Boundaries really do keep tripping us up. For some reason, so many of us find it freaking difficult to set a boundary, keep a boundary, hold strong to the boundary. And so it ends up leaving us feeling really insecure, self-conscious, not worthy. And it all stems from us not setting boundaries. So I'm about to reveal something utterly beautiful. Terry Cole today is going to tell us exactly what we're freaking missing guys. And really, she is so damn honest about why we on earth we do struggle to set boundaries with all the people in our lives and how that has a massive knock on effect from our family members to parents to bloody strangers. We have trouble setting these boundaries and keeping them. And today Teri Cole reveals the key warning signs of weak boundaries And you know what? It's not what you may think. You learn how to define walls of engagement, set boundaries and get super freaking clear on what's keeping you Angry and dissatisfied. So without further ado, right now, let's go hard with my girl Teri Colh on boundaries And guys guys if this episode did bring you value please please do tell your homies, share this podcast, tell people about it, let's start making change together and impacting women globally. Now onto the episode. Eventually we feel used abused, angry, underappreciated, boundary Terry Cole, towards the line. And for all you people, pleases out there, she'll tell you where you're headed. And warned you about the dangers of not setting boundaries with a no-sacistic mobunk. They're going to use whatever you share with them against you at some point. Terry Cole, the boundary boss is in the house. She is indeed me, so she is indeed. So, where I want to start today, is so many of the things that I think us as women struggle with, feeling like we're pushed around, feeling like that we don't have a voice, feeling like we're being manipulated without us even realising anything. And the thing that you talk about so eloquently is the fact that a lot of us have so many poor boundaries that we don't even realize that these sorts of problems are stemming from the fact that we have poor boundaries. So I would love today to identify how on earth we know if we have a poor boundary or not and then how we pivot, how we then set up a successful boundary for us to then have a close relationship with the people around us. Love it. So let's start with how do you know your boundaries are disordered? How do you know that what you're feeling is related to that or if you're feeling dissatisfied or if you're feeling angry? So we always start with doing a resentment inventory. So this is like the beginning. If you're wondering, like, huh, I wonder how my boundaries are. The real thing to check in with is how is your resentment? So you can start to identify what relationships need your attention in respect to boundaries. And let's reestablish what boundaries are. It's you, like think of it as your own personal rules of engagement, right? You letting other people know what's okay with you and what's not okay with you. And a lot of us don't do that, right? From the get, we're waiting to see if something's going to be not okay and then maybe we will do something about it and maybe we won't or we positively project onto the other person. Like well if I'm like this, then they're like this. And again, not accurate because we need evidence to see how people are. So back to what do you do? You identify, I'm feeling resentful with my sister. She expects me to do X, Y, and Z. She's entitled or she borrowed money and didn't pay it back or I'm angry with my work partner or whatever it is. Those, that literally, that's where you have disordered boundaries. So that's a start. And then you have to look at that situation and go, okay, what is my 50% of this experience? Is my sister entitled, or do I serve myself up on a silver platter to be, quote, unquote, taken advantage of doing more than we want to, overgiving, over functioning, overdoing, being overly generous, even over feeling, most of us. And then when the person believes us or takes us up on it, we're like pissed and feel like they're taking advantage of us. So when we can own our own 50%, like was I clear that lending a thousand dollars to my sister or my friend that it was alone and did I say when I would expect that loan to be repaid and Listen, yes, my two cents on lending money never do it. Just don't just have a policy and said when someone asked you to borrow money Even if you have a lot of money. It's never just about dollars and cents It will always become some kind of a shit show like 98% of the time. So I just have a something you can say hey I, I just have a no lending policy. It's not personal to you. If I can afford to gift it to someone, I do. Right? That's a choice. If you want to give it to them, but that's now it's a clean exchange. And if the person's like, why I want to borrow it from you, you can just say, hey, it's not personal. This is how I protect my relationships because money is not just about money, it's complicated. I'm happy to brainstorm with you ways for you to make the money that you need or whatever. But if you know that, if you, if that's a way that you can know your own boundary and be ready when someone asks you. So long way around the barn, back to your question, we identify our grievances, basically, our resentments, and then we look and go, oh, where was I unclear? Did I expect them to read my mind? Or did I say it, did they agree, and are they violating our boundary agreement? Because each one of those things is a different situation. Right. So you would handle each one of them differently. That's what I was actually going to ask you because when it comes to resentment, there are multiple factors when it comes to that. Was it they were entitled and it's them and now I haven't spoken up about the entitlements and now I'm holding on to resentment. Is it the fact that I haven't set boundaries and so it's not that they're entitled, it's just that I've never told them So they're just going to keep asking and so actually that's more of a me thing where I need to see and look inside myself and then as you were saying about like with the resentment and where you are I think so many of us I'd love to hear your thoughts on this how we convince ourselves that it's on us that it's our fault., first of all, even I want to first speak to the entitlement piece, because even if we don't know what's going on with someone else, we don't know if they feel entitled or entitled, it's all when it comes to our boundaries, it's always an us thing. Because we are the keeper, we are the one who knows what is our preference, our limits, and our deal breakers, and those are your boundaries. What someone else is doing, the dance that they're doing on their own side of the street, whether you like the dance, you don't like the dance, maybe they are acting entitled, maybe they say, you owe me, That's them. You have to take responsibility for your part, for being clear, for precisely, right, accurately, transparently, communicating your boundaries, which is why it's so important to be proactive. So if you have a no lending policy, that's proactive. So you're not taken back in the moment, right? You know if someone asked me to wear a money, I have a no lending policy. It's not personal to you. Or, and maybe I can gift it to you if I can, right? Back to the second thing you asked, which is about, we take it on ourselves. We feel like it's our fault that something happens. Now this goes under the category of a lot of times the lies we tell ourselves, right? I call it, to avoid speaking up, to avoid having a conversation that might be difficult or maybe that we feel like we are not, we don't have the skills to have. We're like, I just don't know what to say to this person. And I'm worried that they're gonna be angry, upset, reject me, that it won't be liked. I mean, listen, we may not say that with words, but at the base, so much of disordered boundaries has to do with people pleasing. Like we want people to like us. I was saying this the other day at some talk that I was giving, like, literally it could be someone you don't even like. And then you find out that Betty doesn't like you and you're like, what is it, what, what I do to Betty? Why wouldn't she like me? Why do we care? Why do we? What is that then? Part of it is that we're trained to be likeable. If you were raised as a woman, think about all of the indoctrination that happened in our lives. Be a good girl. Turn that frown around. Where's my happy girl? If you don't have anything nice to say, I don't say anything at all. I could keep going. And this is what got us positivity. And it was reinforced most of us by the adults in our life. And all we want is for them to approve of us and to love us and to not reject us. Because think about with kids, we learn how to get our needs met to the best of our ability.

