“Boundaries Are Our Own Personal Rules of Engagement”
This episode is about setting better boundaries, protecting your energy, and ditching your codependent tendencies.
Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist, global relationship and empowerment expert, and the author of Boundary Boss-The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen and (Finally) Live Free. She has a gift for making complex psychological concepts accessible and actionable so that clients and students achieve sustainable change.
In this podcast, How To Set Boundaries & Protect Your Hormones, we cover:
- The Connection Between Cognitive Fatigue and Emotional Labor
- How Parent Equity With Chores Will Result in Less Cognitive Fatigue
- The Basics Behind Building and Setting Healthy Boundaries
- Codependency: How to Recognize the Signs
- How to Tell the Difference Between Empathy and Codependency
The Connection Between Cognitive Fatigue and Emotional Labor
Cognitive fatigue is closely related to emotional labor. Emotional labor is the invisible and unpaid labor we do to keep the ship of our lives, families, homes, and businesses running. Other people underestimate what it takes to keep the house running. It takes a lot to keep food in the house and necessities like toilet paper. There is emotional labor regarding parent and teacher relationships if you have kids. This labor contributes to cognitive fatigue because we can never truly rest; the list never ends.
How Parent Equity With Chores Will Result in Less Cognitive Fatigue
Determine who’s doing what in the house and how equitable or inequitable that is. If we don’t create a more equitable situation in our homes, it will contribute to cognitive fatigue. If you have kids, they should also have an equitable share of what’s happening in the house. Giving responsibility will make you much less resentful. Women do not need to be superheroes, and they do not need to do it all. When women joined the workforce, domestic work didn’t suddenly shift to their partners. Instead, women would go to work and continue to do all the domestic work around the house.
The Basics Behind Building and Setting Healthy Boundaries
Boundaries are not things we set to punish others, and they are not things we set to have some type of control. Your boundaries are your own personal rules of engagement. It allows other people to know what’s okay with you and what’s not okay with you. Your boundaries are comprised of your preferences, desires, limits, and dealbreakers. It’s not enough just to know your boundaries; you must have the capability of communicating them clearly, concisely, and transparently. It’s so challenging for people to say no.
Codependency: How to Recognize the Signs
Codependency is when you’re overly invested in the feeling states, the situations, the outcomes, and the circumstances of the people in your life, to the detriment of your internal peace. We are all mothers, lovers, and friends; of course, we are invested in the happiness of our people. However, if you’re overly invested, then the crisis of people around you will suddenly become your crisis. You need to check your urgency around other people’s situations. There is a difference between helping and unhealthy helping. Do a resentment inventory; if you’re feeling resentment, you are most likely codependent.
How to Tell the Difference Between Empathy and Codependency
Most codependent people will identify as empaths, and many of them are highly sensitive. Being an empath is amazing; it makes you uniquely skilled. It can lead to burnout if you don’t know how to protect your energy. Many empaths don’t know how to protect themselves. You need to be able to separate your feelings from other people’s feelings. As you get healthier with your own internal boundaries, you will understand what your responsibility is and what isn’t your responsibility. Codependency, at its core, is disordered boundaries and a covert or overt bid to control the outcomes of other people.
Dr. Mindy
In preparing for this podcast, you have some really interesting, like phrases around setting boundaries up. And I was like, I went to your YouTube channel, and I was looking at some of the videos you’ve done over there. And I was like, there was one phrase that like stuck out at me. And that and this is where I want to start. And it’s cognitive fatigue. And you just, you literally described like me to a tee. And you described a lot of the women that I work with. And what was so surprising to me about your definition of cognitive fatigue? Is that it’s it’s not like the it’s like the your wound up at the end of the day. It’s not really it’s a different type of fatigue, is that the way I interpreted it? Did I interpret it right? You did.
Terri Cole
And that’s why it’s so exhausting and annoying, because even though you’re fatigued, it makes it difficult to sleep, because you’re wired from all of the never ending activity. But not basically taking breaks. After doing something. It’s like all of this trying to multitask all of these never ending ongoing to do list that we have many of us as mothers, partners, entrepreneurs, business owners, CEOs, whatever it is that you do in your life. Nobody does just one thing. Nobody’s like just my career. That’s it, right, we have the ongoing list, especially, you know, we were just through the holidays, and how, you know, all of the cognitive fatigue, I see it closely related to emotional labor, to emotional lights, and again, emotional labor.
Dr. Mindy
Okay, explain that
Terri Cole
phrase. Sure. This, this is basically the invisible and unpaid, mostly unpaid labor that we do to keep the ship of our lives, our families, our homes, our businesses running. So other people underestimate what it takes to keep the house running, to have food in the house to make sure there’s the toilet paper does not replace or purchase itself, right? Keeping things the way they need to be for us, for it to keep going. If you have kids, Parent Teacher stuff, when he got to do the end of the year, get a present for them. All of those things take bandwidth. And I think a lot of that actually contributes to cognitive fatigue, because it’s like we can never, even when we’re quote unquote, resting, we’re thinking about all the crap that we’re forgetting, because we are right, the list that never ends that you’re checking crap off of, but it never really actually gets to the end of that list. So these are really important concepts for us, as human beings, especially as women, that twist to understand and really at the base of all of what we’re talking about right now, are disordered boundaries.
Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And so one of my thoughts is that I can only say, as a 53 year old woman, that I’ve noticed, as my hormones have gone down it, it becomes even more apparent, the cognitive fatigue, and where I used to be able to put in a 12 hour day, it’s like, I can do about half of that. And I, you know, I’ve thought that I’ve looked at that as a hormonal depletion, I should fix it. But what I hear you saying is that you should embrace it and learn a different pattern of work. And if that’s what you’re saying, how do we do that? Like, I don’t even know how to do that.
Terri Cole
Well, part of it is getting really clear about who’s doing what in the house and how equitable or inequitable that is. So how I got turned on to emotional labor people talk about you know, in our worlds, people talk about it quite a bit. But I didn’t really understand the concept until I read a Marie Claire article about a woman who is an engineer and her husband is also an engineer. And she tells the story of she’s her husband is home, she’s at work. Her husband was working from home that day. And he gets in touch with her and says, can you let the dog walker know I don’t need her to come today that we don’t need her. And it just she just hit a tipping point where she was like, why don’t you even have the phone number for the dog walker? Like, why am I literally the I’m at work, you’re at home. And it’s you who doesn’t need her because you’re there. Anyway, so she hit a tipping point and she went home. And when he was at work the next day, she took a whiteboard and she literally wrote out every single, solitary freaking thing that she does in the house for all of them like so she wasn’t listening to work stuff. It was the This is what I do to keep the boat of our lives afloat. And she was like, I’m going to kind of, you know, have a conversation with my partner. And because the partner was also very sort of clinically minded, they’re both engineers and very data driven. You know, first he was a little bit like, Wait, what are you saying, Are you criticizing whatever, and then she was like, you get to choose, half of these things are now yours. And it was undeniable him sort of looking at the list. And that shifted, because what ends up happening, if we don’t create a more equitable situation for us in our homes, and listen, not all of us have the luxury, not not everyone is partnered. But if you have a kids who are more adult age, or late teens, or even mid teens, right, kids can help and should help. It’s you should not You’re not a servant, for anyone. And also, it doesn’t do kids any good if we don’t teach them how to do things in life, like, make a grilled cheese sandwich or do their own laundry, which by 10, I feel like certainly they can be doing their own laundry, like it’s not that hard. And giving responsibility. It a makes you much less resentful, this whole idea of being a super woman, and we should do it all. And we can really, you know, we can sort of bring this back to the 70s, when late 60s, early 70s, when women could become something other than a nurse, a secretary or a teacher, right? Suddenly, you could do something else. But it wasn’t like any of the at home that domestic work wasn’t suddenly shifted to the partners in most cases, it there was an expectation that we would go out, work full time, bring in at least half the money, if not more, and continue to do all the childhood crap. And all of the getting the end of the year teacher gift and figuring out what are the nine year olds doing for their sleepover? And what are the fun games we’re playing and the dentist and the doctor and all the things. And so this is a moment, if you’re identifying with this, if you’re feeling like wow, I definitely have cognitive fatigue, or I’m doing way more of the emotional labor in my life. This is your opportunity to just pause. Why don’t you do what the author of that Marie Claire article did? And really write down because we have a tendency ourselves to minimize what we’re doing. At the end of the day, you could be like, what did I even do today? But then if you really thought about what you did, maybe you made food for the rest of the week for the family, maybe you went food shopping, maybe you cleaned the house, maybe you did three loads of laundry, all of those, none of that is free. Like, that’s bandwidth sucking stuff. So this is your opportunity to go, Okay, what am I doing? And what do I not want to do? And a really important question is, what am I doing for other people, because I’m codependent that they should and can actually be doing for themselves. And it would be better for all the people if they were doing it for themselves. Because I find that with a lot with my therapy clients that they’re so used to doing it all that they’re on autopilot, but they’re exhausted, depleted, getting auto immune disorders and bitter.
Dr. Mindy
Yeah, and what I where my brain goes with all of that is, and we become, especially as women, we often become the martyr. You know, it’s like, if I, if I divvy up the task list, then I don’t, I can’t walk around and say, Oh, I’m doing so much. And we don’t even realize that we actually get self worth we get, you know, we get a positive feedback from that. Is that Is that true? So you have to really like if you’re gonna divvy it up, you’re gonna have to also make sure that now you let go of the story that you’re telling yourself about how you’re the only one working?
Terri Cole
Yep. And that your it is actually true. And it wouldn’t seem on the surface, right? It doesn’t consciously make sense to be like, I don’t want to be a martyr. What are you even talking about? Right? Like people? We don’t we don’t want to cop to that, because it’s, it’s ego dystonic. Right? It’s not aligned with the way that we want to see ourselves. And you don’t think that any, all of the mothers and grandmothers that we know who are like full blown martyrs who full on say, after everything I’ve done for you, and I’m the only one who does anything when they were 25 or 30. You don’t think that they were like I can’t wait to grow old and become a martyr. Like, of course. You don’t say that, you know, that wasn’t a goal for anyone. But here’s the thing if there’s no intervention, if you don’t create better internal boundaries, because that’s what we’re talking about boundaries with ourself, our internal boundaries, how well we emotionally self regulate how well we follow through for ourselves on the things that we save We’re going to do for ourselves, whether that’s working out whether that’s working less, whether that’s divvying up the emotional labor and all the, you know, the hidden things that are happening in the home, if we don’t do them, that is having a disordered boundary with yourself, because consciously when you really think about it, there’s a part of you that knows, that’s the healthy thing to do. But the less healthy part is like, but then I have to give up my martyr status. And nobody’s gonna admit that consciously because we don’t want to, but there is a little bit of an attachment, as you said,
Dr. Mindy
Yeah. And then how do we, you know, it’s interesting, because with boundaries, I have been given a lot of opportunities recently to set some boundaries with my loved ones. And I, you know, every time I go, like, I’ll give you an example I’ve got, for whatever reason, over the holidays, a bunch of people that want to stay family, friends want to stay in my house, and I’ve got a book launch. My book launches on December 27. So you know what, that that’s, you know, people listening to this, it’ll be after the launch. But it you know, all these people, it’s almost like I said, it’s told myself, okay, you’re going to just take care of yourself, and do what you need to do to launch this book into the world. So that’s going to mean saying no, and setting boundaries with people. And man, I feel like every situation is emerging to set boundaries. And so it’s almost like the minute you make that declaration, you get the opportunity. And then the people around me, it’s, it’s really, they’re not enjoying the boundaries I’m setting.
