Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Terri Cole on How to Create Healthy Boundaries & Inner Peace EP 287

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

Terri Cole believed that achieving success as a prominent talent agent would bring her happiness, but she was in for a surprising turn of events. Through her journey of self-exploration, she decided to resign from her job, enroll in graduate school, and embark on a new path in the mental health industry. This decision enabled her to prioritize her own needs and establish healthy boundaries, leading to a more gratifying life. What lies ahead for Terri in her remarkable quest for personal development? Terri Cole Joins Me to Discuss How to Create Healthy Boundaries and Develop Inner Peace In this engaging episode of the Passion Struck podcast, host John R. Miles speaks with Terri Cole, a licensed psychotherapist and global relationship expert. The discussion centers on the significance of setting healthy personal and professional boundaries for emotional well-being. Terri emphasizes that many people struggle with establishing and maintaining boundaries, leading to issues like codependency. She offers practical advice on how to recognize when boundaries have been crossed and how to enforce them effectively. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/terri-cole-on-how-to-create-healthy-boundaries/  Brought to you by Fabric. Go to Apply today in just 10 minutes at https://meetfabric.com/passion. Brought to you by Green Chef. Use code passionstruck60 to get $60 off, plus free shipping!” Brought to you by Indeed. Head to https://www.indeed.com/passionstruck, where you can receive a $75 credit to attract, interview, and hire in one place. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/PqrXCGQ5nqk  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles  Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Catch my interview with Lori Gottlieb on the importance of embracing self-compassion: https://passionstruck.com/lori-gottlieb-on-embracing-self-compassion/  Watch the solo episode I did on the topic of Chronic Loneliness: https://youtu.be/aFDRk0kcM40  Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  Passion Struck is now on the AMFM247 broadcasting network every Monday and Friday from 5–6 PM. Step 1: Go to TuneIn, Apple Music (or any other app, mobile or computer) Step 2: Search for “AMFM247” Network

Coming up next, on Passion Struck. Human beings, we have a natural fear of change. And I always say that fear of success and fear of failure are two sides of the same coin, but the coin is fear of change. So you have to really be uncomfortable to want to make a change and to be willing to do all the things that are required to change your life. But on the other side of it, of course, is the life you're meant to live, right? Is the life of satisfaction, the life of service, the life of your greatest good, but it's

really hard when you're anticipating or contemplating that change. To see the other side, all we see is all the stuff we're sort of giving up or what we might lose in making this change. And it's like you have to use your imagination to think about what could be on the other side of that power pivot. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles.

And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long- interviews, the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.

Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 287 of PassionStruck. Ranked by Apple is one of the top 20 health podcasts, and thank you, each and every one of the top 20 health podcasts and thank you, each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better,

and impact the world. And in case you missed it, last week we passed a huge milestone. Something when I started this podcast, I didn't even think it possibly be a reality. We exceeded over 1 million downloads in a single month and I am so thankful for your continued support of the show and the importance it is making in so many different people's lives.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. In a case you didn't know, PassionStruck is now also on syndicated radio. We're a part of the AMFM247 broadcast network and you can catch the show from 5-6pm every Monday and Friday on Tune in Apple Apple Music, or wherever you listen. I'll put links to that in the show notes along with the stations that we're on. And if you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here.

You simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member. We now have episodes, stutterpacks, both on Spotify and the Passion Struck website. These are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organized. And the convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.

Either go to Spotify or PassionStruck.com slash start and packs to get started. In case you missed it, last week I interviewed Dory Clark, the number one communications coach, and we discussed her latest book, The Long Path. I also interviewed Wilk Adara, who took 11 Madison Park from a struggling two-star brass year becoming the number one restaurant in the world for a concept he calls unreasonable hospitality. Please check both those episodes out, and if you like those or today's episode, we would so appreciate it if you gave us a five-star review.

They go such a long way and not only improve the popularity of the show, but bringing more people into the passion-struck community where we can give them weekly doses of hope, meaning, inspiration and connection. And I know also our guests love to see reviews of the shows that they appear on. Now let's talk about today's episode. Many of us have not been taught about how to effectively communicate our preferences, desires, or deal-breakers, leading us to engage in passive aggressive behavior, deny our own truths or suppress our emotions until they become overwhelming. This can result in depression, frustration, and damaged relationships.

However, the most successful and content individuals share a common trait. They are able to establish and convey clear, healthy boundaries. This ability is key to determining a fulfilled and self-determined life. In today's interview, psychotherapists carry coal outlines a set of skills to help you break the cycle of no collecting your own needs for the sake of others and become empowered to manage every component of your emotional, spiritual, physical, personal, and professional life. Full provides actionable strategies, scripts, and techniques that can be used whenever needed

to aid in the process of becoming a boundary boss. We will discuss how to identify when boundaries have been crossed and how to handle those situations. How to understand how your own unique boundary blueprint influences your boundary setting behavior and how to modify it. You'll learn how to create powerful scripts who effectively communicate boundaries in the moment that they happen.

You'll learn how to manage boundary destroyers such as emotional manipulators, narcissists and other toxic personalities. You will assess where you fall on the codependency spectrum and how to create healthy and balanced relationships. Terry Cole is a licensed psychotherapist, a global relationship and empowerment expert, and the author of the best-selling book Boundary Boss, The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen, and finally live free. For over two decades, Terry has worked with diverse groups of clients that include everyone from stay-at-home moms, the celebrities and Fortune 50 CEOs.

