Set Boundaries Like A Boss with Terri Cole

Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.

Susie Moore:

Terri Cole is a psychotherapist and relationship expert. She's host of the podcast, the Teko Show, and author of Boundary Boss. Boundary Boss will show you how to authentically express your preferences, needs and limits so that you can live the happy, healthy life that you deserve. I can't wait for you to hear what we dive into.

Susie Moore:

Terri Cole, boundary Boss, the book of the summer. Can I just say that I'm wearing my boss Blazer for you today?

Terri Cole:

Thank you.

Susie Moore:

Do you like it? Boundary Boss? What a book. I mean, I have a lot of questions since reading your book and I just want to dive straight in with you. We are just going to go straight for it. And the first thing I love, Terri, how you kick off the book is explaining boundaries in a way I've never heard it before and I love boundaries. I'm obsessed with getting better at them. I think you can always get a bit better no matter what, but you say it in a way that's just so clear and fantastic. You say often unhealthy boundaries are rooted in a confusion about what's actually your responsibility. For example, we may think that someone else's distress or conflict is odds to fix, when in fact their emotional experience and problems are definitely theirs to deal with. That's their side of the street. This book is all about your side of the street. Could you speak to that a little bit, Terry, as we open up here, that unhealthy boundaries can just be really surrounding some confusion about what's appropriate and okay for us?

Terri Cole:

Yes. I think that, let's start with how I define them because I feel like that's easier because it can be so overwhelming. It is so confusing. We feel like, oh, there's so many things and I just have to get good boundaries. But what does that even mean? So the way that I look at it is that you becoming a boundary boss means that you know your preferences, your desires, your limits, and your deal breakers, and you have the ability to communicate them clearly and concisely when you so choose

Susie Moore:

This. It's simple and sometimes the most important things are simple, but we overcomplicate them, don't we?

Terri Cole:

Because we don't want to do 'em.

Susie Moore:

Yes, exactly. We don't want to do them. We're scared to do them. We want to be nice. We want to be liked. I know this is particularly true for women and in your book you're so open about your own experiences with boundaries. You speak about becoming sober in your early twenties. You speak about how a lack of boundaries contributed to a health diagnosis that you had also earlier in life. How has your personal experience plus your years and years with working as a therapist with the work that you do, how has your personal experience really shaped this book and the way that you teach boundaries?

Terri Cole:

I mean, listen, it's what everyone says. You teach what you most need to learn. So I teach about boundaries because learning them was revolutionary in my life, in lessening my suffering, my constriction, my conflict, my confusion, my over-functioning, overgiving, overdoing, auto advice giving. I could keep going because I thought that was being loving. And I think that so much of the time why I feel uniquely skilled to teach this is that it isn't just my journey. It's my journey In the 25 years in the trenches with my therapy clients where I went from being a talent agent, negotiating contracts for supermodels, for celebrities. Now clearly that's not entertainment, no offense, but not exactly a hotbed of mental health and the most blurred boundaries because it's a business where you become friends. We were all young, it was the same age. It was like, oh my God, I'm definitely not going to learn this here.

But I was in therapy that whole time. Then I kind of got too healthy to stay in entertainment and I was like, there's got to be something better I could be doing with my life for me, something more satisfying. When I opened my practice, I had already done a lot of work on my own boundaries and was starting to really, really understand the impact. And then I started seeing clients and I was like, oh my God, this is a complete epidemic that every person who walked through my door, many of them women, high functioning women, very similar to my personality, my life experience, super ambitious, incredibly capable, no matter what their presenting problem was, whether it was a crappy marriage or their family of origin was torturing them or they had an eating disorder. I could connect the dots backwards to it being connected to the lack of knowledge about how to set boundaries and enforce them.

And the subtitle of the book is The Essential Guide to Talk True, be Seen, and Finally Live Free. And that's part of the problem is that most of us were raised and praised for being self abandoning codependence as women. If you were raised as a woman, it was being nice. Having people perceive you as nice was literally at least how I was raised, the highest virtue. You just wanted people to think you were nice. So in a way that stewarded our relationship to the truth because it was more acceptable to say yes when I wanted to say no under the umbrella of being nice. We don't want to be rude, we don't want to be rejecting. And yet what we learned was all of this corrupted data about our rights. I mean, one of the first things I do in the book is I created your Boundary Boss Bill of Rights because nobody has any idea.

Susie Moore:

Can I read these, Terri? These are fantastic, and there's one in particular that's my favorite. Great. I'm not sure if you have a favorite one, Terry, but I love them all simple and fantastic. You have the right to say no or yes to others without feeling guilty. You have the right to make mistakes to course correct or to change your mind. Gosh, you never feel that way. You have the right to negotiate for your preferences, desires, and needs. You have the right to express and honor all of your feelings if you choose. You have the right to voice your opinion, even if others disagree. You have the right to be treated with respect, consideration, and care. This is my favorite one. You have the right to determine who has the privilege of being in your life. That one's highlighted right there. You have the right to communicate your boundaries, limits and deal breakers. You have the right to prioritize your self-care without feeling selfish. You have the right to, as you just said, talk through, be seen live free. Terri, how does it work when it comes to internal boundaries with the self, setting them for yourself, trust with yourself and boundaries with others? Does there have to be a particular order? Does the self have to come first? Does the outside tend to take priority?

