Speaker 1: Where's my happy girl? Turn that fround around. If you
Speaker 1: don't have anything nice to say, I don't say anything
Speaker 1: at all. So there's an expectation that we will be helpful,
Speaker 1: that we will add value. Now add if you have
Speaker 1: a religious household or a very authoritarian household, I mean
Speaker 1: we are raised and praised to become a self abandoning codependence.
Speaker 2: Fact, welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great
Speaker 2: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 2: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 2: you think, ring true, And yet for many of us,
Speaker 2: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 2: and care creative effort to make a life worth living.
Speaker 2: This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving
Speaker 2: in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: Have you ever found yourself doing something for someone else
Speaker 3: and wondered, am I doing this because I want to?
Speaker 3: Or because I feel like I have to. That question
Speaker 3: hit me hard. During my conversation with Terry Cole, psychotherapist
Speaker 3: and author of Too Much, A Guide to Breaking the
Speaker 3: Cycle of High function and Codependency, we talked about the
Speaker 3: fine line between kindness and people pleasing, and how sometimes
Speaker 3: what feels like generosity might actually be an attempt to
Speaker 3: control someone else's reaction or to avoid conflict altogether. In
Speaker 3: this episode, we explore why so many of us fall
Speaker 3: into this piece at any cost mentality, and the toll
Speaker 3: it takes on us. Terry offers powerful tools to help
Speaker 3: us break free from that compulsion, get clear on what
Speaker 3: we're really responsible for, and show up authentically in our relationships.
Speaker 3: If you've ever felt like kindness comes with strings, or
Speaker 3: wonder where to draw the line between helping and self abandonment,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna want to miss this one. Hi, Terry,
Speaker 3: welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for having me Eric.
Speaker 3: We're going to be discussing your new book, which is
Speaker 3: called Too Much, A Guide to Breaking the Cycle of
Speaker 3: High Functioning Codependency. We'll get to that in a moment,
Speaker 3: but will start the way we normally do, which is
Speaker 3: with the parable in the parable There's a grandparent who's
Speaker 3: talking with a grandchild and they say, in life, there
Speaker 3: are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 3: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 3: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 3: the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second.
Speaker 3: They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Well. I think it's true for all of us because
Speaker 1: as people, we are multi dimensional, and we all have
Speaker 1: a shadow side. And I sort of see the bad
Speaker 1: wolf to a degree as the shadow side of all
Speaker 1: of us. And I think we have to tend to
Speaker 1: the shadow, at least in my own life, and not
Speaker 1: feed it. So how it shows up in my life
Speaker 1: is being very aware of my own tendencies towards blame
Speaker 1: and being petty and all these things that I don't
Speaker 1: like about myself. Now they're not the predominant things about me,
Speaker 1: but there's truth in looking at my own shadow. What
Speaker 1: are the things that bug me about someone else? Oh?
Speaker 1: If I look hard, those things are definitely things that
Speaker 1: I possess. You know, who are the people that if
Speaker 1: I were to gossip, who would I gossip about? Oh,
Speaker 1: that's definitely a mirror coming back to me. So I've
Speaker 1: always loved that parable because I think it's so true,
Speaker 1: because it speaks to the human choice that we have,
Speaker 1: where doesn't really necessarily matter what hand you or doult
Speaker 1: in my quote unquote, I always felt like which one
Speaker 1: you feed determines what hand you go forward with. You know.
Speaker 3: I love something you said in there, which is that
Speaker 3: I need to tend to that quote unquote bad wolf,
Speaker 3: but not feed it. And I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of nuance in that. And I think the nuance is
Speaker 3: really really important because to either feed it or starve
Speaker 3: it are ends of extremes. You're trying to find somewhere
Speaker 3: in the middle. What would tend in it sort of
Speaker 3: look like for you in the moment you have the
Speaker 3: judgment of someone else. Let's just go with that one,
Speaker 3: because that one came up. What's that tending process actually
Speaker 3: look like inside your mind?
Speaker 1: Well? Being honest, if someone blames me for something I
Speaker 1: feel like I haven't done, let's say so being honest,
Speaker 1: that that makes me mad, and I want to tell
Speaker 1: them all that things they did wrong and how it
Speaker 1: really was them now being in therapy for decades of
Speaker 1: my life, that's a moment, right, That's a moment that
Speaker 1: the bad wolf is like sticking his little nose up
Speaker 1: and being like, hmm, I'm going to tell them. But
Speaker 1: the moment passes that I don't tell them because then
Speaker 1: I move towards my higher abilities, which is compassion. What
Speaker 1: is that person afraid of right now? Why are they
Speaker 1: blaming me because they're feeling this constriction within them? Can
Speaker 1: I approach this compassionately? Or can I just not be reactive?
Speaker 1: Can I just not take it personally? Can I just
Speaker 1: can cut somebody a break? Like we're not perfect? We
Speaker 1: all do stuff that to me is the higher part
Speaker 1: of me, that's like, it's not about you. They're having
Speaker 1: a moment, And especially if it's someone in my life
Speaker 1: that I love, that I care about, that I have
Speaker 1: a relationship with. I don't need to die on like
Speaker 1: every hill. I don't need to be butt hurt about
Speaker 1: everything that happens.
Speaker 3: You know what, I mean, yeah, absolutely. So we're going
Speaker 3: to get into more of this as we get into
Speaker 3: your book. But I think there's something here I like
Speaker 3: to continue to expand upon. It's the idea of doing
Speaker 3: what you just said, which is pausing, thinking about it,
Speaker 3: and then coming up with a response. There are those
Speaker 3: of us who might identify as codependent, using the term
Speaker 3: that you use in your book. So who have the problem. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Me easier than third person.
Speaker 3: Just just exactly, somebody does something that bothers me. I pause,
Speaker 3: I wait, I think to myself, hang on, I want
Speaker 3: to see if this really is a big deal or not.
Speaker 3: Is this a hill? I want to die on all
Speaker 3: that which is good, and I'm actually really good at that.
Speaker 3: The problem often is that the thing loses its emotional energy, though,
Speaker 3: and then I just don't bring it up. I don't
Speaker 3: deal with it. I avoid it. So how do we
Speaker 3: find that thing where we're not reacting but we're also
Speaker 3: not ignoring It's funny.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about something that happened between my
Speaker 1: husband and I the other day. We've been together for
Speaker 1: twenty seven years, and he said something and I felt
Speaker 1: like he was blaming me for something like the way
Speaker 1: he told that he said it. I just straight up asked,
Speaker 1: or are you blaming me for that? Do you feel
Speaker 1: like that's my fault? I just honestly asked, and he
Speaker 1: said no, No, I really wasn't. I was just pointing
Speaker 1: out that you're the last one to move the car,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a blame thing. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: So I feel like by me asking that question, I'm
Speaker 1: telling him, Hey, this is what I heard, and he
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, that's not what I meant. And we
Speaker 1: have a very durable, extremely long relationship, so we just go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying, though, Eric, about when are
Speaker 1: we hiding our heads in the sand? When are we
Speaker 1: sweeping something under the rug? And I think that what
Speaker 1: you can do to know where you're doing this and
Speaker 1: then we can walk through what to do instead is
Speaker 1: I think it's really helpful for people to do a
Speaker 1: resentment inventory, really just get honest about how we feel,
Speaker 1: like who are we holding resentment for in our lives?
Speaker 1: And a lot of times we're doing it so sort
Speaker 1: of seamlessly and unconsciously. It's like in the basement, as
Speaker 1: I like to say that, we're like not even really aware,
Speaker 1: but these resentments become cumulative and it almost like before
Speaker 1: you know it, you're in this like low key state
Speaker 1: of annoyance, like we're just waiting for something to happen.