She is a gift for making complex, psychological, topics, accessible, and achievable so that her clients and students can take action on sustainable change. She inspires over 450,000 people weekly through her blog, social media platforms, signature courses, and her popular podcast, The Terry Cole Show. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. I am so honored and ecstatic to have the one and only Terry Cole on the passion struck

today. Welcome, Terry. Well, thanks for having me, John. I'm going to start out with this question. Last year, you and I both interviewed Dr. Elisa Hellerman, who I understand is a long-term friend of yours. And like you, she was a top talent agent for celebrity use like Ben Stiller and Vince Fawn. But similar to you, she walked away from it all to become a psychotherapist. And I wanted to ask, how did you find yourself on your own, as she

calls it, sole journey, to leaving the money and prestige behind, and quitting your job? Well, there was a parallel process that was going on for my own therapeutic journey, which started when I was just 19. I stopped drinking when I was 21. So, at least, and I had that in common as well. And I think that what was happening in my career was I was very ambitious, and I was always like a lover of life, like whatever I was in all the way. So, when I got into entertainment, I was just climbing that entertainment Hollywood sort of ladder, thinking that if I get to this next place, I'm going to feel the way that I want to feel. If I sign this next huge supermodel, if I'm running an agency,

then I'm going to feel the way I want to feel. Well, then I got to that point and you know what? Still didn't feel the way I wanted to feel. And so I realized that I was looking for a feeling but in the wrong place. And that wasn't going to come from outside of me. It was going to have to come from inside of me at the same time. I was having all of this personal growth evolution in my own life, and I became really interested in the mental health of my clients. So I got to a point in my career that there was just no denying that what I was most interested in was helping other people live mentally healthier lives. Like I was, I couldn't believe that how much I could change my own life,

my own internal experience, my own external experience through therapy. I couldn't believe it. I was like, this is like the best kept sacred. You're you kidding me? Because really when you think about, or at least the way that I thought about coming into the world, like you're like, okay, we're dealt a hand, right?

And then you play that hand to your very best ability. And what therapy made very clear for me was that if I didn't like the hand, not only could I say, I'm getting rid of this hand, I could be like, I'm creating an entirely new game. Like, I'm not just dealt a hand. Like, I've realized through therapy that I could create a meaningful life on my own terms.

And that required me to be honest with myself and say I was no longer passionate about making supermodels richer. I've just prayed. I was like, God, there's got to be something better. I could do with my one and only life. And there was, and I just, I quit my job, I went to NYU, I literally applied to one grad program, one, because I only wanted to go to NYU. I've been living in

the city for many years. I was like, I'm not moving to Ohio to go to grad school. So I really hope I get in. And if not, something else will happen. And that's how I made the change. and if not, something else will happen. And that's how I made the change. One of the things I really like to talk about on the show is intentional choices. Because every day, we don't even realize it, but we have a choice to self-love or to self-hate, to make a relationship better, to make it worse.

How we want to allocate our time. Do we do it towards things where we're worshiping the idols of money, success, and other things? Or do we do it to go deeper into building stronger human connections? And so as I was researching, I started to see as you had described yourself, and I saw others describing you as the person I once was before,

and I'm just going to read this because I found this in show notes describing an episode that you did from a while ago, but I want to read it because I think other people can relate to it. And it says, Terry was a type A overachiever, was zero balance and no internal peace driven by ambition, that type A overachiever was zero balance and no internal piece driven by ambition, living on planes and serving as a business executive, confident advisor, surrogate parental figure, and bounding between nearly every role with every person imaginable.

And I have to tell you when I read that, it described who I was and along that path by the time that it reached its lowest point, I had become emotionally numb. I'm not sure how you felt at that point. I was pretty bitter actually. I was pretty resentful. That's what really inspired me to dig deeper in therapy. I didn't understand why I was feeling that way. I was overgiving highly codependent, over functioning my ass off, like just over delivering, over all the things that was like achievement.

And success was the thing that made me feel like I was worthy. I was as worthy as my last big deal. I was as worthy as my last big deal. I was as worthy as my last whatever. And it was the resentment generally personality wise. I'm a pretty optimistic and pretty joyful happy person. That is my actual personality. And through therapy, I realized I was blaming others for my lack of boundaries. I was blaming others for my lack of boundaries. I was blaming others for me not setting limits, right? But I was pissed at them, like how nervy is Betty to ask me.

And then of course in real life, Betty is gonna ask you to do all the things that Betty wants to ask you to do. It's not I'm Betty to set limits for Terry, right? It's on Terry to set limits for Terry. And so the empowerment that came with having those realizations and taking like a radical responsibility for myself, for my feelings, for my happiness, for my actions, for what I participated in, for what I didn't participate in, for what I participated in, for what I didn't participate in, for what I tolerated,

for what I didn't tolerate, giving really wanting to get into giving from a place of choice and what you realize when you don't really have, oh, it's the way to describe it, unexamined life. You don't realize that you're being driven by compulsions, by an unconscious desire to avoid confrontation, emotional pain, rejection, all of these things. But I didn't know that.