Terri Cole
You know, it is so great, though, Wendy, it’s like, they don’t have to write the thing. It’s and we don’t do it, we’re not doing it boundaries are not things that we set. To punish others, they’re not levers of control, they’re actually our own, the way that I describe boundaries, how I write about it, and boundary boss, is that, I want you to think about your boundaries as your own personal rules of engagement. It allows other people to know what’s okay with you, and what’s not okay with you. So your boundaries are comprised of your preferences, your desires, your limits, and your deal breakers, like your non negotiables. So it’s not enough to just know them, you also must have the capability of communicating them, clearly, concisely, transparently when you so choose. And I think that that is the part that scares a lot of people up is they may know it, but they don’t have the words they don’t know how to just say no, as you’re saying. And that’s probably the biggest question that I get from people online. Like, why is it so hard? Yeah, for me to say no? Yeah. Why is it? You’re like, perfect time to answer that question. Yeah, answer.
Dr. Mindy
That’s a really that’s like the million dollar question for sure.
Terri Cole
Well, let’s think about what I write about is we each have a downloaded boundary blueprint, which is this paradigm in our unconscious mind, that’s comprised of our lived experiences the home, we grew up in country culture, you know, your your lineup in the family system, your role in the family system. Though all those things come together, make up what we think it means to be a good person, to be a good if you’re raised as a woman, to be a good woman to be a good partner to be a good mother to be a good friend. So there’s all of these things influencing us in this unconscious way. So it’s important that we bring this unconscious information up into the main part of the house, as I call it, your conscious mind. So that we can choose like, Oh, my mother, or my maternal impacter, because it could have been a foster mom or an auntie or whoever raised you was a people pleaser. Then I learned that pleasing others was a way of being nice. Was is a way of being kind. Right? So so we start to understand, like, oh, I relate to boundaries this way, for a whole bunch of really good reasons. And now I get a choice to decide how I want to relate to boundaries. Because if you look at the end of the story with a lot of our maternal impactors, they do end up as martyrs as guilt machines as people who are like, you know, any any means to sort of get what they want to a degree like, you know, there’s emotional blackmail going on. There’s all of these things because being direct and telling the truth was considered at least the way that I was raised was considered kind of gauche. Right like, right? It’s like rude to be direct, which is so ridiculous. So because of course it’s not, and actually having healthy boundaries and sharing them, your preferences, your limits your deal breakers with the people that you love is actually the most intimacy building thing that you can do. It’s the kindest thing that you can do. It’s the most loving thing that you can do. Because when you think about it, saying, yes. When you really want to say no, under the umbrella of like, being nice, like, think about, is that really nice. Right? It’s not
Dr. Mindy
no, we I, we have a statement that we’ve been saying, in on in my friend group, about to be to be clear as to be kind. And I really, when I get up against a wall of like, how I’m going to have to let somebody down by setting a boundary, I just remind myself of that, that here’s what’s interesting, as I step into setting boundaries more, I’m also getting rubbing up against the martyrs that are like, Oh, no worries, I just won’t come now. You know, like my sister, my sister wanted to come out for the holidays she had comes out for the holidays every year, and I set a boundary of you can’t stay in my house, you can stay in mom and dad’s house, but for what I need, you can’t stay in my house. And so she The next thing that I got was, well, we’re not going to come then. Okay, and then then I’m like, Oh, my God, we I, you know, we started to I’m now letting her down.
Terri Cole
No, she’s trying to emotionally blackmail you to get what she wants. So that’s not nice, either. My feeling is, she’s a grown woman. And that’s okay. And you can honestly say, well, that’s disappointing, because we’ll miss you. But I respect your right to choose what you want to do. That’s good. And just leave it don’t let it work. That is someone using their quote unquote, preference. It’s not a preference. She’s punishing you. She’s mad. Yeah. And you know what, she can be honest and say, I mean, if she could, she probably would, but she can learn to be honest to say, That’s disappointing. But you know, what also she could do is respect the fact that you have a friggin book deadline, which is a crap ton of work incredibly stressful, because I know, I got my first book a year ago, that, I mean, I had an away message on my email for months, I was like, I literally don’t care, I cannot do one other thing. But this or I will fail at this and I cannot fail. So I mean, literally the entire time I wrote my book, because I wrote it in a short period of time, even though I’d been prepping to write it my entire career, but my husband did everything. When I say everything, I literally mean everything from making every meal, to doing all the laundry to taking care of because we have chickens and geese, taking care of all of it, I was holding on by a thread, I thought it was going to lose my mind. Because there was so much fear of being in the unknown and not doing this. So my thought is, where is your sister’s consideration for you. And that needs to be a priority for you, your own consideration for you. And then I make other people consider me, because of the way that I relate to myself. This is a stressful time, even though it’s exciting. But I don’t have the bandwidth to have any visitors because I have to finish the book. So I would love your support. In me finishing the book the way that I need to, I would love it if you would still come and stay with mom and dad and not take it personally, that this is what I need. I would love it if you could support me, however, that for a change of pace.
Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah. And what I hear in that is you’re putting yourself first. And that is for a lot of women. That is a very unusual thing. You know, as women we often are taking care of everybody around us. And you know, if you look at us hormonal a that doesn’t actually work very well for us and our hormones, like when we like kill ourselves to make the family you know, healthy and happy and we’re working and we’re doing all the things and then we’re martyr doesn’t make us very healthy. So what I hear is it’s you’re flipping it. You’re putting yourself first you’re you’re deciding where the boundaries are that you need to set and then you’re speaking it without any attachment to how they react.
Terri Cole
Exactly. Because here’s the thing. I tell the story in the book about I had this my father was emotionally unavailable as a human being. I was his fourth daughter, I was positive he really wished he had a son. So I spent a lot of my life I’m proving that I would be more successful than any stupid boy he could have ever had. Like, you know, there was a lot of this unconscious sort of unhealthy drive in my ambition. And I, you know, I always loved my father, but it was like he was so hard to talk to whatever. So under him, we he retired, young went to Florida. And I said to my therapist, I’m not when I was, quit my job as a talent agent, went to NYU to become a psychotherapist, like, you know, nobody understood what I was doing. It was like the height of my career, representing supermodels and celebrities. My father’s like, Wait, you’re gonna get like $100,000 in debt to become a social worker. Sounds great. Like, nobody got what I was doing. But I had outgrown that industry anyway, I said to my therapist, hey, I’m going down to see my father for my annual visit. But I’ve decided I’m not going to invite him to my NYU graduation. And she said, why not? And I said, because he hates New York City, and he won’t go. Like, I know he’s not going to come. So why even ask them? And she was like, tear. That’s actually let me ask you them. Do you want? Do you want to ask him? Or do you want him to come? And I said, Yes, I do. Because I’m really proud. You know, this was hard. Right? And I did really well. And like, I’m really proud of this accomplishment. And she said, so don’t you see that? Your healing? is in the asking, you’ve always been so afraid of your father. It’s not about him coming. Like I thought the whole they only asked him if he’s gonna say yes. And she was like, No, that isn’t it. So she gives me homework that says, Before you leave that visit, you have to invite him to graduation. I was like, Oh, my God. So so stressed the entire time I was there. I was like, and finally we’re getting in the car going to the airport. I still haven’t asked him. He’s driving me to the airport to go home. And I just had to do it. I’m literally dripping sweat from my armpits. And I was like, Hey, Dad, he was like, Yeah, I was like, I got an extra ticket to graduation, if you can make. And he was like, I really can’t. Like he just couldn’t deal with New York. He worked in there for years. It was very stressful to him. And I was like, alright, okay. And then he was like, oh, here comes the guilt. He said, which was a really weird thing to say, because I never go to that guy in my life. And I was like, and I said, you know, Dad, it’s not about guilting mom will be there, Kathy will have had a baby five days before my sister. And she’s like, and she’s coming with a five day old, like, other people will be there. But here’s the thing, here are my only father. And you matter to me, You’re You’re important to me. And he was like, okay, and I said, but I can fully accept and respect that it’s too much for you. I really can that I’m not mad. I really do get it. I just wanted you to know that like, nobody can replace your dad, like you’re, you’re my only father. And he was like, Okay, now that switch now, when he we were saying goodbye. We hugged, like, longer than normal. Because he was always such an awkward person. He would like hug you and give you like a weird tap on the back, you know? So we hugged really long. And then for like, the next six months, he started just sending me like a card being like, Happy Spring love dad. I was like, What is going on? Like something shifted in that conversation. And then my father died of a massive coronary and that was the last time I ever saw him. Well, I was so grateful that I had the courage to let him know how I felt in my healing was in the asking, not in him saying yes to coming because it’s still transformed our relationship.
Dr. Mindy
Yeah. Wow, that’s powerful. What? Tell me what codependency is how do we how do we define it? And how do you know you’re in a codependent relationship?
Terri Cole
Mm hmm. This is exactly what I’m writing my second book about right now. That’s awesome. So codependency my definition is that you’re overly invested in the feeling states, the situation’s the outcomes, the circumstances of the people in your life, to the detriment of your own internal peace, or your own financial or physical or emotional well being. So, for clarity, we’re all mothers lovers, Auntie’s friends, of course, we’re invested in the happiness of our people, right, that we love them. We want them to be happy, obviously. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about being overly invested. Meaning, the moment your best friend calls you within a crisis, that crisis is your crisis. Right? You are now googling you are now making phone calls. You are now canceling plans to you’re underlining stuff in a book. You’re You’re literally taking it on as your own in order to be able to figure out like, am I or am I not? It’s really about checking your urgency around other people’s situations. When I was had a full on private therapy practice, I noticed that if I would say to my therapy clients Oh, hey, What you’re describing is a codependent dynamic, they would immediately be like no lady. Wrong. I’m not dependent on squat. Everyone’s dependent on me. I’m making all the dough. I’m the rock and my family, what are you talking about? And I realized, like, Oh, my clients don’t know what codependency is. So I actually coined a new phrase, which is what the book is about, which is called high functioning codependency. Love it. And as soon as I did it, because that was my style of codependency. Yeah. And that was the same with my clients, you know. So what that is, is that you’re doing all the things for all the people, but you’re so highly capable. You just friggin make it look easy. So people are like, she’s got it, you know, I don’t worry about many. She’s, she’s always fine. She’s fine. She’s got it. Yeah, so do it. She’s fine.
