The One You Feed - How to Break the People-Pleasing Cycle and Set Healthy Boundaries with Terri Cole

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

In this episode, Terri Cole discusses how to break the people-pleasing cycle and set healthy boundaries. She explores the fine line between kindness and people- pleasing and how sometimes, what feels like generosity might actually be an attempt to control someone else’s reaction or avoid conflict altogether. Terri also explains why so many of us fall into this “peace at any cost” mentality and the toll it takes on us. She offers powerful tools to help us break free from that compulsion and get clear on what we’re really responsible for, and how to show up authentically in our relationships. Key Takeaways: 00:03:03 – Tending to the Shadow Side 00:04:12 – Finding Balance: Reacting vs. Responding 00:06:06 – The Resentment Inventory 00:10:04 – Taking Responsibility for Our Feelings 00:11:14 – Understanding Activation and Transference 00:15:43 – The Impact of Past Relationships 00:19:01 – Defining High Functioning Codependency 00:20:15 – Characteristics of High Functioning Codependents 00:26:38 – The Importance of Mindful Habit Changes 00:27:32 – Distinguishing Kindness from Codependency 00:29:04 – Questions to Differentiate Responsibility 00:34:48 – The Role of Boundaries in Relationships 00:37:01 – The Challenge of Letting Go 00:40:28 – The Power of Asking the Right Questions 00:43:41 – Conclusion: The Balance of Giving and Receiving For full show notes, click here! Connect with the show: Follow us on YouTube: @TheOneYouFeedPod Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Follow us on Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Where's my happy girl? Turn that frown around. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So there's an expectation that we will be helpful, that we will add value. Now add if you have a religious household or a very authoritarian household. I mean, we are raised and praised to become a self-abandoning codependence fact. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.

We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Have you ever found yourself doing something for someone else and wondered, am I doing

this because I want to or because I feel like I have to? That question hit me hard during my conversation with Terry Cole, psychotherapist and author of Too Much, a guide to breaking the cycle of high functioning codependency. We talked about the fine line between kindness and people pleasing and how sometimes what feels like generosity might actually be an attempt to control someone else's reaction or to avoid conflict altogether. In this episode we explore why so many of us fall into this peace at any cost mentality and the toll it takes on us. Terry offers powerful tools to help us break free from

that compulsion, get clear on what we're really responsible for, and show up authentically in our relationships. If you've ever felt like kindness comes with strings or wondered where to draw the line between helping and self abandonment, you're not gonna wanna miss this one. We all have a moment that splits us wide open. On my new podcast, Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, I'll sit down with trailblazers from sports, music, fashion,

entertainment, and politics to explore their toughest moments and the incredible comebacks that followed. Listen to Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, an iHeart Women's Sports production on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, you guys. I'm Catherine Legge. I'm a racing driver who's literally driven everything with four wheels across the planet. And I've got a new podcast.

It's called Throttle Therapy. This season, I'm competing in some of the world's most notorious racing events. Tune into my new podcast, Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legg, an iHeart Women's Sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.

Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, Here's the Thing, I speak with musician, photographer, and philanthropist Julian Lennon. One of the really important things that happened to me with photography was I would have people write to me. People that couldn't financially afford to travel the world. And what they had all said to me is that you bring these stories to us. You bring the truth. You bring cultures that we would never necessarily know anything about.

Listen to the new season of Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Terry. Welcome to the show. Why, thanks for having me, Eric. We're going to be discussing your new book, which is called Too Much, a guide to breaking the cycle of high-functioning codependency. We'll get to that in a moment, but we'll start the way we normally do, which is with the parable.

In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops, they think about it for a second, they look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and

in the work that you do. Well, I think it's true for all of us because as people we are multi-dimensional and we all have a shadow side and I sort of see the bad wolf to a degree as the shadow side of all of us. And I think we have to tend to the shadow, at least in my own life, and not feed it. So how it shows up in my life is being very aware of my own tendencies towards blame and being petty and all these things that I don't like about myself. Now, they're not the predominant things about me, but there's truth in looking at my own shadow. What are the things that bug me about someone else? Oh, if I look hard, those things are definitely

things that I possess. You know, who are the people that if I were to gossip, who would I gossip about? Oh, that's definitely a mirror coming back to me. So I've always loved that parable, because I think it's so true because it speaks to the human choice that we have, where it doesn't really necessarily matter what hand you are dealt in life, quote unquote. I always felt like which one you feed determines what hand you go forward with. I love something you said in there, which is that I need to tend to that quote unquote bad wolf, but not feed it. And I think there's a lot of nuance in that. And I think the nuance is really, really important because to either feed it or starve it are ends of extremes.

You're trying to find somewhere in the middle, what would tending it sort of look like for you in the moment? You have the judgment of someone else. Let's just go with that one because that one came up. What's that tending process actually look like inside your mind? Well, being honest. If someone blames me for something, I feel like I haven't done, let's say. So being honest, that makes me mad.

And I want to tell them all the things they did wrong and how it really was them. Now, being in therapy for decades of my life, that's a moment, right? That's a moment that the bad wolf is like sticking his little nose up and being like, hmm, I'm going to tell them. But the moment passes, then I don't tell them because then I move towards my higher abilities, which is compassion. What is that person afraid of right now? Why are they blaming me? Because they're feeling this constriction within them? Can I approach this compassionately or can I just not be reactive? Can I just not take it personally? Can I just fucking cut somebody a break like we're not perfect?

We all do stuff that to me is the higher part of me. That's like it's not about you They're having a moment and especially if it's someone in my life that I love, that I care about, that I have a relationship with. I don't need to die on like every hill. I don't need to be butthurt about everything that happens. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. So we're going to get into more of this as we get into your book, but I think there's something here I'd like to continue to expand upon. It's the idea of doing what you just said, which is pausing, thinking about it, and then coming up with a response.

There are those of us who might identify as codependent, using the term that you use in your book, so who have the problem. Okay, I'm talking about me. It's easier than third person, just go. Exactly. Somebody does something that bothers me. I pause, I wait, I think to myself, hang on, I want to see if this really is a big deal or not.

Is this a hill I want to die on? All that. Which is good, and I'm actually really good at that. The problem often is that the thing loses its emotional energy though, and then I just don't bring it up, I don't deal with it, I avoid it. So how do we find that thing where we're not reacting, but we're also not ignoring? It's funny, I was just thinking about something that happened between my husband and I the other day. We've been together for 27 years. And he said something and I felt like he was blaming me for something.