So it was a real wake up call to look at, oh, wait, this is my side of the street. Like, I need to clean up my side of the street. I can keep blaming Betty or Bob or anybody. And yet it will only change when I'm willing to take radical responsibility for myself and my happiness. Part of me is laughing because my mom's name is Betty. And I have to say that my parents, especially my mom, was a stickler for expecting us to be high achievers,

and not settling, and I think that in some ways drove me to go down the path that I needed of following in many ways. And it's hard when your parents put these expectations on you of the person that they expect you to be to live up to them sometimes. Yeah. Think about as kids like we're indoctrinated into a system, right? A belief system, a way of being and as little humans, we do need an inter-offic memo to tell us how to get the approval of the adults in our life. No, we've started figuring it out in the subtle

cues that they give us about what tends to bring smiles out of their faces or frowns. And so you start for acting and all of a sudden before you know it, it's governing everything about your life from the relationships you're in and not wanting them to let them down about it and so many other things. So I can completely agree with you where you were because I was holding down all these emotions from combat trauma and other things that had happened to me and just not dealing with them until finally I reached a point where my emotional cup was so full. I finally had no other choice but to deal with it. And I recently did an interview with Harvard professor and author Arthur Brooks and we were talking about this concept of life transition points and he describes it through the use of the analogy of

falling tides. Basically, when the tide starts falling, when ends up happening, is the plankton and other things all get shaken up and it's the time when the fish go to feed off the bait. Often in times in life, we also experience falling tides or transitions. Sometimes there are worse moments, but what happens is we don't put our line into the water to find them out. And I wanted to ask, we're all faced with these transition points in life and choosing what direction to go. What do you think causes us so often to miss them? Well, we're asleep.

We get up and we burn through the day and we drop and we do it all over again. We numb ourselves. I talk about shadow addictions and the work that I do, which is a phrase that I coined because it's something that I saw so often, like emotion numbing behaviors that we do to continue to keep those feelings we don't want to feel at bay. So that may be drinking three glasses of wine a night. And I come from a background of like high functioning alcoholics where my father never missed a day of work. He retired when he was 51. He'd never got a DUI. That did not mean he was not dependent on alcohol because he was. And so I think that these pivot moments, I call them sort of power pivots, if we decide to pivot, right? Like your entire life

can change from a peak experience that you have. Literally, my entire life changed when I decided to not be a talent agent, when I decided to risk it all and go from a job making a ton of money to making literally no money, right? Having no money. And that was worth it for me because exactly what you're saying, your cup was so full, you had no choice.

You had to do something different. That's what happened for me. And I think for a lot of people when they hit this fork in the road, pain is the thing that drives us, right? As human beings, what is the biggest motivator? Pain. So the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of the unknown. And we make those moves if we feel the pain of staying the same, but with these shadow addictions or any kind of addiction. If you're numbing it, it's not propelling you

in the way that it would, if you weren't numbing it. So people say, how do you think you're like, would be different if you didn't stop drinking at such a young age? And I always say, I think I would have eventually stopped after 10 years of numbing the crap out of myself and probably bad decisions and promises not kept and potential not realized. I imagine I probably would have stopped, but I'm really grateful that I took that pivot at that time in my life, because I was so young.

The question you asked was, why don't people pivot? Why don't, when we hit the fork in the road, why don't we take the pivot? And part of it is fear. Like the devil, as opposed to the devil, you don't know. And so, human beings, we have a natural fear of change. And I always say that fear of success and fear of failure are two sides of the same coin, but the coin is fear of change. So you have to really be uncomfortable

to wanna make a change and to be willing to do all the things that are required to change your life. But on the other side of it, of course, is the life you're meant to live, right? Is the life of satisfaction, the life of service, the life of your greatest good, but it's really hard when you're anticipating or contemplating that change.

To see the other side, all we see is all the stuff we're giving up or what we might lose in making this change. And it's like you have to use your imagination to think about what could be on the other side of that power of pivot. No, I can relate with you completely because at the time all this was happening, I was at what you would have thought was the pinnacle of my career. C level and a Fortune 50 company making all the money I'd ever desired had all the material possessions I could have wanted and everything else and yet I was miserable inside. But when people ask me, how did you find your path to what you're doing today? It's such a radical change.

I don't think that the idea comes up just out of the blue. For me, I kept having this feeling that what I was doing was not what I was set on the earth to do, which was to serve others. And I found myself completely misaligned with where my meaning was, where my hopes and aspirations were. And ultimately, I think the most difficult choice is the first one. And that is, as you described it, it is to take that step off the cliff into the abyss where you don't have a safety net.

And I think that's one thing that stops people from doing this is they put a safety net in place instead of just going for it, which I know if I would have done that, I would have ended up trying to balance both of them, but it really took me going full in, similar to you, having no income stream and just deciding I was going to take a chance on doing something different. And then as Robin Sharma likes to say, actions build up and actions ultimately result when

compounded into your zone of greatness that you achieve. I love what you're saying because people, I'm sure are listening to us right now and maybe they're not hitting a low point that we were at and I hope they aren't, but regardless of where they're feeling stuck, the biggest action you have to take

is the first one and that is to change. Yes, and to realize you are not that fragile. You really are not like you are so much more durable than you think. And if there's a part of you, if you're listening to this and there's a part of you that really feels like, wow, I'm not living my Dharma or my purpose in life. I don't feel satisfied. I think part of it, John, is like, we have to be the ones that prioritize our preferences,

our limits, our deal breakers, right? And this is how I talk about your boundaries. But what we must believe that what we think, how we feel, and what we want, it must matter to us more than what anyone else thinks, feels, and wants. And when I say that, people, especially women are like, so selfish, or narcissistic, it's self-absorbed to feel that way. Here's the thing if we don't go through life that way if we don't prioritize what we think how we feel what we want when ends up happening is we end up putting that on other people I want you to take care of me. I want you to make sure that my needs get met, but you can't

Because only I actually know what they are. I wanted to say something about what you were talking about with your own experience. Wayne, dire who I loved, and we were talking before he passed, and he was talking about meaning, right, that in the beginning of our life, it's like a time of acquisition, like we're building, we want the family, we want the house, we want the stuff as you were describing, we want the money, we want the whatever the accolades. But then when you get into more of what he considered the afternoon of your life, this is when we really want meaning. We want to feel like us being on this planet earth for this short period of time

meant something helped someone did something. I'm never really into it when people are like Talk about legacy, you know what I mean? I don't know why but maybe because I'm a therapist. It always just sounds like There's something narcissistic about I want to leave my marks you never forget me, you know what I mean, there's something weird about it to me, but that's just me. But what we're really talking about, I think from a healthier point of view, let's say if

we're looking at legacy or if I was being less judgmental, it could be from the point of view of how did I love? Who did I serve? Did I have a positive ripple effect in the world? Kind of what you had said at the top, right? Are the choices I'm making the world a better place or a crappier place, making my relationships more joyful, more harmonious, or more acrimonious, more constricted. Like, what am I doing?

