Terri Cole on Breaking Free From High-Functioning Codependency EP 520

28:50If you did know, what would it be? Because here's the thing. Nobody knows more than you what you should do in your life. And even if you don't know right now, it will come to you. And I'm here with you in the foxhole, not trying to fix you, not treating you like you're a project of mine that I could fix so that I could get on with my day and not be stressed out about your stress, which is what it is. I can't tolerate your feelings. I'm going to fix you so that my feelings are the way I want them to be. Everything running smooth. One of the things I picked up as I was going through the book was this whole concept of narcissism that's tied into HFCs.

29:33and why is it that those who are HFC are drawn to narcissists? What's the root cause of this attraction and how can people break this cycle? It's a great question because it's such a painful trap to get snared in and it is very hard to extricate yourself and of course you can. But why the irresistible, this seductive pairing between the HFC and the narcissist? Because a narcissist says, this is all going to be about me, babe. This is all about me. And the HFC says, great. Can't wait to make it all about you. I will move heaven and earth to get your needs met. Because that's what makes me feel comfortable.

30:26you're happy but it only lasts for soon sooner or later the cycle becomes too much but it makes sense like they it's like a it's like a perfect hand in glove and you have to be aware of what is being provoked in you if you are this uber caregiving if you are this hyper helper so to speak if you're the person who always gets things done you're so efficient the narcissist loves it you're getting things done for them you're focusing on their life you're focusing on what they want and their feelings and while they're pleased with you that works great for everybody but they won't stay pleased with you because that's the nature of narcissism if they really are have narcissistic personality disorder that they will need more supply now they get supply is through provoking you to have any kind of feelings, but mostly upset feelings, right?

31:26There's a power in that for them. So you go through the cycle. Everything is amazing. And then something happens and then it starts going away. And then there's the discard of the cycle where usually either they're always threatening to end the relationship or they actually do end the relationship. And then sometimes take up with your sister or I mean, like it's just so bad, but you can heal from it yourself, right? But we have to get out of those because you really, when you're talking about a narcissistic relationship job, we're talking about an abusive, at the very least, an emotionally abusive relationship.

32:03Absolutely. I think there's also some correlation between narcissists and high achievers in some sense. Oh, absolutely. I mean, statistics tell us, you know, that how much of the time narcissists the internet would make you think narcissists were super easy to point out I'm going to say not true in that if you spend time with someone yes but you could have a parent who's a narcissist and your friends are like oh my god man you're so lucky your mom is so cool you're like not really not cool to me why does my mother want to be friends with my friends why is my mother flirting with my boyfriend when I'm 16.

32:46Why does my mother want to wear white to my wedding? That's Ida Klein. Her narcissistic mother was insisting that she was going to wear white to her daughter's wedding. Wow, just as low as you can go. But again, from the outside, there's no sign on someone's back that says, I'm a narc, right? That's not there. So I think that we want to be aware, your question was either how can people get out of these relationships, but even better, how can we stop them before we get trapped? And I think that one really good way of doing it is, first of all, slow them. Because if you are with a narcissist, they are going to be accelerating the crap out of that lunatic timeline.

33:26They're going to be talking to you. It'll be date three. They'll be talking about taking a vacation in a year from now with you. All this future pacing to make you go, oh my gosh, they're really serious about it. They really need it. While they're love bombing the crap out of you, which is telling you how amazing you are. Sex is awesome. Amazing gifts. They're sweeping you off your feet. That's the beginning. And that's the part that people get addicted to because it feels so good until it doesn't. So my thought is the timeline needs to be at your pleasure. You have to decide. If you have plans with your friends, don't change your plan.

34:09If you want to push back to see how this person is who seems so, so wonderful, and they make a plan for Friday night and you say, hey, you know what? I know you made reservations for Italian, but I really would like Japanese Friday nights. Let's see if their thin ego can tolerate that. And my professional guess is going to be that they're going to be so pissed that you are messing up their perfect plan that they had, that how entitled you are, how ungrateful you are. they may be able to hide it in the beginning, but they won't be able to forever. So part of it is, if it feels too good to be true, it is.