So if you were raised in a dysfunctional family system, maybe you had an alcoholic parent.

You know what needed to tell you how to manage that person.

You figure it out. I'm going to refresh mommy's drink. I'm going to clean up. I'm going to make dinner for the other kids so mommy can be in a good mood and just stay here, right? Nobody, there was no inter-office memo that told you how to do that. So there's so much of our young experience has to do with our adult experience. And even if you didn't weren't raised in a dysfunctional situation, we still just by being raised, at least when we were being raised, right, within that period of time. But it's been for all of life that women are supposed to be pleasant. We're supposed to care more about how other people feel and other people's comfort or discomfort than our own. That's what we learned. Now, of course, we know that is a recipe for endless self-abendiment. And the least satisfying life possible is let me just make sure everyone else has what they need because what ends up happening, and this will bring us into the conversation about codependency because it's all connected. But what ends up happening when we prioritize the wants, needs, desires, preferences, likes, dislikes of all the other people in our life above our own? Is that literally is a one way, you know, what do I like to say? It's like a slow train to bitter land. There's no other stop on that train.

There's no other way that you will end up feeling.

Eventually, we feel used, abused, angry,

underappreciated.

And who does that help?

When we think we're doing all of this self-sacrificing

for like the greater good, take a month for the team

or whatever it is, whatever other lies, we sort of tell ourselves about why we're doing it. And learning the language, becoming fluent in the language of boundaries liberates you from this groundhog day of frustration in life. And when we have disordered boundaries, you also have to think about, are we really being honest to the people, to ourselves, but also with the people in our life? If we're saying yes, when we really want to say no, because I don't want to hurt your feelings. So I'll say yes, or I'll say I'll do something, even though I don't want to do that thing. Are we being nice? It's all of that is under the umbrella of, well, I just, you know, I want, I said it to be nice. You're like, you said something dishonest to be nice. Is that being nice? Hell no. It is literally giving the people in your life corrupted data about who you are, about what you like, even the small things, like my therapy clients when I would talk about their preferences, like what are your preferences in the beginning of the book and the way that I teach it, we do a huge list, the okay and not okay list, so that you really go through every single area of your life, from home life to relationships to physical wellness to financial to financial, to spiritual, all of it. And you're like, what's really working and what's not working? And so much of the time we are tolerating. So much that it's completely unnecessary and there are small changes and usually with people we start with, making the small changes, where you start caring about your own preferences. It may be something as simple as having like a caustic overhead light in your work area, or in one of the rooms in your home. That every time you put it on, you think, I really hate that light. Change the fucking bulb. Don't use that light. Get a floor lamp that you do like. And there are so many ways that we can make our lives more aligned with our preferences. Without it being a burden to someone else. You know, that's so strong. And I didn't want to interrupt you because you're so...