Speaker 1: So someone cut you off in traffic so you can
Speaker 1: be like, ow, you know, there will be an explosion.
Speaker 1: So once you look at and you go okay, you know,
Speaker 1: actually I'm feeling resemble about from my adult child who
Speaker 1: borrowed money that they haven't repaid or whatever the thing
Speaker 1: is for you, then we have to look and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is my fifty percent of this situation that I
Speaker 1: found myself in? What is it in that situation? My
Speaker 1: fifty percent perhaps if I was an adult, you know,
Speaker 1: and had an adult child that I lent money to
Speaker 1: who didn't give it back to me, and that was
Speaker 1: the expectation or the agreement. My fifty percent is not
Speaker 1: saying anything right. My fifty percent is letting it slide
Speaker 1: and being like, ah, maybe they don't really have the
Speaker 1: money right, making excuses for them. That's my fifty percent.
Speaker 1: So there are resentments and doing a resentment inventory, this
Speaker 1: becomes a GPS for what relationships need our attention or
Speaker 1: what situations need our attention because it's telling us that circumstance, situation,
Speaker 1: or interaction is leaving me with this residual feeling that
Speaker 1: I do not like and that is not going to
Speaker 1: go away. By the way, So you know, just because
Speaker 1: shit is inconvenient, feelings are inconvenient. Just because we don't
Speaker 1: like them doesn't mean they go away. They don't, and
Speaker 1: so we don't want those things festering. I feel like
Speaker 1: the less we can let grass grow under it. And
Speaker 1: even if it's just for clarity, Like I said to
Speaker 1: my husband, like, this is what it sounds like. And
Speaker 1: I wasn't mad or defensive or sarcastic. I was literally saying,
Speaker 1: this is what I got from that. And he was like, no,
Speaker 1: that's really not what I'm in and I don't blame
Speaker 1: you for it. I was like, okay. So it can
Speaker 1: be an easy conversation or a hard conversation depending on
Speaker 1: the person. But the most important part about this ERIC
Speaker 1: is that we are responsible for how we feel. We
Speaker 1: are responsible, and when we're codependent and high functioning codependent,
Speaker 1: we feel that we're responsible for the way other people feel.
Speaker 1: And this gets incredibly complicated.
Speaker 3: That resentment index is not something I've heard in a while. However,
Speaker 3: I have done a number of them in my life
Speaker 3: because they are part of the twelve steps that's part
Speaker 3: of the fourth step inventory that we're encouraged to do.
Speaker 3: I love what you said there, though, because the way
Speaker 3: that this resentment index is presented, at least in a
Speaker 3: lot of the meetings I was in, was the idea
Speaker 3: that whatever the resentment was, it's somehow your fault that
Speaker 3: you have a resentment. And I love the idea that
Speaker 3: you say, what's my fifty percent because that allows me
Speaker 3: to acknowledge there's actually a reasonable reason that I have
Speaker 3: this resentment.
Speaker 1: End.
Speaker 3: Then further, it is my responsibility, right if I don't
Speaker 3: want to live with its emotional energy to find a
Speaker 3: way to let it go.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I want to add something if I'm made
Speaker 1: to that Yes. Another really important part of this is
Speaker 1: when we are having an emotional response to something, is
Speaker 1: for us to know ourselves, right, is for us to go, huh,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling activated. Right. I don't love to use the
Speaker 1: word trigger the way that it's used everywhere, because from
Speaker 1: a psychotherapeutic point of view, when we say a trigger,
Speaker 1: we're really talking about actual trauma, right, And we can
Speaker 1: be activated by things that were just painful, not things
Speaker 1: that we thought we were going to die. Right. So,
Speaker 1: just for my own I talk and I write about
Speaker 1: it in the book as being activated. And it's important
Speaker 1: that we look at what are our own activation points. Right,
Speaker 1: If you grew up with a very punitive parent, maybe
Speaker 1: a punitive mother, you may be very sensitive to people
Speaker 1: giving you, even if it were constructive criticism, it might
Speaker 1: feel mean, it might feel like too much. So I
Speaker 1: have this little thing that people can do if you
Speaker 1: find yourself in a situation where you're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think my response might have been amplified compared to what
Speaker 1: this is. What does it mean? It means you might
Speaker 1: be having a transference, right, you might be experiencing something
Speaker 1: at current time that's being fueled by the unresolved injury
Speaker 1: from the past. So to make that layman's terms, to
Speaker 1: make it easy, I just created these three questions that
Speaker 1: we can ask ourselves if we're in that situation, which
Speaker 1: is right now, who does this person remind me of?
Speaker 1: Where have I felt like this before? And how or
Speaker 1: why is this behavioral dynamic the way I'm relating to
Speaker 1: this person? How is that familiar to me and what
Speaker 1: gets revealed. And I'll give you a quick example of
Speaker 1: this if I may. I was in my grad school
Speaker 1: internship and the guy who ran the place was a
Speaker 1: very fancy addiction doctor, doctor Arnold Washington was his name.
Speaker 1: And I couldn't stand this guy. I didn't realize how
Speaker 1: irrational it was, but I really just was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's a jerk. He's so cold, he's so judgmental. I
Speaker 1: would avoid him. If he was in the hallway, I
Speaker 1: would jump into the ladies room, if he was in
Speaker 1: a meeting, I wouldn't talk. It was the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So I was talking to my therapist about it and
Speaker 1: she was like, so, how would you describe him? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you know the day Brooks brother
Speaker 1: suit wearing Wall Street Journal read and Martini swigging, golfing
Speaker 1: on the weekends. You know, the guy in the Bermuda shorts.
Speaker 1: That guy. And she was like, Okay, who else would
Speaker 1: you describe exactly like that? And I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: my god, how embarrassing my father, who I grew up
Speaker 1: terrified of. Oh, because She's like, Terry, listen, you are
Speaker 1: literally turning into a ten year old every time you're
Speaker 1: around this guy, So why is that bad? Because don't
Speaker 1: you want a job after you get out of school
Speaker 1: at this place, Which if you never let him see
Speaker 1: how smart you are, you're never going to get hired. Obviously,
Speaker 1: bring in your unresolved ten year old self to any
Speaker 1: situations probably not going to give you the best result.
Speaker 1: That I was having a transference, and so it could
Speaker 1: be something that reminds you of something. This guy just
Speaker 1: reminded me so much of my father. The way he
Speaker 1: looked his physicality, he had dimples, the same kind of
Speaker 1: voice like. It was uncanny, very quiet. But as soon
Speaker 1: as that reality came in that she helped me see
Speaker 1: I was able to completely be my grown up self
Speaker 1: around him. I did get hired after my internship was over.
Speaker 1: But that's an example of having a transference that a
Speaker 1: lot of times it's so real I didn't even know.
Speaker 1: And I was already studying to be a therapist at
Speaker 1: that point, and I still didn't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my version of that is similar to yours. And
Speaker 3: it took me a while to figure out, which was
Speaker 3: if there was any man who was older than me
Speaker 3: or in an authority position, and they started to look irritated.
Speaker 3: They didn't even have to say anything. I got afraid.
Speaker 3: I shrunk. Now, I did a lot of work on
Speaker 3: working with my father, and what I found for me
Speaker 3: is it hasn't eliminated it. It still will start to
Speaker 3: rise up. Yeah, I haven't seen to be able to
Speaker 3: completely unhook it, but it will rise up. But I
Speaker 3: know it really well now, And I go, why am
Speaker 3: I feeling this way? And you know, let's say I'm
Speaker 3: giving a talk to people and there's one guy in
Speaker 3: the audience who looks all happy. Totally, He's all I
Speaker 3: see from now on, I want to start tailoring my
Speaker 3: talk to him.