Dr. Mindy
Interesting. So how do you know like, you know, as well, as a doctor, you know, there is a deep desire, often to really see your patients like thrive, you know, there definitely is like, I want to see you see, you be the best version of yourself possible. And so sometimes I’ve noticed in 25 years of practice, that there is self worth that comes from being the hero of the day, I don’t know another way to say that, or pointing somebody in a direction where all of a sudden, they’re they light up or they see something different, or they come to a new level of health. And it’s like, you could say that’s codependent. But you could also say, but it gives me value gives me worth How do you know the difference?
Terri Cole
Well, let’s make a distinction. Because what you’re talking about, because I’m very much the same way. Of course, I’ve had private practice for 25 years. Yep, we are natural born helpers. Yeah, there’s a part of us that we’re just there. And there are zillions of people out there. And I’m sure many in your audience are the same. So we have to make the distinction between helping an unhealthy helping, right, like, like there’s a difference. And the first thing I always say to people when they’re like, I don’t know if I’m gonna vent or not, I always say, let’s do a resentment inventory. Because if you’re feeling resentment for folks, I can tell you that you’re most likely relating something is happening that’s creating that resentment, either a boundaries being crossed or you’re not verbalizing a boundary or a need of yours is going unmet. So part of it is looking at your resentment, but also looking at how do you feel when but here’s the thing with being codependent like auto advice giver, let’s just say,
Dr. Mindy
Yeah, I saw I love that auto. Auto accommodation was another one. I was like, that’s a really good phrase,
Terri Cole
that will all be in the book, auto accommodate. Anyway, let me finish this and then do that. Because that is actually, at least some of these things, literally many only coming to me in my, you know, like my 40s. You don’t I mean, it’s not like even though I had the insight into being a high functioning codependent in my late 20s, early 30s. Some of these, you know, these are persistent behavioral patterns that we’re in recovery from these things the same way you would be any other addiction. You know what I mean? So, back to you said, How do you know, if you’re in your Big Co dependently, relating to others? How do you feel when your friend comes, you give her amazing advice, you tell her the book to read the place to go, you hook her up with the person, and she doesn’t do those things. But she also wants to now to complain about the same crap that she was complaining about the last time you spoke during the time before that, right?
Dr. Mindy
Yeah, I’ve been I’ve had friends like that.
Terri Cole
Does that feel good?
Dr. Mindy
Yeah. So what do you do? What are you know, it’s, you just set your boundary and stop giving advice. Stop giving advice? Yeah.
Terri Cole
Because here’s the thing, this is what we’re doing. When we are auto advice, giving, if that’s our first step, someone comes to us and they’re in pain. And we’re like, I know what you should do. We are literally inserting ourselves as the solution to their problem. We are centering that person’s thing on us, rather than I mean, that’s kind of presumptions when you think about it, like we literally think we know and trust me I’m I’m a recovering high functioning codependent. And I still think I know half the time, but at least I have control over myself. So I’m not giving the unasked for advice or criticism. Yeah. And even if it’s asked for, instead of giving your answer, the first stop should always be well, let’s just start with what you think. What do you think you should do?
Dr. Mindy
When you you ask them you flip it on them?
Terri Cole
Yes. When they go I’m in this situation I’m in so much pain I, you say? What do you think you should do? I don’t know. You tell me. Yeah, well, I don’t know, actually. But I have faith that you’re gonna figure it out. Like it’s literally decentering ourselves. Because here’s the truth. You actually don’t know. Even if you think you do. Now, I’m not saying, as a medical doctor, or as a psychotherapist, yeah. Do I know that somebody shooting heroin is bad? Yeah, I do. I feel like we can both agree. As mental as you know, health professionals, right. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about our, our personal lives. And even in our professional lives, right? You chose a profession, and so did I, it’s, you know, the highest form of like, the psychological defense mechanisms is sublimation. So we take our desire to control the world, and we go into and to help everyone and to feel responsible for everyone. We go into professions, where it’s appropriate for us to guide others. And that’s a very high functioning, defense. Rather than controlling the crap out of everything, we actually went into profession. So we’re allowed to do it. And we can get that satisfaction, helping someone get healthier, helping someone get out of an abusive relationship, or whatever their thing is. But we have to be really mindful and be discerning when it comes to our lives. Part of what happened for me and how I became aware of this in my late 20s, early 30s, is that I had a sister, a sister who was in a bad situation a bad living with someone who was a drug addict. She was an active alcoholic. The person was abusive, it was only and you know, I was taking it on fully like the enabling codependent that I was. And I was talking to my therapist, I was crying. And I was like, What am I going to do? Like, I’ve tried everything. And even if she leaves, she goes back. It’s so painful. And she was like, Tara, let me ask you something. What makes you think, you know, what lessons your sister needs to learn in this life? Yeah. And I was like, Okay, can we agree that she doesn’t need to learn it in an abusive relationship? She’s like, No, I don’t know how she needs to learn. Like, I’m not God, I have no idea. Do you know what’s actually going on? And I was like, clearly not. So fill me in. And she said, you’ve worked for years to create internal peace and a pretty harmonious life. And her life, being kind of a dumpster fire is really messing with your pace. And you would really like to have it in a neat box and a nice bow tied on it, so that you can get back to your life. It’s it’s you can’t put it down. It’s always on your mind. So you it’s really about you want your sister to get it together, so your discomfort
Dr. Mindy
can being stuck. Yes, yes. And that leads me to the question I have about empaths. You know, where does an empath fit into this? Because if you’re an empath, and you feel others pain, you know, it’s is that a bad thing? I mean, there is some compassion and understanding and other humans problems. So where does empathy fit into this conversation?