34:45And if someone in two weeks is talking about moving in with you, put the brakes on, is what I say, because they will reveal themselves. If you push back up against them at all, they will reveal themselves. But you have to know, in Boundary Boss, they will the whole entire chapter on the manipulation tactics of boundary destroyers, I call them. And that includes narcissistic personality disorder and any other question of personality disorder, where all the manipulation tactics of faux concern, gaslighting, where they'll be like, John, I'm really worried about you. And I wasn't going to say anything, but Bob also said, he thinks you're going off the rails, right?

35:28Planting these seeds of doubt. I mean, it's really scary to be involved with someone like that. So trust your gut instinct. And the real key is to slow down. Because if you slow it down, they are love bombing you and a narcissist, they're going to be pissed. And it's going to be obvious. So at your pleasure, right, you decide how quickly you go, whether it's sexually, whether it's emotionally, how many do we want to see this person? Terry, I don't even know if you knew this. I'm glad you brought up the Boundary Destroyer because it was one of my favorite chapters of that last book. I liked it so much that I actually incorporated you and that concept into my own book.

36:12I have this chapter that I call the Mosquito Auditor and I talk about, you've got to identify different mosquitoes who are invisible influences, which is something that you talk about in Boundary Boss, those influences who consciously or unconsciously are disrupting your flow through life. And the first one I identify is the bloodsucker who is really that boundary destroyer. So I love that concept. And another thing that I loved about your first book that you're bringing into this one is exploring blueprints. In Boundary Boss, you called it boundary blueprints, but you're also doing the same thing in this book.

36:56And I'm going to introduce this question this way. In the book, you introduce a quote by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. And what you write about this is what we remain unaware of can most definitely hurt us and impact the trajectory of our lives. So if you don't have this HFC blueprint, which is basically an architecture, how does, I guess I'll ask it this way, how does creating, what is this blueprint and how does creating this architecture help you to get over the deeply ingrained beliefs, values, ideas, behaviors that are based on everything from our childhood experiences to culture, religion, community, gender, race, et cetera?

37:49Well, part of it is this is a relational blueprint, right? I had a certain bunch of concepts that I created in my 27 year career that are like core concepts. Now, we're using this concept of blueprint, but we're seeing it through the lens of relational patterns and issues. So we learned this from childhood. We looked at the adults in our life and how they related, right? So what we're actually doing when we are uncovering your relational blueprint, it's already there, right? It's in your unconscious mind. What we're doing through the process and questions that I'm providing for you and the sort of looking back to look forward is letting you see, oh, this is where I learned that to be a good wife or partner, I must be completely self-sacrificed.

38:38We start seeing the things that make sense. you have to understand what your beliefs are currently which requires us to bring them from the basement the unconscious mind to the main part of the house the conscious mind then we can actually change them so we're changing our blueprints by becoming aware of why we relate in our relationships platonic professional and otherwise the way that we do so that's really what the blueprint will dear for you. You answer the questions and then you get clarity like, oh my gosh, I did not realize I was repeating my parents' relationship here or that I saw this and that's why I'm doing it or my culture taught me that this was the right way to be.

39:24If we look at women in particular, there's this whole self-sacrificial thing that is really celebrated in our society, right? If like Betty is someone who would give the shirt off her back to anybody, they're like, you'd love her. I'm like, would I? Or would I think that Betty should keep her frigging shirt on? That's probably what I think. Because not everyone deserves that. And that level of self-sacrificing isn't healthy. So that's where the blueprint comes in. You answer a bunch of questions, get clarity on how you're relating now. then we can consciously choose to relate differently. So I just have to bring up one of your heroes because what you were just talking about is what Dr.

40:14Harriet Lerner calls an emotional service station, which I had never really heard that term before, but I love it. And what it really means is what you were describing is you become this person that everyone in your life comes to you, you fill them up with all this goodness and energy and then you keep rinse, repeat, do it again, but you're not getting it back from anyone. And the thing that I liked when you were talking about this is that if a person is in this cycle, they need to do a radical, and I love this term, radical move to break the cycle. What are some initial steps a person who finds themselves in that cycle can do to break that cycle?

41:01I think the first one is to not beat yourself up if you discover this about yourself. Really get radically curious, speaking of being radical, about why you lie this way. That your heart is in the right place and that you can make next right action, then the next right action is how you're going to change this thing. So first of all, start with having lots of self-compassion. who want to start looking at the self-consideration in our life. It's almost a whole chapter that I'm writing about, which I call it self-consideration because I think it's different than self-love, which I feel like is just used to death on the interwebs and no one even knows what it means.

