July 28, 2022 • 55 mins
This week, Anne and Heather are joined by renowned psychotherapist and relationship expert Terri Cole to discus s her new book Boundary Boss, a book all about authentically expressing your preferences, needs, and limits so you can live the happy, healthy life you deserve. For over 20 years, Terri's approach has combined the best of practical psychology and eastern mindfulness practices - making complex psychological concepts accessible, and then actionable so that you can achieve sustainable change - in other words: true transformation. Have a listen!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawt Media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey everybody, our next show is with none other than
Terry Cole. Terry Cole, and listen. If you are wondering
about your boundaries, if you want to know what your
boundaries are, if you know that you are crossing your boundaries,
listen to this show because you're going to find out
how to keep them, get them and win with your
VIP section.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well welcome. Terry Cole is a licensed psychotherapist and relationship
and empowerment expert. For more than twenty years, she's combined
the best of practical psychology and Eastern mindfulness practices, making
complex psychological concepts accessible and then actionable so that you
can achieve sustainable change in your life. She's the author
(00:45):
of Boundary Boss, the Essential Guide to Talk True, be Seen,
and Live Free, which teaches readers how to assert and
maintain healthy boundaries. She developed four steps to simplify boundary setting,
how to recognize when your boundaries have been violated and
what to do about that, how to create proactive boundary plans,
and how to master conflicts, and so much more. And
(01:08):
we're so lucky to have you here today.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
We're better day.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Good listen and.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Terry welcome. Thank you so much for being with us today.
How are you?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I'm great? Thank you guys so much for having me.
I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I have to say I kind of went into a
world with you because once you start listening to what
you do and what you say and how you propose
different issues that we are facing, both men and women
in how we handle. Let's start with boundaries, and you've
obviously been a therapist for years, You've done over three
hundred podcasts around how to get us to be healthier,
(01:44):
more loving human beings to ourselves. Can we start with
where Boundary Boss came from. I think it's just what
a helpful book that everybody should be purchasing immediately. And
where did that come from? Where did the idea stem
from in your brilliant mind?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Thanks? I would have to say, you know what, do
they say you teach what you most need to learn.
So I just was a boundary friggin disaster in my life,
That's the truth. I didn't realize that so much of
my pain and relationships and my feeling taken advantage of
and thinking other people were entitled. I was so angry
and resentful, and I considered myself like a loving person.
(02:24):
So these there was a cognitive dissonance. We call it
like this conflict of why I'm overfunctioning, overgiving, overdoing, and
then mad at the other people for it. I had
no idea that that meant I had disordered boundaries. And
so really how boundary Boss came about is that through
I was a talent agent for years before I became
a psychotherapist. So I don't need to tell you that
(02:48):
entertainment is not exactly a hot bet of mental health.
And at that point in my career, I was getting
too healthy for the business to a degree, right, I
had been in therapy since I was nineteen. I quit
drinking when I was twenty one, and I got super
into self help and wellness, and I couldn't even believe
that I could just go to therapy and change my life.
I was like, why isn't everyone doing this? This is unbelievable.
(03:10):
And I was young when I was doing that. So
as my career kept getting more in the entertainment business,
I was like, oh my god, this place is a
shit show and I have got to get out of here.
I was becoming too healthy. In the end of my career,
I was negotiating contracts or supermodels and celebrities for endorsement
deals basically, and I did not care about that. I
(03:34):
only cared about getting people into therapy, eating disorder clinics,
drug treatment clinics, AA na Alan. I like, my whole
trip was like how's your mental wellness? And I was like,
I need to get out of here before before I
really become a terrible agent.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And so well, you had a lot of clients I
bet who needed all of that help.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yes, I mean I can't tell you how it was
more urgent to me though their mental walsy being. So
of course I wasn't as good an agent as I
should have been towards the end because I was like,
we cannot ask her to do that. That is terrible,
you know, right, And they're like, what she has to
do it, it's a contract. I decided to go to
grad school and I just applied to one school. I
(04:16):
was living in New York, and I was like, I'm
not obviously going to Ohio to go to grad school.
So I only applied to n YU and that I
got accepted and was like, holy crap, I guess I
gotta go because you can't get in and not go.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So before we get started, can you because the goal here,
the goal here is for everybody to read the book
Boundary Boss. But in this time that we have for
people to really take away some concrete things that they
can apply right now. So can we start by, like
defining what boundaries is because people might be wondering, what
are we talking about when we talk about boundaries?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Yes? So, I want you to think about boundaries as
your own personal rules of engagement. It's how we let
others know what's okay with us and what's not okay
with us. Your boundary are made up of your preferences,
your limits, and your deal breakers, like your non negotiables, right,
because not all boundaries are created equally. Some things are
(05:09):
just a preference. They're still important, but they're not as
hardcore as a deal breaker, like things are an absolute
no for you. But the problem comes in a most
people don't even know what their preferences, their limits, and
their deal breakers are. But even if you do know them,
you must then have the capacity to communicate them with
transparency and whenever you so choose. And I feel like
(05:32):
for most people that becomes the problem. They may know it,
but they don't know how to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, you said transparency, And I want to take people
into one of the things that I've learned from listening
to you, which is that our parental patterns, the things
that we have set up are perhaps the distance between
us and our capacity. We may know what we want
and what we think, we may see that in another
and go, oh, I'd really like to have her self estatement,
(05:58):
be able to stand up for myself when I don't
want to be on that date, or all of the
different things that you have outlined in your book as
different possibilities we get ourselves into. But can you talk
to us about the parental pattern that starts the thing
that starts in one of the things I love about you,
You're like, we don't have to talk or to find
about all that stuff about what happened. That's kind of
a waste of time. And I'd like for you to
talk about that patterning a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, in along those lines to answer that you talked
about making a list of emotions that you were not
allowed to have as a child. Oh, that I found
to be really really interesting. I think those she has too, Yes, totally.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Well, you were talking about Anne, is your downloaded boundary blueprint.
So this is in your unconscious mind, down here in
the basement where we don't even know that we have
a choice. So what influences you? I want you to
think about that as like an architectural blueprint for a
house that someone else designed a really long time ago.
So what is your boundary blueprint? It's the way we think,
(06:56):
or we were taught that we should interact in the world,
our romantic relationships, in work relationships, and our friendships. So
if you were raised by a maternal impactor, let's say,
who had the disease to please, who was a people pleaser,
then you learn, oh, to be a good person, I
should do what other people want me to do. I
(07:16):
should not make anyone mad, I should not say no.
If I'm kind and giving, then I'm a good person.
But so much of the time that comes with being
self abandoning. Right, that comes with prioritizing the wants, needs,
desires of others over ourselves. We were all raised to
be good girls, right to not be troublemakers, don't be
(07:40):
a big mouth, don't be a drama queen, don't stir
the pot. And that the way that I was raised
and all of my clients and women of my courses
is basically niceness. Was this fake virtue above all other things, Right,
it was so important to be perceived as being nice
when we really think about it, saying yes when you
(08:03):
really want to say no. Is that like being nice
or is that just lying?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Well, you say that about kindness. We talk about living
in loving kindness here, But you're like, there's a difference
between kind and self abandonment. And it seems that self
abandonment and boundary goes hand in hand. Could you expand
on self abandonment and that relationship and then we'll get
and get into the emotion. Then they're the emotional path
that goes with that.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Yeah, so the self abandonment piece. I always say that
most of us were raised and praised for being self
abandoning codependence, right, just it was like you just want
an a word for the more that you could give
to others. I mean, I was interviewed by someone the
other day and they were talking about that they were
a girl Scout and one of the girl Scout's creeds
was always put others above yourself. You're like, nothing like
(08:50):
setting us up to just never be happy thanks like
a culture around never being happy. So how it's connected
is that is having an disordered emotional boundary a disordered
physical boundary, because saying yes when you want to say no,
or acting like you're the cool girl, right, being like
(09:11):
you know me, I'm easy, breezy, no fuss, no must
never sharing your preferences because you just want to be
like whatever you guys want is good. That can't always
be true. Some people are more particular than others, but
we all have preferences. So that's where the disordered boundaries
comes in. And Heather, what you were talking about was
forbidden emotions and so how this comes into the disordered
(09:32):
boundary game is that I grew up in a house
where anger was not allowed, right, a forbidden emotion. So
then what happens when you're angry, Well, a, you can't
recognize it. You literally turn it into another emotion that's
more acceptable. So I would turn my anger into sadness.
I would turn it in into depression because it was
(09:54):
okay if I cried, but it wasn't okay if I
got mad. And imagine how that's grewed up my relationships
and my boundaries as I'm growing up and going forth
in life because anger is one of the essential emotions
that you literally cannot live a healthy life without knowing
yourself in understanding your relationship to anger.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
But tears represent a weakness or what that that's okay
for a girl to be feeling because this is because
it's it's self deprecating and it's and it's ye and
it's and it doesn't have any strength behind it.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Well, and I'm it's not threatening, it's not true. I
have a question because I think that for some people myself,
I don't know that I grew up in a in
a family where certain emotions weren't allowed, but there were
certain emotions that I did not see. So is that
is that the same thing? Like I didn't see a
lot of anger in my family. I didn't see a
lot of sadness in my family. So those are like, yes,
(10:49):
two emotions that I don't really, you don't really.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You weren't familiar with. It was hidden.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, here's the thing. It's why it's the same though,
is that it's the same end result because it's foreign
to us. We are not masterful at experiencing and expressing
those emotions, whether they were strictly Like in my house
it was strictly forbidden, like there would be a consequence
if I were to display anger, I would get in trouble,
(11:15):
or I would be rejected by my parents or whatever. Right,
it doesn't have to be that extreme. If you were
in a family system where anger and sadness were more
repressed emotions, it would still impact your ability to access
those emotions in yourself and in your relationships.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I see our producer Ryan, who's nodding and shaking his head,
and Ryan, we're talking about a female point of view,
and I wonder if you could jump on in here
with is this a similar thing for a boy child
who's growing up? And I know you speak terry to
all of us, but to me, it's always very interesting.
Women aren't the only ones who are interested in self
(11:53):
help and the recognition of what the patterning is as
a child. Is this ringing true to you?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Did you have emotions that weren't allowed growing up?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
But yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I think of course that was well were you allowed
to cry?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
But I definitely tried?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Not right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Pressure you? I don't well, I don't know if this
is too revealing, but I know that you said, you
hadn't seen your father cry, you know, until your until
your wedding, and and how we the patterning that we
see in our in the one that we want to
be you know, yeah, I think, I mean that's that,
it's that unconscious patterning. Well, he didn't do it, so
(12:40):
I shouldn't do it either. He didn't see him crying
till his mother left, right, I mean, I didn't see
my father cry until one of our horses died. And
it wasn't the divorce. It wasn't the divorce.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
But it's a weird thing to see that emotion. And
I know as a child, like whenever I was really
really sad, I hid it from my mother. And I see,
I see my daughter did that with me, like she
wasn't totally comfortable when she was going through a breakup
coming to me. But it's been a little bit different
with my son. He's more open to come to me
(13:16):
with his emotions. And so it's just an interesting it's
an interesting dynamic that we set up without quite realizing
that we do.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Think that's something that you're doing now and you.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Have well that's a I mean, let's go well, I
want to go into that question what of course we're
unconscious and some things, and of course that's why we
have Terry on and these incredible people to come on
and help us teach and understand what we're doing. Part
of it is bringing the awareness to bringing the awareness
to the table. And I really like Terry that you
(13:49):
that you talk about both male and female, because I
think we we assume as girls like self help is
kind of a cool thing for girls, you know, and
women to get into, and you talk about it, it's
obviously for all genders and the way that we experience
our change or our transformation. Would you talk about which
is why this book is so important, the transformation into
(14:10):
the healing of learning what these boundaries are and we
have different ways to approach them, men and men and women,
I think, and I don't know why, if you want
to talk about what you see in your practice, that
can illuminate that well.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I think that it also depends on when you were
born and how old you are, because I do think,
thankfully that some things are changing now. There's still though
this collective consciousness around gender, but in the past few
years we've had so many different gender expressions and actually
more progress towards more inclusion. But when you think about
(14:45):
there's still this it's going to take a long time,
like another fifty years probably until the mindset about gender roles.