Speaker 1: Totally.
Speaker 3: So now I can see it and just be like,
Speaker 3: all right, all right, this is what's happening, you know,
Speaker 3: stay on course here.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about that, because I think you bring
Speaker 1: up a really good point, Eric of how when we
Speaker 1: get into recovery from being high functioning, codependence, from being
Speaker 1: in anything right, any kind of recovery, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we don't still have these feels. Right. It's just
Speaker 1: like me being in recovery for alcohol, I don't never
Speaker 1: want to drink. I just don't drink, right, I just
Speaker 1: changed my behavior because that behavior was going to ruin
Speaker 1: my life. So with codependency and overfunctioning and overgiving and
Speaker 1: all the things, it isn't that you'll never feel like
Speaker 1: you want to please the random stern dude in the audience. Right.
Speaker 1: You may still have that feeling the differences, you don't
Speaker 1: go all the way down the rabbit hole with it. Right.
Speaker 1: I look at my relationship to my father because I
Speaker 1: certainly have a father wound. I'm writing a book about
Speaker 1: father wounds now.
Speaker 3: Oh, I can't wait to read it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I should interview you for it. I'm actually writing
Speaker 1: it right now, glad. But you know, I think about
Speaker 1: what is the residual effect of even healing this father wound,
Speaker 1: which I have done, is that it has inextricably impacted
Speaker 1: who I am. It has woven into the tapestry, the
Speaker 1: unique and beautiful tapestry of my life. The way that
Speaker 1: it shows up now is maybe I'm watching a Christmas
Speaker 1: commercial that has like a daddy daughter thing, and maybe
Speaker 1: I'll be a little bit more choked up than someone
Speaker 1: who didn't have that.
Speaker 3: Yes, my partner knows this. If there is a tender
Speaker 3: scene between father and a son and for that, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter how sentimental or stupid they you know, I
Speaker 3: know what they're trying to do, and yet it's just working.
Speaker 3: I start tearing up totally.
Speaker 1: But again there's this acceptance, and you know, Eric, it's like,
Speaker 1: those are the things in a way that make us
Speaker 1: uniquely gifted, skilled, talented to do the things that we
Speaker 1: do in the world. Right I'm trying to help other
Speaker 1: people with father wounds because I know that it's possible
Speaker 1: to I'm helping other people with this book to stop
Speaker 1: being high functioning codependents because I know that their lives
Speaker 1: are going to be so much better. On the other side,
Speaker 1: if I didn't suffer the things I suffered in my life,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I suffered any more than anybody else,
Speaker 1: but I mean just the regular life, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: in this unique position to really deeply understand, first of all,
Speaker 1: how painful it is when we have these wounds that
Speaker 1: are unhealed, and that how walking around unprotected is what
Speaker 1: it feels like right where any rejection, you know, when
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties, let's say, could be like
Speaker 1: this is devastating. It doesn't matter who the hell it
Speaker 1: was coming from, Like it was so much fear of
Speaker 1: rejection because of my father wound, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: funny I see this with my therapy clients now and
Speaker 1: over the many years, and I would say, before we're
Speaker 1: worrying about whether this person is rejecting you, can we
Speaker 1: decide whether you even like them? Like, how about we
Speaker 1: start from here. It can't just be that rejection from
Speaker 1: anyone is horrible, Like no, maybe it's protection, like we
Speaker 1: don't even know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's move towards codependency in your book. Here,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get my biases out upfront.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 3: I got sober in nineteen ninety five four Codependent No
Speaker 3: More was relatively new to the scene, and I saw
Speaker 3: a couple of different things happen in that era that
Speaker 3: I think have shaped me. One was I was in
Speaker 3: a twelve step program for alcohol and there was an
Speaker 3: idea that was brought up there that really made a
Speaker 3: lot of sense to me, and it was that selfishness,
Speaker 3: self centeredness was the root of my problem. I was
Speaker 3: able to see on some level how that was true.
Speaker 3: So there was this sense of, you know, in what
Speaker 3: cases is it useful to de center myself? And then
Speaker 3: at the same time, I also saw the tough love
Speaker 3: movement that sort of came out of this that seemed
Speaker 3: in some cases to justify some pretty lousy behavior from
Speaker 3: the people who were codependent towards the attics. And I
Speaker 3: have some of the tendencies of this codependency. So all
Speaker 3: of those three things make me initially react to I
Speaker 3: don't like that word. I don't want to use it
Speaker 3: as a concept. So again, I just think it's helpful
Speaker 3: to sort of say, you know, here's where I am.
Speaker 3: All that said, I found the book really really helpful.
Speaker 3: Talk to me about what you mean a high functioning
Speaker 3: codependent is?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I'm going to start, if I may, with
Speaker 1: why did I even originate this term? Right, codependency has
Speaker 1: been well established. The problem is codependency is not well understood,
Speaker 1: and so in my therapy practice, it was predominantly masters
Speaker 1: of the universe women and women like me, highly capable,
Speaker 1: highly successful career women, CEO CFOs, pop stars like Broadway
Speaker 1: people like it was just women doing it all. So
Speaker 1: if I would say, oh, hey, what you're describing in
Speaker 1: your relationship, this is a codependent pattern that I see,
Speaker 1: immediately they would reject dependent. Wait, excuse me, I'm not
Speaker 1: dependent on squat terry. Everyone's dependent on me. I'm making
Speaker 1: all the money, I'm making all the moves, in charge
Speaker 1: of all the emotional labor. And my family, I take
Speaker 1: care of the kids. And my parents like, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? And I realized they did not know
Speaker 1: what codependency was, mostly being very influenced by the myths
Speaker 1: around codependent No more melody Baby, the thought that I'm
Speaker 1: not involved with an alcoholic. This is how many people
Speaker 1: would say to me, I'm not enabling an addict. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be. So my problem was this,
Speaker 1: how can I help them with their behavioral problem if
Speaker 1: they do not see themselves in the behavioral problem. So
Speaker 1: when I added high functioning, and then I started looking
Speaker 1: and I was like, you know what, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: This is a different flavor of codependency, because first of all,
Speaker 1: you teach what you most need to learn. It was
Speaker 1: my personal flavor of codependency, and I saw it. It's
Speaker 1: almost like codependency for the modern person, the person who
Speaker 1: is doing too much, the person who is overscheduled, the
Speaker 1: person who feels over the responsible. So my definition, let's
Speaker 1: do that. A codependency is you being overly invested in
Speaker 1: the feeling states, the outcomes, the relationships, the circumstances, finances,
Speaker 1: careers of the people in your life, to the detriment
Speaker 1: of your own internal peace. So as good human beings,
Speaker 1: as brothers and lovers and partners and all the things
Speaker 1: that we are. Obviously we love our people, we want
Speaker 1: them to be happy. But when you're a high functioning
Speaker 1: codependent or HFC as we call it, it's more than wanting.
Speaker 1: It's feeling responsible for so At its foundation, any codependency
Speaker 1: garden variety, high functioning is an overt or covert desire
Speaker 1: to control someone else's outcome. I don't want you to
Speaker 1: feel bad you come home in a bad mood. I'm
Speaker 1: in a great mood. You're my partner. I don't want
Speaker 1: you to feel about What can I make you a drink?