41:44And self-care just sounds like a mani-pedi. Where self-consideration is really us not automatically saying yes or jumping in to all these situations that we insert ourselves into. Self-consideration is us slowing down and saying, do I have the bandwidth to help John with his project? Let me think about it. Telling you, I need to think about it. Getting back to you and saying, you know what, I actually don't have the bandwidth to help you with it, but I'd be happy to read it when you're done and give you my two cents then, or whatever it is. But most of the time when you're in HXC, you're just doing it.

42:21So what you have to do is raise your awareness about your specific behaviors. And how do we know where our behaviors need to change? Well, you can do a resentment inventory where you're really looking at, who am I just off at in my life? Who do I feel underappreciated by? Who do I feel a little taken advantage of? That's usually where you're overboding, whether they've asked you to or not. Sometimes people do, sometimes they don't. We need to set better boundaries, set limits with people. Allow yourself to not give anyone an automatic yes to anything. You have a right to think about how you feel.

43:08And not wanting to do something is honestly a completely legitimate reason not to do it. you have to think about other people's lives. Now Robin has this great thing that she talks about. It's called let them, right? And my take on it is slightly different, but it's when you think about wanting to control your adult child's life, you have to, in your mind, say, let them do what they're going to do. Let them live. Now it's an illusion of control, right? That you're quote unquote letting them because reality check is you're actually not. But there's like a relief to your nervous system. what you're really saying is that isn't my situation.

43:51I'm going to get back on my own side of the street. I'm here if they want to talk, but I'm not going to insert myself as the answer. Because when we do that, how do other people grow? The same way that we grow. They need to thrive. They need to fail. They need to do whatever it is they're doing and be loved through it. they don't need you to stop them from making mistakes because as my therapist told me many years ago you don't know what they need to learn in this lifetime and how they're going to do it so i think slowing down the impulsive nature of this affliction can be really helped by having a dedicated meditation practice, questioning like what you're doing in the moment, slowing down, listening to your body.

44:46And when it comes to the people in your life that you feel bad that you're not quote unquote fixing, become an empathic listener, right? We can be with people. We can love them. It's harder and way more loving. For me to say to you, John, how can I best deploy you right now? Tell me. And then for me to do that, instead of me being like, John, you know what you need to do? You need to just call this person. I already got you a lawyer. I'm doing X, Y, and Z because I want it off my plate. That doesn't feel good, does it? So for those who are listening, Carrie just talked about three important concepts.

45:27One is that we need to make self-consideration the new self-care. She talked about taking a resentment inventory and how it's so important to do that inventory to break unhealthy patterns. And then lastly, she brought up the let them strategy and how it can help us navigate relationships more effectively. And I've had to employ that myself, my two kids. And I guess I have tried to parent differently than my parents parented me, which was basically by trying to micromanage my life. And what I've tried to do with my kids is I feel like having them make mistakes earlier in life is a much better way to learn than micromanaging them to the point that when they're making fatal mistakes in life, it's when they have huge consequences.

46:18Well, another thing that you bring up, Terry, is this concept of living life light. Can you explain what that is? Because I think it goes into perhaps what we were talking about with the blueprint, but I'm hoping you could expand upon it. Sure. I came up with this conflict because I was seeing the level of preoccupation in my clients who are high-functioning codependents and my own level of preoccupation when I was actively before I got into recovery. the preoccupation we have with other people's feelings trying to control situations that aren't ours being in conversations but we're really not that present in the conversation because we're trying to control the conversation we don't want it to go a certain way we're very dialed into our surroundings so i'd be talking to someone i always felt like i could do both very well but probably that's not accurate.

47:17So life light means that when your mind is constantly ruminating about other things, when we're constantly thinking about other people and the pain that they're in and the things that they're doing, what we need to do for them, we're not fully experiencing our own lives. We're only half present. It's very similar to how I hear about the younger generation that is always connected to their phones. You're watching a movie, but you're also on your phone. That movie is going to hit different because you did not give it your undivided attention. And this is the same thing. Like we're splitting our attention when you're an active HFC, where you're just, your mind is always thinking of something else.