Terri Cole:

Well, we want to focus on the outside. It's very tempting to be like Betty, that boundary bullying in my office. I can't wait. People start learning about boundaries and they're dying to grab the megaphone and be like, everybody, we need to talk. There's a

Susie Moore:

New, and this is so funny. It's so funny. You want to go up and tell Bob, an accounting is weird. Comments aren't appropriate. This book is so funny too.

Terri Cole:

I feel like we have to laugh. It's like this is life. We're doing the thing that we got to do, but we've got to find the humor. And because we all have such a similar experience, listen, this isn't me assuming this. This is me knowing it. I've also been teaching this as a course. So I beta tested all of this as a course for five years. So every single year I changed it. So by the time I was ready to write this book, I was like, this is what is essential.

No other crap. Even if the story is great and hysterical, even if I think this is a really good idea for something, I really just got it down to what do you need? What are the step by step process? What is it that the reader can take if they only have this book, they have no other thing. They have no access to me, they're not taking a course. Can you become a boundary boss? And keep in mind when I say boundary boss, the name of the book is not Boundary bully, right? It's Boundary Boss. Because when you're an actual boss, like your jacket, you're masterful. You can do this shit with ease and grace with kindness. And when appropriate love, you don't need to use a sledgehammer when a little pencil eraser will do. You learn these things where it's so easy to walk around offended when you don't have the skills to speak up, to prioritize your preference, to assert your needs, your desires to share the way you feel.

We get so externally focused. I'm like, wow, Betty's got some frigging nerve, right? It's all about, I can't believe they're asking me. Oh my God. Do you know Kate Northrop? Yes, I do. Yeah, we're going to the beach together tomorrow. Of course you are, because Hi, she's down there now. That's right. So we were doing a live for her community a while ago, and she told this story I totally forgot. So 15 years ago, we were in the city together walking, and she was complaining about this person who was asking her to do this thing. And she's so mad, she's so pissed. She's done so much for this person already. She just doesn't understand it. I let her 15 blocks, apparently, I let her go, go, go, go, go. And then we get there. And I was like, yeah, Kate, she's got some nerve putting you in the position to have to actually say no.

And she was like, oh my God, Terry, you're right. I could just say no. I was like, could. She was like, I'm going to. I was like, all right. But it's almost like the thought, because we're so many of us conflict averse, we don't want to reject people. We don't want people to think we're a bitch. All the things. It's like we're focusing on, well, if Betty just hadn't asked, I wouldn't be put in this position. And we feel so not masterful in that position that it makes us so mad. What ends up happening as you do what I teach you to do in this book, one small step at a time, because this is actually how transformation happens. You may have a massive epiphany. People, do I have what life is made up of though? The day to day, the every moment, the mundane crap that makes you crazy.

That is our day-to-Day lives with peak experiences in between. Amazing. But so think of the changes that you'll make in established relationships because this is challenging and different than starting a relationship where you can get better at boundaries and then be proactive. When we've been doing a boundary dance that's established for a decade or two or 10, five, whatever, that's a different approach. But imagine that you can do this, and I am getting back to the internal boundaries question. Don't you worry, I have not forgotten. This is just the longest way around the barn. I love this. Yes.

So step by step, that is the process, right? Little changes. Because when we change our boundary dance, which is like the relationship dance, people are going to frigging notice. People are going to feel threatened. People who love you don't want you to change because unconsciously they're afraid if you change, maybe you'll no longer want them, you may not love them anymore. Maybe you're now not in the same kind of little pack. It's fear. As humans, we have an innate fear of change, and some people have more than others, but when you really think about it, same thing with success, with what you do with, I always say success and failure or two sides of the same coin, right? Fear of success and fear of failure. And that coin is fear of change. What if I become so successful and out earn my person? Are they still going to love me?

Is this going to change the relationship? What if I fail? Am I going to be rejected? So again, change is the thing we're afraid of. So we're going to be coming up against this as we change our boundary dances and how we prioritize our preferences and how we talk. True people will definitely notice. Anyway, back to internal boundaries. These are things that it's most helpful if we get clear. And so the way that I do it in the book and the way that I walk you through the process, and we can think about it now, is listen, if you are here watching this right now, if you are a boundary disaster, a boundary semi disaster, a people pleaser, if you are a chameleon, if you are a peacekeeper, you know this about yourself. Now I created a quiz that's free. You just go to boundary quiz.com and there's 13 questions.

That's it. You would think a quiz would be easy to make. Dude, it took me, I swear to God, a good quiz. It took a year to be like, but is that psychologically accurate? Anyway, it is accurate. It will give you your sort of archetype, which is your baseline of where you are. Do you tend to withdraw? Are you more of a loner? If you need to have a hard conversation, do you avoid it? Do you sort of run away into your tower or are you overly aggressive? Or do you avoid it by being the peacekeeper, by worrying about everyone else? So there's different ways that disordered boundaries express themselves. So knowing yourself is really important. But before we get into the internal boundaries, we get into your boundary blueprint. So this is in your unconscious mind. It's like a paradigm of how you relate to boundaries.

It's what you learn from your family of origin, country culture, all of the, and then your life experiences, your childhood experiences, all of those things converge and become this unconscious. It's like a schema in our mind. We have, I know schemas. Yeah, you just can't. There's too much information. So we sort of have them already made. Yes. So I'm teaching you to do and walking you through. I give you questions in the book. So you don't need a workbook, you don't need anything else. Yes, in every single chapter, I teach something and then I have a thing called back to you, and immediately the reader is like, okay, so how does this apply to me? Because no offense, people are like, literally, wasn't it for me? I read a book, I want something to change. So you learn about perhaps you had a maternal impactor who was a people pleaser.