Speaker 1: I was going to make your favorite meal. Oh do
Speaker 1: you want to watch something funny like? I don't want
Speaker 1: you to be in a bad mood. That's me trying
Speaker 1: to control of your mood, even if I say, and
Speaker 1: I know my heart certainly when I was younger was
Speaker 1: in the right place. Anyway, back to my clients, when
Speaker 1: I changed the Moniker. All of them could suddenly go, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, the problem it's me Like they would not
Speaker 1: to quote Taylor, but I will. They got it. They
Speaker 1: were like, I am exhausted, I am burnt out, I
Speaker 1: am feeling resentful for what I'm doing. I do feel
Speaker 1: underappreciated in my workplace, or my home, or my relationship
Speaker 1: or my friendship group even right it could be anything.
Speaker 1: So now I could get to work with them because
Speaker 1: they weren't resisting. And what I noticed is that there
Speaker 1: are differences with high functioning codependence. We are also I
Speaker 1: am one, even though I'm in recovery, but we're very
Speaker 1: dialed into our environment. It's not just becoming codependent with
Speaker 1: the people in our lives right overly invested in what's
Speaker 1: going on with them and feeling like we need to
Speaker 1: help or change or send a book or hook them
Speaker 1: up with oncologist or whatever it is we need to
Speaker 1: do pay off their student loan debt. It's more than that,
Speaker 1: where I've come up with a whole list of behaviors
Speaker 1: that sort of go along with this, and I would
Speaker 1: start with feeling overly responsible to fix other people's problems.
Speaker 1: That would be the beginning going above and beyond, giving
Speaker 1: till it hurts, doing stuff people are not even asking
Speaker 1: you to do. Always ready to jump into damage control
Speaker 1: mode because really we are amazing at a crisis, just
Speaker 1: saying that we have really good ideas and we're very loyal.
Speaker 1: Getting frustrated or angry when other people don't take our
Speaker 1: advice because you know we're going to talk to them
Speaker 1: for like three hours and then they're never going to
Speaker 1: do it. Feeling exhausted, feeling resentful, feeling bitter. There's also
Speaker 1: a hyper independence that comes along with being an HFC,
Speaker 1: where we really don't love to ask other people for help.
Speaker 1: Don't love it. I want to give to you, but
Speaker 1: I really don't eric want you to give to me,
Speaker 1: because then I might owe you, or then I might
Speaker 1: be vulnerable in a way that feels uncomfortable. In another way,
Speaker 1: we're also sort of trampling on the sovereignty of other people,
Speaker 1: whether we mean to or not. And it's funny. My
Speaker 1: first book was called Boundary Boston. It was all about boundaries,
Speaker 1: and so much of that was about how do we
Speaker 1: get other people to respect our boundaries? How do we
Speaker 1: uphold our boundaries? This book, I'm really coming from it
Speaker 1: from an honest point of view that if you are
Speaker 1: a high functioning codependent, you probably are an inadvertent boundary trampler.
Speaker 1: Not on purpose, but it's what happens, right, Because if
Speaker 1: I'm an auto advice giver, right, that's one of the behaviors.
Speaker 1: You're not even asking, And I'm like, but I have
Speaker 1: a great idea that you didn't ask me for. And
Speaker 1: even if you are asking, it's really more important what
Speaker 1: you think that you should do with your life than
Speaker 1: what I think you know. So what are the other behaviors?
Speaker 1: Being overly self sacrificing, auto accommodating, We see a need
Speaker 1: even in the wild, we just can't wait to move seats.
Speaker 1: We just can't wait to let you go in front
Speaker 1: of us. We just can't wait to make sure there's
Speaker 1: not going to be a problem anywhere. You know. Anticipatory
Speaker 1: planning is another behavior. We know we're going to be
Speaker 1: with somebody difficult, we want to make sure that we
Speaker 1: have the booze that they drink, or that they're not
Speaker 1: going to sit next to Uncle Jimmy because they hate them.
Speaker 1: It's like, instead of expecting people to be grown ups,
Speaker 1: we're literally like being the Marionette, the one moving the puppets.
Speaker 3: I want to pause for a quick good Wolf reminder.
Speaker 3: This one's about a habit change and a mistake I
Speaker 3: see people making, And that's really that we don't think
Speaker 3: about these new habits that we want to add in
Speaker 3: the context of our entire life. Habits don't happen in
Speaker 3: a vacuum. They have to fit in the life that
Speaker 3: we have. So when we just keep adding I should
Speaker 3: do this, I should do that, I should do this,
Speaker 3: we get discouraged because we haven't I really thought about
Speaker 3: what we're not going to do in order to make
Speaker 3: that happen. So it's really helpful for you to think
Speaker 3: about where is this going to fit and what in
Speaker 3: my life might I need to remove. If you want
Speaker 3: to step by step guide for how you can easily
Speaker 3: build new habits that feed your good Wolf, go to
Speaker 3: Goodwolf dot me, slash change and join the free masterclass.
Speaker 3: All those things make a lot of sense, and I'm
Speaker 3: glad that you've got a way of talking about it.
Speaker 3: Here's the other challenge that I run into with this
Speaker 3: idea when I work with it inside myself is where
Speaker 3: I mean, not with what you've put into the world
Speaker 3: at all when I work with it inside myself. There's
Speaker 3: a concept in Buddhism of near and far enemies, and
Speaker 3: that means that like something like compassion has a far enemy,
Speaker 3: which is compassion kindness just being mean or callous or
Speaker 3: I'm caring. There's also something that's called a close enemy.
Speaker 3: And the close enemy might be something like what you're describing,
Speaker 3: or pity, but it looks enough like the thing that
Speaker 3: it's hard to distinguish. And I think for some people,
Speaker 3: I don't know about all people that would fall under
Speaker 3: this category. Some of our best traits are indeed, our kindness,
Speaker 3: our thoughtfulness, are caring for others, like those are genuine traits,
Speaker 3: They're genuine values.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: Right, So all of a sudden, You've got this thing
Speaker 3: where for me, I'm trying to tweeze apart. What's driving this? Yes,
Speaker 3: And as you talk about in the book at one
Speaker 3: point that like a people pleaser abandons themselves so quickly
Speaker 3: they don't notice it happening. On top of this difficulty,
Speaker 3: because these two things look a lot like each other,
Speaker 3: trying to tweeze them apart, when you even start tweezing
Speaker 3: them apart, oftentimes you go, well, I didn't care. It
Speaker 3: wasn't a big deal to me. You genuinely don't know. Yep,
Speaker 3: So talk to me about sorting that piece. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure it's for most people because they're all like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm nice, I'm kind, that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, that's such a great question, Eric. So what
Speaker 1: you're really asking is is it codependent or is it caring?
Speaker 1: And I will add or is it controlling? Because that's
Speaker 1: what it is so much of the time, and so
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean your heart's not in the right place.
Speaker 1: So how can you tell what you're doing? Well, first,
Speaker 1: you do the resentment inventory, right, because if you're feeling resentful,
Speaker 1: you're probably giving from a disordered place. If we can't
Speaker 1: give and feel equanimity and love about what we're doing,
Speaker 1: we're giving for a different reason. And listen, we might
Speaker 1: give out of obligation. This is you know, we have packs, right,
Speaker 1: We have agreements in life, We have obligations, we have
Speaker 1: people we feel responsible for, and as long as our
Speaker 1: eyes are wide open we make those decisions. We will
Speaker 1: always at some point be doing some stuff we'd rather
Speaker 1: not be doing in life. But you just don't want
Speaker 1: to be doing it all the time. So how do
Speaker 1: we make the distinction? Well, are you trying to control?
Speaker 1: Are you centering as you had said before yourself as
Speaker 1: the solution to your friend's problem? Like, I've got the answer.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you how I came up with
Speaker 1: the concept basically, and you know, but I'll quickly just
Speaker 1: tell the audience because if you read the book, one
Speaker 1: of my sisters was in an abusive relationship, living in
Speaker 1: a shack in the woods, without running water and without
Speaker 1: heat and upstate New York. She was an active alcoholic.