Oprah talks about taking responsibility for the energy that you leave in a room, the energy you bring into a room. And I feel this way on a macro level as well, that like, we must take responsibility for how we interact with people in the world. And hopefully we want to leave the world better than it was when we got here. Well, I think that's a great lead in to where I wanted to go. I want to go deeper into emotions. And the reason I want to do so is over this past year, as you probably saw, there were a lot of great books that were kind of dealing with painful emotions,

whether it was bittersweet from Susan Cain or the power of regret from Dan Pink or Big Feelings from Liz Fossilian. We've talked a lot about emotions on this show through those types of lenses, but we don't really discuss them and how do you deal with them in a healthy way? Why is it such a struggle for so many of us to do just that? Well, I think our emotions are something that people don't teach us about. So we're left to the devices of our conscious and unconscious mind. Our relational interactions are what we modeled behavior, right? These are all the things that impact our emotional life. A lot of parents did not teach us to regulate our emotions because they did not know how to regulate

their own emotions. So with children as you're raising kids, part of the process, if you want a child to have a high emotional IQ, is that we are naturally teaching them, we are co-regulating with them, because we're regulating ourselves. And that means that we understand our emotions, that when we're starting to feel activated, and I won't say triggered, again, I feel like that's another term that's just used to death and misuse to death.

So I just say activated, right? When you're starting to have big emotions, if you have been taught or learned, right, and my parents didn't know how to verbally teach me, but I did have a mother who was very emotionally attuned to me. So how I felt mattered to my mother. And she taught me that how I feel should also matter to me. And so therefore, I grew up feeling valued and feeling seen and feeling understood. Even as a very small kid I can remember my mother bending all the way down and being like you don't you don't want to wear that sweater it's scratchy you don't have to wear it or what are you saying you're feeling what like she would really get in there and not just be how a lot of parents were kids should be seen and not heard

that was definitely not my experience with my mother in particular. So back to the question about emotions and why we don't know, is that a lot of us were raised by parents who didn't know of feeling from a frank footer. So how are they teaching us how to manage our feelings because they would make you feel bad for having feelings? What about the statement you quit crying or I'll give you something to cry about? Anyone who knows anything about emotions knows that doesn't work with children. You cannot make them stop crying, that will only make them cry more. But this desire to control emotions with kids and this sort of world pulsulsion at heart emotions,

teaches us to stuff them. I grew up in a family where anger was a forbidden emotion. And so I learned to transmute my anger into sadness because sadness was an acceptable emotion. I was allowed to be upset, but I was not allowed to be angry. So, Don, how do you think that impacted my 20s? In my right? Yes. Yes. And I continue. I mean, this is in my 50s. This is an ongoing evolution with managing emotions, but I feel like people think that some emotions are good and some emotions are bad.

Right? We've got all this hyper positivity out there, also, especially on social media. People who are like some horrible thing happens and everyone's like, well, that was God's plan or everything happens for a reason or it could have been worse or all these very invalidating statements around emotions because sometimes terrible things happen and they just suck. We don't need to be like silver lining detectives 24 or 7. You know what I mean? Like sometimes when someone is going through something crappy, what they really need to hear is you saying, how can I best support you? Or that's terrible.

I'm so sorry that happened, but I'm here. Do you want to talk? Instead of being afraid of the emotion. Looking back, I don't think there's ever been a parenting book written that really prepares you to be a parent. That's for sure. But I found, as I was raising my kids, and it was more my son who's five years plus older

than my daughter who probably got the front of it, I was falling right into the same path that I had been raised, which it's so easy to do because for most of your life, that's what you experience. That's what you know of parenting, and it took me really a deliberate choice to make the decision that I was going to raise the kids differently in in a big way give them a lot more autonomy over their choices because I just figured if you're going to make mistakes, I'd rather have you make them when they're young,

rather than as I was doing when I was an adult and trying to figure it out, because I went from a very Roman Catholic, parochial school all the way up through high school, upbringing to then going into the military, and so I had been shaped by everyone I like to say but myself. Yeah. And I think one of the most difficult things for me to identify a manage was emotional triggers.

And I know that this is something that you've really done some deep dives into. And so I was hoping you could explain to the audience how do they identify and manage their emotional triggers. Well, part of it is you have to start paying attention to your internal experience. You have to start like I teach people how to do inventories. One was the last time you were triggered. What was the precipitating event? Start really looking, and when we look back, we can recall the last five times you felt hit by a bus of your own emotions, right? There's nothing wrong with feeling your emotions. Being triggered means that something is happening

to you, where it feels like it's overtaking you. It feels like it has control of you. The emotion is big and fast and hot. A lot of times when we're triggered. And I think that dialing into when it's happening, I will venture to guess you will start seeing patterns in what is triggering you. And then I give people these questions that they can ask themselves. When I was interacting with this person, right, you realize, okay, so I was triggered by my boss.

Then I call these the three cues for clarity, the three questions for clarity. You can ask, who does this person remind me of? You can ask, where have I felt like this before? You can ask, how or why is this behavioral dynamic, the way I'm interacting with my boss? How is that dynamic familiar to me? Because it might be one that you observed. Doesn't necessarily have to be one that you had yourself.