Like the way he told it, he said it, I just straight up asked, are you blaming me for that? Do you feel like that's my fault? I just honestly asked. And he said, no, no, I really wasn't. I was just pointing out that you're the last one to move the car, but it wasn't a blame thing. And I was like, okay. So I feel like by me asking that question, I'm telling him, hey, this is what I heard. And he was like, hey, that's not what I meant. And we have a very durable, extremely long relationship. So we just go, okay, I know what you're saying though, Eric, about when are we hiding our heads in the sand? When are we sweeping something under the rug?

And I think that what you can do to know where you're doing this, and then we can walk through what to do instead, is I think it's really helpful for people to do a resentment inventory, where we really just get honest about how we feel. Like, who are we holding resentment for in our lives? And a lot of times we're doing it so sort of seamlessly and

unconsciously, it's like in the basement, as I like to say, that we're like, not even really aware, but these resentments become cumulative. And it almost like before you know it, you're in this like, low key state of annoyance. Like we're just waiting for something to happen. So someone cut you off in traffic, you can be like, wow, you know, there will be an explosion. So once you look at and you go, okay, you know, actually, I'm feeling resentful about for my adult child who borrowed money that they haven't repaid or whatever the thing is for you. Then we have to look and go, okay, what is my 50%

of this situation that I found myself in? What is it in that situation? My 50%, perhaps if I was an adult, you know, I had an adult child that I lent money to who didn't give back to me, and that was the expectation or the agreement. My 50% is not saying anything, right? My 50% is letting it slide and being like, ah, maybe they don't really have the money, right? Making excuses for them. That's my 50%. So there are resentments and doing a resentment inventory, this becomes a GPS for what relationships need our attention or what situations need our attention, because it's telling us that circumstance situation or interaction is leaving me with this residual feeling that I do not like. And that is not going to go away, by the way. So you know, just because shit is

inconvenient, feelings are inconvenient, just because we don't like them doesn't mean they go away, they don't. And so we don't want those things festering. I feel like the less we can let grass grow under it. And even if it's just for clarity, like I said to my husband, like this is what it sounds like. And I wasn't mad or defensive or sarcastic. I was literally saying, this is what I got from that. And he was like, no, that's really not what I meant.

And I don't blame you for it. I was like, okay. So it can be an easy conversation or a hard conversation depending on the person. But the most important part about this error is that we are responsible for how we feel. We are responsible for how we feel. We are responsible. And when we're codependent and high functioning codependent, we feel that we're responsible for the way other people feel. And this gets incredibly complicated. That resentment index is not something I've heard in a while. However, I have done a number

of them in my life because they are part of the 12 steps. That's part of the four-step inventory that we're encouraged to do. I love what you said there though, because the way that this resentment index is presented, at least in a lot of the meetings I was in, was the idea that whatever the resentment was, it's somehow your fault that you have a resentment. And I love the idea that you say, what's my 50%? Because that allows me to acknowledge there's actually a reasonable reason that I have this resentment. And then further, it is my responsibility if I don't want to live with its emotional energy to find a way to let it go.

Yes, and I want to add something, if I may, to that. Yes. Another really important part of this is when we are having an emotional response to something, is for us to know ourselves, right? Is for us to go, huh, I'm feeling activated, right? I don't love to use the word trigger the way that it's used everywhere. Because from a psychotherapeutic point of view, when we say trigger, we're really talking about actual trauma, right? And we can be activated by things that were just painful, not things that we

thought we were going to die, right. So just for my own, I like I talk and I write about it in the book as being activated. And it's important that we look at what are our own activation points. Right? If you grew up with a very punitive parent, maybe a punitive mother, you may be very sensitive to people giving you even if it were constructive criticism, it might feel mean, it might feel like too much. So I have this little thing that people can do. If you find yourself in a situation where you're like, oh, I think my response might have been

amplified compared to what this is, what does it mean? It means you might be having a transference, right? You might be experiencing something in current time That's being fueled by the unresolved injury from the past So to make that layman's terms to make it easy I just created these three questions that we can ask ourselves if we're in that situation Which is right now who does this person remind me of? Where have I felt like this before and how or why is this dynamic, the way I'm relating to this person, how is that familiar to me?

And what gets revealed, and I'll give you a quick example of this if I may. I was in my grad school internship and the guy who ran the place was a very fancy addiction doctor. Dr. Arnold Washington was his name. And I couldn't stand this guy. I didn't realize how irrational it was, but I really just was like, oh, he's a jerk. He's so cold, he's so judgmental.

I would avoid him if he was in the hallway. I would jump into the ladies room. If he was in a meeting, I wouldn't talk. It was the whole thing. So I was talking to my therapist about it. And she was like, so how would you describe him? And I was like, oh, you know the type. Brooks brother suit wearing, Wall Street Journal reading, martini swigging, golfing on the weekends, you know, the guy

in the Bermuda shorts, that guy. And she was like, Okay, who else would you describe exactly like that? And I was like, Oh, my God, how embarrassing. My father, who I grew up terrified of. Oh, because she's like, Terry, listen, you are literally turning into a 10 year old every time you're around this guy. So why is that bad? Because don't you want a job after you get out of school at this place, which if you never let him see how smart you are, you're never going to get hired. Obviously, bring in your unresolved 10 year old self to any situations, probably not going to give you the best

result that I was having a transference. And so it could be something that reminds you of something. This guy just reminded me so much of my father, the way he looked, his physicality, he had dimples, the same kind of voice, like it was uncanny, very quiet. But as soon as that reality came in that she helped me see, I was able to completely be my grown-up self around him. I did get hired after my internship was over. But that's an example of having a transference that a lot of times it's so real. I didn't even know and I was already studying to be a therapist at that point. I still didn't know.

Yeah, my version of that is similar to yours and it took me a while to figure out, which was if there was any man who was older than me or in an authority position and they started to look irritated, they didn't even have to say anything, I got afraid. I shrunk. Now, I did a lot of work on working with my father. What I found for me is it hasn't eliminated it. It still will start to rise up. I haven't seen to be able to completely unhook it, but it will rise up.

But I know it really well now. And I go, why am I feeling this way? Let's say I'm giving a talk to people and there's one guy in the audience who looks unhappy. Right, totally. He's say I'm giving a talk to people and there's one guy in the audience who looks unhappy. Right, totally. He's all I see from now on. I want to start tailoring my talk to him. Totally.