Speaker 1: The guy she was with was abusive and doing crack.
Speaker 1: So that's like an hfc's nightmare because it's completely out
Speaker 1: of control. It's all the unknown, it's all the scary stuff,
Speaker 1: and all we want to do is not deal with that.
Speaker 1: My life was very busy at that time, but I
Speaker 1: was obsessed with like saving my sister in my mind right,
Speaker 1: And I remember going to my therapist. I was blowing
Speaker 1: my eyes out and crying and being like, what am
Speaker 1: I going to do? I've done everything, you know, Bev,
Speaker 1: what am I going to do? And she said, Terry,
Speaker 1: let me ask you something. What makes you think you know?
Speaker 1: What your sister needs to learn and how she needs
Speaker 1: to learn it in this lifetime. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I think we can agree she doesn't need to do
Speaker 1: it with this piece of shit in the woods who's
Speaker 1: abusive and whatever, you know, And she said, I would
Speaker 1: love to, but actually I can't agree with that because
Speaker 1: I don't know and I'm not God, and neither were you.
Speaker 1: But do you know what's happening for you? When I
Speaker 1: was like, obviously not, so clue me in, please, and
Speaker 1: she said, you've worked really hard to create a harmonious life, right.
Speaker 1: I was just madly in love with my husband. I
Speaker 1: was becoming a bonus mom to three teenage kids. It
Speaker 1: was like I had just become a therapist for being
Speaker 1: a talent agent. Like my life was exploding with changes.
Speaker 1: And she said, and your sisters, dumpster fire is really
Speaker 1: messing with your piece, and you would really like to
Speaker 1: fix it up nice and neat in a bow so
Speaker 1: that you could go back to feeling harmonious in your life.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you are definitely not lying, Like
Speaker 1: that's true, Like that is correct. This has taking tons
Speaker 1: of my bandwidth, my energy, my time, my emotions. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, what are my options because I didn't
Speaker 1: think I had any. I thought, obviously, you just keep
Speaker 1: trying to get the person out till they leave, right,
Speaker 1: that was what I thought you did as a sister.
Speaker 1: And she said, Terry, you need boundaries. I was in
Speaker 1: my twenties, like I was, like, boundaries, What the hell
Speaker 1: is that? And from that point forward, so anyway, together
Speaker 1: we came up with what the plan was going to be.
Speaker 1: I told my sister, Hayles and I can't really talk
Speaker 1: to you about this guy, but when and if you
Speaker 1: ever want to get out of there? And I was
Speaker 1: already in recovery myself. I said, when and if you
Speaker 1: ever want to get out of there, I'm your person.
Speaker 1: And so within nine months she called me and said,
Speaker 1: are you still my person? I was like, yes, I am.
Speaker 1: I'm getting in my car right now. She came out,
Speaker 1: she got into recovery, she went back to school. She
Speaker 1: has never that was decades ago. She's never been in
Speaker 1: another abusive relationship. But the difference is that in me
Speaker 1: not centering what she needed to do on me and
Speaker 1: what I thought she needed to do, I respected her
Speaker 1: sovereignty to do it for herself and instead of her
Speaker 1: baby's sister being the hero of her story. She is
Speaker 1: the hero of her own story, which is also the
Speaker 1: only way it sticks. Even if I had forced her
Speaker 1: out or like, it wouldn't have stuck, as you know,
Speaker 1: especially we know with addiction. And so that was the
Speaker 1: beginning of understanding that I didn't know anything about what
Speaker 1: was my responsibility and what was someone else's responsibility, and
Speaker 1: that I was very en messed in my relationships, and
Speaker 1: that I was very codependent in my life with billions
Speaker 1: of people. Would not even just close people, I could
Speaker 1: become codependent with anybody. And I'm not kidding. I mean
Speaker 1: my hairdresser, my friggin mail carrier in New York City,
Speaker 1: like I would feel responsible. I opened the book with
Speaker 1: a story of being on a train platform late eighties,
Speaker 1: heading to New York City from Long Island and there's
Speaker 1: a kid standing there and it's like a desolate train station.
Speaker 1: Don't even ask me what the hell I was doing
Speaker 1: there at ten thirty at night, but anyway, and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, where's this kid going? He is probably nineteen,
Speaker 1: I was probably twenty two, and I'm worried about this
Speaker 1: kid who I don't even know. So we get on
Speaker 1: the train. I start talking to him and I was like,
Speaker 1: where are you going? He was like, I was going
Speaker 1: to be moving a car from here to Indiana and
Speaker 1: he had a little blanket in his hand. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: and he said, and then they canceled the gig. I go,
Speaker 1: so where are you going? He's like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 1: to sleep in Penstation. I was like, no, you're not.
Speaker 1: Have you've been to Penn Station, dude, you will get mumed.
Speaker 1: You cannot sleep there. He's like, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: anyone in New York. And I'm like, yeah, you do.
Speaker 1: You know me? And that's how I came to take
Speaker 1: a perfect stranger home to my studio apartment with my
Speaker 1: female roommate, who I didn't even call. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: it was like there was no cell phones back in
Speaker 1: the day, as you know. But I mean, what is
Speaker 1: that this sense of responsibility. I could have been like,
Speaker 1: here's ten bucks, even if he didn't or whatever, maybe
Speaker 1: go to a hostel. But instead it's like I took
Speaker 1: it on like it had to be me, which is
Speaker 1: very much an hfc's mantra, like it has to be me.
Speaker 1: We don't trust that other people are going to do
Speaker 1: the right things anyway, long way around the barn ta
Speaker 1: get back to this over responsibility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what's interesting about that story is certain
Speaker 3: people would look at that story as a beautiful thing
Speaker 3: of generosity and you know, welcoming the stranger and all
Speaker 3: those sort of things that come out of our religious traditions.
Speaker 3: What I think is at the heart, and you do too,
Speaker 3: because you sort of name it in the book, is
Speaker 3: the fact that it wasn't a considered choice.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: It happened reactively out of old patterns and old conditioning.
Speaker 3: The question of whether you should ask that guy back
Speaker 3: to your apartment to sday is probably not a good
Speaker 3: idea in many ways, right, of course, I think we
Speaker 3: can all agree yes, there's a lot of reasons that
Speaker 3: could be problematic, But someone else might consider it and
Speaker 3: make a different choice, Yes, to ask that person back.
Speaker 3: But it's the considering. It's you know, choosing to see
Speaker 3: am I acting out of a value of mine? Or
Speaker 3: am I somehow reacting to a fear of mine?
Speaker 1: Yes, you bring up a great point because what you
Speaker 1: said before is that what happens when people say I'm
Speaker 1: just being nice, I do get pushed back. Like online
Speaker 1: where people like maybe I'm just good person, Terry everythink
Speaker 1: of that and I go listen. If you can't not
Speaker 1: do it, it is not you being nice. That is
Speaker 1: a compulsion, like any other compulsion, that is a reactive response,
Speaker 1: just as you described. So whatever people choose to do mindfully,
Speaker 1: I say right now, maybe someone would choose to do that.
Speaker 1: But you are correct in pointing out that for me,
Speaker 1: I never even hesitated. It was all reaction. All I
Speaker 1: must fix from being the hero child in my family system.
Speaker 1: Like we get set up to do this. Not to mention,
Speaker 1: we're indoctrinated, most of us, especially women, and especially if
Speaker 1: you were raised in like the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
Speaker 1: where it's like where's my happy girl? Turn that fround around.