How should straight men act? How should straight women act?
Let's just say now there's a lot that's you know,
shaking this up right now, which is amazing, But really
(15:06):
what we're talking about is what was the expectation. There's
an expectation like work women. You know, we're looking in
a heterosexual way, a considered more of the softer sex,
where the bridgers, the assuagers, the fixers, the you know,
where the soothers of like life and men are supposed
to be making the money and doing the thing. And
(15:27):
now I think a lot of folks now are rejecting
those roles and becoming way more dual, right, because we
have yin and yang, all of us have both the
feminine and the masculine and everything in between in us.
But I think that there's a different kind of pressure
put on men because you're raised more at least back
(15:50):
when I was being raised. So anyone in their fifties,
let's say, forties, fifty sixties, where there's an expectation of
you being more independent, more of a leader strong and
for girls and women, it was more about be a
team player, take one for the team, make sure everyone
else is okay, be dialed in. You wonder why we
(16:10):
have antennas that go up to friggin mars because we're
so you know, someone walks into a room and I
don't it doesn't matter. I mean, if you're an EmPATH
or a highly sensitive person, which so many people in
my audience certainly are in yours too, I imagine I
could the second someone walks in, I could sense if
something is wrong. I don't even know you, and I'm like,
I think that person might be violent. I'm like, they
(16:33):
just walked in the room and didn't say a word.
But it's almost like we felt or feel responsible for
the feelings, the outcomes, the decisions, the relationships of other people,
which is where codependency right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Like, how's everyone going to feel at the end of
this Thanksgiving dinner? Everyone's gonna be happy everything, and everybody
like dreads the next Thanksgiving dinner because nobody said the
truth and nobody talked about anything, and nobody asked Aunt
Mary why she was wearing a mustache. You know, you
just you're like, why all of that conditioning that puts
us in the center of Oh shoot, I forgot who
I was and next year I'm not going to remember either.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Well, I think a lot of it relates to conflict avoidance, right,
So I know, like for me personally, my whole life
is centered around conflict avoidance, and I'm trying to be
better about that. I'm but in somebody who is really
really conflict averse that really fucks with your boundaries.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I would imagine it does. But here's the thing. The
first thing anybody listening, anybody watching this who's like, oh
my god, that's me. I'm conflict of verse. Help, You're
going to change your mind because we're really just talking
about effective communication and talking true every when we talk
about boundaries, all the myths around boundaries is like it's
(17:53):
you just being like no and all agro and kicking
people to the curb and my way or the highway,
and it's not like that at all. What we're really
saying is it matters who you actually are, Heather, and
it matters how you feel, matters, what you want matters.
And if we go through life prioritizing this desire to
(18:16):
avoid conflict, because it makes us so uncomfortable. We are
constantly self abandoning to fulfill that directive of avoiding conflict.
So part of it is we're going to change our
mind about what conflict is. It's not a dirty word.
It doesn't have to be mean or terrible or abusive.
It can be Hey, I'd like to make a simple
(18:37):
request that if you're going to be more than ten
minutes late, you give me a call, because when you don't,
I find myself see them all night and then it
ruins our evening. And I love you and I don't
want to see for four hours when this thing is
so avoidable. So can we agree that you're going to
let me know because it makes me feel very not
considered when you don't.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And I think that as we get older too, I
can speak for myself in this conflict avoidance. It resentment builds,
I think because you've been at it for so long
and so dude, so that becomes the thing too.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
It's just a file cabinet.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Warn the young ends out there listening.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Well, I want to then, real, for real, I want
to I want to say that on on your website
you can go and you can take a style quiz
and and the style that we have in our in
her abandonment also what it is the reason I want
everybody to take it. Did you take the quiz?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I did?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Okay, So I asked for my for my results to
be sent back to me. That's why my computer was on.
I had a feeling and assumed that Heather can take
it because there's no way to a million dos. But
she didn't tell me to take it or in, well's
so funny you did our separate Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I was going to tell you last night.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
But but but there's this this style quiz and I
was like, wow, this is really interesting. Terry's getting into
clothing and that fashion which is it was such a
contradiction to what I you know, I'd been listening to her.
I was like, that's weird, that's cool. Wait a minute,
what how does our style reflect I wanted? Then issues
are okay anyway, but it's not. It's the style with which,
the style with which you are interacting through your abandonment
(20:08):
issues and helping you understand what your boundaries are. She's
asking these questions and she gives you these, you know,
five choices. I swear to God everybody should take it.
What's not only interesting, I want you to explain the quiz,
but I also as as you are defining for us,
what you're doing is laying out language in the five
different things that you're proposing is choices options. She gives
(20:30):
us options to how we interact in the world, like say,
the situation occurs, your friends always late it like she
just said it, So how would you? How would you respond?
And in laying out the five different options that you
have rapidly going through, first of all, yes, you realize
you have options, and you're going through the differences in
language that you've seen people interact with, how you've been treated,
(20:52):
and the way with which you answer difficult situations or
conflict or whatever. So can you explain the importance of this,
of this quiz and this I really appreciate simple language
in helping us have a guide. And you say that
you have a guide, and it is also the way before.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
You answer that the best the best response to one
of those for people who don't drink, because I'm always
sensitive about this, but I actually do drink, and I
don't think it's fair to people who don't drink when
the bill comes and they have to pay for everybody's drinks,
and one of the questions on there is what do
you do when the bill comes and you haven't had
any cocktails and everybody else is drinking and and one
(21:31):
of your responses is, you know, I'm not paying for
y'all tequila shot, you know, in a funny way, which
I just think is a great response rather than being like,
you know, well I didn't have, you know, like make
it funny like that. I just really liked that.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Right, So the quiz, anyone can take it. It's totally free.
You just go to Boundary quiz dot com.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right, just everybody has to take this quiz. Do it
for yourself, do it for an understanding of how you
interact in the world. Go do it. And it's also
fun and fast. But gon is fun and fast.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
It's only thirteen questions, but with it you'll get an archetype.
So some people are more of a peacekeeper or a pushover.
Some people are more of like an ice queen or
a loaner. So your answers to those thirteen questions. It
should probably take you about seven minutes to take it,
or ten minutes. You'll get an actual answer. And they're
(22:19):
all videos. So if you whatever you got, because so
I'm gonna guess, Heather, I'm looking at you. You're definitely
one of the peacekeeper pushover or wait, there's one, there's
another third one homel one. Peacekeeper was the chamelion.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
It was tricky for me.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I haven't thought it yet.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I did it last night. I struggled with what I
knew I shouldn't click.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yes, another there you go, peacekeeper, chameleon like I don't
want to be.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
That, but I'm in that shit.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
I think I feel like I am that, and I
bet you're the ice queen. So we're going to see
if those things are correct.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Of course, could answer every question very quickly.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I think it what it one of one of the
one of the questions put me in it in There
wasn't a response that I really liked and which I
also thought was really funny because it's like, well, if
you're in a conflict in business, you know, what would
you do? And there wasn't one like, oh, I'm going
to like handle this, I'm going to negotiate, and it's.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
More like, no, I'm gonna say what I fuck I want.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I'm going to make people understand that my point of
view is better because it usually is. And there was
no other option, and I was and I take it
or leave it. I'm kind of a bitch. And I
was like, oh my god, the one option. And it's
not that people think I'm a bit. But of course
that's part of why taking the quiz is so interesting,
because I knew that that how I'm what It also
does this help you reflect and receive yourself be in
(23:46):
a truthful in a truthful way. It's not about condemning yourself.
It's about shining shining light on And I'm pretty obviously
confident about who i am. Ice queen, I think being
could you describe that? Because I think that probably would
be the cat gegory. I don't think any of these categories.
I don't think you get a winning remark like, yay,
you got one hundred percent. You're a really good person.
That's not what you're doing. You're showing us, no archetypes
(24:08):
of arts how to get.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I did not too.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I knew, I knew the right answers on every single page.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Isn't that amazingly archetypes? Yes, the archetypes is having healthy boundaries.
So here here's the thing. What the what the quiz does,
it's basically saying, when you are not at your best,
when your boundaries are disordered, when you're under pressure. Because
here's the thing, it's easier to have better boundaries when
we're not in conflict, right, when we're not under pressure,
(24:38):
when there's not a situation, because those are more positive boundaries.
You can say I really want to do this tonight
or whatever, and that that is also some kind of
a boundary. But we're talking about boundaries where you need
to push back and that is where this archetype comes
in and shows you when you're under pressure, are you
more of a peacekeeper or not. And the reason why
(25:00):
it matters for those of you listening boundary quiz dot
com is that when you have insight and go oh,
because not all boundaries are disordered in the same way.
You can have two loose boundaries, which are called porous
boundaries you can call you can have two hard boundaries,
which is called having rigid boundaries, and then in between
(25:21):
those things, that's like the healthy boundaries are somewhere in between,
but there needs to be a certain amount of flexibility.
And the misunderstanding that most people have about boundaries is
they think that rigid boundaries. Someone who's like my way
or the highway is having healthy boundaries, and it's not
because having healthy boundaries means you can talk to someone
(25:44):
else even if you disagree with them, and you can
agree to disagree.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Heather would appreciate if I had that. We like if
I if I had that skill.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I was literally just thinking that you do, literally was
really thinking.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
That because I let her say, I mean, I know,
I appreciate it. I like I like we we were
on a phone call, to be completely honest with you,
where I was I was doing. It's kind of a
little bit more it's my way or the highway attitude.
I do feel like I do. So thank you for
saying that. But there are times.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Out to say that about you, because thanks because you
will be thinking strong in a position. But but you
will if if it makes sense to you, you'll come
off it.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
You won't.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
You won't hang your hat on a certain position and
you never come off of it. You if it, if
it makes sense and we get to it, you'll you'll
move on it, right right. I like the better idea.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I appreciate that because that's obviously something that I've been
working on in our I mean, we we like to sorry.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That you said that, because I was literally saying that.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
But I do think I do put my I like
to stick by what I do. But also that's because they,
you know, work hard at its structuring what I do.