48:06And your present moment consciousness is almost not existent. Because it's always on to the next. What is the next thing to handle? What is the next thing I need to do? Everything. And it really takes away a lot of the juiciness and the joy in life. It really does. Terry, I thought a way that we could maybe make this come to life for people and use this as a practical exercise is throughout the book, the way you write it is you tell different stories. You then have different activities and exercises people can do. You provide examples, et cetera. But one of the personal stories that you talk about, in addition to the one that we brought up with Billy, was someone named Andrea, who is this highly successful lawyer.

48:59And let's just say they could be a highly successful doctor or a business person or actor and actress or whatever you want it to be. But in her case, this, her life ends up leading to tons of stress and she ends up having a panic attack, which I think many of us can feel what that's because we've been there. What is it about high functioning codependents like Andrea that makes it so reluctant to recognize their needs? And I was hoping maybe through Andrea, because people I think can relate to her, maybe you can walk them through. If you're feeling like Andrea was, what are some immediate exercises that they could do?

49:41So for Andrea, she was like the queen of managing stress, supposedly, because she had such a busy work 60 hours a week. There was all these things. She had young kids. She was like the center of her friend's group. She did all the things. and she ended up and she was helping her babysitter, her nanny, with something. After a long day, her assistant was out. There was all of these things that was like piling up and piling up and she ends up trying to counsel her babysitter about her boyfriend who she did like stepped out on her and all of a sudden she felt like there was an elephant sitting on her chest.

50:17So she ends up, when I finally see her the next week, because she canceled last minute the week before, which is super unlike her. She was so frigging organized and would come in literally with talking points to therapy. She patted together and I asked the idea what happened. And she didn't believe it. She said, I was definitely having a heart attack. And they told me it was a panic attack. And I was like, but Andrea, EKG, you just told me the EKG said you were not having a heart attack. And it was so painful for her to recognize that it was too much. what she was doing was too much and even though she denied it in her mind the wisdom of her body right her body was telling another story that it is too much and i cannot go at this pace and i need to rest and i see with a lot of hfcs we can do that in our 20s and maybe even into your early 30s but as age happens your band you really need to conserve your bandwidth but then be pouring into yourself.

51:18So with Andrea, once we got her to a place of acceptance, of wow, that really is what happened. We started adding all of these things into her life that she would never have done before. Meditating was one of the ones. And for a lot of my clients, meditation was hard. So what I started doing long before I was a meditation teacher, long before I had meditation CDs, I would just spontaneously do it in the office so that, and then they would put it on their phone and then they would have that. So I was always doing guided meditations, custom for my clients in the office to whatever they were going through.

51:59So that was the beginning for her to feel like she could do it. I purposefully in my office created what I called a zeng den, little lights and lavender smell and candles so that I wanted my clients just be. You can create this in your life too, right? It doesn't all have to be this fast pace. So that was the beginning for her was learning to meditate and also starting to, we did a whole thing about her marriage and her business, all of the things that she was doing and came up with ideas of what are things that she could not do? What are things that she's outgrown doing? What are things that make no sense that she's still the person doing them when she was high up in, you know, in her law firm?

52:47And so that was a very eye-opening experience. I don't know if I even wrote that in the book, but that was one of the things that we did do that was helpful for her. And she started looking at self-consideration from a completely different lens of that it was going to have her be better for her children in her marriage. It's not about being more efficient. When you are in recovery for being a high functioning codependent, what you're gaining is being more present right here, right now, because this moment that we're sharing right now is the only one that we're actually guaranteed we're going to get.

53:28So all of this future pacing and all of this future living doesn't help. So we were able to help Andrea slow down enough to actually be here now. Thank you for sharing that story. And as a person, as a fellow host, one of the things that means the most to me is when I hear listeners write in. And so I just wanted to highlight this one from your book because I love how you incorporated in the book. The listener's name is Carla, a self-identified recovering HFC who wanted to share her story with you. And she said that she was at their daughter's wedding and her husband ends up having this frightening outburst during a time meant for joy and driven by recent insights into her own behavior from listening to your podcast and reading your book, she recognized the need to respond thoughtfully.

54:29She broke her old habits of impulsively excusing his actions, and she took the time to compose herself and then basically went to him and outlined her non-negotiable boundaries, which was he needed to seek counseling, re-engage with the church, and build a supportive network. And if he failed to do those, she was no longer willing to accept his actions. And I think it's an empowerful example that kind of wraps up today's episode because she recognized she was an HFC. She recognized that she needed to establish boundaries. One thing I liked about it is she took the time to step away from it, to organize her thoughts on how she wanted to deal with the situation, which she knew could be delicate.