So now I can see it and just be like, all right, all right, this is what's happening. You know, stay on course here. But let's talk about that. Because I think you bring up a really good point, Eric, of how, when we get into recovery, from being high functioning, codependent, from from being in anything, right, any kind of recovery, it doesn't mean that we don't still have these feelings, right? It's just like me being in recovery for alcohol. I don't never want to

drink, I just don't drink, right? I just changed my behavior because my that behavior was going to ruin my life. So with codependency and over functioning and over giving and all the things, it isn't that you'll never feel like you want to please the random stern dude in the audience, right? You may still have that feeling. The difference is you don't go all the way down the rabbit hole with it. Right. Right. I look at my relationship to my father, because I certainly have a father wound. I'm writing a book about father wounds now. Oh, I can't wait to read it.

Yeah. Should interview you for it. I'm actually writing it right now. Glad to. But, you know, I think about what is the residual effect of even healing this father wound, which I have done, is that it has inextricably impacted who I am. It is woven into the tapestry, the unique and beautiful tapestry of my life. So the way that it shows up now is maybe I'm watching a Christmas commercial that has like a daddy daughter thing. And maybe I'll be a little bit more choked up than someone who didn't have that.

100%. Yes. My partner knows this. If there is a tender scene between a father and a son anywhere, it doesn't matter how sentimental or stupid it is. I know what they're trying to do and yet it happens. I start tearing up. Totally. But again, there's this acceptance and you know, Eric, it's like those are the things in

a way that make us uniquely gifted, skilled, talented to do the things that we do in the world, right? I'm trying to help other people with father wounds because I know that it's possible to. I'm helping other people with this book to stop being high functioning codependent because i know that their lives are going to be so much better on the other side if i didn't suffer the things i suffered. In my life i don't think i suffered anymore than anybody else but i mean just the regular life i wouldn't be in this unique. Position to really deeply understand first of all how painful it is when we have these wounds that are unhealed and then how walking around unprotected is what it feels like right where any rejection you know when I was in my 20s let's say could be like this devastating doesn't matter who the hell it was coming from like it was so much fear of rejection because of my father wound.

You know, and it's funny, I see this with my therapy clients now and over the many years. And I would say before we're worrying about whether this person is rejecting you, can we decide whether you even like them? Like how about we start from here? It can't just be that rejection from anyone is horrible. Like no, maybe it's protection. We don't even know. Yeah.

So let's move towards codependency in your book here. I'm going to get my biases out upfront here. I got sober in 1994. Codependent No More was relatively new to the scene. And I saw a couple of different things happen in that era that I think have shaped me. One was I was in a 12-step program for alcohol, and there was an idea that was brought up there

that really made a lot of sense to me. And it was that selfishness, self-centeredness was the root of my problem. I was able to see on some level how that was true. So there was this sense of, you know, in what cases is it useful to decenter myself? And then at the same time, I also saw the tough love movement that sort of came out of this, that seemed in some cases to justify some pretty lousy behavior from the people who were codependent towards the addicts. And I have some of the tendencies of this codependency.

So all of those three things make me initially react to, I don't like that word, I don't want to use it as a concept. So again, I just think it's helpful to sort of say, you know, here's where I am. All that said, I found the book really, really helpful. Talk to me about what you mean a high functioning codependent is. Okay. Well, I'm going to start, if I may, with why did I even originate this term, right? Codependency has been well established.

The problem is codependency is not well understood. And so in my therapy practice, it was predominantly masters of the universe, women and women like me, highly capable, highly successful, career women, CEOs, CFOs, pop stars, like Broadway people, like it was just women doing it all. So if I would say, Oh, hey, what you're describing in your relationship, this is a codependent pattern that I see immediately, they would reject dependent wait, excuse me. I'm not dependent on squat, Terry, everyone's dependent on me. I'm making all the money. I'm making all the moves. I'm in charge of all the emotional labor in my family. I take

care of the kids and my parents like, what are you talking about? And I realized they did not know what codependency was mostly being very influenced by the myths around codependent no more, no itty bitty, the thought that I'm not involved with an alcoholic. This is how many people would say to me, I'm not enabling an addict. I'm like, okay, you don't have to be. So my problem was this, how can I help them with their behavioral problem if they do not see themselves in the behavioral problem? So when I added high functioning and then I started looking and I was like, you know what, here's the thing, this is a different flavor of codependency. Because first of all, you teach what you most need to learn. It was my personal flavor of codependency.

And I saw it, it was like, it's almost like codependency for the modern person, the person who is doing too much, the person who is over-scheduled, the person who feels over the responsible. So my definition, let's do that, of codependency, is you being overly invested in the feeling states, the outcomes, the relationships, the circumstances,

finances, careers of the people in your life to the detriment of your own internal peace. So as good human beings, as brothers and lovers and partners and all the things that we are, obviously we love our people, we want them to be happy. But when you're a high functioning codependent or HFC, as we call it, it's more than wanting. It's feeling responsible for. So at its foundation, any codependency, garden variety, high functioning is an overt or covert

desire to control someone else's outcome. I don't want you to feel bad. You come home in a bad mood. I'm in a great mood. You're my partner. I don't want you to feel bad. Oh, can I make you a drink? I was gonna make your favorite meal. Oh, do you want to watch something funny? Like, I don't want you to be in a bad mood. That's me trying to control your mood. Even if I say, and I know, my heart certainly when I was younger was in the right place. Anyway, back to my clients.