Terri Cole
Well, I would say a lot of people who identify as high functioning codependence also identify as empaths. And a lot of them highly sensitive people. I’m an HSP. I’m an empath. I’m a recovering I have functioning codependent. So where does it fit in? It means that you’ve got to do your work. Because being an empath is amazing, right? It makes me uniquely skilled to do what I do, and you as well, probably. And if you don’t know how to protect your energy, Zip up your energy, clear your energy, if you don’t do the things you need to do, especially if you’re a highly sensitive person. So highly sensitive people are more sensitive to light, sound, scratchy clothing, too much stimuli. Too many people hate loud places like that’s my whole life is just organizing around the fact that I live in the dark. My poor husband, you know, like, he literally has like a miner’s lamp he wears because our house is so dark. But you know, I do the things I need to do to protect myself. And what I find is that many empaths don’t know what those things are. And that’s really important for you to be able to separate your feelings from other people’s feelings. You can feel those feelings like wow, this person is in pain and well as you get healthier with your own internal boundaries, say and that’s not my side of the street. But we have to get so clear about what is my responsibility See, and what is not my responsibility? And it’s not even about like, Oh, my sister needs to do it on her own. I’m going to quote unquote, let her right. Again still sort of playing God. It’s that it is not my right people have the right to be sovereign. People have the right to to be self determined. And you literally don’t know what journey they need to be on. Keep in mind when you are trying to control because again, codependency at its core is disordered boundaries, and a covert or an overt bid to control the outcomes of other people. Hmm, interesting. You don’t want your sister to feel bad. Right? That’s codependent Lee being codependent ly attached, she made a choice. She’s a grown woman, right? That’s okay. And you can be honest and say, hey, it makes me sad, that you’ll be here, we’ll miss you. And all the things I said before, perhaps if you actually really want to invite her to support you, you could, but it’s like, the part of you that felt guilty and felt immediately like that I do something wrong, is are my folks gonna now think I did something wrong is someone else gonna think I did something wrong. She’s even tell them she’s not coming because I did something wrong or whatever the how we spin out. That’s not your side of the street, your side of the street is this is what I need to do to finish this book on time. And that’s what I’m committed to doing. And I’m going to be better at inviting people to support me in getting that done. And then having some compassion for me. Because when we’re high functioning codependence, we have a tendency to be super focused on other people. Right, what other people are doing how they feel we want to manage, we don’t want them to feel certain ways, but how they feel is not your side of the street. How you feel is your side of the street. And that needs to matter to in a way more than how other people feel. Because if it doesn’t, you do end up a martyr. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy
What do you what do you think we, when we started this conversation, you said something along hormones, which is one of my favorite topics. And when I when I listen to all the challenges that we have when we don’t set boundaries, and we’re codependent and we have the cognitive fatigue, there’s actually it hormonally it’s it can destroy us. So you know, one thing that I want to point out is that it’s so important for women, especially as women go through the menopausal years, to keep that cortisol lower. And when we are like constantly in that doo doo doo. And we are constantly attached to other people’s emotions, you are stuck in fight or flight. And that fight or flight, then ultimately will damage your hormones. So I want to give people like a reason. You know, when you hear we’ve heard these terms, codependency, we’ve heard boundaries. We’ve heard empathy a lot. But talk a little bit about the health benefits of doing this because I watch a lot of people like try to put their health back together, and they miss this one piece.
Terri Cole
I think it’s a great point about how damaging disordered boundaries are, for our health that I’ve seen over 25 years, the autoimmune disorders, the TMJ that the migraines the all the things, because it’s like we’re last on our own list. Yep. When you’re going through menopause, that’s when you really need to prioritize yourself. Because think about how society has looked at menopause. That is don’t care. The reason why we don’t know anything about it, nobody talks about it, because it doesn’t happen to men. And that’s a fact. Like, that’s a fact, that’s a patriarchal, patriarchal system that does not give a crap about women’s experience. So we must give a crap and learn together and share our experiences and the things that have helped us. But also, give yourself a break. You don’t have the bandwidth at 55 that you had at 25. And don’t expect yourself to, you don’t want to have cognitive fatigue, take a break. Don’t work 12 hours a day as you were saying, you can’t sleep then and you need to sleep in on the weekend. Ask your partner to do the things that you would normally get up and do. Get support, ask and allow. Which is so hard for high functioning codependence in particular, we never want to ask it’s really hard to allow a because we think everyone’s going to do it wrong. That’s one thing, but be Yeah, we just don’t. Amen to that. Right because yes, they will. But it’s okay. My mother told me years ago she was like I was complaining about a boyfriend who didn’t know how to, I don’t know, brown garlic or vacuum. I think those were the two things I was like. He always burns the garlic that was wrong with him. She He was like Terry, first of all, your father never touched a vacuum or browned anything in his entire life. So start there be if you need everything to be done your way, you’ll end up like me doing it all alone. So let him vacuum however, tele vacuums and just be grateful that you have a partner at that time and then boyfriend who wants to be a part of the solution and doesn’t just expect you to do it.