You might have witnessed it with the adults in your life. And that could still trigger something in you. So understanding when you're having a transference is very important. I'll quickly tell anecdote because I feel alone, it's just a story, I feel something that illustrates what it is. Could be helpful for the audience to understand. So I was in my internship when I was in grad school, and I was at a drug treatment clinic, and the boss there was this good-looking tall,

Brooks brother suit wear in Wall Street journal reading, golfing on the weekends, martini drinking kind of guy. So I was every week I'd go into therapy and talk about Dr. Washten, who was my boss there, what a friggin' jerky was, and how cold and detached he was, and how I didn't like him, I didn't like him. My therapist was like, okay, so, but it was extreme. So my reaction to this guy was extreme. If I saw him coming down the hallway, I would literally dive into the ladies room to avoid him.

If he was in a meeting, then I was in, I wouldn't say one word, which is very unlike me. I'm very talkative. And finally, the third week I was obsessively talking about Dr. Washington as what a terrible human, what a mean and cold and judgmental human he was. She was like, Terry, can you describe him again? So I just grabbed him. And just, is there anyone else who you would describe like that? And of course, this guy was exactly like my father down to having dimples and a very deep voice. There were so much resonance. I grew up afraid of my father. And so I was the 10 year old in me was activated. I was triggered by this person who did nothing to me to trickle me. And she was like, Terry, so we start talking about it. She was like, do

you understand why this is bad for your career? She was like, Terry, so we start talking about it. She was like, do you understand why this is bad for your career? She was like, this guy is never going to know how smart you are. If you shut down every time you're around him because the 10-year-old isn't charged. And I was like, oh, that's a really good point. Just having the realization that I was relating to my boss, like my 10-year-old self would relate to my father, Literally took away my fear of this guy. Like I got it, it came from the basement, you're unconscious, to the main part of the house, and I was like, ah, Dr. Washington's not my father, and I'm not 10, and it's all fine. I got a job

with that place after I graduate. There's something so powerful in recognizing when you're having that kind of a transfer. And so when you're being activated from unresolved wounds, from the past, which is basically what you're talking about. And in therapy, we talked a little more because I was really surprised. I thought I had processed the crap out of my relationship with my father. I thought there was nothing left to process. But this guy reminded me in such a visceral way so much of him that I guess there was still stuff to process and just that realization was so incredibly helpful. Well, I think that's a great story and a great illustration.

So thank you for sharing it. Well, you have been on a lot of podcasts. And as I was researching you though, I ran across one that you did with Kathy Heller, one of my friends, and it was an awesome discussion, I thought, where she got very vulnerable herself about her own lack of boundaries. And for those of you who don't know her,

Kathy has an amazing podcast called the Kathy Heller Show, probably over a million downloads a month, and also operates an incredible business. Where I'm going with this is we often see people like her and think that person has it all together. However, when she did this interview, she really was vulnerable about some huge boundary issues in her life, something that I think you refer to

as boundary disaster. And I wanted to ask maybe using that, what is a boundary disaster and why is it so hard for so many of us to stick to our boundaries? Well, I personally was a boundary disaster. So that's basically where the phrase came from in my younger life in my 20s. Why is it so hard because of the way that we are indoctrinated into a system? And this is men and women in particular though, there is an expectation that little girls will be, where's my happy girl? Turn that frown around, right? If you don't have anything nice, as they don't say anything at all, this is the messaging that we got. Being nice as a little girl, we are taught that is more important than pretty much anything

else. Others perceiving you as being nice. So we come from this deficit of boundaries because we learn to be opposite is true. So you have, I have, we all have what I refer to as a downloaded boundary blueprint, which is a combination of the culture, the country, you grew up in, the family system, because every family has their own norms and values and more else and all of that stuff and codes of behavior. This is how we do whatever the thing is. Family systems have their own identity, basically. And so most of us were taught that is more important

how other people feel than how we feel as a woman, the more self-sacrificing the better, right? You hear people described as though she's amazing. You would love her. She would give anybody the shirt off her back I'm always thinking hey man, keep your shirt on like why being that self abandoning and being praised right most of us were raised and praised for that self abandoning and being praised, right? Most of us were raised in praise for being self abandoning co-dependence. Like literally, that's what we were taught to be. So why it's so hard is that's why nobody taught us. And in fact, we were taught that if you had boundaries, you were selfish, self-absorbed, if you asserted yourself, you were for women in particular, you're a bit sure, hysterical, you're bossy, you're unfeminine, all the things.

So we're coming from this place of vilifying, having healthy boundaries, meaning that you're not the earth, mother, self-sacrificing, amazing woman and mom that you should be if you have boundaries. So what I find with my therapy clients is that there's so much of that crap that we have get through really questioning. What does it mean to have boundaries? So let's establish that quickly. Like what what is it actually mean? I want you to think about your boundaries as your own personal rules of engagement. This lets people know what's okay with you and what's not okay with you. Your boundaries are comprised of your preferences, your desires, your limits, and your dealbreakers, right? Because not all boundaries are the same. A preference is something that's negotiable, right? It's a preference. It's a nice to have. It's not a half to have. A dealbreaker of half to have a deal breaker of a boundary. Let's say in a relationship maybe for me, since I'm in recovery, a deal breaker for me was, I didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone else in recovery. And my friends in recovery are like,

what's wrong with you? Are you judging people in recovery? I'm like, no, that's my personal deal breaker. There's only room for one recovering addict and a relationship that I'm in and that's me. So like why are you judging me? Whatever your deal breakers are, you personally, your boundaries, your preferences, that's all unique to you. And you have every right to have them. And I think that we're so worried

about what other people think about our boundaries, about our preferences, about our limits, setting a limit, simply saying no. People find it very difficult, especially in my practice. So why we don't know is nobody told us, and they didn't teach us in school, and they didn't teach us in grad school, and they taught us nowhere. So you're literally talking about trying to be fluent in a language that nobody taught you? So that doesn't make sense. You wouldn't be like, I'm really crossing my fingers, Terry. I want to wake up fluent in Mandarin tomorrow.