When I changed the moniker, all of them could suddenly go, oh my God, I'm the problem. It's me. Like they would not to quote Taylor, but I will. They got it. They were like, I am exhausted. I am burnt out. I am feeling resentful for what I'm doing. I do feel underappreciated in my

workplace or my home or my relationship or my friendship group even, right? It could be anything. So now I could get to work with them because they weren't resisting. And what I noticed is that there are differences with high functioning codependence. We are also, I am one, even though I'm in recovery, but we're very dialed into our environment. It's not just becoming codependent with the people in our lives, right overly invested in what's going on with them and feeling like we need to help or change or send a book or hook them up with an oncologist or whatever it is we need to do pay off their student loan debt. It's more than that, where I've

come up with a whole list of behaviors that sort of go along with this. And I would start with feeling overly responsible to fix other people's problems. That would be the beginning. Going above and beyond, giving till it hurts, doing stuff people are not even asking you to do. Always ready to jump into damage control mode, because really we are amazing in a crisis, just saying that we have really good ideas, and we're very loyal, getting frustrated or angry when other people don't take our advice, because you know, we're going to talk to them for like three hours, and then they're never going to do it. Feeling exhausted, feeling resentful,

feeling bitter. There's also a hyper independence that comes along with being an HFC, where we really don't love to ask other people for help. Don't love it. I want to give to you, but I really don't, Eric, want you to give to me, because then I might owe you, or then I might be vulnerable in a way that feels uncomfortable. In another way, we're also sort of trampling on the sovereignty of other people, whether we mean to or not. And it's funny, my first book was called Boundary Boss, and it was all about boundaries. And so much of that was about how do we get other people to respect our boundaries? How do we uphold our boundaries? This book, I'm

really coming from it from an honest point of view, that if you are a high functioning codependent, you probably are an inadvertent boundary trampler, not on purpose. But it's what happens, right? Because if I'm an auto advice giver, right, that's one of the behaviors, you're not even asking. And I'm like, but I have a great idea that you didn't ask me for. And even if you are asking, it's really more important what you think that you should do with your life than what I think, you know? So what are the other behaviors

being overly self sacrificing, auto accommodating, we see a need even in the wild, we just can't wait to move seats, we just can't wait to let you go in front of us, we just can't wait to make sure there's not going to be a problem anywhere. You know, anticipatory planning is another behavior. We know we're going to be with somebody difficult, we want to make sure that we have the booze that they drink or that they're not going to sit next to Uncle Jimmy because they hate them. Instead of expecting people to be grown-ups, we're literally like being the marionette, the one moving the puppets. I wanted to pause for a quick Good Wolf reminder.

This one's about a habit change and a mistake I see people making. And that's really that we don't think about these new habits that we want to add in the context of our entire life, right? Habits don't happen in a vacuum. They have to fit in the life that we have. So when we just keep adding, I should do this, I should do that, I should do this, we get discouraged because we haven't really thought about what we're not going to do in order to make that happen. So it's really helpful for you to think about where is this going to fit

and what in my life might I need to remove. If you want a step-by-step guide for how you can easily build new habits that feed your Good Wolf, go to goodwolf.me slash change and join the free masterclass. Ever wonder what it's like to be on the phone with an NFL general manager

as you finalize the biggest contract in NFL history? I'm AJ Stevens, vice president of client strategy at Athletes First, where we've negotiated $1.4 billion in current NFL quarterback contracts. Introducing the Athletes First Family podcast, the quarterback series. Along with my co-host Brian Murphy, Athletes First's CEO, we're pulling back the curtain on how these historic deals come together. You'll hear directly from the agents who shaped the NFL's financial landscape. The ones who negotiated Justin Herbert's extension and Deshaun Watson's fully guaranteed contract that sent shockwaves through the league. This isn't just about the numbers,

though. It's about the untold stories behind these massive negotiations and the relationships the NFL superstars like Dak Prescott, Tua Tunga-Valaioloa, and Jordan Love have with their agents at Athletes First. For the first time ever, the agents who orchestrate these deals are sharing the details of the negotiations and everything that led up to their clients signing on the dotted line. Listen to the Athletes First Family Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was a moment that should have broken me, but just because of how I was raised

and my bullishness and arrogance to want to be great hardened me. It gave me a platform to be so singularly focused on greatness. We all have moments like this. Something happens that's supposed to break us. But it's in these moments that we discover what we're really made of. I promise you, if anyone knows this, it's me. I'm Ashlyn Harris, two-time Women's World Cup champion and goalkeeper for the U.S. Women's National Team. In my new podcast, Wide Open, I'll sit down with trailblazers from sports, music, fashion, entertainment, and politics to explore their toughest moments

and the incredible comebacks that followed. Listen to Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, an iHeart Women's Sports production on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's Chief Product Officer. If you're just as curious as I am about the way things are built, the insights behind

what it takes to create a world-renowned product, then tune in to my podcast, Building One. There's so much to learn, like how Patagonia innovates with its supply chain. We had to go out to farmers and convince them it was really damn hard. Or the way Adobe thinks about the first interaction somebody has with Photoshop. I was always so fascinated by how people navigate and find their way. Ever wanted to know how Nike builds emotion

into the Jordan brand? You have to be obsessed with the current state of the human condition. And it doesn't stop there. What about how Gleam reinvented knowledge search with AI? You can learn about how a Michelin star chef is redesigning seeds for flavor, and how Pixar is nurturing a creative culture. Listen to Building One on the iHeart radio app, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All those things make a lot of sense, and I'm glad that you've got a way of talking about it. Here's the other challenge that I run into with this idea. When I work with it inside myself is what I mean, not with what you've put into the work at all. When I work with it inside myself, there's a concept in Buddhism of near and far enemies. And it means that something like compassion has a far enemy, which is compassion, kindness, just being mean or callous or uncaring.

There's also something that's called a close enemy. And the close enemy might be something like what you're describing or pity, but it looks enough like the thing that it's hard to distinguish. And I think for some people, I don't know about all people that would fall under this category, some of our best traits are indeed our kindness, our thoughtfulness, our caring for others. Like those are genuine traits, They're genuine values. Right? So, all of a sudden, you've got this thing where, for me, I'm trying to tweeze apart what's driving this.

And as you talk about in the book at one point, that a people pleaser abandons themselves so quickly, they don't notice it happening. On top of this difficulty, because these two things look a lot like each other, trying to tweeze them apart, when you even start tweezing them apart, oftentimes you go, well, I didn't care, it wasn't a big deal to me. You genuinely don't know. So talk to me about sorting that piece out, and I'm sure it's for most people, because they're all like, well, I'm nice, I'm kind sorting that piece out. And I'm sure it's for most people because they're all like,

well, I'm nice, I'm kind, that's good. Yeah. OK, that's such a great question, Eric. So what you're really asking is, is it codependent, or is it caring? And I will add, or is it controlling? Because that's what it is so much of the time. And so it doesn't mean your heart's not in the right place.

So how can you tell what you're doing? Well, first you do the resentment inventory, right? Because if you're feeling resentful, you're probably giving from a disordered place. If we can't give and feel equanimity and love about what we're doing, we're giving for a different reason. And listen, we might give out of obligation. This is, you know, we have packs, right?