And so unconsciously and unconsciously, this becomes desirable. Oh, this is the way a woman acts. This is what loving someone is. We do what they want us to do. That's loving. No, that's disordered boundaries. And we can change those things, but we can only change them once we reveal them. So before we get into wanting to change things, we really have to look and go, okay, what is right now? What is my level of boundary acumen? I want you to look at it like it's a language, and you wouldn't make yourself wrong because my clients would be so hard on themselves and women in my courses. How could I be running a zillion dollar company? But I can't figure this out in my romantic life. Why can't I say no to my girlfriend or my boyfriend? What's wrong with me? I'm weak. I'm this. I'm like, no, you're not.

Literally, how can you know what? Not only did no one teach you, but which we got corrupted intelligence about. We got bad intel on boundaries and the value and what it is because there's not one person I've met in all the years I've been doing this that they were like, my parents really taught me how to be a boundary boss. Or I learned it in college, or I didn't even learn it in grad school when I went to become a therapist. Nobody teaches it. So look it, I'm still getting back to your internal about your question. I love it. No, I love it. It's a big question. It is a big question. So once you have some clarity where you're like, okay, I understand this. This is familiar to me. I get what I learned, and you'll continue to be learning that as you go, then I want you to do a full inventory of what is okay with you right now in your life and what is not in all areas of your life.

Most of the time we don't do that. We're putting out fires and we know what our preferences are, but we don't really know. You'll look at your business or your corporate job or your retail job or whatever it is you're doing for a living and be like, what are the things that really bother me that don't work for me that I don't like? Oh, there's someone in your office, Bob and accounting, who FaceTiming you on the weekend for something that's not urgent. Okay, put that on the list of things that are not okay. Look at the way that your home office, if you're working from home, most of us are set up, do you like your lighting? Do you like where things are situated? Because your preferences matter. If you've got some overhead life that you hate, put that on the list. I'm going to change that frigging bulb, or I'm going to turn it off, or I'm going to use something else.

I'm going to get a better lamp. Because there's a million small changes that we can make that elevate the way that we feel and how considered we are in our own lives by ourselves. And you have to remember that your relationship with you sets the boundary, it sets the bar for every other relationship in your life. So if you are last on your own list, if you talk badly about yourself, if you have a low opinion and you don't hold yourself in high esteem, you'll inevitably attract others who are like, oh, you're going to do all the heavy lifting. Yay, fantastic. Oh, you don't need to rest, so you could do the thing I want you to do. Great. People will expect you to do that. So a lot of times I feel like in relationships, we're seeking for others to sort of save us, but as Rumi said, or somebody, we are the ones we've been waiting for, right?

Susie Moore:

Yes. So the internal boundaries set the tone really for everything. Once we have our clarity and knowing that this is okay, this is actually not okay, do you believe that it's actually something that we need to say in a lot of cases? Or is it something that just kind of happens once our boundaries become more firm and we become more confident? Is it almost just a bit of magic happens? Noticed this. In fact, a friend of mine wanted something recently and it was just a bad week for me, and he connected with another friend and she reported back to me that he said, wow, Susie's got really good boundaries. And I took that as a huge compliment for you. And then I thought to myself, but I don't really feel like I've, I'm not a master yet. I mean, is there always a new level, even when you, Terri, is there still a new level for you with boundaries? Are you still struggling with this too?

Terri Cole:

Of course, of course. And I wouldn't say a struggling. I would say that it's a practice the same way that I meditate every day the same way that I work out probably five, six days a week, discipline where there are some things that once you realize them, you'll never go back. There are some big epiphanies that you'll have where you're like, wow, why was I tolerating that behavior or why was I doing that? Because what I find Susan, and this is across the board with women in my courses and in my practice, is that there is so much codependency

That is connected to the way that we learned to love what I say. We were raised in praise for being self abandoning codependence. It's a fact that there's confusion about what is on my side of the street, as you said, what is on that other person's? What is my responsibility? And it's so easy. Why we have categories when it comes to boundaries, which are mental, emotional, physical, material, sexual is because we need to have boundaries in all of those areas. If you are over-functioning in your relationships, if you have a friend, let's say, who has a problem, and you're immediately into fix it mode. And if you're unsure, if you're watching this and you're like, I'm not sure, I don't know if I do that, I'm going to ask you right now to check your urgency. If a friend has an issue,

Check your urgency. We can be concerned. That's one feeling. An urgency is like, I must take action. I must, and that tells you that that's a codependent response where you're feeling overly responsible for, I mean, my definition of codependency is feeling and behaving overly responsible for the feelings, the circumstances, the decisions, the outcomes of the people in our lives, to the detriment of your internal peace in some way of your physical or financial wellbeing in some way. So everyone watching this, of course, we're all invested in the people we love. That's just being loving. That's normal. But when their problem literally feels like it is your problem, that's when you know that boundaries are being crossed. And I thought I was such a codependent in my twenties, oh my god, a nightmare. And I thought I was Mother Teresa. I just thought, I'm here for everyone. I'll do it for anybody.