Speaker 1: If you don't have anything nice to say, I don't
Speaker 1: say anything at all. So there's an expectation that we
Speaker 1: will be helpful, that we will add value. Now add
Speaker 1: if you have a religious household or a very authoritarian household,
Speaker 1: I mean we are raised and praised to become a
Speaker 1: self abandon incodependence fact.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I love what you said there. If you
Speaker 3: can't not do it, you know, that's something to look
Speaker 3: at I think that with a lot of these things
Speaker 3: we have to do a deep dive till we actually
Speaker 3: kind of know ourselves. And even then the water I
Speaker 3: think is very muddy on some of these things. Let's
Speaker 3: explore this a little bit more. You say the solution
Speaker 3: is simple. It's not easy, but it's simple, and you've
Speaker 3: already said it out loud. But let's go back to
Speaker 3: it by learning to distinguish what's your responsibility and what's not.
Speaker 3: And you use a phrase that I'm guessing you first
Speaker 3: got from recovery, which is, you know, what's on my
Speaker 3: side of the street, what's on your side of the street.
Speaker 3: Are there questions we can ask ourselves to see is
Speaker 3: this on my side of the street or the other
Speaker 3: side of the street. Am I being overly responsible? Or
Speaker 3: am I being responsible in a good way? What are
Speaker 3: some ways of figuring that out?
Speaker 1: Well, part of it is really looking at whose responsibility is.
Speaker 1: Like whatever the thing is. If you have an adult
Speaker 1: child who can't make their rent and you are without
Speaker 1: even talking to them, or even talking to them, like
Speaker 1: transferring money into their account because you don't want them
Speaker 1: to be in arrears or whatever it is, that's not
Speaker 1: your responsibility, and so you may choose to do it
Speaker 1: once if someone's struggling or someone's getting back on their feet,
Speaker 1: but really think about it. And I would have parents say,
Speaker 1: but how can I let him become homeless? I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: if you get abducted by aliens tomorrow, would he really
Speaker 1: become homeless or would he find a way? Right, there's
Speaker 1: an infantilization a lot of times. Yes, that's happening where
Speaker 1: we can't stand the thought of that person's suffering, and
Speaker 1: so we will do anything to make sure they don't.
Speaker 3: And I will add to that that there are people
Speaker 3: in our lives that will try and make it our responsibility.
Speaker 3: So we'll say, like I've gone through this with a
Speaker 3: family member, Okay, I'm not responsible for that happiness. Can't
Speaker 3: do it, So I'm just going to let it go
Speaker 3: and let it sit over there. And then I get
Speaker 3: this constant sort of feeling like reaching across into my
Speaker 3: side of the street around how I'm responsible for making
Speaker 3: that person happy? And it's sort of with boundaries, right,
Speaker 3: you were saying, like, learning, what do I do when
Speaker 3: someone else keeps coming over my boundary? It's a similar thing.
Speaker 3: But I think that makes it harder because in some
Speaker 3: cases you let somebody be responsible for themselves and they
Speaker 3: take responsibility and things go well. But there are some
Speaker 3: people that just don't.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is that we have to, as
Speaker 1: hfc's in recovery, learn to let the chips fall where
Speaker 1: they may when they're not our chips, and you're right,
Speaker 1: some people won't. My sister had made a terrible choice.
Speaker 1: Was it a choice? I have no idea. She was
Speaker 1: addicted at the time, Like you know, shit happens. So
Speaker 1: was it my job to get her out of there?
Speaker 1: And could I even have done it? And really the
Speaker 1: thing that let me not do it was my therapist saying, Terry,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you shouldn't save your sister. I'm
Speaker 1: saying you cannot. It is an impossibility. And then you go, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not my side of the street, and it's an impossibility. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I said, if you're ever ready to get out, I'll help. Like,
Speaker 1: there are still appropriate and loving ways that we can
Speaker 1: help people if they want help, but so much of
Speaker 1: the time we're doing it for ourselves, you know. Gabormante
Speaker 1: talks about like if someone is having upsetting feelings and
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, look on the bright side, and here's
Speaker 1: the silver lining, and let me be a silver lining
Speaker 1: detective and hyper positive or whatever. What we're really saying
Speaker 1: is that your distress is so distressing to me that
Speaker 1: I can't even tolerate it. So I need to make
Speaker 1: it better. I need to. And these are like the
Speaker 1: friends and you know I talk about this in the book,
Speaker 1: who are like, so loving your new job? Right, they're
Speaker 1: providing the answer that they want in the question that
Speaker 1: they're asking you because they don't want to hear it
Speaker 1: if you're not loving your new job, and so, what
Speaker 1: do we do instead? Right? You can look at instead
Speaker 1: of auto advice giving, instead of telling everyone what we
Speaker 1: think about everything or anything, learn to ask expansive questions right,
Speaker 1: Ask someone, babe, how can I best support you? Right now? Right?
Speaker 1: What do you think you should do? Really? Eric, This
Speaker 1: is with kids, This is with teenagers, This is with
Speaker 1: grown people, This is with friends. If I had a
Speaker 1: seven year old come to me and being like I
Speaker 1: had a fight in school today, as a parent, some
Speaker 1: parents will be like, we don't fight in this family.
Speaker 1: Where I could immediately start like lecturing or go tell
Speaker 1: me what happened? They tell you what happened. The next
Speaker 1: thing is tell me what you think you should do.
Speaker 3: That is a great question.
Speaker 1: Stop talking to anybody, because what is the most important
Speaker 1: thing we can give anybody truthfully our attention, our undivided attention.
Speaker 1: Like I'm talking to my husband. I wanted to know
Speaker 1: he has the floor, he's telling me something. I'm not
Speaker 1: waiting to talk. I'm going and that would happened, And
Speaker 1: then would they say, and then how do you feel? Like,
Speaker 1: let's care about how people feel and what they think,
Speaker 1: and it's so much more loving. And think about it,
Speaker 1: We've all been on the receiving end of someone who
Speaker 1: can't wait to fix you. It does not feel good.
Speaker 1: I do not like it as very dehumanizing. You know
Speaker 1: what makes you think? You know? I see this a
Speaker 1: lot in relationships as a therapist, where a lot of
Speaker 1: times you'll have and you know, this sounds very like
Speaker 1: heteroonormative to a degree. I got to say, I think
Speaker 1: it's across the board. Even in same sex loving relationships,
Speaker 1: there is someone who cannot wait to fix whatever problem
Speaker 1: you have. You would like to vent and they would
Speaker 1: like to be like, well, this is what I think
Speaker 1: you should do or why didn't you do that? Which
Speaker 1: is even worse than giving advice that I'm not going
Speaker 1: to take and don't want and now resent. Right, So
Speaker 1: with my husband, I had to be from the beginning,
Speaker 1: I'm like, listen, buddy, I don't need advice. I'm not
Speaker 1: looking for input. I love you. I just want to vent.
Speaker 1: So now, of course, twenty seven years later, he knows
Speaker 1: to be like, are we brainstorming? Are you venting?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What's going on here?
Speaker 3: Exactly? And I think asking that question is kind of
Speaker 3: the key. What is it you want here? Do you
Speaker 3: want me to listen to you? Do you want me
Speaker 3: to brainstorm offer solutions? Are you interested in my perspective?