And and if you don't have a better idea, then
you better listen to mine. And that was one of
your options. But I would love for you to to
talk about these rigid boundaries and I and I I
(27:01):
have so much I have so much appreciation for you,
the ice queen, the rigid boundaries, and again going back
to parent parental habiting and patterning, because so much of
that comes from I mean, how we pattern ourselves and
how we interact is from what our childhood was. For me,
you know, it was fight or die. I mean, that's
that's all there was to it. And a lot of
(27:24):
my what I believe in comes from that fight. And
there are some things that you're just not going to
the cloaks that I wear that I mean, honey, you
don't stand in my way, but you know, and those
those badges of honor, but also those things, those things
that you can't sometimes change in yourself. I'd like to
talk about that because I because I feel like there's
(27:46):
a gap between us understanding our our boundaries, our ability,
our capacity, and telling the truth, not about the tell
everything wrong. One of the things you say about parents
is they were probably doing the best they could. We've
learned a lot here, I'm better together. Everybody is doing
the most, usually doing the best they can. And for
(28:10):
me to say that from the background I came from,
that's giving a lot of forgiveness. I got to say, folks,
because wow, you look at my parents, I mean, whoa
were they really doing the butt? But if you take
that point of view and look back at the story
about telling the truth yourself, I feel like there's a
gap between our self esteem and being able to tell
the truth about what our interaction with that truth was,
(28:32):
And can you kind of merge that for us?
Speaker 4 (28:36):
I can. What I was going to say, though, is
that I feel like, listen, it's very generous to say
people were doing the best that they could, right.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
My two cents is this, It doesn't ever matter at
this point because what matters is you and your life
and what you're going to do now. And I think
that people really like to jump over the part of
healing that requires us to be really honest about the
ways our parents failed us. We're not we can talk
(29:05):
to them. We cannot. They could be dead, they could
be alive. It doesn't matter. The kid within each one
of us can't just skip over that and be like,
you know, I would have therapy clients come to me
and be like, I should be over it. It happened
thirty years ago. I'm like, you're never going to be
over it unless we honor what actually like. We have
to tell the truth to ourselves. At the very least,
(29:29):
we don't need to listen. You don't want to involve
anyone else. You don't have to because it's your healing journey.
But kids in dysfunctional and chaotic and abusive family systems,
we are trained to abandon ourselves and be like, well,
I mean, I understand why my parents did it because
they had a terrible childhood too, and blah blah blah.
Here's the thing. I don't care. The kid within you
(29:51):
needs the acknowledgment of like that sucked. That just was
really bad. That was very bad for me and I
I want someone the child within us, want someone to
just honor like, hey, that sucked. And look at where
you are now, and this is amazing. But with the parents,
like I don't know, people really get into this whole
(30:13):
trip on forgiveness, and I just got to say, it's
not like my thing. I'm not into it.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I love you, I love you more, I love you
more every second you talk.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Well, here's the thing with forgiveness, though, it is so
it is so corrupted with ideas of it's like we're
giving up something someone's getting over on us. And then
there's the whole religious connotation. There's just so much grap
What I say is it is our jobs to let
ourselves out of resentment prison. Haven't we been in it
(30:43):
long enough? Yes?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (30:45):
And that's what this healing work does, is us waking
up to the fact that we have the key to
the resentment prison and we can just open the door
and go forward from here. But I never, I only ever,
will take people back to things that we must go
back to in order to go forward. I'm not interested
in talking about third grade for ten years, because who
(31:07):
the hell cares what I care about. If something happened
in third grade that is blocking you from creating the
life you want right now, well then I'm super interested
in that, unpacking that experience, honoring, integrating that experience. So
I think that there's.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Is that the resentment inventory that you talk about in
the book?
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Yes, okay, so yes, So that's actually a perfect segue
to the resentment inventory because scene of the crime, yes, exactly,
because we just got to go back to this. I
hate to say it, but this is just where it
all starts, is the scene of the crime, which is
the family of origin according to me. But people when
they go I don't know where to start with my boundaries, like,
(31:46):
I don't even know how my boundaries are. So you
go boundary quiz dot com and take that out of
the beginning exactly. And then you're going to take a
resentment inventory, because that will tell you right now what
relationships in your life need your attention most urgently. So
I'll tell you what that is. You're going to write
a list of your sort of the VIPs in your life,
(32:10):
your closest people, and then you're going to put there's
a whole thing that says resentment I'm holding on to.
And then you're going to be really honest and in
that little box next to your best friend's name, you're
going to say what resentment you're holding on too, if anything.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
And you know what you should say, and you know
what you want to say. But this is a quiz
for you to tell the truth.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Yes, and it's also a quiz for you to not
it's not resentment. If we just go with the resentment, right,
we can get so wrapped up and blame and shame
and guilt. We're not going to do that. We're going
to look at that resentment and go, Okay, this resentment
was created fifty percent by me, fifty percent by them.
(32:52):
So what can I do differently? Where did I collude
with this other person unconsciously to make this thing happen
or to allow it to happen. I didn't say anything.
I let my friend money and then she said she'd
give it back in a month, and then she didn't
give it back for six months and she's still not
giving it back. But what is the onus is on me?
(33:14):
Maybe I didn't say anything, or I didn't have a
clear and clean agreement about lending MONEYPS just never lend money.
That's it. It's just the dumb it it's just the worst.
It's always going to go bad money. You can't give it,
you give it it.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, we can all agree on that, and if you can,
fantastic that's yes.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
It's just the worst because money is not just dollars
and sense, of course, it's fully loaded for whatever it
meant in your family system.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
But right because it becomes an exchange, you want something
back from that, from that, from that scene of the
crime or whatever that was back in your childhood. So
you're supposedly lending the money, but what you're asking for
is the healing of something that you have had broken.
And then when they don't do that for you, then
you take it out on them because it's all the
resemblance build up from whatever you saw when you were
(34:02):
twelve or whatever.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
In the book you talk about, I think it was
a maybe it was a patient or somebody who in
the workplace kept getting into fights in her office, no
matter what job she was in, you know, would have
these rivalries with somebody, and then when you dug deeper,
you found out why. I think that maybe talk about
that now, would people could relate to that?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Yes, that that is actually was such a fascinating story,
and I've seen it. I've actually seen it before. So
I called this repeating boundary realities or repeating relationship realities.
Where so I had this client, she had a job,
she had like an arch enemy Mary. She hated this lady. Everything,
everything about her she hated. She's like, she's disgusting, she
(34:46):
doesn't wash her hands after she uses the bathroom, like everything.
She just hated her. So then I thought maybe, And
she would always say things maybe, well, everybody everybody has this,
and I would always say no, not really, just right now,
we're just talking about you. Like people will try to
normalize their behavior by'd be like, I'm sure everyone has
this experience. I'm like, not everybody. Some rival she has
(35:08):
the same exact situation, Yeah, same thing, but her name
wasn't Mary, but it was literally the same thing where
she was like I hate her, blah blah blah. And
then finally I was like, Okay, the common denominator in
this lady story, of course, is her.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Most often us, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Who else could it be? Live in our lives? Right,
It's pretty much got to be us, especially if it's
a repeated If it's a repeated situation, it's definitely you.
Meaning doesn't mean the other person may not be acting
like a jerk. Maybe they are, but why are you
drawing that into your life multiple times? That is an
unhealed something in you. So I gave her these things
(35:46):
that I call the three Cues for Clarity. So these
three questions you can ask yourself anytime you're in a
repeated situation where you're like, how am I in another
relationship with another unavailable person or whatever it is? And
I said to her, so, of these these enemies you've had,
who do they remind you of? Where have you felt
like this before? And how are why is the way
(36:08):
you're interacting with them? Is it familiar to you? And
she was like, oh my god, this is so embarrassing,
just like my sister Beth. And I was like, tell
me more about Beth and this was what it was about.
And I promise you when we were done unpacking the
beth Arch enemy story, yeah, she did not have like that.
(36:30):
There was no more need because we can only talk
things out or act things out.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
So when she stopped, when she talked it out, she
was no longer compelled to act it out.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Now I'm going to repeat that one. This is you.
We have two options. We're talking it out or we're
acting it out. And this is this goes back to
I think the scene of the crime. Telling the truth
about your story. Once you and we talk about this
a lot on better together. Once you speak the truth,
the good thing is then you don't have to keep
got something about somebody else and why they did it
wrong for months and months and months. You are once
(37:05):
you tell the truth and you are witnessed. And I
think that is also a part of in the beauty
of therapy and the beauty of having a best friend.
Once you say the truth and you're not bullshitting yourself,
it becomes something you can look at and then make
a conscious choice about how you are going to organize
your emotion to activate the purpose of what it is
that you want to commit to. That's next and further,
(37:25):
and I just want to I just want to squeeze you.
These are the things that that we need. We need
so many reminders of. But when we're told what our
choices are, like listen, you're doing one or two things.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
You're acting it out.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Or you're doing it, I mean, you're you're telling the
truth about it. So it just is it just simplifies
for us so so much. I have to if I
can just if I can just bother you to talk
about the manipulative person you talk about sated, Oh my golly,
I mean I still want to get back to the
(37:58):
list of emotions we wanted to talk about the meditation.
At the end, you've given us the three cues. Everybody's
got to take the quizes. But I know for a
fact that when you start listening to Terry, you're going
to be able to organize yourself in terms of where
you are. When you listen to any of the stories
of the issues that she's talking about about where you
(38:20):
could have been and whether or not you went through
that same exact situation. I'll tell you what when you
talk about being emotionally manipulated. And again, this is part
of how we don't understand our boundaries, so we don't
know how to say no. Or she talks to you
on the quiz and says, hey, listen, when you're on
a first date and it's twenty minutes in and you
really don't like that person, what do you do? Do
(38:41):
you stay and have dinner anyway, or do you know,
get up and say, excuse me, I think I've just
where you What did you did you go in the
bathroom and just leave. Well know your answer. So of
course I said, he listen, it's probably not good for me,
but I'll see you later. You know, I don't you
go into the bathroom and leave it skip out? No, no,
you know I've suffered through dinner. You suffer through dinner.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
See.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
But so all of these things are helping to organize this.
I had been My patterning was so much so that
I got involved in being emotionally manipulated and every single thing.
I want to encourage our listeners to go on. If
there is a topic that you think that you're in
the midst of, that's and Terry, you've done over the
through those signs because I recognized a lot of the
(39:22):
emotional manipulations, the love Bob, the love moomb love that
word too. Can you talk about emotional manipulation? And of
course we're all we're talking about boundary boss, the Terry
calls book here and all of the different things that
are pathways into not understanding our boundaries and being emotionally
manipulated is not something that I recognized that somebody like.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
That's somebody burrowing into your boundaries without you quite realizing
that they are right.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yes, please please illuminate emotional and emotional manipulation sneaky. Yes,
the way that I.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Called it in the book, right, I talked about boundary destroyers.
So everything that I teach you in the book, even
about boundary bullies, is different because none of those rules
that I teach you how to have a proactive boundary conversation,
I give you a whole chapter of just scripts, none
(40:15):
of that really applies if you are dealing with a
master manipulator, could be narcissistic personality disorder or any of
the other untreated cluster b personality disorders, could be history
on it could be bipolar untreated though keep in mind
where if you go to them and are authentic and
are earnest and honest about how you feel, they will
(40:39):
for sure use it against you. So let's talk about
sort of the top manipulation tactics that we see that
people need to be aware of. So the two probably
most damaging. So we have love bombing, which a lot
of people are familiar with. That means that they pour
it on, you know, want to fly you to Paris
for dinner on like date three, can't wait to ask
(41:00):
you to go to a wedding in like twenty twenty eight,
like talking about the future, having the most amazing sex,
like everything is just so awesome, and it's like addicting.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Ok.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Sorry, but then you're moving into this accelerated timeline with
love bombing too. Usually that they're amping up the timeline like, well,
my lease is up and we're gonna move in. Like
it always makes me so nervous when clients are like,
it's amazing, I'm madly in love, I'm good on three
dates and we're getting engaged, and I'm like, hey, man,
(41:32):
pump the brakes, because if it's good on the third date,
it'll be good on the third week and the third month.