Susie Moore:

Yes, there is something satisfying in that I feel right? It's like, oh, look at me. I come in and save the day and people need me, and it can just make us feel kind of important and special and generous until it doesn't,

Terri Cole:

Right? Because until you realize, and this happened for me in therapy in my twenties, that when you're doing that, if you are an auto advice giver, you are centering yourself in the problem of the other person, literally centering yourself. You are now saying, I have the answer. As opposed to when you have healthy boundaries, you can say, well, do you think you should do? It's always my first question, no matter who comes to me, what does your gut say? What are you thinking? Even if it's not well thought out, let's just spit ball. Just tell me

Susie Moore:

Writing that down. Terri, what do you think? My friends, everyone listening, pay attention to this. If you're a problem solver, you ask it back. Sorry, Terry, continue. Yes. What do you think?

Terri Cole:

I have a whole list in the book. There's a whole chapter that's just sentence starters and scripts that you can,

Susie Moore:

Oh my gosh, the scripts are to die for Terri. I mean, I want to get into those in a moment because I mean, I've got some highlighted things here. You even give a script for chatty hairdressers, like how to handle, if you just want a bit of peace. I mean, I'll just keep talking to be nice. But I'm telling you, these scripts are so fantastic, and I want to highlight a couple of my favorites in just a moment. Before we do, one thing I'd love to ask you about is female friendships, Terry, because I feel like, so I am lucky enough to work with a lot of high achieving women, and they need to have firm boundaries to manage family, have a break, et cetera. And I noticed that there are just friendships that change, and sometimes there's an abandoning of a friendship or a loosening of a friendship, and there's such fear around this. There is, I have to speak to Lizzie because we've been friends for 10 years and well, I know her kids, and then I feel like there's a disloyalty. If you can't be there in the same way today that you were like a year ago, two years ago, what's your experience with this? How do you handle this?

Terri Cole:

So when I adjusted of log on this called Boundaries and friendships, it's complicated because it's so, and actually I also have a mini course on this because so many women have asked me about this over the many years, and there always seems to be this extreme where people wait until they're to the point where they just don't want to be friends anymore with the person. So I'm always about having a conversation. So there's different categories. So the friend that you had since third grade, that's like, I call that historical handcuffs, right?

Susie Moore:

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think we all have one of those

Terri Cole:

We do

Where you've outgrown the person potentially. And I still have some of those friendships, but as long as they're not burdening my life, we get together, we reminisce. I don't need to be the same as them now, but if they're demanding something of me that I'm not, or if they've changed so much that we are morally and ethically so unaligned, I can't be friends with them anymore, that's when you have to have the conversation step back. So boundaries with friendships is something that you can absolutely master, but we start small and really start looking at do a whole, I will inspire you and I give you stuff in the book to do it. You do an inventory of what are the state, what is the state of the relationships in your life, friendships, which ones cause you angst, which ones when the phone rings, you're like, oh, Jesus, no, I just can't. I do not want to. Or you're like, oh, hey, just getting in the tub. You're finding a way to avoid the person feeling like shit about it and not knowing how to allow yourself to change. I actually opened the book with sharing the story of the fact that I was a bridesmaid eight times. Yes,

In my twenties. So people,

Susie Moore:

You didn't even necessarily like their partner.

Terri Cole:

Nope, I didn't. Not with that one guy who hit on me at the engagement party, but it was like I couldn't say no, I had the to please. And it was, what happens is sometimes in friendships you grow at different paces. Someone with those weddings that I was a bridesmaid in, those women thought that we were way closer than I thought. I was shocked. I was like, how could I be one of the top four people in your life when you wouldn't even have made it to a housewarming party? If I had a house, I don't get it. But instead of just handling it, I didn't know how. So now I know how and I know how to teach you, which is, it's so much better to have an uncomfortable conversation than it is to be locked in. I mean, I know I've had clients who got married when they knew they shouldn't a week before.

I'm like, you can still cancel. They're like, absolutely not. My parents will die. I'm like, you're going to get a divorce within six months. The whole shame, the embarrassment, the fear being perceived as mean. We have to work through all of this conditioning. We do that and in the beginning so that we have compassion for ourselves. We understand this is hard and maybe I'm going to do this really badly, but I'm still going to do it. So all the perfectionists never try because they're like, I can't tell you how many questions I get where people go, well, I need to draw boundaries. How can I draw boundaries with nobody getting upset? I'm like, I knew that

Susie Moore:

The wrong room.

Terri Cole:

There's a way to do it with grace and with kindness and when appropriate with love and when appropriate with more heat depending on what the boundary is and what's needed. But we have to shift our view. It's okay to have some conflict in your friendships. It's okay to tell the truth. Hey, we're at different places in our life and I feel like you want more for me that I can give you, or we don't have anything in common anymore, and I love you and I don't want to break up with you, but I don't feel compelled. Sometimes we just have to tell the truth and it's hard, but it's the same way in relationships. Listen, we can't marry everyone. I mean, you can marry a lot of people, but you can't be long-term with every relationship.