55:16but then she firmly put in place what her boundaries were and the ramifications for him if he didn't accept them. So I really appreciated that story. It just warms my heart to hear people negotiating for their own needs in a way that feels empowering to them. You don't have to be mad. You don't have to flip out. It's just powerful to know what you are no longer tolerating. It feels good to be able to say, hey, we could work this out, but this is what's required of you. And then if he doesn't do it, that's on his side of the street. And Terry, my last question for you is, you've put a ton of effort, as you always do when you're writing one of these books, to get too much into the world.

56:04What is one key thing that you hope a reader or a listener of today's podcast will take away if they don't take away anything else? you can change your life. If you identify being exhausted, you feel burnt out, if you're over-giving, over-feeling, over-functioning in your relationships, you've got to give all this responsibility. You can change how you are relating and that will change your life. There is so much more joy, expansion, surrender, allowing people to do things for you in your life instead of being so hyper-independent, which is what HFC is tend to be, but just have hope that one next red action at a time, you can do it.

56:51In fact, I have a gift for your audience. It's just like an HFC toolkit to help people who want to get started, they're not exactly sure how to do it. You just go to terrycola.com forward slash HFC and it's an HFC starter kit, basically. That's awesome. And I always like to end these by giving you other opportunities to talk about where people can find you and other things that you're doing that a listener should be aware of. So the book is in the world as of today. So that's extremely exciting. You can go to hfcbook.com and we have all kinds of beautiful bonuses that we are giving to people. If you're in New York City, we're having a party tonight.

57:33Be welcome to come. It's actually in New York and you can see all of that on my website. I have a community, again, on our website, where I'm walking so many people through this process of getting into recovery from this affliction because it robs so much of our joy. You can follow me on Instagram, just at Terry Cole. And you've been on my show. I also have a pod since 2015 called The Terry Cole Show. Well, Terry, always such an honor to have you on the show. And thank you so much for joining us. And congratulations on this extremely well-written book. I can't wait to see this. And it's already number one on Amazon.

58:14So congratulations to you. Thank you so much for having me, John. I appreciate you. Wow, what an incredible conversation that was with Terry Cole. Her expertise on breaking free from high-functioning codependencies, absolutely life-changing. Whether it's learning how to set healthier boundaries or recognizing when we've taken on too much, her insights are invaluable. It was great having Terry back on the show. If you loved her advice in episode 287, I'm sure today's conversation has resonated just as deeply. One of the key takeaways from this episode is that it's okay to say no and prioritize your own well-being.

58:45So I want to leave you with this. What's one area of your life where you've been overextending yourself? How can you start setting boundaries today that allow you to reclaim your energy and sense of self? If today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please take a moment to leave us a five-star rating and review. It helps us continue bringing these important conversations to you. And if you know someone who could benefit from Terry's message, share this episode with them. A simple conversation can spark profound change. You can find links to everything we discussed today, including Terry's book, Too Much, in the show notes at passionstruck.com.

59:18Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Videos of this episode are also available on YouTube. And don't forget to check out our sponsors and deals at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Before we close, I want to remind you that beyond hosting the podcast, I'm passionate about sharing these insights with organizations and teams through speaking engagements. If today's conversation sparks something in you and you think my message could inspire your company, head over to johnrmiles.com slash speaking to learn more.

59:47Let's work together to create intentional change and ignite growth. In our next episode, get ready for an incredible conversation with Art Markman, a renowned professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas. We'll be exploring the science of decision-making, creativity, and how to cultivate a growth mindset. It's an episode you don't want to miss. People have asked me, in this age of generative AI and all of these tools, is a college education going to become less important? My argument is it actually becomes more important in a dynamic environment. And that's because what a college education, a four-year degree program, really does is to give people a discipline for thinking.

1:00:25And we often throw around this word discipline. We say, well, what are the disciplines? History or English or chemistry or biology. These are disciplines. And we don't often take that word seriously. But a discipline is a way of giving yourself a mode for understanding the complexity of the world, turning it into something that is ultimately manageable by having a way of analyzing what's going on around you, asking questions of the world to provide you with more information and giving you a framework in which to learn new things. And as always, the fee for the show is simple. If you found value in today's episode, share it with someone who could benefit from it.

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