on because she'd be like, yeah, I'm right here, I'm listening with you. You're kind of thing. Or she'd sit here on the armchair. So it was pretty fun. But anyway,
all right, enough about Mel and me and stuff. But okay, we're gonna go get your free gift everybody. Terry Cole t E R R I C O L E dot com slash h F c for the free gift. All right, thank you everybody, Thank you. Take care,