And so when I was younger, breaking up with, I mean, I loved all my long-term. I still loved them all. I loved them, and it was so painful and was such a boundary disaster that I would wait. And I remember being in the bathroom, I was in the bathtub and my boyfriend was there and I was literally being where your breakup and we were together years I was living with him. He was like, what do you mean why? And I was like, we don't have anything in common anymore. And he was like, since when? And I literally wanted to say, I dunno, about three years ago,

Susie Moore:

Wow,

Terri Cole:

I moved out at two in the morning in my pajamas holding my pillow and had to borrow 20 bucks from him to take a cab to my sister's, not my finest hour. I would say that's the height of boundary disasters

Susie Moore:

Right there. It also goes to show how people have a very different movie. So your boyfriend at the time is probably thinking you're on track for life and you are like, there is nothing happening here. And I think that even accepting that can be a bit hard. You think, well, surely she or he feels the same or they see this too and they don't. No. And I think that's also helpful to know when it comes to boundaries, because what's perfectly reasonable for someone else, someone who's always very helpful, even just think about my mother-in-Law who's fantastic. She's always helping people move. She's very efficient. She can do 40 things in a day and be just still standing. I like to sit down. I feel like naturally a lot more lazy. I love to be busy at work, but nothing really outside that isn't fun. And I feel as if her and I even have a conversation around what to do when we get together. She wants to do a lot of things. I think assuming that that's what I would like to do and I would love to just sit and talk for hours, sit down, but

Terri Cole:

It's called, that's actually a psychological defense mechanism called complimentary projection where we believe we have a sense, it can be two different ways, either that other people feel like we do have the same likes, opinions, wants, desires, or we can do this with skill. We can minimize our own skill and we can project, but everyone can do this thing that I can do and it's not true, which is different than the neurotic projection, which is a psychological defense mechanism where you have a feeling you don't like the new person at work. You're like, I don't like her, but you don't like that about yourself. So instead of acknowledging that shadow part, you go, I don't think Betty likes me. I don't know that new girl. She's like a bitch. She's like having no idea. That is your disavowed feeling that you're experiencing. You feel it coming towards you instead of the truth, which is that it's coming from you.

Susie Moore:

Well, that takes some courage to accept that too, doesn't it? Most people are like, she's wrong. He's mean versus like, oh, maybe I'm feeling all these negative charges, something that needs to heal a little here. Or there's something that I've never really quite discovered or dove into, don't really want to, because when you think about it, doing the work on boundaries, doing the work on the self, I mean, there are easier things to do there. You can eat ice cream, you go for a walk with your own dog. But this is so rewarding. I feel like you said once a few things, you can't go back. It's like once you know the truth, if there are lies and then the truth, you're like, the lies don't trick you anymore. So once I think you understand and you let it sink in, the importance of boundaries, the fact that you're entitled to them, and then specifically how you break them down here, you already mentioned the different types of boundaries, why specifically they're relevant based on who we are as humans.

I certainly identify as a pleaser because I like to be very well liked popular, and I love people. And I think sometimes maybe this happens with you, Terri, like you said with the eight bridesmaids, I am very friendly, and so people assume we're very close. And then I have to end up saying no a lot because just because of that assumption, there are a couple of, I want to get to the page. There are just so many are so things I've highlighted here, but there there's a couple of lists here about your boundary that you've put into the boundary baseline page to illuminate your boundary. Baseline. Read the question, see which apply to you. I mean, these are so good. So I can imagine speaking up creates feelings of anxiety or dread for a lot of people. If you're paying for a service, do you avoid telling people if you're unsatisfied? Absolutely. Do you tend to ignore your preferences or needs for too long and then explode in frustration? I've seen that. That one isn't me, but this one, do you have a very specific idea of the way most things should be done and feel frustrated often by the fact that others are clueless? Is that a lack of communication with a boundary? Is it setting expectations?

Terri Cole:

It's actually having a rigid internal boundary. It's the way that you make ourselves feel safe. We are binding anxiety by being like, hello. Obviously this is the only way to do it. And so that's more an expression of rigid boundaries, someone who's know-it-all someone who's very bossy. And even if you have great ideas, it's like what does it save you from? Which is what we always want to know. What does it spare you from being vulnerable? If we're always forward motion and being like, this is it my way or the highway, that's very much the ice queen that we're looking at the archetypes

Susie Moore:

Where

Terri Cole:

You're like, I'll do it on my own. I don't need you people either. You're in, you are for me, you're against me. Get out. If you're not with what I'm doing, you're out. But there's the rigidity of that is what makes it a disordered boundary experience.

Susie Moore:

And you say on page 23, I love this. I've never thought about it this way. A true talk from Terri in changing your boundary behavior. I can see how this works with the rigidity. You learn to recognize that you have a fuller range of choices at your disposal than you've realized or exercised until now. Options. Options that we just completely overlook or just don't even dare to that it's not visible to us because we're like, this is it.

Terri Cole:

But again, when you realize that being high functioning, sure, you're a high functioning codependent. I'm a high functioning codependent in recovery, but whatever, where it's different than just being codependent, right? Because with high functioning, highly capable. So nobody would see us as being codependent because there seems to be some kind of a weakness associated with that, and it's all incorrect, but that's what it is. So people will always come and ask for advice and need help and whatever, but there's a cost to doing that. And there's a cost to centering ourselves in other people's problems and lives because we don't get to deeply and intimately know others when we're so busy with putting on the cape and sort of saving others. There's also a presumption

That we know what other people should be doing when the truth, and I learned this the hard way in my twenties from a therapist who was like, hi, what makes you think what your sister needs to learn in this life? I was like, well, I don't think she needs to do it in this abusive relationship, blah, blah, blah. And she was like, I was like, can we agree on that? At least she was like, absolutely not. I have no idea what her life lessons are. Neither do, can I tell you what's going on? And I was like, okay. And she's like, you have worked for two decades to create a pretty harmonious life. You're happily married, you're successful, you're whatever your sister's dumps. Your fire of a life is really messing with your piece. You want to fix her so your pain ends.