We have agreements in life, we have obligations, we have people we feel responsible for. And as long as our eyes are wide open, we make those decisions. We will always, at some point, be doing some stuff we'd rather not be doing in life. But you just don't wanna be doing it all the time. So how do we make the distinction?

Well, are you trying to control? Are you centering, as you had said before, yourself as the solution to your friend's problem? Like, I've got the answer. I'm gonna tell you how I came up with the concept, basically. And you know, but I'll quickly just tell the audience, because if you read the book, one of my sisters was in an abusive relationship,

living in a shack in the woods without running water my sisters was in an abusive relationship, living in a shack in the woods without running water and without heat in upstate New York. She was an active alcoholic. The guy she was with was abusive and doing crack. So that's like an HFC's nightmare because it's completely out of control. It's all the unknown. It's all the scary stuff. And all we want to do is not deal with that. My life was very busy at that time, but I was obsessed with saving, saving my sister in my mind. Right. And I remember going into my therapist, I was bawling my eyes out and crying and being like, what am I going to do? I've done everything, you know, Bev, what am I going to do? And she said, Terry, let me ask you something. What makes you think you

know what your sister needs to learn and how she needs to learn it in this lifetime? And I was like, well, I think we can agree she doesn't need to do this lifetime. And I was like, Hmm, well, I think we can agree she doesn't need to do this piece of shit in the woods who's abusive and whatever, you know? And she said, I would love to, but actually I can't agree with that because I don't know and I'm not God and neither are you. But do you know what's happening for you? And I was like, obviously not. So clue me in please. And she said, you've worked really hard to create a harmonious life. Right? I was just madly in love with my husband. I was becoming a bonus mom to

three teenage kids. It was like, I had just become a therapist for being a talent agent. Like my life was exploding with changes. And she said, and your sister's dumpster fire is really messing with your piece. And you would really like to fix it up nice and neat in a bow so that you could go back to feeling harmonious in your life. And I was like, you are definitely not lying. That's true. Like that is correct. This has taken tons of my bandwidth, my energy, my time, my emotions. And I said, well, what are my options? Because I didn't think I had any. I thought, obviously, you just keep trying to get the person out till they leave, right?

That was what I thought you did as a sister. And she said, Terry, you need boundaries. I was in my 20s. That guy was like, boundaries? What the hell is that? And from that point forward, so anyway, together we came up with what the plan was going to be. I told my sister, hey, listen, I can't really

talk to you about this guy. But when and if you ever want to get out of there. And I was already in recovery myself. I said, when and if you ever want to get out of there, I'm was already in recovery myself, I said, when and if you ever want to get out of there, I'm your person. And so within nine months, she called me and said, are you still my person? I was like, yes, I am. I'm getting in my car right now. She came out, she got into recovery, she went back to school.

She was has never that was decades ago. She's never been in another abusive relationship. But the difference is that in me not centering what she needed to do on me and what I thought she needed to do, I respected her sovereignty to do it for herself. And instead of her baby sister being the hero of her story, she is the hero of her own story, which is the also the only way it sticks. Even if I had forced your outer like wouldn't have stuck as you know, especially we know with addiction. And so that was the beginning of understanding that I didn't know anything about what was my responsibility

and what was someone else's responsibility. And that I was very enmeshed in my relationships and that I was very codependent in my life with billions of people were not even just close people. I could become codependent with fucking anybody, and I'm not kidding. I mean, my hairdresser, my frigging mail carrier in New York City, like, I would feel responsible. I opened the book with a story of being on a train platform, late 80s, heading to New York City from Long Island,

and there's a kid standing there, and it's like a desolate train station. Don't even ask me what the hell I was doing there at 1030 at night but anyway I'm thinking to myself where's this kid going? He's probably 19 I was probably 22 and I'm worried about this kid who I don't even know. So we get on the train I start talking to him and I was like where you going? He's like I was gonna be moving a car from here to Indiana and he had a little blanket in his hand keep in mind and he said and then they canceled the gig. I go, so where are you going? He's like, I'm going to sleep in

Penn Station. I was like, no, you're not. Have you been to Penn Station, dude? You will get mugged. You cannot sleep there. He's like, well, I don't know anyone in New York. And I'm like, yeah, you do. You know me. And that's how I came to take a perfect stranger home to my studio apartment with my female roommate who I didn't even call. Keep in mind, it was like there was no cell phones back in the day, as you know. But I mean, what is that? This sense of responsibility? I could have been like, here's 10 bucks, even if he didn't or whatever, maybe go to a hostel. But instead, it's like I took it on like it had to be me, which is very much an HFC's mantra. Like it has to be me. We don't trust that

other people are going to do the right things. Anyway, long way around the barn to get back to this over responsibility. Yeah. I think what's interesting about that story is certain people would look at that story as a beautiful thing of generosity and welcoming the stranger and all those sort of things that come out of our religious traditions. What I think is at the heart, and you do too, because you sort of name it in the book, is the fact that it wasn't a considered choice. Correct. It happened reactively out of old patterns and old conditioning. The question of whether you should ask that guy back to your apartment to stay

is probably not a good idea in many ways, right? Of course, I think we can all agree there's a lot of reasons that could be problematic. But someone else might consider it and make a different choice to ask that person back. But it's the considering. It's, you know, choosing to see, am I acting out of a value of mine? Or am I somehow reacting to a fear of mine? Yes, you bring up a great point because what you said before is that what happens when people say, I'm just being nice. I do get pushed back like online where people are like,

maybe I'm just a good person, Terry, everything like that. And I go, listen, if you can't not do it, it is not you being nice. That is a compulsion. Like any other compulsion, that is a reactive response, just as you describe. So whatever people choose to do mindfully, I say right on, maybe someone would choose to do that. But you are correct in pointing out that for me, I never even hesitated. It was all reaction, all I must fix from being the hero child in my family system. Like we get set up to do this, not to mention we're indoctrinated. Most of us, especially women, and especially if you were raised in like the 60s,s 80s 90s words like Where's my happy girl turn that frown around if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all

So there's an expectation that we will be helpful that we will add value Now add if you have a religious household or a very authoritarian household I mean we are raised and praised to become a self abandoning codependence fact Yeah, yeah, I love what you said there. If you can't not do it, you know, that's something to look at. I think that with a lot of these things, we have to do a deep dive till we actually kind of know ourselves. And even then, the water, I think, is very muddy on some of these things. Let's explore this a little bit more. You say the solution is simple.