Speaker 3: Because the perspective and ideas of other people I find
Speaker 3: enormously enormously helpful. So I don't want to do away
Speaker 3: with that, of course not. And as you say, when
Speaker 3: you don't want it, it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: Here's what I say about it. You're never gonna like
Speaker 1: stop one hundred percent giving anyone your opinion. And that's
Speaker 1: not at all what I'm saying. It's that it can't
Speaker 1: be the first stop on the bus. And of course
Speaker 1: I pick a career, so people are constantly asking me
Speaker 1: my opinion about things, and I'll say, listen, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you later, but right now, what I'm most interested in
Speaker 1: is what do you think you should do? What does
Speaker 1: your gut instincts say, because it's definitely more important what
Speaker 1: you think about this situation, since it is your life,
Speaker 1: than when I think about it. And when we're done,
Speaker 1: i'll give you my two cents. But I try to
Speaker 1: just get the person to focus on they really do
Speaker 1: know the answer, even if they don't. That's an answer too,
Speaker 1: and my answer is not necessarily the right answer for them.
Speaker 1: That a lot of times I'll say, hey, this is
Speaker 1: what helped me. I don't know if it'll help you.
Speaker 1: I really stay away from being like you should do whatever,
Speaker 1: which of course is all I've said in my twenties
Speaker 1: and early thirties, so trust me, no judgement people.
Speaker 3: That is a great phrase. It's not the first stop
Speaker 3: on the bus. I really really like that. I'm going
Speaker 3: to keep that one. That's a gem. Secondly, there's a
Speaker 3: line I really love which says, when you realize how
Speaker 3: hard it is to change yourself, you realize the near
Speaker 3: impossibility of changing anyone else, which is really really good.
Speaker 3: And I think for me, you know, being in recovery
Speaker 3: in my twenties, I combined the zeal of early recovery
Speaker 3: with being in my twenties. I was convinced I could
Speaker 3: save everyone, and I wanted to. And so I'm sponsoring
Speaker 3: tons of people, I'm doing all these things, and you
Speaker 3: know what, it's not happening right. All my brilliant ideas
Speaker 3: are ending up with you know, ten percent of those
Speaker 3: people staying sober or something like that. It took me
Speaker 3: longer than I would like to think to learn the lesson,
Speaker 3: which was a it's not my responsibility and be the
Speaker 3: way I think you should do it is not the
Speaker 3: right way for everybody. I think it took me longer
Speaker 3: to learn that lesson, probably because of the culture I
Speaker 3: was in, But it does sort of get that idea
Speaker 3: of you can't save somebody else. That sort of just
Speaker 3: knocked it out of me. I just know. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I just know you can't. Yeah, from trying a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally get it. I had gotten to recovery
Speaker 1: early too. I was twenty two, I think when I
Speaker 1: stopped drinking, and so yes, all the energy of the
Speaker 1: young right where I will save all the people, and
Speaker 1: yet we really can't. And it's not being uncaring because
Speaker 1: when you really think about it, think about I think
Speaker 1: the real flex and relationships because people will talk about
Speaker 1: holding space for others. Honestly, Eric, most of the time,
Speaker 1: I don't even think people know what that means. What
Speaker 1: I think it means are to me, the real flex
Speaker 1: is being with someone in the foxhole during the dark
Speaker 1: night of the soul and not treating them like a project. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: being like this shit is messy. Life is messy, Your
Speaker 1: pain is messy, and I am here for it. We
Speaker 1: can talk, we cannot talk. I have faith you're going
Speaker 1: to figure out what to do. I love you and
Speaker 1: I'm here. It's like that is love is I will
Speaker 1: tolerate how uncomfortable your unsolvable problem is making me feel
Speaker 1: right now because I love you and I see you.
Speaker 1: I am compassionately witnessing you in your dark hour you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And that is, as you say, really really hard, yes,
Speaker 3: particularly if that dark hour goes on a long time.
Speaker 3: Let's just take an example from my life. A friend
Speaker 3: who has through his entire adult life and despite trying
Speaker 3: all kinds of things, have really recalcitrant severe depression, oh brutal,
Speaker 3: and staying in that place with that person. I can
Speaker 3: do it for a while, but over time my brain
Speaker 3: starts going, they should be doing X, and they should
Speaker 3: be doing HY, and don't they know you know, in
Speaker 3: the past they did this and that helps and we
Speaker 3: know this works, you know, and they're not doing any
Speaker 3: of that stuff. It's over time sort of continuing to
Speaker 3: sort of turn that off and go, you know what,
Speaker 3: I don't know the right answer here. I care about
Speaker 3: this person, I want to be with them. I don't
Speaker 3: want to avoid them, or I got to keep a boundary,
Speaker 3: you know, when it starts to drag me.
Speaker 1: Down right, yep, But that's what I was going to.
Speaker 3: Say, feel overly responsible for that person. So I'm able
Speaker 3: to just kind of go, all right, you know, when
Speaker 3: I'm talking to you, I'm there with you, and when
Speaker 3: we're not talking, I'm not. And it's continuing to sort
Speaker 3: of turn it off as that kind of goes on
Speaker 3: that I find the challenging. You know, I could do
Speaker 3: it for like a month, right.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about it though, because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Each of us has a VIP section of our lives, right,
Speaker 1: and we have to be really discerning about who gets
Speaker 1: to be close to our own most tender heart. Right,
Speaker 1: So when you think about your VIP section, I think
Speaker 1: about it like in a club, Right, there's a VIP section,
Speaker 1: but you're the only bouncer. You are making the guest list.
Speaker 1: So you have to decide who gets to be close
Speaker 1: to your most tender heart. If I have a friend
Speaker 1: who is unwell, someone who is suffering from severe depression,
Speaker 1: that is treatment resistant, that is going on and on
Speaker 1: and on, and no, no, no, I need to protect myself
Speaker 1: from their painful existence. I can love them, I can
Speaker 1: spend some time with them. As you said, am I
Speaker 1: spending a ton of time with them? I'm not. Because
Speaker 1: I'm an EmPATH and I'm a highly sensitive person and
Speaker 1: there's only so much zipping up of my energy that
Speaker 1: I can do, and it's a lot of work. So
Speaker 1: there's a reality that we have to be discerning, and
Speaker 1: that might sound cold hearted to people, and yet the
Speaker 1: truth is, I'm responsible for my own well being. I
Speaker 1: can't self abandon to the point of becoming depressed because
Speaker 1: I decide to move in with my depressed friend. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yep, I totally know what you mean. I struggle a
Speaker 3: little with use the VIP version. The other phrase I've
Speaker 3: heard that really troubles me is you're the average of
Speaker 3: the five people you spend the most time around. Because
Speaker 3: here's why it troubles me. One, there's some truth in it, right,
Speaker 3: there's a fair amount of truth in it. But secondly,
Speaker 3: it makes my relationships to me become instrumental. Oh, as
Speaker 3: long as that relationship is making me better and more
Speaker 3: successful all of those things, then I'm good with it.
Speaker 3: But if it's not doing those things, even if I
Speaker 3: have a genuine affection, love and care for that person,
Speaker 3: then I should shove them out. And what you're advocating
Speaker 3: is somewhere in between those things, right, So for me,
Speaker 3: the question becomes if that person is someone that, again
Speaker 3: based on my value structure and what I want, I
Speaker 3: want them in my life. If that person only ever
Speaker 3: had bad times and there was never a time where
Speaker 3: that friendship filled me up in some way, might be different.
Speaker 3: But then the question becomes, as you're saying, do what
Speaker 3: can I boundary myself enough that I'm not carrying this
Speaker 3: around with me, that I'm not feeling like I have
Speaker 3: to solve it, and I think there are ways to
Speaker 3: do that. Like you said earlier, there are certain packs
Speaker 3: we have in life that we may choose to keep
Speaker 3: as long as we're open eyed about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, I agree with you. I definitely do not
Speaker 1: look at my friendships as like are you Are you
Speaker 1: staying in my life because you're going to make me
Speaker 1: more successful? You know, Listen, I have the same friends
Speaker 1: since Nixon was in office. Literally, I have the same
Speaker 1: friends since I was four years old, the same seven women.