Susie Moore:

Wow, Terri. It's like, no, no, I just want to help. Oh, oh, this is really uncomfortable for me. Every time I see you suffer. Right? So back on my side of the street right here. So it always comes back to us, doesn't it? I mean, are there any situations that you've seen where you're like, this is a truly loving, aggressive behavior? Are you like, well, in this case, maybe there's an exception because I'm guessing not the more and more, I mean even with an abusive relationship with a relative or a friend that you love, it's not your life, and we are not general managers of the universe. Someone said that once, but I thought it was so funny. We'll, love to believe it though. We love to. Well, I have information. I can help. I can.

Terri Cole:

But listen, let's be honest though, in that, listen, if you have, I have three sisters, I have the same friends since Nixon was in office. If there's a conversation, if I'm concerned if something is happening, even if it's going to suck, even if it's going to be uncomfortable, even if they're going to tell me to fuck off, which is a possibility, I will say, listen, I have something I want to share with you about what you told me, and is it okay if I just talk true? I just want to tell you what I think what my concern is. Most of the time they're going to say yes. And even if they go mind your own business, I don't like it. You're wrong. It doesn't mean that when I'm committed to you for life, it doesn't mean I'm never giving you my opinion. It means I'm not automatically thinking that your life is mine to fix. It means that I respect you. One of my friends who's since passed away, he was one of the founders of the Grief Recovery Institute. His name is Russell Friedman, and he once said to me, Terry, giving other people Unask for advice and criticism robs them of their dignity.

I was like, wow, I do not want to do that. Let that land think

Susie Moore:

I could think of a situation where I was a bit of a busy body and it felt similar. I was telling a friend she shouldn't spend her money on something. I was certain, I still feel actually, but I'm taking away her dignity of how a woman in a free world can spend her money. She can go to Vegas, she can

Terri Cole:

Burn it in her fireplace if she wants to. Exactly.

Susie Moore:

You are right, but that is it. We have to give people the, and we expect the dignity, right? Oh yeah.

Terri Cole:

How do you like it when people are telling you what to do?

Susie Moore:

Yeah. Oh,

Terri Cole:

Your partner, your husband, your partner.

Susie Moore:

It's so funny, isn't it? It's like we love to change others and it's like, try changing yourself. How easy is that? Right? Or just being in your own business. It just keeps coming back to where am I right now? Am I creeping up whose street I'm lost? I'm five blocks away. Where the hell it happens. But I think that the consciousness, how you teach in boundary Boss, it's coming back to you, lovingly coming back to you always realizing what your responsibility is, how we open, knowing what your responsibility is. It takes courage, but the rewards are all there because your award is your own freedom. And that's the basis of, because even if we want great wealth or a great relationship or whatever, we think we just want the freedom and the joy that brings. So this is what boundaries do. Yes. And

Terri Cole:

Having clean agreements, speaking of being business owners, if you're an entrepreneur and you're watching this, if you're being proactive in your onboarding process, letting everyone know upfront, don't decide later. We decide now anyone who comes to work for me, we work on New York time. We mostly don't work on the weekends unless we're in launch. You must be available. I don't care where you live. I stopped hiring people from other places when they said they'd work on New York time. They don't really actually do it. It's like the more clear and concise you can be upfront in all of your circumstances, but especially business with clients, scope of the project clarity. If that client is pushing you and being like, well, and now we want to do this thing, and it's not in the scope, you have to say, okay, hey Betty, that actually sounds great. So to do that, we would need to add something because it's not within the scope of our current agreement if you look at paragraph six B, but if you want to consider that after the fact and have it as an add-on, I can come up with a fee.

Susie Moore:

And it's no accident that the most important information is in black and white in contracts. Absolutely. So this is the same in real life without the contract, but it's, this is almost like where you stand with me and it feels generous.

Terri Cole:

Really it is,

Susie Moore:

Right? Initially you're like, oh, that feels harsh, but you're like, it's actually very generous because everyone feels safe. The boundaries are clear where you stand with me, I'm not upset with you. I've told you this is my style. Say that's an example. And isn't, isn't that the goal too?

Terri Cole:

It is because look at it this way. When we say yes, when we want to say no or when we over promise, and even if we overdeliver, none of those things are being nice because you end up resentful. Your friends know if you are a people pleaser. And if you say yes when you want to say no, I know of my friends who that is. I know. I'm like, she's about 50% chance she's going to show up. Her show always says yes, but no. So your yes cannot be, which also means you're no, you literally are not trustworthy if you are a people pleaser because you are giving people bad information about you and we know it, or you're going to do it and you're going to do it begrudgingly or you're going to cancel at the last minute and somehow end up with a migraine because you committed to some shit you didn't want to do, and who the fuck has time for this?