It's not easy, but it's simple. And you've already said it out loud. But let's go back to it. By learning to distinguish what's your responsibility and what's not, and you use a phrase that I'm guessing you first got from recovery, which is what's on my side of the street, what's on your side of the street. Are's on your side of the street?

Are there questions we can ask ourselves to see, is this on my side of the street or the other side of the street? Am I being overly responsible or am I being responsible in a good way? What are some ways of figuring that out? Well, part of it is really looking at whose responsibility is it? Like whatever the thing is, if you have an adult child who can't make their rent and you are without even talking to them or even talking to them, like transferring money into their account because you don't want them to be

in arrears or whatever it is, that's not your responsibility. And so you may choose to do it once if someone's struggling or someone's getting back on their feet. But really think about it. And I would have parents say, but how can I let him become homeless? I'm like, well, if you get abducted by aliens tomorrow, would he really become homeless? Or would he find a way? Right? There's an infantilization a lot of times. Yes. That's happening where we can't stand the thought of that person suffering. And so we will do anything to make sure they don't. And I will add to that, that there are people in our lives that will try and make it our

responsibility. So we'll say like, I've gone through this with a family member. Okay, I'm not responsible for their happiness. I can't do it. So just going to let it go and let it sit over there. And then I get this constant sort of feeling like reaching across into my side of the street around how I'm responsible for making that person happy. And it's sort of with boundaries, right?

You were saying like learning what do I do when someone else keeps coming over my boundary? It's a similar thing. But I think that makes it harder because in some cases you let somebody be responsible for themselves and they take responsibility and things go well. But there are some people that just don't. But the bottom line is that we have to, as HFCs in recovery, learn to let the chips fall where they may when they're not our chips. And you're right. Some people won't.

My sister had made a terrible choice. Was it a choice? I have no idea. She was addicted at the time. Like, you know, shit happens. So was it my job to get her out of there? And could I even have done it? And really the thing that let me not do it was my therapist saying terry i'm not saying that you shouldn't.

Save your sister i'm saying you cannot it is an impossibility. And then you go oh it's not my side of the street and it's an impossibility i'll be sad if you're ready to get out of help like there are still appropriate and loving ways that we can help people if they want help. But so much of the time we're doing it for ourselves. You know, Gabor Mate talks about like if someone is having upsetting feelings and we're like, oh, look on the bright side and here's the silver lining and let me be a silver lining detective and hyper positive or whatever. What we're really saying is that your distress is so distressing to me that I can't even tolerate it. So I need to make it better.

I need to. And these are like the friends. And you know, I talk about this in the book who are like, so loving your new job, right? They're providing the answer that they want in the question that they're asking you because they don't want to hear it if you're not loving your new job. And so what do we do instead? You can look at instead of auto advice giving, instead of telling everyone what we think about everything or anything, learn to ask expansive questions. Ask someone, babe, how can I best

support you right now? What do you think you should do? Really, Eric, this is with kids, this is with teenagers, this is with grown people, this is with friends. If I had a seven-year-old come to me and being like, I had a fight in school today, as a parent, some parents will be like, we don't fight in this family, but I could immediately start lecturing or go, tell me what happened. They'll tell you what happened. The next thing is tell me what you think you should do. That is a great question. Stop talking to anybody because what is the most important thing we can give anybody truthfully? Our attention, our undivided attention. Like I'm talking to my husband. I want him to know he has the floor. He's telling me something, I'm not waiting to

talk, I'm going, and then what happened? And then what they say? And then how do you feel like, let's care about how our people feel and what they think. And it's so much more loving. And think about it, we've all been on the receiving end of someone who can't wait to fix you. It does not feel good. I do not like it is very dehumanizing. You know, what makes you think you know? I see this a lot in relationships as a therapist, where a lot of times you'll have, and you know, this sounds very like heteronormative to a degree. I got to say, I think it's across the board, even same sex loving relationships.

There is someone who cannot wait to fix whatever problem you have. You would like to vent and they would like to be like, well, this is what I think you should do. Or why didn't you do that? Which is even worse than giving advice that I'm not gonna take and don't want and now resent. Right, so with my husband, I had to be in from the beginning.

I'm like, listen, buddy, I don't need advice. I'm not looking for input. I love you. I just want to vent. So now, of course, 27 years later, he knows to be like, are we brainstorming? Are you venting? Like, what's going on here? Exactly. And I think asking that question is kind of the key. What is it you want here? Do you want me to listen to you? Do you want me to brainstorm, offer solutions? Are you interested in my perspective? Because the perspective and ideas of other people, I find enormously, enormously helpful. So I don't want to do away with that.

Of course not. And, as you say, when you don't want it, it doesn't feel good. Here's what I say about it. You're never gonna stop 100% giving anyone your opinion and that's not at all what I'm saying. It's that it can't be the first stop on the bus. And of course, I pick a career so people are constantly asking me my opinion about things. And I'll say, listen, I'll tell you later,

but right now, what I'm most interested in is what do you think you should do? What does your gut instinct say? Because it's definitely more important what you think about this situation since it's your life than what I think about it. And when we're done, I'll give you my two cents, but I try to like just get the person to focus on.

They really do know the answer, even if they don't. That's an answer too. And my answer is not necessarily the right answer for them. A lot of times I'll say, hey, this is what helped me. I don't know if it'll help you. Right. I really stay away from being like, you should do whatever, which of course is all I'd said in my twenties and early thirties. So trust me, no judgment people. Ever wonder what it's like to be on the phone with an NFL general manager as you finalize the biggest contract in NFL history? I'm AJ Stevens, vice president of client strategy at Athletes First, where we've

negotiated $1.4 billion in current NFL quarterback contracts, introducing the Athletes First family podcast, the quarterback series, along with my cohost, Brian Murphy, Athletes First CEO, we're pulling back the curtain on how these historic deals come together. You'll hear directly from the agents who shaped the NFL's financial landscape. The ones who negotiated Justin Herbert's extension and Deshaun Watson's fully guaranteed contract that sent shockwaves through the league. This isn't just about the numbers though.