I was so on fire. I wanted to ask you though, that in moments where you may be feeling the resentment, right? So that's one of the signs. If you're feeling the resentment, it usually means something, write it down, figure out where that comes from. How much should we be going back into our childhood to see where it stems from? and a lot of what you know we talk about is like with utter grace right looking back into your

childhood and not beating yourself up over the fact that going back into our childhood to see where it stems from. And a lot of what, you know, we talk about is like,

with utter grace, right? Looking back into your childhood and not beating yourself up over the fact that maybe you were silent, maybe you didn't speak up, but at least identifying it so that you can then implement it into the boundary that you need today. Yes, so good. Here's the thing, being aware of why you are the way you are. So I talk about it, we reveal your unique

downloaded boundary blueprint. So we learned this. There was a model to behavior. There are so many good reasons that we don't know anything about how to healthily establish and maintain boundaries in our lives, because not only were we not taught it most of us, we were taught the opposite of it and all the myths that abound around boundaries, that if you have good boundaries, you're a bitch, you're hysterical, you're bossy, you're not feminine, you're mean, whatever, whatever, whatever the whole thing is. And you know, we have to look at those things as well, but how you can figure out, like, is the way that I'm responding right now? Now, or is it really being fueled by unresolved original injuries, basically from the past, is something happens when we start to have a transference to other people. And a transference is basically having a reaction to something now that is and that the now is very familiar in some way. It's similar to something that happened to you in the past. So what was adaptive in childhood? Perhaps our silence in childhood protected us from abuse. Perhaps our silence got us the love that we needed, got us the care that we needed. So super adaptive, make sense. Like, wow, go you little person that you somehow figured that out with nobody telling you. It so much of that becomes maladaptive in adulthood. And instead of it getting us what we need or keeping us safe, it blocks us from getting what we need. So if you find yourself in a situation where something happens and you get activated really quick or you get really hot really fast, this can be an indication that you're having a transference from something from the past. So I give you these questions that you can ask yourself, who does this person remind me of? Where have I felt like this before? Or how or why is this behavioral dynamic? Maybe it's approval seeking. Maybe the person is withholding that approval. How is this dynamic familiar? If you ask yourself those questions, you might go, oh my God, I'm relating to my boss like my withholding father. But now is not them. And my boss is not my withholding father. How can I change my behavior so I don't turn into a 10-year-old when I'm interacting with my boss? And sometimes it's simply bringing it from the basement, which is your unconscious mind, into the main part of the house, I like to say. That sometimes is enough for you to go, oh look, that thing is happening. But I don't need to be afraid of my boss, the way that I was afraid of my father. So I can speak up. I can respectfully disagree. I can have the conversation. They're paying me for my thoughts. I can tell them my thoughts, even if I disagree, my thoughts are different than their thoughts. So that's one tool that you can use is those three questions for clarity because it's really helpful. But again, if you're having an amplified response and you know it, sometimes something will happen and then later you're like, that was like a lot. What just happened for me, what I said or how pissed I got so fast, that seems like maybe there's something else going on. And again, I so agree with what you were saying about. We're looking back with grace. We are having compassion for our little selves, for the adults in our life that we can assume they did the best or maybe they didn't, but it doesn't even matter because none of this is about them. This is just about you. You want to become masterful of boundaries. It's becoming the observer without judgment of yourself and your reactions in real time Where you go, that was weird, or that was a lot, or I wonder why I was so hurt by that person's comment, but that person is not someone I love. So how is this familiar to me? Because that pain was deep. Can it really be about my coworker? I doubt it. If you have a deep pain from someone you don't actually love, I promise you you're most likely having a transference. And that person is reminding you of someone else. I had one of the stories that I share in the book. I had a client who every job I didn't know this in the beginning, but her first job she comes in and she wants to talk about her arch enemy at work.

She has this woman, she can't stand her, she's so entitled, she's so bossy, she's to know it all blah blah blah. And I was like, okay, so we started talking about that. Now, I don't see a pattern because it's just one job. to sell my client, she gets into another job.

She has another art genemy.

I'm like, all right, how many people have this happened?

No, this is unique to this because she was like,

I'm sure this all right, how many people have this happened?

No, this is unique to this because she was like, I'm sure this everyone has this. I was like, definitely not. So this is definitely unique to you. So now we see a pattern. And I was like, we asked the three questions for clarity. Finally, I was like, all right, tell me about this person. Who do they remind you of? Where have you felt like this before and the way you're interacting and how frustrated you are with this woman?

How is that familiar to you? And she was like, oh my God, it's so embarrassing. All of these people are just like my sister, who was a total bully, who was and then listed all of the qualities. And she's like, Terry, this is so weird, but it wasn't weird. This is incredibly common. And I was like, but can you see that the lady you work with is not your sister. So what do we do when we realize, oh my gosh, I'm having a transference? We go to the original injury. So with that client, I went back to with her, let's talk about what situations from your past with your sister are still painful to you. What have you not processed? Tell me everything. Let's talk about it, write about it, journal about it, because it was the child within her who never got the satisfaction of the sister like owning her bad behavior. And through our work, she was able to have a clarifying thing. Her sister was like, I'm so sorry. I feel so guilty. I know that I treated you badly, but I really love you. I mean, they were able to do it. But the little kid within my client, she needed that acknowledgement. So we can only ever talk it out or act it out. Those are your two choices in life. So since she hadn't talked it out, she was continuing to attract situations that she could act it out because that injury was still sticky. It was still hurting her. It was still there, you know? Oh my God, that is so strong. I've never heard that before. I think I made it up. That's really freaking powerful. Because that, I mean, again, I'm so tacked to cool

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