You'd be like, I need a teacher. I need a course. I need a book. I need someone to help me learn this, which is why I wrote Boundary Boss. That is that manual for anyone, no matter where they are in their boundary journey, if they don't know what a boundary is, to someone who feels like their boundaries are pretty good, but maybe they want them to be better. Wherever you are, it's the perfect place to start to become fluent in the language of boundaries.

I want to go back to the beginning of the episode because the first few questions that we discussed were really about how do you find your true self. And I wanted to ask, what does it mean to have healthy boundaries and how does that relate to embracing your true self? That's a good question. Let's look at it this way. Disorder boundaries. So if your boundaries are too porous, that means they're too malleable.

They're too loose. You're too impressionable. You're more like a chameleon or a peacekeeper. Or you can have boundaries that are too rigid. And then you're more of the, let's say, the ice queen or like the loner, someone who you would rather cut people off than tell them how they hurt your feelings. So I think that people, first of all, don't understand what disordered boundaries are. They think that if you're a boundary boss, then you're telling everybody off and saying no all the time and it's my way, the highway buddy, which is not true. That's what someone with rigid boundaries

would do. Healthy boundaries is in the middle of that where there's a certain amount of flexibility that we have. So back to the question of how does this relate to your true self. When you have disordered boundaries, you're not being true to yourself. If I'm saying yes, when I want to say no, to be nice, right, under the umbrella, under the guise of being nice. Let's really think about that. Is that nice? Of course not. It's dishonest.

It's really you wanting to avoid a confrontation. It's you being afraid of being rejected, right? There's all these unconscious things that are driving our behaviors. So it's not like we're nuts, like we're doing it for a reason. But here's the thing. If you're saying yes when you want to say no,

if you don't correct someone that you're in a relationship with where they took you out to Mexican restaurant as a gift during the first two weeks of the relationship and it's 15 years later and you're still on every anniversary going out for Mexican even though you don't like it, didn't like it then, don't like it now. Are you being nice? No later and you're still on every anniversary going out from Mexican even though you don't like it, didn't like it then don't like it now. Are you being nice? No. What you're doing, if you're saying yes when you want to say no,

we're not telling the truth about how you feel. The people in your life don't know you. So how can anyone authentically love you? If you never allow them to authentically know you because you're so caught up in people pleasing or you're so caught up in not being rejected, you have so much fear of that. You're not honoring who you are. It's so sad. I've had women come into my therapy practice in their sixth, seventh decade of life. Being like, I've done it all. Kids all went to Ivy League schools, got money in the bank, I'm sitting on all these boards, I'm going to soul cycle three times a week. I still like my spouse. We do all this traveling, doing all this charity work. Why do I feel so empty? And like because you built your entire life, based on checking boxes

that somebody else is constructed and literally nobody friggin knows you. You feel empty because all of those acclates and it's very actually this brings me back to what you were talking about in the beginning John about you're at the height of this massive woo fancy career making all this dough it's amazing life is great I got all of this still and yet you were miserable, because it wasn't your true heart's desire, being fulfilled. Those things didn't fill that part of you that wanted meaning and the truth,

of what you're doing now. This is your authentic expression, right? This is you doing what only you can do in this world. And it's satisfying in a way that no Ferrari is going to be, you doing what only you can do in this world. And it's satisfying in a way that no Ferrari is going to be or no beach house is going to be doing this type of work. So it's very urgent. People figuring out their boundaries is urgent because when you live a life of disordered boundaries,

you are living a life that is not your own. You are not living authentically. You are not telling the truth about who you are. And it's a privilege to let the people in your life know who you are. I love what you just said. And I think one of the most important lessons that I like to talk about is the power of saying no, because I think this is something that would just look at an entrepreneur. And even since I started down this path of creating this podcast and the brand and everything else, it's as you're doing it, and then all of a sudden all these temptations start hitting you from all sides, I'm sure you found that too. And one of the hardest things I've had to do

along the way to stay focused is to say, no, to a lot of opportunities. Could they have been great, maybe? But I knew where I wanted to go and I knew if I started to invest any of my time in any of those other things, it was just going to take away from what I was trying to do. Right. And in the boundary boss, you also have this concept of the boundary destroyer. And I think what I was just talking about, you can liken to a boundary destroyer. So I was hoping that would be something you can unpack

for the audience as well. Sure. I dedicated an entire chapter to boundary destroyers because you will encounter boundary bullies. This is the way that I break it entire chapter to boundary destroyers because you will encounter boundary bullies, right? This is the way that I break it down, right? When you start becoming more fluent in boundaries in your life and you start asserting them more in your long-term relationships, people are going to notice, right? You've been doing this boundary dance especially with your family of origin for decades. It's not like you're just going to be like,

you know what? I actually don't want to do that at Christmas. It's here and people are not going to notice. They're going to notice the way that I break it down is categories of you. Boundary first timers, you have repeat offenders, the people who you have actually expressed your boundary desire to and they don't care. They're trampling on your boundary. And then we have boundary destroyers. And these are people that fall into their own category so much so that I had to do a whole entire chapter on them. These are people who are emotionally manipulative, who want what they want from you,