But if we're accelerating it so fast, it is being
driven by something other than love or lust. There is
a way of trying to grab you and sink their
teeth into you, which is what they're doing, So that's
love bombing. Another one is gaslighting, where someone who is
(41:57):
denying your reality, your lived experience. They will either bold
face lie to your face and be like I never
said that and I never said we would do that. No,
you misunderstood, or they'll use fake concern. Oh I'll be
one babe, I'm really I'm worried about you. I really am. Listen.
I wasn't going to say anything, but Bob said that
(42:19):
he's worried about you too.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Right, I mean right.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
I think we should cover one more thing, please please
the audience. This is a question I always get. Do
we have time?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Yes? When I have one more thing too?
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Okay, great, So how about you do your one more
thing because it might be the same thing.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
I really liked when you talked about body wisdom and
when when you step away from something to note how
you feel after the interaction. Can you talk just a
little bit about that, because I think that's something that
everybody can recognize within themselves to make a change.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Is that the same one?
Speaker 4 (42:53):
Yes? And here's the thing that was what I was
going to talk about. Yes, I swear to God. That's
so funny because everyone always asks how can I tell
when a boundary has been violated? Like how do I
know in the moment, because I'm always confused, like I
feel something, but I'm not sure. So when it comes
(43:13):
to decoding when a boundary has been crossed, and really
what you can do about it. You're going to dial
into your body and you may not be able to
do it in the moment, and that's okay. You can
eventually learn to. Because if you have a flight fight,
flight freeze, or fawn response because you feel threatened by
the boundary violation, you may not be able to handle
(43:33):
it in the moment, but I want you to think back.
You'll think back on something. So the possible signs that
a boundary has been crossed. You can have physical sensations
like a constriction in your chest, pain in your throat.
You might freeze right, you can't really talk in that moment,
vomit you want to vomit, maybe you actually vomit, gut
(43:54):
or head pain, accelerated heartbeat right where your heart now
is slamming, maybe your sweating. You might feel resentment, so
the emotional things that might come feel irritated, feel annoyed.
You might want to run away, so you want to
like shut down the conversation. You might feel sudden like
a flash of anger, you know, like where your face
(44:16):
will get hot for a second and then you just
sort of keep on going. Now, here's the thing with
what you do after you're going to start to and
you guys who are watching and listening, I want you
to start to take note of what happens in your
body and maybe you know right now, like with you guys,
what happens when a boundary gets crossed? Where do you
feel it physically?
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Well, are you asking me?
Speaker 3 (44:37):
But I can feel it in my in my chest,
in my like if.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I'm if I'm on a call, or if I'm treated
in a way that I don't speak out for myself,
I feel like a constriction.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
I know this because because I.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Do yep, I try very hard to not act on
my emotion until I can put some intelligence on it.
What happens to me when my boundaries are being crossed
is the egg. I go back to the original crime,
I go back to the crime scene and put that
person right there, and they want to kill them. I can't.
I can't. I can't stand it. And I also feel
(45:15):
the same exact way when I see somebody else's boundaries
being crossed and they don't have the understanding that we're
talking about knowing. I want to protect them like a mama.
But I'm a fighter. I don't like when somebody's being hurt,
and I don't like being hurt.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
So you get hot, indeed, yes, and you both know,
like your your body wisdom. Though you both know that
there's something that happens, then you can go back and
revisit it, because a lot of people think, oh I
missed my chance. I should have said something in the meeting.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Right, that's not so.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
There's no statute of limitations. I'm going back and being like, oh, hey, Bob,
remember the summer of seventy eight. Time I want to
talk about it. You can always do that. Right, there's
no state of limitation, and it's important. The last thing you, guys,
I want to say about this is that making a
boundary request telling the truth about what we experienced or
(46:09):
how we feel. It's not a lever to control others. Right.
Your human is in having the courage to negotiate for yourself.
Your healing is in acting in a way in your
life where you're saying what I think matters, how I
feel matters, what I want matters, and I'm going to
(46:31):
live my life that only people who agree with that
can be in the VIP section of my life. That's
well and have close access to me. Because if you
do not think that what I think and how I
feel and what I want matters, then you do not
belong your general admission only for those mother efforts.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
That's right, I mean find your own crew. Well. Also,
what you're doing is repatterning yourself, so you're taking away
the parental patterning. You're saying, Okay, now I recognize my behavior.
I can look back at that. That's part of why
we don't want to build the resentment thing over the
pool of resentment over years and years, because then you're like, wait,
Bob in seventy eight. So if weep, if we keep
up to it and are encouraged to say, look, yes
(47:09):
you walked away from dinner. But when you recognize that,
what happens is the next time you go into a
situation like that, because you brought your story forth, so
then you're telling it, you're not acting it out, and
then get Then when you go back into that situation,
you're reconditioning yourself to be aware. You go, oh, oh,
I'm starting to get hot right here? What am I feeling?
Let me take a step back. I'm gonna be intelligent
(47:30):
about this. I'm gonna go use the restroom for a second,
come back, take a breath, and go. I don't want
to have to remember this in a week. I want
to activate this now because I do matter, because the
people around me matter, because I've made the choice to
say your a VIP sectionally, I really like that. I
want everybody to be encouraged. This is so amazing to
have had you on here, encourage you to be surrounded
(47:52):
by only the VIPs.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
I just want to say. It reminds me a little
bit of what we learned a couple of weeks ago
with doctor Martha Beck told us, don't ever let somebody
treat you in a way that you wouldn't treat them,
don't I think he has a back.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
Boundaries.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yes, yeah, so can we just say thank you and
everybody has she goes go and do the cool Liz
we d no, but I think it would because all
day go.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
I know. But but if you did, if you did
before the four breaths with us before we go, I think,
you know, we're going to end with with your two
minute meditation. But the thing that you do with four
breaths is so easy for us all to do now.
And as a matter of fact, I told my son,
who's a pitcher, a high school pitcher, and he, you know,
in the middle, he turns around on the mound and
(48:46):
can do this and it's just very simp because it's
sixteen exactly, So can you take us through that?
Speaker 2 (48:52):
To close us out?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
I shoke him, close your eyes and we're just going
to breathe in for account of four go one two
three for now hold two three for exhale two three
for hold it out two three four.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Amen, hallelia, Terry Cole, you are a master. I am.
I am so honored to have shared this hour with you,
and I feel our guests are so are so lucky.
We're so lucky. Everybody. Go listen to Terry Cole. Please
get her book, The Boundary Boss, and go take that.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
And Terrycole dot com. Is that where we find you?
Speaker 4 (49:38):
Yes, and Boundary quiz dot com and they can get
all kinds of bonuses at boundarybossbook dot com. And if
you want to check out my Mastermind, go to Terry
Cole dot com. Forward slash.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
I want us to go sign up, well, I mean
I wanted us to go sign up for you know this,
this flourish, this flourish, It would be such an incredible
but such an incredible intensive with you. I thank you
so much. You have made us better to Dave, Terry
call God bless you.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Amen have a terrific debtor together with Terry Cool, thank you.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
We're better begat.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Listen and there's so much to take away from this show.
I feel like listening back to it to under that
was a good one. I think Terry is just a
master of wisdom about how we make changes in our lives,
telling our truth about ours, about understanding where we are
and being present in it. I mean, just understanding our
(50:30):
body language, understanding which has to do with our boundaries,
understanding what what creates the patterning of of our initiative
to not have boundaries. It just and she puts everything
into such simple takeaways, wonderful, helpful solution.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
There's just a lot of ways how I feel after interactions.
I mean, it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
You guys all know it.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
So I mean that this is one that I'm going
to listen to it back myself. Yes, And there's a
lot more nuggets on her website, and we're going to
leave at the end of this. One of her two
minute meditations. She recommends that you meditate in the morning
and at night. You know, I'm not a very good meditator.
I don't like I can do so very long. I
can do two minutes, and I did this two minute
meditation and it's really great.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Okay, well, then that's a challenge. That's how we're going
to activate our purpose on this one.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
We can do two minutes.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
We are asking ourselves to set boundaries for ourselves, understand
and recognize, and part of that is in thinking and
contemplating and being still with ourselves. And that's why this
meditation is going to be so helpful, and I will
challenge you and myself to do it this week. Everybody
had a great and great week.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
Sure well, hello and welcome to this week's tune up tip,
which is a summer meditation for my heart te yours.
So I'm going to ask you to sit down, jelly,
close your eyes, turn your phone off first, of course,
unless you're watching this on your phone. I let's start
by taking a couple of deep breaths, breathing in through
your nose and exhiling through your mouth. Do this a
(51:56):
few more times, and we're going to start with the
full body relaxation. From the top of your head. I
want you to see a beautiful amethyst light. This is
a protective light. Moving from above to below. See this
light behind your eyes relaxing all of the muscles around
your eyes, moving into your jaw muscles releasing. See and
(52:16):
feel this light moving into your neck muscles, relaxing your
shoulder muscles. If you need to drop your shoulders, do it.
If you need to roll your neck a little bit,
do that. Feel those muscles releasing. And now I want
you to see and feel this light moving into your
biceps and your triceps, your elbows, your forms, your wrists,
all the way down to your hands and your fingers.
(52:37):
Feel this relaxing light movement to the back of your body,
relaxing your upper back, releasing your middle back, relaxing your
lower back, in your buttocks. And now you feel the
warmth of this light and moving into the front of
your body, relaxing the big muscles of your chest, your
side body, your obliques. And now you see this light
pouring into your entire torso, illuminating all of your internal
(52:59):
organs as well, detoxifying and relaxing. And now you see
and feel this light moving into your hips, relaxing the
big muscles of your thighs, your hamstrings, your knees, your shins,
your calves, your ankles all the way down to your
feet and your toes, And now your entire body, from
the top of your head to the tips of your
toes is completely and totally relaxed. And now I'm going
(53:23):
to ask you to conjure the feelings of summer right
in the middle of your chest. Think about all of
the things that you love about the summertime, and allow
yourself to go there. So do you love the beach.
I want you to see yourself on the beach. Do
you love watermelon? Do you love all corn and all
(53:44):
the foods that we get to eat during the summer.
The bounty is so rich during the summer, and depending
on where you live, depends on what is local to eat,
but look for it because it's amazing. Feel that feeling
of expansion that you get to feel on a summer day.
If you're somewhere at a lake, or you're somewhere at
(54:04):
the beach, and even if right now you're just sitting
in your office, I'm going to ask you to conjure
that feeling right in the middle of your chest, expansion
and relaxation. Now I'm going to ask you to take
two more deep breaths I'm going to count backwards from
(54:31):
ten to one. Ten nine you're feeling rested and relaxed.
Eight seven feeling incredibly grateful. Six five feeling regrouped and renewed.
Four three feeling ready for what's next. Two one. So
just stretch your hands and rock your feet and give
yourself a nice, big, full body stretch and welcome back.