It's about the untold stories behind these massive negotiations and the relationships the NFL superstars like Dak Prescott, Tua Tungo Vall Loha, and Jordan Love have with their agents at Athletes First. For the first time ever, the agents who orchestrate these deals are sharing the details of the negotiations and everything that led up to their clients signing on the dotted line. Listen to the Athletes First Family Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was a moment that should have broken me, but just because of how I was raised and my bullishness and arrogance to want to be great hardened me. It gave me a platform to be so singularly focused on greatness. We all have moments like this. Something happens that's supposed to break us. But it's in these moments that we discover what we're really made of. I promise you, if anyone knows this, it's in these moments that we discover what we're really made of.

I promise you, if anyone knows this, it's me. I'm Ashlyn Harris, two-time Women's World Cup champion and goalkeeper for the U.S. Women's National Team. In my new podcast, Wide Open, I'll sit down with trailblazers from sports, music, fashion, entertainment and politics to explore their toughest moments and the incredible comebacks that followed. Listen to Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, an iHeart women's sports production on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's Chief Product Officer. If you're just as curious as I am about the way things are built, the insights behind what it takes to create a world-renowned product, then tune in to my podcast, Building One. There's so much to learn, like how Patagonia innovates with its supply chain. We had to go out to farmers and convince them it was really damn hard. Or the way Adobe thinks about the first interaction somebody has with Photoshop. I was always so fascinated by how people navigate and find their way.

Ever wanted to know how Nike builds emotion into the Jordan brand? You have to be obsessed with the current state of the human condition. And it doesn't stop there. What about how Gleam reinvented knowledge search with AI? You can learn about how Michelin star chef is redesigning seeds for flavor and how Pixar is nurturing a creative culture. Listen to building one on the iHeart radio app, Apple,

or wherever you get your podcasts. That is a great phrase. It's not the first stop on the bus. I really, really like that. I'm going to keep that one. Please do. That's a gem. Secondly, there's a line I really love which says when you realize how hard it is to change

yourself, you realize the near impossibility of changing anyone else. Seriously? Which is really good. And I think for me, you know, being in recovery in my 20s, I combined the zeal of early recovery with being in my 20s, I was convinced I could save everyone. And I wanted to. And so I'm sponsoring tons of people. I'm doing all these things. And you know what?

It's not happening, right? All my brilliant ideas are ending up with you know 10% of those people staying sober or something like that. It took me longer than I would like to think to learn the lesson which was A, it's not my responsibility and B, the way I think you should do it is not the right way for everybody. I think it took me longer to learn that lesson probably because of the culture I was in. But it does sort of get that idea of you can't save somebody else. It sort of just knocked it out of me. I just know you can't.

From trying a whole bunch of times. Yeah. I totally get it. I had gotten to recovery early too. I was 22 I think when I stopped drinking. And so yes, all the energy of the young, right, where I will save all the people. And yet, we really can't. And it's not being uncaring. Because when you really think about it, think about, I think the real flex in relationships, because people will talk about holding space for others. Honestly, Eric, most of the time, I don't even think people know what that means. What I think it means or to me, the real flex is

being with someone in the foxhole during the dark night of the soul and not treating them like a project. Yes. Right? Being like, this shit is messy. Life is messy. Your pain is messy. And I am here for it. We can talk, we can not talk. I have faith you're going to figure out what to do. I love you and I'm here. It's like that is love, is I will tolerate how uncomfortable your unsolvable problem is making me feel right now because I love you and I see you. I am compassionately witnessing you in your dark hour, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And that is, as you say, really, really hard. Yes. Particularly if that dark hour goes on a long time. Let's just take an example from my life. A friend who has, through his entire adult life, and despite trying all kinds of things, have really recalcitrant severe depression. Ah, brutal.

And staying in that place with that person, I can do it for a while, but over time my brain starts going, they should be doing X and they should be doing Y and don't they know, you know, in the past they did this and that helps and we know this works, you know, and they're not doing any of that stuff. It's over time sort of continuing to sort of turn that off and go, you know what, I don't know the right answer here. I care about this person. I want to be with them. I don't want to avoid them.

I got to keep a boundary, you know, when it starts to drag me down, right? Yep. That's what I was gonna say. I don't feel overly responsible for that person. So I'm able to just kind of go, all right, you know, when I'm talking to you, I'm there with you and when we're not talking, I'm not. And it's continuing to sort of turn it off as that kind of goes on that I find the challenging, you know, I could do it for like a month. Right, but let's talk about it though, because here's the thing. that I find the challenging, you know, I could do it for like a month.

Right. But let's talk about it though, because here's the thing. Each of us has a VIP section of our lives, right? And we have to be really discerning about who gets to be close to our own most tender heart. Right? So when you think about your VIP section, I think about it like in a club, right, there's a VIP section, but you're the only bouncer. You are making the guest list. So you have to decide who gets to be close to your most tender heart. If I have a friend who is unwell, someone who is suffering from severe depression, that is treatment resistant, that is going on and on and on and on and on. I need to protect myself from their painful existence. I can love them.

I can spend some time with them, as you said. Am I spending a ton of time with them? I'm not, because I'm an empath and I'm a highly sensitive person. And there's only so much zipping up of my energy that I can do. And it's a lot of work. So there's a reality that we have to be discerning and that might sound cold-hearted to

people and yet the truth is I'm responsible for my own well-being. I can't self abandon to the point of becoming depressed because I decide to move in with my depressed friend. You know what I mean? Yeah. I totally know what you mean. I struggle a little with, use the VIP version.

The other phrase I've heard that really troubles me is, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time around. Because here's why it troubles me. One, there's some truth in it, right? There's a fair amount of truth in it. But secondly, it makes my relationships to me become instrumental. Oh, as long as that relationship is making me better, more successful, all of those things, then I'm good with it.

But if it's not doing those things, even if I have a genuine affection, love, and care for that person, then I should shove them out. And what you're advocating is somewhere in between those things, right? So for me, the question becomes if that person is someone that, again, based on my value structure and what I want, I want them in my life. If that person only ever had bad times and there was never a time where that friendship filled me up in some way, it might be different. But then the question becomes as you're saying, can I boundary myself enough that I'm not carrying this around with

me, that I'm not feeling like I have to solve it? And I think there are ways to do that. Like you said earlier, there are certain packs we have in life that we may choose to keep as long as we're open-eyed about it. Yeah, listen, I agree with you. I definitely do not look at my friendships as like, are you staying in my life because you're going to make me more successful? You know, listen, I have the same friends since Nixon was in office. Literally, I have the same friends since I was four years old, the same seven women.