no matter how you feel about it, no matter what your situation is. So I think that we should go through that process a little bit, because not everyone is a boundary destroyer, but people who are unhealthy, toxic relationships, people who are gaslighting you, people who are love bombing you. And yes, we talk about narcissists a lot. I know on the interwebs and not everyone in the world who does what you don't like as a narcissist, but there's truth in what are the personality types

and the personality disorders that are most likely to be boundary destroyers? And they are narcissistic personality, history, it could be bipolar, untreated, like there's lots of cluster B personality disorders that can fall into that category, but we don't even have to diagnose. We could just say people who are highly manipulative, right, fall into that category, but we don't even have to diagnose. We could just say people who are highly manipulative, right, fall into that category. So you have to be mindful of who you're dealing with when you're setting boundaries. So a normal response to a boundary is someone you're in a relationship with might feel threatened if you set a boundary where you haven't before. Dr. Harriet Lerner, who's a brilliant PhD, she's written a million books and I love her so much, but she talks about our relationships are a dance. And so when you change the dance,

that other person is going to do what she calls a changeback move, where they might get really upset. You're not going to come to mom's at Christmas this year or whatever, right? And they may be like, I'm not talking to you now, or I don't know who you are, or they're doing something really big of motion to get you to get back in line. Go back to be the way you were before

because the way you are now is scaring me. And if we were to go a little deeper on why people changing is threatening to others, it's partly because if you change too much, maybe you will no longer want me, maybe you will no longer want to be in this relationship. People are afraid they're going to lose you if you change. So I always teach that we can stay lovingly connected to the people in our lives and still very calmly and with kindness assert our boundaries. Like you can stand firm. We never have to be mean. Boundaries never have to be done in a

caustic way. Hey, maybe Bob from accounting is an idiot and maybe you need a little heat when you draw a boundary with him that's fine, but for them to be effective, they don't have to be aggressive. You just have to stand firm. So if someone you care about is having a big emotion about your boundary, you can acknowledge that, hey, I love you, I understand your upset right now. And I still am choosing to travel with my partner instead of coming home for Christmas or whatever the thing is.

But I see that you're upset and I'm sorry that you are. I can be sorry that you are not changing our Christmas plans. Well, I love that. And I've wanted to go into human connection for these next couple of questions. So it was a great lead into it. I recently interviewed Berkeley professor and author Dacker Keltler, who's one of the foremost experts in the world on emotions. Most people have come to believe that the emotion of awe comes from nature,

spiritual practice, possibly art or music. However, in his new book, awe, he did extensive research across 25 countries and came to the start and only conclusion that more so than not, awe comes from moral beauty. When people see others display things like kindness and gratitude. And I want to ask you, how do you think this concept of moral beauty

changes our relationship with the world and those who we interact with? I mean, it's fully aspirational in saying moral beauty. It's basically talking about the way that we perceive other humans. What are the things that we dial into? Is it the good deeds? Is it the kindness? Right. What are we seeking out?

Are we valuing moral beauty? Because I'm going to tell you, I firmly believe personally, I am a moral beauty connoisseur of always seeking the online positive things. Who is doing random acts of kindness? And there are so many people doing it because the bad news and the bad actors and the bad players get so much screen time everywhere. Even though I don't even watch the news, I read it, but so how does it impact us? It would change the world if this were something that were taught, if this were something that were valued, not just by the people who are into moral beauty.

Because what are we talking about? I mean, that's a phrase that Peacoin, I imagine. What are we really talking about? We're talking about human goodness, caring about our human family. It's not red, it's not blue, it's not this state, it's not that state, it's our human family actually caring, feeling like you're a part of the whole. I feel like a citizen of planet earth, me personally, something that happens far away isn't not happening. It's not my concern. Do you know what I mean? Where I feel like what's happening in the world is my concern. Do you know what I mean? Where I feel like what's

happening in the world is my concern. And it doesn't mean I feel my days with watching the news because I don't. But I do work to find the good actors and the good players and to amplify those messages on my podcast and the things that I write about the people that I associate myself with, because I'm a kid around and say that my desire is positive world domination, where the more we care about each other, the bigger ripple we will have in the world. And it's something that there's a lot of people who are dialed into this messaging and so many people who are in my world and in my platform, they get it. They know that my desire is to lessen the suffering for

as many people as possible and increase the joy. That's literally what I'm doing on planet Earth. That's what I want to do by teaching people how to have these skills. But I think that we need so much more emphasis on moral beauty and that we're all connected. The divisiveness in the past eight years has been so brutal. And that doesn't change what's true. Deepak would talk about meeting in the unified field. We're all connected. You can build as many walls as you want, a moat, you can have alligators. It does not change what is energetically true.

It so behooves all of us to have each other's backs and to really care, especially about marginalized groups. Anyone in power needs to care about the people who are not in power. No, and there was, I think, a great book that came out of the Good life by Bob Waldinger Who's the current director of the Harvard study of adult aging that really addressed this in a great way that Ultimately what leads to living a good life are relationships and human connections and

One of the reasons I think we're drifted skygalley way would like to say is that I think technology is having a major ripple effect on culture and society. I mean, I am really, really worried about the harm this is doing to dissolve human connections, especially in gen zers like my two kids. What are your thoughts about this, and how do you think we restore the joy of being connected to others? I think we have to have boundaries with technology. That's the first thing. If you would want to have a conversation with me, I know you wouldn't jump, but let's just say you did, but you were looking down at your phone. I will just simply stop talking and I'll say, hey, I can wait if that's important. If someone says to me, no, I'm listening, I'm like, oh no, you need to listen with your eyes and your ears.