(54:56):
I hope that you use this little meditation whenever you
need to get away, whenever you need to feel that
feeling of rest, relaxation and expansion. I hope you have
an amazing week and as always, take care of you.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
And a big, big thanks to our Better Together team,
Ryan Tillotson, Silvana Alcohola, Daniel Ferrara and of course an
In Heather. If you haven't already, please subscribe on whatever
device or platform you're listening to this on and as always,
see you next week
Strawt Media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey everybody, our next show is with none other than
Terry Cole. Terry Cole, and listen. If you are wondering
about your boundaries, if you want to know what your
boundaries are, if you know that you are crossing your boundaries,
listen to this show because you're going to find out
how to keep them, get them and win with your
VIP section.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well welcome. Terry Cole is a licensed psychotherapist and relationship
and empowerment expert. For more than twenty years, she's combined
the best of practical psychology and Eastern mindfulness practices, making
complex psychological concepts accessible and then actionable so that you
can achieve sustainable change in your life. She's the author
(00:45):
of Boundary Boss, the Essential Guide to Talk True, be Seen,
and Live Free, which teaches readers how to assert and
maintain healthy boundaries. She developed four steps to simplify boundary setting,
how to recognize when your boundaries have been violated and
what to do about that, how to create proactive boundary plans,
and how to master conflicts, and so much more. And
(01:08):
we're so lucky to have you here today.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
We're better day.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Good listen and.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Terry welcome. Thank you so much for being with us today.
How are you?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I'm great? Thank you guys so much for having me.
I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I have to say I kind of went into a
world with you because once you start listening to what
you do and what you say and how you propose
different issues that we are facing, both men and women
in how we handle. Let's start with boundaries, and you've
obviously been a therapist for years, You've done over three
hundred podcasts around how to get us to be healthier,
(01:44):
more loving human beings to ourselves. Can we start with
where Boundary Boss came from. I think it's just what
a helpful book that everybody should be purchasing immediately. And
where did that come from? Where did the idea stem
from in your brilliant mind?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Thanks? I would have to say, you know what, do
they say you teach what you most need to learn.
So I just was a boundary friggin disaster in my life,
That's the truth. I didn't realize that so much of
my pain and relationships and my feeling taken advantage of
and thinking other people were entitled. I was so angry
and resentful, and I considered myself like a loving person.
(02:24):
So these there was a cognitive dissonance. We call it
like this conflict of why I'm overfunctioning, overgiving, overdoing, and
then mad at the other people for it. I had
no idea that that meant I had disordered boundaries. And
so really how boundary Boss came about is that through
I was a talent agent for years before I became
a psychotherapist. So I don't need to tell you that
(02:48):
entertainment is not exactly a hot bet of mental health.
And at that point in my career, I was getting
too healthy for the business to a degree, right, I
had been in therapy since I was nineteen. I quit
drinking when I was twenty one, and I got super
into self help and wellness, and I couldn't even believe
that I could just go to therapy and change my life.
I was like, why isn't everyone doing this? This is unbelievable.
(03:10):
And I was young when I was doing that. So
as my career kept getting more in the entertainment business,
I was like, oh my god, this place is a
shit show and I have got to get out of here.
I was becoming too healthy. In the end of my career,
I was negotiating contracts or supermodels and celebrities for endorsement
deals basically, and I did not care about that. I
(03:34):
only cared about getting people into therapy, eating disorder clinics,
drug treatment clinics, AA na Alan. I like, my whole
trip was like how's your mental wellness? And I was like,
I need to get out of here before before I
really become a terrible agent.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And so well, you had a lot of clients I
bet who needed all of that help.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yes, I mean I can't tell you how it was
more urgent to me though their mental walsy being. So
of course I wasn't as good an agent as I
should have been towards the end because I was like,
we cannot ask her to do that. That is terrible,
you know, right, And they're like, what she has to
do it, it's a contract. I decided to go to
grad school and I just applied to one school. I
(04:16):
was living in New York, and I was like, I'm
not obviously going to Ohio to go to grad school.
So I only applied to n YU and that I
got accepted and was like, holy crap, I guess I
gotta go because you can't get in and not go.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So before we get started, can you because the goal here,
the goal here is for everybody to read the book
Boundary Boss. But in this time that we have for
people to really take away some concrete things that they
can apply right now. So can we start by, like
defining what boundaries is because people might be wondering, what
are we talking about when we talk about boundaries?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Yes? So, I want you to think about boundaries as
your own personal rules of engagement. It's how we let
others know what's okay with us and what's not okay
with us. Your boundary are made up of your preferences,
your limits, and your deal breakers, like your non negotiables, right,
because not all boundaries are created equally. Some things are
(05:09):
just a preference. They're still important, but they're not as
hardcore as a deal breaker, like things are an absolute
no for you. But the problem comes in a most
people don't even know what their preferences, their limits, and
their deal breakers are. But even if you do know them,
you must then have the capacity to communicate them with
transparency and whenever you so choose. And I feel like
(05:32):
for most people that becomes the problem. They may know it,
but they don't know how to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, you said transparency, And I want to take people
into one of the things that I've learned from listening
to you, which is that our parental patterns, the things
that we have set up are perhaps the distance between
us and our capacity. We may know what we want
and what we think, we may see that in another
and go, oh, I'd really like to have her self estatement,
(05:58):
be able to stand up for myself when I don't
want to be on that date, or all of the
different things that you have outlined in your book as
different possibilities we get ourselves into. But can you talk
to us about the parental pattern that starts the thing
that starts in one of the things I love about you,
You're like, we don't have to talk or to find
about all that stuff about what happened. That's kind of
a waste of time. And I'd like for you to
talk about that patterning a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Well, in along those lines to answer that you talked
about making a list of emotions that you were not
allowed to have as a child. Oh, that I found
to be really really interesting. I think those she has too, Yes, totally.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Well, you were talking about Anne, is your downloaded boundary blueprint.
So this is in your unconscious mind, down here in
the basement where we don't even know that we have
a choice. So what influences you? I want you to
think about that as like an architectural blueprint for a
house that someone else designed a really long time ago.
So what is your boundary blueprint? It's the way we think,
(06:56):
or we were taught that we should interact in the world,
our romantic relationships, in work relationships, and our friendships. So
if you were raised by a maternal impactor, let's say,
who had the disease to please, who was a people pleaser,
then you learn, oh, to be a good person, I
should do what other people want me to do. I
(07:16):
should not make anyone mad, I should not say no.
If I'm kind and giving, then I'm a good person.
But so much of the time that comes with being
self abandoning. Right, that comes with prioritizing the wants, needs,
desires of others over ourselves. We were all raised to
be good girls, right to not be troublemakers, don't be
(07:40):
a big mouth, don't be a drama queen, don't stir
the pot. And that the way that I was raised
and all of my clients and women of my courses
is basically niceness. Was this fake virtue above all other things, Right,
it was so important to be perceived as being nice
when we really think about it, saying yes when you
(08:03):
really want to say no. Is that like being nice
or is that just lying?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Well, you say that about kindness. We talk about living
in loving kindness here, But you're like, there's a difference
between kind and self abandonment. And it seems that self
abandonment and boundary goes hand in hand. Could you expand
on self abandonment and that relationship and then we'll get
and get into the emotion. Then they're the emotional path
that goes with that.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Yeah, so the self abandonment piece. I always say that
most of us were raised and praised for being self
abandoning codependence, right, just it was like you just want
an a word for the more that you could give
to others. I mean, I was interviewed by someone the
other day and they were talking about that they were
a girl Scout and one of the girl Scout's creeds
was always put others above yourself. You're like, nothing like
(08:50):
setting us up to just never be happy thanks like
a culture around never being happy. So how it's connected
is that is having an disordered emotional boundary a disordered
physical boundary, because saying yes when you want to say no,
or acting like you're the cool girl, right, being like
(09:11):
you know me, I'm easy, breezy, no fuss, no must
never sharing your preferences because you just want to be
like whatever you guys want is good. That can't always
be true. Some people are more particular than others, but
we all have preferences. So that's where the disordered boundaries
comes in. And Heather, what you were talking about was
forbidden emotions and so how this comes into the disordered
(09:32):
boundary game is that I grew up in a house
where anger was not allowed, right, a forbidden emotion. So
then what happens when you're angry, Well, a, you can't
recognize it. You literally turn it into another emotion that's
more acceptable. So I would turn my anger into sadness.
I would turn it in into depression because it was
(09:54):
okay if I cried, but it wasn't okay if I
got mad. And imagine how that's grewed up my relationships
and my boundaries as I'm growing up and going forth
in life because anger is one of the essential emotions
that you literally cannot live a healthy life without knowing
yourself in understanding your relationship to anger.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
But tears represent a weakness or what that that's okay
for a girl to be feeling because this is because
it's it's self deprecating and it's and it's ye and
it's and it doesn't have any strength behind it.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Well, and I'm it's not threatening, it's not true. I
have a question because I think that for some people myself,
I don't know that I grew up in a in
a family where certain emotions weren't allowed, but there were
certain emotions that I did not see. So is that
is that the same thing? Like I didn't see a
lot of anger in my family. I didn't see a
lot of sadness in my family. So those are like, yes,
(10:49):
two emotions that I don't really, you don't really.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You weren't familiar with. It was hidden.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, here's the thing. It's why it's the same though,
is that it's the same end result because it's foreign
to us. We are not masterful at experiencing and expressing
those emotions, whether they were strictly Like in my house
it was strictly forbidden, like there would be a consequence
if I were to display anger, I would get in trouble,
(11:15):
or I would be rejected by my parents or whatever. Right,
it doesn't have to be that extreme. If you were
in a family system where anger and sadness were more
repressed emotions, it would still impact your ability to access
those emotions in yourself and in your relationships.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I see our producer Ryan, who's nodding and shaking his head,
and Ryan, we're talking about a female point of view,
and I wonder if you could jump on in here
with is this a similar thing for a boy child
who's growing up? And I know you speak terry to
all of us, but to me, it's always very interesting.
Women aren't the only ones who are interested in self
(11:53):
help and the recognition of what the patterning is as
a child. Is this ringing true to you?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Did you have emotions that weren't allowed growing up?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:05):
But yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I think of course that was well were you allowed
to cry?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
But I definitely tried?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Not right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Pressure you? I don't well, I don't know if this
is too revealing, but I know that you said, you
hadn't seen your father cry, you know, until your until
your wedding, and and how we the patterning that we
see in our in the one that we want to
be you know, yeah, I think, I mean that's that,
it's that unconscious patterning. Well, he didn't do it, so
(12:40):
I shouldn't do it either. He didn't see him crying
till his mother left, right, I mean, I didn't see
my father cry until one of our horses died. And
it wasn't the divorce. It wasn't the divorce.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
But it's a weird thing to see that emotion. And
I know as a child, like whenever I was really
really sad, I hid it from my mother. And I see,
I see my daughter did that with me, like she
wasn't totally comfortable when she was going through a breakup
coming to me. But it's been a little bit different
with my son. He's more open to come to me
(13:16):
with his emotions. And so it's just an interesting it's
an interesting dynamic that we set up without quite realizing
that we do.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Think that's something that you're doing now and you.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Have well that's a I mean, let's go well, I
want to go into that question what of course we're
unconscious and some things, and of course that's why we
have Terry on and these incredible people to come on
and help us teach and understand what we're doing. Part
of it is bringing the awareness to bringing the awareness
to the table. And I really like Terry that you
(13:49):
that you talk about both male and female, because I
think we we assume as girls like self help is
kind of a cool thing for girls, you know, and
women to get into, and you talk about it, it's
obviously for all genders and the way that we experience
our change or our transformation. Would you talk about which
is why this book is so important, the transformation into
(14:10):
the healing of learning what these boundaries are and we
have different ways to approach them, men and men and women,
I think, and I don't know why, if you want
to talk about what you see in your practice, that
can illuminate that well.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I think that it also depends on when you were
born and how old you are, because I do think,
thankfully that some things are changing now. There's still though
this collective consciousness around gender, but in the past few
years we've had so many different gender expressions and actually
more progress towards more inclusion. But when you think about
(14:45):
there's still this it's going to take a long time,
like another fifty years probably until the mindset about gender roles.