Dr. Mindy
Yeah, you know, I’ve I’ve walked the path of breast cancer primarily with a lot of patients. And, you know, there, there is that moment where unwinding that need to be the super woman becomes very, very important. And one thing that I know about going through the menopause years is that you don’t have the estrogen to protect your brain like you’re used to. So you’re going to have a reaction that’s a little stronger to stress. Like I saw I wrote about, actually, in my new book, fast like a girl I wrote a, I put in there a study about how when a trauma hits us when estrogen is low, that it actually imprints the brain more, and this study was done on cycling women. But now let’s look at the menopausal women. And I will tell you that, you know, I, I call it well. It’s coined by Dr. Libby Weaver, she wrote a book called The rushing woman syndrome. And when I read that book, I was like, Oh my gosh, just because I can’t I’m a woman and I can do all these things doesn’t mean, I’m supposed to do all these things. So if you are a Russian woman, and you are going through menopause, how do you start? Where do you where’s the door? In? How do you start to unwind all these concepts that we’re talking about?
Terri Cole
Well, I think you have to start with where you’re most resentful, because that will give you the most relief the fastest. So do a resentment inventory. And and also look at, look at your codependency I’ll give you guys I have this beautiful gift for your audience. You could put the thing in the show notes, but it’s going to be about codependency and boundaries for more clarity. So people can watch this. It’s like a 12 minute video, and I’ve got a downloadable exercise that you can do to sort of go, where am I right now? Because that could be helpful. And they can find it at boundary box.me forward slash resetter.
Dr. Mindy
Beautiful. Thank you for remembering that. That was good. Yeah. So you. So Terry’s got a giveaway for you, for you all. And how long do you how often should you do this inventory? You do it once a month? Yes,
Terri Cole
because here’s the thing, we don’t want to let resentment accumulate. But the more you start handling your life and your relationships, you’re going to see. So let’s use the example that you gave with your sister just for an example, that if you had that conversation with her the next time something happens like that, you’re changing your relationship dance with your sister, you’re changing the boundary dance by doing something different. And you might be shocked in the beginning. Of course, there’s going to be resistance, of course, she’s going to act the way that she did this is normal, we feel threatened. This person is changing. What do you mean? Like oh, my God, you’re hurting my feelings or whatever? Yeah, but the new normal? It really happens pretty quickly. Yeah. And having real conversations is such an important part of that. So people do their resentment, inventory, and look and go, Okay, which I believe is in the gift that I’m giving you. We can we know where to start to put our energy, like, Oh, I’m feeling a lot of resentment towards my co worker, because they’re always asking me to do more work than them. Were asking me to pick up the slack, let’s say, instead of when you become more of a boundary boss, instead of resenting your coworker, you just forget and say no, right? You just say, Hey, I actually don’t have the bandwidth to do this. So I’m going to ask that you keep yours. And I’ll keep mine or whatever. And it feels like you can’t do that in the beginning. But I promise you, you can. And in the book, I have one chapter that is only scripts, literally an entire chapter of scripts for every scenario you could possibly find yourself in for mother in law’s to like leaving a religious cult. I’m not kidding. If you bump into them in the in the shop, right? And they’re like, we’re all praying for you. Right? What do you say? Oh, thank you. We could all use more of those. Thank you so much.
Dr. Mindy
Oh, my gosh, when does this book come out? It’s out. It’s the boundary.
Terri Cole
This is boundary bias, right. Okay, the high functioning codependency there’ll be scripts in there too, but there’ll be different scripts, but in Behringer bar switch people can get a boundary boss, boundary BOSS book.com And there’s a whole bunch of them bonuses that are still there. Another thing though, Monday that I think could be really helpful for people who are just starting this journey is, I have a totally free quiz. It’s just at boundary quiz.com, which gives you seven archetypes. So you answer 13 questions, it’s super quick. And you can see like, Are you a peacekeeper? Are you an ice queen? Like because disordered boundaries aren’t only too malleable. They’re also too rigid. Like someone saying, I’m not coming now. Right? That isn’t that is an example of a more rigid boundary, that someone who’s more and I’m not saying this about her because I have no idea but someone who’s more likely if they’re upset, to go someone, or to just cut someone out of their life rather than have a hard conversation?
Dr. Mindy
Where does the when you look at something like autoimmunity and the body attacking itself. What I’m starting to see in auto immune cases is that there has to be an emotional, an unwinding, because if you go and look at Bruce Lipton’s work, the thoughts are, you know, on the outside of those cells, so if you have negative thoughts the immune system can can be attacking it. Where are there certain conditions that we feel like working on your traumas setting up your boundaries are more helpful than others, specifically, say with
Terri Cole
with autoimmune disorders, but with almost everything that my clients would come in with, when we started, actually going into the basement, right, the unconscious mind, and really starting to look at the things that needed to be looked at, and starting to heal those things, and write letters and journal and do a whole bunch just witnessing the child within who had those experiences, right, their symptoms would inevitably start to get better. Yep. So I feel like there’s no way to separate your mental wellness, from your physical wellness, it’s just a holistic approach is the only approach that makes any sense because we’ve seen it for all decades, we’ve been doing what we’re doing that there is a connection. And even with things getting kicked up when someone is upset, their IBS is more active, they can kick up these experiences from and even people who have fibromyalgia or something like that. A lot of times we bring that back to some kind of a traumatic experience that kicked it off in their body, you know, at least in my experience with clients.