Susie Moore:

Yes, yes. You see it. One thing that I noticed this year, Terri, was I drastically reduced my alcohol consumption drastically. And I'm so thrilled about it, and it's been so fun and easy, interestingly. But I had this fear. I'm like, I think I'm going to let people down who are used to drinking with me. And my fear was, I'm going to let them down. I'm going to let them down. They're used to me being just being like them. And then I realized if I see a friend right now and there's no alcohol, and that's most of the time I really like them

And they know that I've actually said it. I'm like, if I'm hanging out with you right now and we're not at the bar or whatever, I really enjoy your company sincerely. And I felt like that was a boundary to that I had to make with myself to make it okay to make a different kind of version of me available confidently. But that felt like an honest boundary. I could be like, oh, I'll just take it and not drink it or protect. And I'm like, no, I'll just do what feels right. Could you speak about betraying yourself in boundary boss and mean, we all know that feeling. It's awful. And it's not sustainable unless you want to be miserable. And so having these, the truth as you say, when it's clear in this appendix with a client, it's clear this is who you are. It's open, generous, honest, loving,

Terri Cole:

Yeps. No one is wondering. It's funny with my friendships, one of my friends one time had said to me she was here and we were going to the gym on the way back from the gym. And she's like, I wonder if you're upset that I took so long to get ready to get in the car, whatever. And I was like, Lynn, we've been friends for 20 years. You'll never have to wonder if I have something to say to you. You can always trust. I'll say it. Of course, I'm not upset. You're on vacation. I'm relaxed. I'm sitting in the cards. Everything is fine. But again, that's her story

About whatever her thing is and how she was used to a life where people would be mad and withhold and not say, and imagine being that trustworthy where people just go, oh, she's a straight shooter.

She says it. That's a fact. I can tell you if I tell you I'm going to be on this call at three forty five, rest assured I'm going to be here. But I wasn't always that way. And there was a lot of shame in my younger life and so many women who are reading this book now and in my courses where you feel so bad because you over promise to too many people and then you can't follow through or don't follow through the way that you want to. So again, back to your story quick with the drinking. When you embrace that as a self-love, that's a radical act of self-love to say, I'm going to slow this down. I don't think this is great for me. I don't want to do it. It doesn't mean you have to stop drinking. Just means you're like, enough. I'm going to do it less. I'm going to see how I feel eyes wide open with these friendships, seeing people on the beach instead of for a brunch, boozy brunch or whatever. It would be feeling so good about that when you share it with friends, if they're like, oh, whatever. You can say, oh my God, you wouldn't believe this. I'm like semi sober and I'm freaking loving it. It's like

Susie Moore:

They look right.

Terri Cole:

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I don't wake up hungover. It's amazing. I'm not saying you should try it, but I'm having a mocktail tonight. That's all I'm saying is I'm all into the virgin bloody.

Susie Moore:

It can be

Terri Cole:

So light, and you can't imagine, Suze, you might by sharing that light, that truth, you don't know how many people might go, really? I've kind of been thinking about drinking less, but I always feel like pressured, but you just really inspired me. I'm going to,

Susie Moore:

It's happening. You are right. Look at you, Terri, already understanding how we, and I have to speak about how, okay, we could talk forever. I have to touch on these scripts, Terri, because they're just bloody brilliant. I mean, I wrote down the specific page here. There are some favorites that I have, but the ones that I love are around feedback and standing up for your preferences. Can I read out a couple of my favorites to you? Please

Terri Cole:

Do.

Susie Moore:

Okay. Standing up for your preferences. This is page 208. That plan really doesn't work for me. Here's what I'd love instead. Desired plan. Do you have thoughts on how we can meet in the middle? If someone said that to me, I'd be like, that is very clear and very actionable, and she knows who she is and I like her and

Terri Cole:

She's not making me wrong.

Susie Moore:

No,

Terri Cole:

She's not judging my plan. She's saying it doesn't work for her. Am I willing to compromise? Oh, okay.

Susie Moore:

Yeah. And because some people would be like, oh, no one goes there anymore. That place isn't cool anymore. It's like, ah, well, I think it's cool. Exactly. I love this. Standing up for your preferences also. Oh my gosh, Terri, this is such a good one to a colleague who asks you what to do with what you do with your day off. That's why they call their personal day. Bob, wouldn't you like to know Wink? This is so elegant. The elegant is the word that comes to me when I think about these responses because they're controlled and firm, but not like that's not your business or that restaurant isn't cool anymore.

Terri Cole:

Yes, we don't have to be harsh.

Susie Moore:

We don't.

Terri Cole:

So, and the most important thing with the scripts, one of the most important things is when someone is asking you for information about yourself that you are not comfortable sharing with them. We have been so trained to be good girls. People ask a question, we just go, oh, we answer it. And then later we're like, why did I tell Bob from accounting about my whatever the thing is, right? Yes, there's so many in the book, there's a lot of different ones. But I love this work by Kasha ic, which I included in the book. So she's a power dynamic expert, and if someone says like, oh, how did your loved one die? Rude. I mean, I've had this in my life. It's terrible. Instead of retraumatizing you, your goal is to not give up any info. And what Kasha says to do this is flipping the power dynamic, is to say something like, why would you want to know that? Or Why would you ask me that?

I've never used that where the other person did not immediately back down and go, oh my God, you're so right. That was so rude. I was just curious. And I was like, okay, next. Moving on. I don't need to shame them anymore. But I'm definitely not telling you how my niece died when I'm still devastated by the death. Your morbid curiosity is not my mother effing problem. How about Google it? Bitch, you could find it somewhere. If you actually really wanted to lazy and morbidly curious, please, why don't you eat wheat? Why don't you have kids? Why don't you want kids?