How should straight men act? How should straight women act?
Let's just say now there's a lot that's you know,
shaking this up right now, which is amazing, But really
(15:06):
what we're talking about is what was the expectation. There's
an expectation like work women. You know, we're looking in
a heterosexual way, a considered more of the softer sex,
where the bridgers, the assuagers, the fixers, the you know,
where the soothers of like life and men are supposed
to be making the money and doing the thing. And
(15:27):
now I think a lot of folks now are rejecting
those roles and becoming way more dual, right, because we
have yin and yang, all of us have both the
feminine and the masculine and everything in between in us.
But I think that there's a different kind of pressure
put on men because you're raised more at least back
(15:50):
when I was being raised. So anyone in their fifties,
let's say, forties, fifty sixties, where there's an expectation of
you being more independent, more of a leader strong and
for girls and women, it was more about be a
team player, take one for the team, make sure everyone
else is okay, be dialed in. You wonder why we
(16:10):
have antennas that go up to friggin mars because we're
so you know, someone walks into a room and I
don't it doesn't matter. I mean, if you're an EmPATH
or a highly sensitive person, which so many people in
my audience certainly are in yours too, I imagine I
could the second someone walks in, I could sense if
something is wrong. I don't even know you, and I'm like,
I think that person might be violent. I'm like, they
(16:33):
just walked in the room and didn't say a word.
But it's almost like we felt or feel responsible for
the feelings, the outcomes, the decisions, the relationships of other people,
which is where codependency right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Like, how's everyone going to feel at the end of
this Thanksgiving dinner? Everyone's gonna be happy everything, and everybody
like dreads the next Thanksgiving dinner because nobody said the
truth and nobody talked about anything, and nobody asked Aunt
Mary why she was wearing a mustache. You know, you
just you're like, why all of that conditioning that puts
us in the center of Oh shoot, I forgot who
I was and next year I'm not going to remember either.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Well, I think a lot of it relates to conflict avoidance, right,
So I know, like for me personally, my whole life
is centered around conflict avoidance, and I'm trying to be
better about that. I'm but in somebody who is really
really conflict averse that really fucks with your boundaries.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I would imagine it does. But here's the thing. The
first thing anybody listening, anybody watching this who's like, oh
my god, that's me. I'm conflict of verse. Help, You're
going to change your mind because we're really just talking
about effective communication and talking true every when we talk
about boundaries, all the myths around boundaries is like it's
(17:53):
you just being like no and all agro and kicking
people to the curb and my way or the highway,
and it's not like that at all. What we're really
saying is it matters who you actually are, Heather, and
it matters how you feel, matters, what you want matters.
And if we go through life prioritizing this desire to
(18:16):
avoid conflict, because it makes us so uncomfortable. We are
constantly self abandoning to fulfill that directive of avoiding conflict.
So part of it is we're going to change our
mind about what conflict is. It's not a dirty word.
It doesn't have to be mean or terrible or abusive.
It can be Hey, I'd like to make a simple
(18:37):
request that if you're going to be more than ten
minutes late, you give me a call, because when you don't,
I find myself see them all night and then it
ruins our evening. And I love you and I don't
want to see for four hours when this thing is
so avoidable. So can we agree that you're going to
let me know because it makes me feel very not
considered when you don't.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
And I think that as we get older too, I
can speak for myself in this conflict avoidance. It resentment builds,
I think because you've been at it for so long
and so dude, so that becomes the thing too.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
It's just a file cabinet.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Warn the young ends out there listening.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Well, I want to then, real, for real, I want
to I want to say that on on your website
you can go and you can take a style quiz
and and the style that we have in our in
her abandonment also what it is the reason I want
everybody to take it. Did you take the quiz?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I did?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Okay, So I asked for my for my results to
be sent back to me. That's why my computer was on.
I had a feeling and assumed that Heather can take
it because there's no way to a million dos. But
she didn't tell me to take it or in, well's
so funny you did our separate Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I was going to tell you last night.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
But but but there's this this style quiz and I
was like, wow, this is really interesting. Terry's getting into
clothing and that fashion which is it was such a
contradiction to what I you know, I'd been listening to her.
I was like, that's weird, that's cool. Wait a minute,
what how does our style reflect I wanted? Then issues
are okay anyway, but it's not. It's the style with which,
the style with which you are interacting through your abandonment
(20:08):
issues and helping you understand what your boundaries are. She's
asking these questions and she gives you these, you know,
five choices. I swear to God everybody should take it.
What's not only interesting, I want you to explain the quiz,
but I also as as you are defining for us,
what you're doing is laying out language in the five
different things that you're proposing is choices options. She gives
(20:30):
us options to how we interact in the world, like say,
the situation occurs, your friends always late it like she
just said it, So how would you? How would you respond?
And in laying out the five different options that you
have rapidly going through, first of all, yes, you realize
you have options, and you're going through the differences in
language that you've seen people interact with, how you've been treated,
(20:52):
and the way with which you answer difficult situations or
conflict or whatever. So can you explain the importance of this,
of this quiz and this I really appreciate simple language
in helping us have a guide. And you say that
you have a guide, and it is also the way before.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
You answer that the best the best response to one
of those for people who don't drink, because I'm always
sensitive about this, but I actually do drink, and I
don't think it's fair to people who don't drink when
the bill comes and they have to pay for everybody's drinks,
and one of the questions on there is what do
you do when the bill comes and you haven't had
any cocktails and everybody else is drinking and and one
(21:31):
of your responses is, you know, I'm not paying for
y'all tequila shot, you know, in a funny way, which
I just think is a great response rather than being like,
you know, well I didn't have, you know, like make
it funny like that. I just really liked that.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Right, So the quiz, anyone can take it. It's totally free.
You just go to Boundary quiz dot com.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Right, just everybody has to take this quiz. Do it
for yourself, do it for an understanding of how you
interact in the world. Go do it. And it's also
fun and fast. But gon is fun and fast.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
It's only thirteen questions, but with it you'll get an archetype.
So some people are more of a peacekeeper or a pushover.
Some people are more of like an ice queen or
a loaner. So your answers to those thirteen questions. It
should probably take you about seven minutes to take it,
or ten minutes. You'll get an actual answer. And they're
(22:19):
all videos. So if you whatever you got, because so
I'm gonna guess, Heather, I'm looking at you. You're definitely
one of the peacekeeper pushover or wait, there's one, there's
another third one homel one. Peacekeeper was the chamelion.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
It was tricky for me.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I haven't thought it yet.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
I did it last night. I struggled with what I
knew I shouldn't click.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yes, another there you go, peacekeeper, chameleon like I don't
want to be.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
That, but I'm in that shit.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
I think I feel like I am that, and I
bet you're the ice queen. So we're going to see
if those things are correct.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Of course, could answer every question very quickly.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
I think it what it one of one of the
one of the questions put me in it in There
wasn't a response that I really liked and which I
also thought was really funny because it's like, well, if
you're in a conflict in business, you know, what would
you do? And there wasn't one like, oh, I'm going
to like handle this, I'm going to negotiate, and it's.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
More like, no, I'm gonna say what I fuck I want.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I'm going to make people understand that my point of
view is better because it usually is. And there was
no other option, and I was and I take it
or leave it. I'm kind of a bitch. And I
was like, oh my god, the one option. And it's
not that people think I'm a bit. But of course
that's part of why taking the quiz is so interesting,
because I knew that that how I'm what It also
does this help you reflect and receive yourself be in
(23:46):
a truthful in a truthful way. It's not about condemning yourself.
It's about shining shining light on And I'm pretty obviously
confident about who i am. Ice queen, I think being
could you describe that? Because I think that probably would
be the cat gegory. I don't think any of these categories.
I don't think you get a winning remark like, yay,
you got one hundred percent. You're a really good person.
That's not what you're doing. You're showing us, no archetypes
(24:08):
of arts how to get.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I did not too.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I knew, I knew the right answers on every single page.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Isn't that amazingly archetypes? Yes, the archetypes is having healthy boundaries.
So here here's the thing. What the what the quiz does,
it's basically saying, when you are not at your best,
when your boundaries are disordered, when you're under pressure. Because
here's the thing, it's easier to have better boundaries when
we're not in conflict, right, when we're not under pressure,
(24:38):
when there's not a situation, because those are more positive boundaries.
You can say I really want to do this tonight
or whatever, and that that is also some kind of
a boundary. But we're talking about boundaries where you need
to push back and that is where this archetype comes
in and shows you when you're under pressure, are you
more of a peacekeeper or not. And the reason why
(25:00):
it matters for those of you listening boundary quiz dot
com is that when you have insight and go oh,
because not all boundaries are disordered in the same way.
You can have two loose boundaries, which are called porous
boundaries you can call you can have two hard boundaries,
which is called having rigid boundaries, and then in between
(25:21):
those things, that's like the healthy boundaries are somewhere in between,
but there needs to be a certain amount of flexibility.
And the misunderstanding that most people have about boundaries is
they think that rigid boundaries. Someone who's like my way
or the highway is having healthy boundaries, and it's not
because having healthy boundaries means you can talk to someone
(25:44):
else even if you disagree with them, and you can
agree to disagree.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Heather would appreciate if I had that. We like if
I if I had that skill.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I was literally just thinking that you do, literally was
really thinking.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
That because I let her say, I mean, I know,
I appreciate it. I like I like we we were
on a phone call, to be completely honest with you,
where I was I was doing. It's kind of a
little bit more it's my way or the highway attitude.
I do feel like I do. So thank you for
saying that. But there are times.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Out to say that about you, because thanks because you
will be thinking strong in a position. But but you
will if if it makes sense to you, you'll come
off it.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
You won't.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
You won't hang your hat on a certain position and
you never come off of it. You if it, if
it makes sense and we get to it, you'll you'll
move on it, right right. I like the better idea.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I appreciate that because that's obviously something that I've been
working on in our I mean, we we like to sorry.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That you said that, because I was literally saying that.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
But I do think I do put my I like
to stick by what I do. But also that's because they,
you know, work hard at its structuring what I do.
And and if you don't have a better idea, then
you better listen to mine. And that was one of
your options. But I would love for you to to
talk about these rigid boundaries and I and I I
(27:01):
have so much I have so much appreciation for you,
the ice queen, the rigid boundaries, and again going back
to parent parental habiting and patterning, because so much of
that comes from I mean, how we pattern ourselves and
how we interact is from what our childhood was. For me,
you know, it was fight or die. I mean, that's
that's all there was to it. And a lot of
(27:24):
my what I believe in comes from that fight. And
there are some things that you're just not going to
the cloaks that I wear that I mean, honey, you
don't stand in my way, but you know, and those
those badges of honor, but also those things, those things
that you can't sometimes change in yourself. I'd like to
talk about that because I because I feel like there's
(27:46):
a gap between us understanding our our boundaries, our ability,
our capacity, and telling the truth, not about the tell
everything wrong. One of the things you say about parents
is they were probably doing the best they could. We've
learned a lot here, I'm better together. Everybody is doing
the most, usually doing the best they can. And for
(28:10):
me to say that from the background I came from,
that's giving a lot of forgiveness. I got to say, folks,
because wow, you look at my parents, I mean, whoa
were they really doing the butt? But if you take
that point of view and look back at the story
about telling the truth yourself, I feel like there's a
gap between our self esteem and being able to tell
the truth about what our interaction with that truth was,
(28:32):
And can you kind of merge that for us?