You're not that old. I don't buy it. We were only four. We were only four. Okay. All right. We were kids. I'm still not sure, but okay. I'll believe you. But the point is, I think that being mindful, like people will come into therapy, they will stay in relationships way longer than that expiration date. It's long past because they've got these historical handcuffs that they feel obligated, like this person is like

family and they're here's the thing, even family, it's our job to be discerning about who gets to be close to our most tender heart. That's it. I'm not advocating like we should just cut everybody off. No, but we have to be honest about what relationships are lighting us up. What relationships are dragging us down when your phone rings and that you see who that is. If your gut instinct is like, oh, think about it. Why is it that are you talking to someone who's telling you the same ship of making no changes in their life over and over again, then then you need to limit those conversations. You need to cut them off a little sooner. You don't need to talk to someone for three hours every three weeks about the same crap that they're not doing anything about. Right? We can't be like, well, you must take my advice. I also, just like I cut off contact with my sister

for a period of time, I also don't need to have a daily blow by blow of her abusive relationship when she's not willing to make a move or can't or whatever the situation was, you know? Yeah, my partner has a phrase I really like for some of this, which is minimal contact, maximum sympathy. So okay, I recognize I'm gonna have to minimize or in certain cases eliminate, but in a lot of these cases for me it's a minimize, but I can still have an open and warm heart

to that person. It doesn't have to turn into cutting them out of my heart, but I can also say, I'm going to minimize the amount of time that I'm around you because to your point, there are certain, like I was describing a family member earlier, every time there's a re-triggering of what's going on, and maybe I shouldn't use that word because it's not really full re-traumatizing, but it is a repeating of the behaviors that were problematic enough to cause some of my dysfunctions. Yes. It's activating is what I call it. Yes, that's the word you use.

Yes, and it really describes what it is. I think that there's something that we can think about that might be helpful for listeners. If people are feeling burnt out, because this is part of the part and parcel of being a high functioning codependent is the over-functioning and the eventually hitting some kind of a wall. It could be a crisis in a relationship, it could be a health crisis, but sooner or later there's a point when we just can't keep doing what we're doing at the pace that we're doing it. At least that's what I've seen over and over and over again in my therapy practice. And so before we commit to anything, this holiday season or anytime is ask yourself these two questions. One, do I have the bandwidth to do this without becoming resentful? Two, do I even friggin

want to do it? Because so much of the time when you're codependent, if someone else really wants you to do something, it plants the seed almost like, well, I mean, they want me to do it, so I should probably do it, right? Like, it's not even an option to go, I don't want to do that. I don't like that or whatever it is. So think about, I always give this example, like people invite me to like go to an outside concert where you sit outside. And I'm all like, no, Bugs, sun, people singing, no thank you. Like I don't like it. And there's no reason why my friend who did not create the outdoor concert should

be offended if it's just not my thing. Yep. Right. It's okay to just be like, I hope you guys have a great time. I just don't love it. Bugs, no thanks. Yeah. I just told a friend today who invited me to a holiday party.

I said, I'm going to pass on the party, but I'd love to see you soon. The party's not my thing. I just won't enjoy it. So I'm not going to go. And I would love to see him. And so I think, again, there are ways of working with this. A question for you. If somebody is a high functioning codependent, you mentioned earlier that they don't know

that's what they have but do they recognize generally That there's resentment building underneath things that you know, they're run ragged to the bone I mean, I guess if they're coming to you in therapy they're coming because there's something going on that they're recognizing So it's not that the symptoms of this are entirely below the board. The people are aware that they have them, they just don't know how to classify it or what's causing it. Is that how you'd say it? Yes.

And usually, a lot of times, I would say a lot of the women who would end up in my office are coming in because they cannot work at the breakneck speed that they've been. Something's happening. They have insomnia. They've gotten into perimenopause. They're in menopause. They're like, Hey, I need to get back up to like my fighting energy. And I don't have it where they have TMJ or they have, there's so many autoimmune disorders that I see based on this. Because when you think about what we're doing, there's a hypervigilance that goes along with being a high functioning codependent, where we are dialed into everyone and everything.

We're endlessly scanning to make sure there's not a problem, that everything is good, whether we know it or not, but this is very not good for your nervous system. It is very dysregulating. It really does create burnout, this level of attention outside of ourselves, right? There's all of this attention where I could be out to dinner with my husband and I'd be like, oh, those two people in the corner are fighting about this, this person wants her

mother-in-law to come for like, or I'll immediately say the guy who just walked in is violent, just being an empath. And he's like, are you ever just listening to me? I'm curious. When we go out to dinner, I'm like, all right, I'm doing both. So that's something that we want to think about is the exhaustion. And that's the thing that will drive people usually into treatment is something other than they don't see their high functioning ways as a problem. You know, and the irony that the more capable you are, the less codependency looks like codependency, but it's still codependency. So you still end up burnt out and exhausted and resentful

and all of those things. Well, I think that is a good place for us to wrap up. I'd love to continue talking with you in the post-show conversation because I feel like we covered 2% of your book at most. So listeners, if you'd like access to that post-show conversation, we're going to dive into a little bit more on how do I sort some of these things out and what are some things I can do for recovery. Then you can join us in the post-show conversation. You can get ad-free episodes. You can support a show that can always use your help by joining our community at whenyoufeed.net slash join. Terry, thank you so much. We'll have links

in the show notes to your book and I really enjoyed reading and getting to talk with you thank you so much for having me If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. We are so grateful for the members of our community.

We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. We all have a moment that splits us wide open.

On my new podcast, Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, I'll sit down with trailblazers from sports, music, fashion, entertainment, and politics to explore their toughest moments and the incredible comebacks that followed. Listen to Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, an iHeart Women's Sports production on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.

Hey you guys, I'm Catherine Legge. I'm a racing driver who's literally driven everything with four wheels across the planet. And I've got a new podcast. It's called Throttle Therapy. This season, I'm competing in some of the world's most notorious racing events. Tune into my new podcast, Throttle Therapy,

with Katherine Legg, an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, Here's the Thing, I speak with musician, photographer and philanthropist

Julian Lennon. One of the really important things that happened to me with photography was I would have people write to me, people that couldn't financially afford to travel the world. And what they had all said to me is that you bring these stories to us. You bring the truth. You bring cultures that we would never necessarily know anything about.