Speaker 3: You're not that old. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We were only four were okay, okay, all right, we
Speaker 1: were kids.
Speaker 3: I'm still not sure, but okay, I'll believe you.
Speaker 1: But the point is I think that being mindful, like
Speaker 1: people will come into therapy, they will stay in relationships
Speaker 1: way longer than that expiration date. It's long past, because
Speaker 1: they've got these historical handcuffs that they feel obligated, like
Speaker 1: this person is like family. And there here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Even family, it's our job to be discerning about who
Speaker 1: gets to be close to our most tender heart. That's it.
Speaker 1: I'm not advocating like we should just cut everybody off. No,
Speaker 1: but we have to be honest about what relationships are
Speaker 1: lighting us up, what relationships are dragging us down when
Speaker 1: your phone rings, and that you see who that is.
Speaker 1: If your gut instinct is like, oh, think about it,
Speaker 1: why is it that? Are you talking to someone who's
Speaker 1: telling you the same ship and making no changes in
Speaker 1: their life over and over over again, then you need
Speaker 1: to limit those conversations. You need to cut them off
Speaker 1: a little sooner. You don't need to talk to someone
Speaker 1: for three hours every three weeks about the same crap
Speaker 1: that they're not doing anything about. Right, we can't be like, well,
Speaker 1: you must take my advice. I also just like I
Speaker 1: cut off contact with my sister for a period of time.
Speaker 1: I also don't need to have a daily blow by
Speaker 1: blow of her abusive relationship when she's not willing to
Speaker 1: make a move or can't or whatever the situation was.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my partner has a phrase I really like for
Speaker 3: some of this, which is minimal contact, maximum sympathy. You know. So, Okay,
Speaker 3: I recognize I'm going to have to minimize or in
Speaker 3: certain cases eliminate, but in a lot of these cases,
Speaker 3: for me, it's a minimize, But I can still have
Speaker 3: an open and warm heart to that person. You know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to turn into cutting them out of
Speaker 3: my heart. But I can also say I'm going to
Speaker 3: minimize the amount of time that I'm around you, because
Speaker 3: to your point, they're certainly like I was describing a
Speaker 3: family member earlier. Every time, there's a retriggering of what's
Speaker 3: going on. And maybe I shouldn't use that word because
Speaker 3: it's not really full re traumatizing, but it is a
Speaker 3: repeating of the behaviors that were problematic enough to cause
Speaker 3: some of my dysfunctions.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's activating, is what I call it. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: and it really describes what it is. I think that
Speaker 1: there's something that we can think about that might be
Speaker 1: helpful for listeners if people are feeling burnt out, because
Speaker 1: this is part of the part and parcel with being
Speaker 1: a high functioning codependent is the overfunctioning and the eventually
Speaker 1: hitting some kind of a wall. It could be a
Speaker 1: crisis in a relationship, it could be a health crisis,
Speaker 1: but sooner or later, there's a point when we just
Speaker 1: can't keep doing what we're doing at the pace that
Speaker 1: we're doing it. At least that's what I've seen over
Speaker 1: and over and over again in my therapy practice, and
Speaker 1: so before we commit to anything this holiday season or
Speaker 1: any time is ask yourself these two questions. One do
Speaker 1: I have the bandwidth to do this without becoming resentful? Two?
Speaker 1: Do I even friggin want to do it? Because so
Speaker 1: much of the time when you're codependent, if someone else
Speaker 1: really wants you to do something, it plants the seed
Speaker 1: almost like, well, I mean they want me to do it,
Speaker 1: so I should probably do it right, Like, yep, it's
Speaker 1: not even an option to go. I don't want to
Speaker 1: do that. I don't like that or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So think about I was give this example, like people
Speaker 1: invite me to go to an outside concert where you
Speaker 1: sit outside, and I'm all like, no, bugs, some people
Speaker 1: singing no thank you, Like I don't like it. And
Speaker 1: there's no reason why my friend, who did not create
Speaker 1: the outdoor concert should be offended if it's just not
Speaker 1: my thing. Yep, right, it's okay to just be like,
Speaker 1: I hope you guys have a great time. I just
Speaker 1: don't love it. Bugs, no thanks.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I just told a friend today who invited me
Speaker 3: to a holiday party. I said, I'm going to pass
Speaker 3: on the party, but I'd love to see you soon.
Speaker 3: The party is not my thing. I just won't enjoy it,
Speaker 3: So I'm not going to go, and I would love
Speaker 3: to see him, And so I think again, there are
Speaker 3: ways of working with this. A question for you if
Speaker 3: somebody is a high functioning codependent. You mentioned earlier that
Speaker 3: they don't know that's what they have, But do they
Speaker 3: recognize generally that there's resentment building underneath things that you
Speaker 3: know they're run ragged to the bone. I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess if they're coming to you in therapy, they're coming
Speaker 3: because there's something going on that they're recognizing. So it's
Speaker 3: not that the symptoms of this are entirely below the board, right.
Speaker 3: The people are aware that they have them, they just
Speaker 3: don't know how to classify it or what's causing it.
Speaker 3: Is that how you'd say it?
Speaker 1: Yes, And usually a lot of times I would say
Speaker 1: a lot of the women who would end up in
Speaker 1: my office are coming in because they cannot work at
Speaker 1: the breakneck speed that they've been. Something's happening. They've insomnia,
Speaker 1: they've gone into perimenopause, they're in menopause. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I need to get back up to like my fighting energy.
Speaker 1: And I don't have it where they have TMJ or
Speaker 1: the There's so many autoimmune disorders that I see based
Speaker 1: on this, because when you think about what we're doing,
Speaker 1: there's a hypervigilance that goes along with being a high
Speaker 1: functioning codependent, where we are dialed into everyone and everything,
Speaker 1: endlessly scanning to make sure there's not a problem and
Speaker 1: everything is good whether we know it or not. But
Speaker 1: this is very not good for your nervous system. It
Speaker 1: is very dysregulating. It really does create burnout. This level
Speaker 1: of attention outside of ourselves. Right, there's all of this
Speaker 1: attention where I could be out to dinner with my
Speaker 1: husband and I'd be like, oh, those two people in
Speaker 1: the corner are fighting about this. This person wants her
Speaker 1: mother in law to comfort like or I'll immediately say
Speaker 1: the guy who just walked in is violent, just being
Speaker 1: an EmPATH, and he's like, are you ever just listening
Speaker 1: to me? I'm curious, you know when we go out
Speaker 1: to dinner, I'm like, all right, I'm doing both. So
Speaker 1: that's something that we want to think about, is the exhaustion,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing that we'll drive people usually into treatment,
Speaker 1: is something other than they don't see they are high
Speaker 1: functioning ways as a problem. You know, in the irony
Speaker 1: with the more capable you are, the less codependency looks
Speaker 1: like codependency, but it's still codependency, so you still end
Speaker 1: up burnt out and exhausted and resemble in all of
Speaker 1: those things.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that is a good place for us
Speaker 3: to wrap up. I'd love to continue talking with you
Speaker 3: in the post show conversation because I feel like we
Speaker 3: covered two percent of your book at most, So listeners,
Speaker 3: if you'd like access to that post show conversation, we're
Speaker 3: going to dive into a little bit more on how
Speaker 3: do I sort some of these things out and what
Speaker 3: are some things I can do for recovering. Then you
Speaker 3: can join us in the post show conversation. You can
Speaker 3: get ad free episodes. You can support a show that
Speaker 3: can always use your help by joining our community at
Speaker 3: oneufeed dot net slash join Terry. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: We'll have links in the show notes to your book
Speaker 3: and I really enjoyed reading and getting to talk with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
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