Speaker 4 (28:36):
I can. What I was going to say, though, is
that I feel like, listen, it's very generous to say
people were doing the best that they could, right.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
My two cents is this, It doesn't ever matter at
this point because what matters is you and your life
and what you're going to do now. And I think
that people really like to jump over the part of
healing that requires us to be really honest about the
ways our parents failed us. We're not we can talk
(29:05):
to them. We cannot. They could be dead, they could
be alive. It doesn't matter. The kid within each one
of us can't just skip over that and be like,
you know, I would have therapy clients come to me
and be like, I should be over it. It happened
thirty years ago. I'm like, you're never going to be
over it unless we honor what actually like. We have
to tell the truth to ourselves. At the very least,
(29:29):
we don't need to listen. You don't want to involve
anyone else. You don't have to because it's your healing journey.
But kids in dysfunctional and chaotic and abusive family systems,
we are trained to abandon ourselves and be like, well,
I mean, I understand why my parents did it because
they had a terrible childhood too, and blah blah blah.
Here's the thing. I don't care. The kid within you
(29:51):
needs the acknowledgment of like that sucked. That just was
really bad. That was very bad for me and I
I want someone the child within us, want someone to
just honor like, hey, that sucked. And look at where
you are now, and this is amazing. But with the parents,
like I don't know, people really get into this whole
(30:13):
trip on forgiveness, and I just got to say, it's
not like my thing. I'm not into it.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I love you, I love you more, I love you
more every second you talk.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Well, here's the thing with forgiveness, though, it is so
it is so corrupted with ideas of it's like we're
giving up something someone's getting over on us. And then
there's the whole religious connotation. There's just so much grap
What I say is it is our jobs to let
ourselves out of resentment prison. Haven't we been in it
(30:43):
long enough? Yes?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (30:45):
And that's what this healing work does, is us waking
up to the fact that we have the key to
the resentment prison and we can just open the door
and go forward from here. But I never, I only ever,
will take people back to things that we must go
back to in order to go forward. I'm not interested
in talking about third grade for ten years, because who
(31:07):
the hell cares what I care about. If something happened
in third grade that is blocking you from creating the
life you want right now, well then I'm super interested
in that, unpacking that experience, honoring, integrating that experience. So
I think that there's.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Is that the resentment inventory that you talk about in
the book?
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Yes, okay, so yes, So that's actually a perfect segue
to the resentment inventory because scene of the crime, yes, exactly,
because we just got to go back to this. I
hate to say it, but this is just where it
all starts, is the scene of the crime, which is
the family of origin according to me. But people when
they go I don't know where to start with my boundaries, like,
(31:46):
I don't even know how my boundaries are. So you
go boundary quiz dot com and take that out of
the beginning exactly. And then you're going to take a
resentment inventory, because that will tell you right now what
relationships in your life need your attention most urgently. So
I'll tell you what that is. You're going to write
a list of your sort of the VIPs in your life,
(32:10):
your closest people, and then you're going to put there's
a whole thing that says resentment I'm holding on to.
And then you're going to be really honest and in
that little box next to your best friend's name, you're
going to say what resentment you're holding on too, if anything.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
And you know what you should say, and you know
what you want to say. But this is a quiz
for you to tell the truth.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Yes, and it's also a quiz for you to not
it's not resentment. If we just go with the resentment, right,
we can get so wrapped up and blame and shame
and guilt. We're not going to do that. We're going
to look at that resentment and go, Okay, this resentment
was created fifty percent by me, fifty percent by them.
(32:52):
So what can I do differently? Where did I collude
with this other person unconsciously to make this thing happen
or to allow it to happen. I didn't say anything.
I let my friend money and then she said she'd
give it back in a month, and then she didn't
give it back for six months and she's still not
giving it back. But what is the onus is on me?
(33:14):
Maybe I didn't say anything, or I didn't have a
clear and clean agreement about lending MONEYPS just never lend money.
That's it. It's just the dumb it it's just the worst.
It's always going to go bad money. You can't give it,
you give it it.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, we can all agree on that, and if you can,
fantastic that's yes.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
It's just the worst because money is not just dollars
and sense, of course, it's fully loaded for whatever it
meant in your family system.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
But right because it becomes an exchange, you want something
back from that, from that, from that scene of the
crime or whatever that was back in your childhood. So
you're supposedly lending the money, but what you're asking for
is the healing of something that you have had broken.
And then when they don't do that for you, then
you take it out on them because it's all the
resemblance build up from whatever you saw when you were
(34:02):
twelve or whatever.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
In the book you talk about, I think it was
a maybe it was a patient or somebody who in
the workplace kept getting into fights in her office, no
matter what job she was in, you know, would have
these rivalries with somebody, and then when you dug deeper,
you found out why. I think that maybe talk about
that now, would people could relate to that?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Yes, that that is actually was such a fascinating story,
and I've seen it. I've actually seen it before. So
I called this repeating boundary realities or repeating relationship realities.
Where so I had this client, she had a job,
she had like an arch enemy Mary. She hated this lady. Everything,
everything about her she hated. She's like, she's disgusting, she
(34:46):
doesn't wash her hands after she uses the bathroom, like everything.
She just hated her. So then I thought maybe, And
she would always say things maybe, well, everybody everybody has this,
and I would always say no, not really, just right now,
we're just talking about you. Like people will try to
normalize their behavior by'd be like, I'm sure everyone has
this experience. I'm like, not everybody. Some rival she has
(35:08):
the same exact situation, Yeah, same thing, but her name
wasn't Mary, but it was literally the same thing where
she was like I hate her, blah blah blah. And
then finally I was like, Okay, the common denominator in
this lady story, of course, is her.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Most often us, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Who else could it be? Live in our lives? Right,
It's pretty much got to be us, especially if it's
a repeated If it's a repeated situation, it's definitely you.
Meaning doesn't mean the other person may not be acting
like a jerk. Maybe they are, but why are you
drawing that into your life multiple times? That is an
unhealed something in you. So I gave her these things
(35:46):
that I call the three Cues for Clarity. So these
three questions you can ask yourself anytime you're in a
repeated situation where you're like, how am I in another
relationship with another unavailable person or whatever it is? And
I said to her, so, of these these enemies you've had,
who do they remind you of? Where have you felt
like this before? And how are why is the way
(36:08):
you're interacting with them? Is it familiar to you? And
she was like, oh my god, this is so embarrassing,
just like my sister Beth. And I was like, tell
me more about Beth and this was what it was about.
And I promise you when we were done unpacking the
beth Arch enemy story, yeah, she did not have like that.
(36:30):
There was no more need because we can only talk
things out or act things out.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
So when she stopped, when she talked it out, she
was no longer compelled to act it out.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Now I'm going to repeat that one. This is you.
We have two options. We're talking it out or we're
acting it out. And this is this goes back to
I think the scene of the crime. Telling the truth
about your story. Once you and we talk about this
a lot on better together. Once you speak the truth,
the good thing is then you don't have to keep
got something about somebody else and why they did it
wrong for months and months and months. You are once
(37:05):
you tell the truth and you are witnessed. And I
think that is also a part of in the beauty
of therapy and the beauty of having a best friend.
Once you say the truth and you're not bullshitting yourself,
it becomes something you can look at and then make
a conscious choice about how you are going to organize
your emotion to activate the purpose of what it is
that you want to commit to. That's next and further,
(37:25):
and I just want to I just want to squeeze you.
These are the things that that we need. We need
so many reminders of. But when we're told what our
choices are, like listen, you're doing one or two things.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
You're acting it out.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Or you're doing it, I mean, you're you're telling the
truth about it. So it just is it just simplifies
for us so so much. I have to if I
can just if I can just bother you to talk
about the manipulative person you talk about sated, Oh my golly,
I mean I still want to get back to the
(37:58):
list of emotions we wanted to talk about the meditation.
At the end, you've given us the three cues. Everybody's
got to take the quizes. But I know for a
fact that when you start listening to Terry, you're going
to be able to organize yourself in terms of where
you are. When you listen to any of the stories
of the issues that she's talking about about where you
(38:20):
could have been and whether or not you went through
that same exact situation. I'll tell you what when you
talk about being emotionally manipulated. And again, this is part
of how we don't understand our boundaries, so we don't
know how to say no. Or she talks to you
on the quiz and says, hey, listen, when you're on
a first date and it's twenty minutes in and you
really don't like that person, what do you do? Do
(38:41):
you stay and have dinner anyway, or do you know,
get up and say, excuse me, I think I've just
where you What did you did you go in the
bathroom and just leave. Well know your answer. So of
course I said, he listen, it's probably not good for me,
but I'll see you later. You know, I don't you
go into the bathroom and leave it skip out? No, no,
you know I've suffered through dinner. You suffer through dinner.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
See.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
But so all of these things are helping to organize this.
I had been My patterning was so much so that
I got involved in being emotionally manipulated and every single thing.
I want to encourage our listeners to go on. If
there is a topic that you think that you're in
the midst of, that's and Terry, you've done over the
through those signs because I recognized a lot of the
(39:22):
emotional manipulations, the love Bob, the love moomb love that
word too. Can you talk about emotional manipulation? And of
course we're all we're talking about boundary boss, the Terry
calls book here and all of the different things that
are pathways into not understanding our boundaries and being emotionally
manipulated is not something that I recognized that somebody like.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
That's somebody burrowing into your boundaries without you quite realizing
that they are right.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yes, please please illuminate emotional and emotional manipulation sneaky. Yes,
the way that I.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Called it in the book, right, I talked about boundary destroyers.
So everything that I teach you in the book, even
about boundary bullies, is different because none of those rules
that I teach you how to have a proactive boundary conversation,
I give you a whole chapter of just scripts, none
(40:15):
of that really applies if you are dealing with a
master manipulator, could be narcissistic personality disorder or any of
the other untreated cluster b personality disorders, could be history
on it could be bipolar untreated though keep in mind
where if you go to them and are authentic and
are earnest and honest about how you feel, they will
(40:39):
for sure use it against you. So let's talk about
sort of the top manipulation tactics that we see that
people need to be aware of. So the two probably
most damaging. So we have love bombing, which a lot
of people are familiar with. That means that they pour
it on, you know, want to fly you to Paris
for dinner on like date three, can't wait to ask
(41:00):
you to go to a wedding in like twenty twenty eight,
like talking about the future, having the most amazing sex,
like everything is just so awesome, and it's like addicting.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Ok.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Sorry, but then you're moving into this accelerated timeline with
love bombing too. Usually that they're amping up the timeline like, well,
my lease is up and we're gonna move in. Like
it always makes me so nervous when clients are like,
it's amazing, I'm madly in love, I'm good on three
dates and we're getting engaged, and I'm like, hey, man,
(41:32):
pump the brakes, because if it's good on the third date,
it'll be good on the third week and the third month.