Susie Moore:

Oh yeah, I get asked that a lot actually. Yeah, and I always find it really interesting. I actually never ask women if they have kids. You dunno what's going, I didn't even ask 'em if they have kids, right? I'm sure it'll come up if they have kids, they'll talk about them. Agreed. And if someone responded to that to a question that I asked that was rude with that, I would feel like, yeah, that was also a gift, a mini loving lesson. So it's also with your boundaries, with your questions, with lovingly deflecting what you don't want to delve into, because you don't need to. You're also showing another way to behave.

Terri Cole:

You are, and it's a generous part of it is when we stop being so offended,

Then there's bandwidth to just be kind and not abandon ourselves. So when you walk out of that conversation with Aunt Betty and trying to triangulate you with, oh, your mother's worried about you. I got Aunt Betty. I'm good. I'll take it from here. But I totally appreciate your concern. Oh, what was going on with your needle point? You can always deflect. You can always acknowledge and move on. Also, another side note of tactics, especially if it's people that you see once or twice a year, people do not care. They want to talk about themselves. Just like being in any interview, this is an actual conversation. But when you're in an interview and you have four minutes, I don't care what that person asked me. Generally speaking, I'm going to answer the question I want to answer. This is sort of the same thing. So if someone's like, where's the girl that you brought here last year?

Let's just say, or where's the guy that you brought here last year? Oh, did that fall apart too? Whatever. Let's say you can be completely ignore. I've done it. Totally ignore and be like, oh my God, uncle Bob, I meant to tell you that I saw so-and-so the other, and then be like, I have to pee going to the bathroom. I'm going to get a drink. There's my mom, I'm leaving. You do not have to stay in that conversation. And just because someone asks you a question, you could literally 100% ignore it. I'm telling you people don't care. Then you're like, wait, tell me about you. They're like, oh yeah, back to me. Good. Yeah.

Susie Moore:

This is so commercial given you don't even have to answer the question.

Terri Cole:

Act like it didn't even happen.

Susie Moore:

Wow. Oh, I can't hear you. It's like a selective deafness, which I absolutely love. My mom, who refuses to wear her age. She's like, being deaf is the best. No one expects anything. I just say what I want. Do what I want. That's her own boundary right there. Look at that. I'd love to say a couple more before we wrap a couple more. Oh my gosh. Because so good. So, okay. All you need to do is opt out of being the third wheel in a toxic communication triangle. This is around gossiping, specifically you referencing, which I love to avoid, but I don't want to make anyone feel bad for whatever they're doing. But I'd like to just gracefully I would. So your statement here is I would so much rather hear about your new job. Delicious redirect, and true.

Terri Cole:

Yes.

Susie Moore:

You're not abandoning yourself there. Right? Exactly. That's the truth. You even stay present. Oh, and this is another excellent one to stop the auto advice giver at the moment. I'm not looking for feedback. I'd love it if you could just lend a compassionate ear. Someone said that to me once a long time ago, and she made some changes in her business and asked me to have a look at them. She was like, I'm not looking for feedback. I would just love for you to have a look to be so everything that I'm doing, which is cool. And I just thought that was a boss movement for us to put it that way. I could be like, oh, you know what I would do? She didn't want that. It was finished,

Terri Cole:

And she set you up to be successful and to be a good friend instead of setting you up to fail by thinking what she wanted and not telling you. How can people know? We have this expectation that they can read our minds and they can't. So when we take full responsibility to the best of our ability to negotiate for our needs, it is so loving because you are really setting people up to be able to step up for you. You don't know if they can or not. If you don't give them a chance.

Susie Moore:

And imagine if I went and spent 45 minutes with feedback and wrote it all, she doesn't want it. I could be doing other things and we can just lovingly, I can have a look and that's that.

Terri Cole:

Exactly.

Susie Moore:

So Terri, what I take from this, I mean, the covers come off. This is how much I like this book. Look, Foundry Boss, Terry Cole available everywhere. Books are sold. Yes, everywhere books are sold. And Terry, there's a special link. We can drive people today too.

Terri Cole:

There is. We have so many things for you, and I think I

Susie Moore:

Friends, we want these goodies.

Terri Cole:

Yes you do. So I think that the thing that is most helpful is understanding codependency. So it's going to be boundaries and codependency. I created a video for you and a downloadable guide so you can really get an assessment as to where are you right now, how bad is it or how good is it? Let's say. So you're going to go to Boundaryboss.me/susie, which is S-U-S-I-E, as you know. And I will make sure that the quiz is also on that page. And you can go to boundary boss book.com and that has, you buy the book and then you put in your little number. And I have all kinds of bonuses that of course I'm supposed to not be giving anymore, but I'm like, forget it, I made, I want everyone to have 'em. Yes. And if you bought a book and you haven't collected your bonuses, go to Boundary Boss, put in your little number and you'll have access to a whole bunch of beautiful things that I created for you.

Susie Moore:

So just like what you're giving to us, boundary boss.me/susie, all of these goodies that you give us access to generous, just like boundaries. Boundaries are generous. This conversation was so generous. Your fun gift to us is so generous. So Terri, thank you. I could keep you forever our time's up, but thank you, thank you, thank you. I will stay in touch and you absolutely impacted me and I appreciate. I appreciate you, Terri.

Terri Cole:

Oh, thanks Sus. I appreciate you too.

Susie Moore:

Thank you, Terri. Bye-Bye for now.

Terri Cole:

Bye.