If I can give you my full attention, you will definitely give me your full attention, or I will not have this conversation. There's something so dehumanizing about what has been going on with technology. Like, we are so distractible. Wow, what happened to our attention span? So I have a lot of rules and regulations in my life

around technology. I don't have a television. My bedroom, no phones in the bedroom. Bedroom is for sleeping and sex. This is what the bedroom is for. Meditating too, maybe. But I feel like within family systems, I love the idea of having a basket.

People go into my house, there's a basket at the front door. And I'm like, put your phone in. Like, nobody is sitting here scrolling Instagram. People, we are together, especially when my family comes. I've got kids and grandkids, you can scroll Instagram on your home time. You don't need to do it here. So I think that some people will argue, especially during the pandemic, that there was connection that happened through our technology and there's truth to that but part of the problem is that we don't have a lot of limits on the technology and what happens personality-wise what we see happens someone you're behind a screen and you're on there what people

will say as they're trolling other people's stuff, they would never say in real life, right? They would never say that to your face. They would never have the courage or the disgust or the balls or whatever it is you'd want to say. So I always say it's like having cyber balls to a degree like your anonymous behind a screen. And that has tapped into the lowest

inclination of humans, this anonymity because we haven't the social structure. Right, think about the 1950s, right? If you were dating your friend's sister, like, you're going to see your friend again, you're not just ghosting Leslie, right? You're going to break up with her, Like you actually have to do something because the social structure was such the construct that you'd be seeing these people again, right? Like you can't just disappear the way it is now. So I think that there's a lot to be said for the advancement in technology. And yes, many good things have come out of it, but I feel like it's we're

still in the infancy. And so have come out of it, but I feel like it's we're still in the infancy. And so it's out of control. And I think that the pendulum is going to swing back the other way. But I feel like we must again take radical responsibility for our own use. What are we doing? How present are you with your children? People who have little kids now? Are you on your phone? Or you're supposed to be with your kid? That's damaging them. They know you're not there. They want your attention. So that's something that we have to build back to. But I see this. Anyway, I could keep going. I don't know what the answer is. Other than our own having control of ourselves. Well, I'm laughing because sometimes I'll be scrolling through the phone and I'll look

over and my dog is just staring at me like, what in the world are you doing and why aren't you paying attention to me? Yeah, exactly. Well, Perry, it's been great to have you on the show today and I wanted to end with this question. For the listeners who are on the show, what would be the number one takeaway that you really want the audience to absorb? How you feel, what you think, what you want matters, and by having healthier boundaries and

learning to communicate what you can do online, just go to YouTube. That will change your life. Like you matter. It's not you being a people pleaser is not pleasing anyone at the end of your life. You're not going to be happy that you did that. Your unique contribution can only come through you having healthy boundaries and knowing how to communicate effectively.

And we need you. So two takeaways. One is you matter. And the second, I actually have a gift for your audience. So this is about boundaries and codependency, because it's something that we didn't totally get into talking about, but we did on the sort of an incursory way. It's so important.

And people suffer from this and don't know. So in a way, this will help you figure out if you are codependent and give you ideas of things you can do, you can find that at bounderboss.me, forward slash passion struck. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you very much. And you're welcome. This was great.

Well, and Terry, I just wanted to highlight before we get off. You've got a great podcast yourself, one of the top 20 mental health podcasts out there. We just tell the audience a little bit about it because I share. If they love my show, they'd love yours as well. Yeah, I actually think we're actually very aligned with what we're doing. You'll have to come on my show too. I do two shows a week. One is solo where I'm just talking about anything that I think will help your life is what I'm talking about

on that solo show. A lot of my listeners write in and will ask me to cover topics which I do. I love it. So that's one and then the others I interview people. So everyone from and entertain me from Leanne Rhymes to anybody because especially the more high profile of people who are really intemental wellness, but all the books that are out, so I interview lots of interesting people from different parts of life, but there's always a mental help angle to it because I'm always hoping you can learn something from a show that will increase your joy

and decrease your suffering. Well, I have a book coming out in about eight or nine months, so I will definitely take you up on it. So excellent. I love that. Teri, well, thank you so much. It was such an honor. You've done so much for so many people.

So I really appreciate you spending your time with my audience today. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Joe. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Teri Cole. And I wanted to thank Teri, sounds true, and Jessica Reda for the honor and privilege of having her on today's show. All links to Terry will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please consider using our website links to purchase any of the

books from the guests that we feature on the show. All proceeds go to supporting the show. Advertisers deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Videos are on YouTube at both John Armyles and PassionStruck clips. As I mentioned at the beginning, we are also now on the AMFM 247 network broadcast. I'm on LinkedIn and you can also find me at John Armiles on Twitter and Instagram where I post daily burst of inspiration. Go there and please also go to LinkedIn and subscribe to my weekly newsletter. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStrike podcast I did with Dacker Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University,

California Berkeley and the faculty director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. We discuss Dacker's latest book, titled, Ah, the New Science of Everyday Wonder and how it can transform your life. We gathered stories of awe from 26 countries, took two years with speakers of 20 languages to translate them, and then we classified them like what brings people awe. I was expecting nature, maybe spirituality, and it turns out it's other people, the moral beauty of other people.

And it is things like their kindness, sharing food with a stranger, their courage, its humility, its the ability to overcome things, to persevere. You see somebody who's, you know, born with a physical condition and lo and behold, they walk around the country. And you're just like, man, look at the strength and character and morality and goodness of humans. The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or inspirational. If you know someone who's dealing with setting healthy boundaries, then definitely share today's episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share this show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show,

so you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life passion struck. you