But if we're accelerating it so fast, it is being
driven by something other than love or lust. There is
a way of trying to grab you and sink their
teeth into you, which is what they're doing, So that's
love bombing. Another one is gaslighting, where someone who is
(41:57):
denying your reality, your lived experience. They will either bold
face lie to your face and be like I never
said that and I never said we would do that. No,
you misunderstood, or they'll use fake concern. Oh I'll be
one babe, I'm really I'm worried about you. I really am. Listen.
I wasn't going to say anything, but Bob said that
(42:19):
he's worried about you too.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Right, I mean right.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
I think we should cover one more thing, please please
the audience. This is a question I always get. Do
we have time?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Yes? When I have one more thing too?
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Okay, great, So how about you do your one more
thing because it might be the same thing.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
I really liked when you talked about body wisdom and
when when you step away from something to note how
you feel after the interaction. Can you talk just a
little bit about that, because I think that's something that
everybody can recognize within themselves to make a change.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Is that the same one?
Speaker 4 (42:53):
Yes? And here's the thing that was what I was
going to talk about. Yes, I swear to God. That's
so funny because everyone always asks how can I tell
when a boundary has been violated? Like how do I
know in the moment, because I'm always confused, like I
feel something, but I'm not sure. So when it comes
(43:13):
to decoding when a boundary has been crossed, and really
what you can do about it. You're going to dial
into your body and you may not be able to
do it in the moment, and that's okay. You can
eventually learn to. Because if you have a flight fight,
flight freeze, or fawn response because you feel threatened by
the boundary violation, you may not be able to handle
(43:33):
it in the moment, but I want you to think back.
You'll think back on something. So the possible signs that
a boundary has been crossed. You can have physical sensations
like a constriction in your chest, pain in your throat.
You might freeze right, you can't really talk in that moment,
vomit you want to vomit, maybe you actually vomit, gut
(43:54):
or head pain, accelerated heartbeat right where your heart now
is slamming, maybe your sweating. You might feel resentment, so
the emotional things that might come feel irritated, feel annoyed.
You might want to run away, so you want to
like shut down the conversation. You might feel sudden like
a flash of anger, you know, like where your face
(44:16):
will get hot for a second and then you just
sort of keep on going. Now, here's the thing with
what you do after you're going to start to and
you guys who are watching and listening, I want you
to start to take note of what happens in your
body and maybe you know right now, like with you guys,
what happens when a boundary gets crossed? Where do you
feel it physically?
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Well, are you asking me?
Speaker 3 (44:37):
But I can feel it in my in my chest,
in my like if.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I'm if I'm on a call, or if I'm treated
in a way that I don't speak out for myself,
I feel like a constriction.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
I know this because because I.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Do yep, I try very hard to not act on
my emotion until I can put some intelligence on it.
What happens to me when my boundaries are being crossed
is the egg. I go back to the original crime,
I go back to the crime scene and put that
person right there, and they want to kill them. I can't.
I can't. I can't stand it. And I also feel
(45:15):
the same exact way when I see somebody else's boundaries
being crossed and they don't have the understanding that we're
talking about knowing. I want to protect them like a mama.
But I'm a fighter. I don't like when somebody's being hurt,
and I don't like being hurt.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
So you get hot, indeed, yes, and you both know,
like your your body wisdom. Though you both know that
there's something that happens, then you can go back and
revisit it, because a lot of people think, oh I
missed my chance. I should have said something in the meeting.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Right, that's not so.
Speaker 4 (45:48):
There's no statute of limitations. I'm going back and being like, oh, hey, Bob,
remember the summer of seventy eight. Time I want to
talk about it. You can always do that. Right, there's
no state of limitation, and it's important. The last thing you, guys,
I want to say about this is that making a
boundary request telling the truth about what we experienced or
(46:09):
how we feel. It's not a lever to control others. Right.
Your human is in having the courage to negotiate for yourself.
Your healing is in acting in a way in your
life where you're saying what I think matters, how I
feel matters, what I want matters, and I'm going to
(46:31):
live my life that only people who agree with that
can be in the VIP section of my life. That's
well and have close access to me. Because if you
do not think that what I think and how I
feel and what I want matters, then you do not
belong your general admission only for those mother efforts.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
That's right, I mean find your own crew. Well. Also,
what you're doing is repatterning yourself, so you're taking away
the parental patterning. You're saying, Okay, now I recognize my behavior.
I can look back at that. That's part of why
we don't want to build the resentment thing over the
pool of resentment over years and years, because then you're like, wait,
Bob in seventy eight. So if weep, if we keep
up to it and are encouraged to say, look, yes
(47:09):
you walked away from dinner. But when you recognize that,
what happens is the next time you go into a
situation like that, because you brought your story forth, so
then you're telling it, you're not acting it out, and
then get Then when you go back into that situation,
you're reconditioning yourself to be aware. You go, oh, oh,
I'm starting to get hot right here? What am I feeling?
Let me take a step back. I'm gonna be intelligent
(47:30):
about this. I'm gonna go use the restroom for a second,
come back, take a breath, and go. I don't want
to have to remember this in a week. I want
to activate this now because I do matter, because the
people around me matter, because I've made the choice to
say your a VIP sectionally, I really like that. I
want everybody to be encouraged. This is so amazing to
have had you on here, encourage you to be surrounded
(47:52):
by only the VIPs.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
I just want to say. It reminds me a little
bit of what we learned a couple of weeks ago
with doctor Martha Beck told us, don't ever let somebody
treat you in a way that you wouldn't treat them,
don't I think he has a back.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
Boundaries.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yes, yeah, so can we just say thank you and
everybody has she goes go and do the cool Liz
we d no, but I think it would because all
day go.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
I know. But but if you did, if you did
before the four breaths with us before we go, I think,
you know, we're going to end with with your two
minute meditation. But the thing that you do with four
breaths is so easy for us all to do now.
And as a matter of fact, I told my son,
who's a pitcher, a high school pitcher, and he, you know,
in the middle, he turns around on the mound and
(48:46):
can do this and it's just very simp because it's
sixteen exactly, So can you take us through that?
Speaker 2 (48:52):
To close us out?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
I shoke him, close your eyes and we're just going
to breathe in for account of four go one two
three for now hold two three for exhale two three
for hold it out two three four.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Amen, hallelia, Terry Cole, you are a master. I am.
I am so honored to have shared this hour with you,
and I feel our guests are so are so lucky.
We're so lucky. Everybody. Go listen to Terry Cole. Please
get her book, The Boundary Boss, and go take that.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
And Terrycole dot com. Is that where we find you?
Speaker 4 (49:38):
Yes, and Boundary quiz dot com and they can get
all kinds of bonuses at boundarybossbook dot com. And if
you want to check out my Mastermind, go to Terry
Cole dot com. Forward slash.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
I want us to go sign up, well, I mean
I wanted us to go sign up for you know this,
this flourish, this flourish, It would be such an incredible
but such an incredible intensive with you. I thank you
so much. You have made us better to Dave, Terry
call God bless you.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Amen have a terrific debtor together with Terry Cool, thank you.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
We're better begat.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Listen and there's so much to take away from this show.
I feel like listening back to it to under that
was a good one. I think Terry is just a
master of wisdom about how we make changes in our lives,
telling our truth about ours, about understanding where we are
and being present in it. I mean, just understanding our
(50:30):
body language, understanding which has to do with our boundaries,
understanding what what creates the patterning of of our initiative
to not have boundaries. It just and she puts everything
into such simple takeaways, wonderful, helpful solution.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
There's just a lot of ways how I feel after interactions.
I mean, it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
You guys all know it.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
So I mean that this is one that I'm going
to listen to it back myself. Yes, And there's a
lot more nuggets on her website, and we're going to
leave at the end of this. One of her two
minute meditations. She recommends that you meditate in the morning
and at night. You know, I'm not a very good meditator.
I don't like I can do so very long. I
can do two minutes, and I did this two minute
meditation and it's really great.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Okay, well, then that's a challenge. That's how we're going
to activate our purpose on this one.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
We can do two minutes.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
We are asking ourselves to set boundaries for ourselves, understand
and recognize, and part of that is in thinking and
contemplating and being still with ourselves. And that's why this
meditation is going to be so helpful, and I will
challenge you and myself to do it this week. Everybody
had a great and great week.
Speaker 4 (51:31):
Sure well, hello and welcome to this week's tune up tip,
which is a summer meditation for my heart te yours.
So I'm going to ask you to sit down, jelly,
close your eyes, turn your phone off first, of course,
unless you're watching this on your phone. I let's start
by taking a couple of deep breaths, breathing in through
your nose and exhiling through your mouth. Do this a
(51:56):
few more times, and we're going to start with the
full body relaxation. From the top of your head. I
want you to see a beautiful amethyst light. This is
a protective light. Moving from above to below. See this
light behind your eyes relaxing all of the muscles around
your eyes, moving into your jaw muscles releasing. See and
(52:16):
feel this light moving into your neck muscles, relaxing your
shoulder muscles. If you need to drop your shoulders, do it.
If you need to roll your neck a little bit,
do that. Feel those muscles releasing. And now I want
you to see and feel this light moving into your
biceps and your triceps, your elbows, your forms, your wrists,
all the way down to your hands and your fingers.
(52:37):
Feel this relaxing light movement to the back of your body,
relaxing your upper back, releasing your middle back, relaxing your
lower back, in your buttocks. And now you feel the
warmth of this light and moving into the front of
your body, relaxing the big muscles of your chest, your
side body, your obliques. And now you see this light
pouring into your entire torso, illuminating all of your internal
(52:59):
organs as well, detoxifying and relaxing. And now you see
and feel this light moving into your hips, relaxing the
big muscles of your thighs, your hamstrings, your knees, your shins,
your calves, your ankles all the way down to your
feet and your toes, And now your entire body, from
the top of your head to the tips of your
toes is completely and totally relaxed. And now I'm going
(53:23):
to ask you to conjure the feelings of summer right
in the middle of your chest. Think about all of
the things that you love about the summertime, and allow
yourself to go there. So do you love the beach.
I want you to see yourself on the beach. Do
you love watermelon? Do you love all corn and all
(53:44):
the foods that we get to eat during the summer.
The bounty is so rich during the summer, and depending
on where you live, depends on what is local to eat,
but look for it because it's amazing. Feel that feeling
of expansion that you get to feel on a summer day.
If you're somewhere at a lake, or you're somewhere at
(54:04):
the beach, and even if right now you're just sitting
in your office, I'm going to ask you to conjure
that feeling right in the middle of your chest, expansion
and relaxation. Now I'm going to ask you to take
two more deep breaths I'm going to count backwards from
(54:31):
ten to one. Ten nine you're feeling rested and relaxed.
Eight seven feeling incredibly grateful. Six five feeling regrouped and renewed.
Four three feeling ready for what's next. Two one. So
just stretch your hands and rock your feet and give
yourself a nice, big, full body stretch and welcome back.
(54:56):
I hope that you use this little meditation whenever you
need to get away, whenever you need to feel that
feeling of rest, relaxation and expansion. I hope you have
an amazing week and as always, take care of you.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
And a big, big thanks to our Better Together team,
Ryan Tillotson, Silvana Alcohola, Daniel Ferrara and of course an
In Heather. If you haven't already, please subscribe on whatever
device or platform you're listening to this on and as always,
see you next week
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