Dr. Mindy
Yeah, I would say, you know, when I call it doing all the things when you’ve like, done all the things change the diet, like, you know, worked on what they need from a nutrition detox level, and things are not improving. It’s like, okay, now we got to go after the emotional trauma that’s in there. And this large reason why I wanted to bring you on is because I feel like this doesn’t get enough. This doesn’t get highlighted enough. We look at our stressors as being mental health problems. But I look at this, these dysfunctional patterns we’ve set up, I look at them as physical health problems. If you had to give it a percentage, like, you know this when you’re not setting boundaries, when you’re codependent when you do the auto accommodation. What, how is that going to affect you mentally? Is it like 50%? It’ll affect you mentally and 50%. In your body? Do we have any, any indication of how that distributes out?
Terri Cole
I really don’t, because so much of it is personalized to that person’s physiology. Yeah, right. You know, some people are more susceptible to, you know, a respiratory thing. And some people are more susceptible to having gut upset when they’re upset. Some people get migraines, and it’s so much of it has to do with their own constitution. But what we do know for sure, is that stress has physiological negative consequences. And when we are not creating healthy boundaries, when we are auto accomodating out in the world, meaning we see a problem and it’s not even our freaking problem. And we’re jumping in to fix that problem for whomever it is. That’s bandwidth. That’s a constriction because you feel constricted because you see that there’s going to be a conflict. You don’t want there to be a conflict all of that is cortisol and adrenaline and all of those hormones are being released into your body and then if you can stave it off because you fix the situation ah there’s a release but your body is still went through the process right we need to understand why it’s someone else’s situation is so stressful to you. And all of that is basically what the high functioning codependency book is going to be about. And really boundary boss as well. Is about going back to the scene of the crime. Sorry. Since but we will have to go back to the scene of the crime because that’s where so much of it began, you know?
Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah. Well, this is fascinating. And a large part of why I wanted to bring you on is, we talk a lot about insulin resistance on the show, we talk about detox auto immunity. And what I’m seeing in my community, is really the importance of the mental piece. And I think we can say, Oh, well, you should go sit in therapy, which I’m a huge fan of therapy. And I think that’s good. But it’s changing these patterns that ultimately will give you amazing health. So
Terri Cole
absolutely. So this one will stop reinjuring right, will stop running injuring by changing the patterns
Dr. Mindy
of reinjuring. I love that it’s like a wound that you keep going after? Yeah. I love that. So Okay, last question. So this is season four of our podcast. And every every year, I have a different theme. And this year, we’re doing self love. So I have two questions for you. Do you have a practice around self love that you do like on a daily basis? And what are three characteristics that you embody that you’re a badass? Like, you are really good with these three things?
Terri Cole
With the self love things, you
Dr. Mindy
mean? Yeah, with self, because why one of the things that we have noticed in our community is that we just don’t highlight the things we’re really good at. And it’s what’s been interesting, you’ll love this, Terry, is what’s been really interesting is when I ask this question, the men are like, Oh, I’m good at this, this, this and this, and the women are like, you know, they struggled to find the answer. And I think we it’s important that we highlight our strengths and and magnificently.
Terri Cole
Yes. And learn how to take a compliment, right? Someone says, That was amazing. Don’t tell them the 2% that went wrong that why it wasn’t amazing. How about just saying, Thank you so much. I worked so hard. It really means so much to me to be acknowledged by you. Thank you. Like there’s a gracious way of accepting a compliment anyway. Three things I’m great at. I’m super intuitive. I know things about people that they don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know, but I do. So I’m very intuitive. I’m incredibly compassionate. And I’m super duper kind and loyal. Awesome.
Dr. Mindy
I love that. Well, Terry, this was amazing. And where can people find you? I would highly recommend. I’m a fan of reading books. So I highly recommend you go get boundary boss. But where do people find you?
Terri Cole
My website, Terry cole.com, which is Te R R IC o l e.com. And you can get the book at boundary boss book.com. You can take the quiz at boundary quiz.com. I also hang out mostly on Instagram. But I also have a free Facebook group, just for people who identify as women with about 35,000 people in it where we kind of talk about all the things in a safe and sacred space. So if anyone wants to do that, just go to Facebook. It’s real of revolution with Terry Cole.
// RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
- Feel the impact of Organifi – use code PELZ for a discount on all products!
- Fast Like A Girl
- Get the “How to Set Boundaries With Love Guide”
- Boundary Boss Book
- Boundary Quiz
I really got a lot out of this podcast. I have been working on boundaries for a long while in my sobriety. I have MCS and I don’t think that you have done a podcast on this auto immune problem. I don’t know even what to call it. Disease? illness? handicap? I have been dealing with it for over 30 years. I am wondering if you plan on doing research of this and a podcast? I have done lots of research but still find it totally impossible to get a hold on it.
This is SO spot on! I loved every word and I am on this journey to recovering myself. This is probably the best podcast I’ve EVER heard on your channel. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your wonderful comment! If you wouldn’t mind, we’d love if you would copy and paste that into a review at ratethispodcast.com/resetterpodcast
Loved Terri’s take on boundaries and highly functional co-dependence! I had many “ ah ha” moments!
Thank you so much for your wonderful comment! If you wouldn’t mind, we’d love if you would copy and paste that into a review at ratethispodcast.com/resetterpodcast