Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto

Your Circle Shapes Your Life: Terri Cole on Building Better Relationships

• Sabrina Soto and Terri Cole • Season 1 • Episode 82

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Terri Cole returns to share powerful insights on building a supportive community and setting boundaries in friendships that no longer serve us. We explore how to cultivate meaningful connections and surround ourselves with people who truly want us to win.

• Taking a friendship inventory to evaluate which relationships truly support your growth
• Creating a "VIP section" in your life for people who celebrate your successes
• Managing friendship breakups, which can sometimes be harder than romantic breakups
• Setting boundaries with friends who consistently drain your energy
• Using energetic cord-cutting to distance yourself from unhealthy relationships
• Understanding the difference between helping someone and overstepping boundaries
• Identifying patterns in relationships using Terri's "Three Cues for Clarity"
• Learning how past experiences influence current relationships
• Transforming your community through mastermind groups and intentional connection

Check out Terri's mastermind for ambitious women at terricole.com/flourish or join her community at terricole.com/TCM. Pick up her books "Boundary Boss" and "Too Much" to deepen your understanding of healthy relationships.


Speaker 1:

Welcome to Redesigning Life. I'm your host, sabrina Soto, and this is the space where we have honest conversations about personal growth, mindset shifts and creating a life that feels truly aligned. In each episode, I'll talk to experts in their fields who share their insights to help you step into your higher self. Let's redesign your life from the inside out. Terry Cole, welcome to Redesigning Life yet again. This is your third time on and I'll tell you why because you're one of my favorite people and you are my friend and I love you so much that I just love your books. I've given them to people as gifts. Codependency is your game and boundaries, so I what I wanted to talk to you about today is community. How important it is for you to build a full life is creating a community, and I think in our age it's sort of difficult to do that, and I want your tips and tricks on how to sort of collect the people in your life that will hold you up instead of drown you. Are you okay?

Speaker 2:

with that Indeed. Okay, let's dish. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1:

This morning I was actually at a round table with a bunch of badass women and I love doing things like that because I love good conversations, I love women, supporting women and I realized that it's rare. It's rare A lot of people talk but not a lot of people walk. So what sort of advice can you give to people? How do you cultivate, starting to create a world in which you attract a new circle to support you in your life?

Speaker 2:

Well, listen, sometimes we just do it right, sometimes meaning we do it out in the wild, and other times we have to be proactive in making it happen. So there's lots of different proactive ways, but if we were talking about what does the person have to do to sort of call in higher quality friendships or relationships, because that's really what we're talking about we all want friends who truly support us, we all want to have connections with people who want us to win, and that isn't always the case, and so I feel like we have to go in before we go out and really looking at, you know, do a quick. What I would say if we were, you know, if this was a therapy client, I would talk about doing a quick friendship inventory where we really look at, okay, so who's in my life and can I really tell them the truth about how I feel? Are they? Because really, you know this, sabrina, all of us at one point or another have had a friend that we're afraid to tell the good things to.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 2:

That we're afraid they're going to be jealous or they're going to be mad it's not about them or they're going to, even if they say they're happy for us. You know that they're going to sort of think or say but what about me? Yes, so let's first talk about qualities of real support and community. And what does it look like? Who was it Not Jen Aniston?

Speaker 2:

The other Jen, jen Garner, said not that long ago there was an article that she had been interviewed about friendships and she said an article that she had been interviewed about friendships and she said I don't have any friendships in my life where guilt is a part of it. We all go through phases. She's like I have friends if I haven't seen them in months, even years, but I've loved them and maybe they're really busy or they moved away or whatever it is. She's like I. It took me years to sort of clean up what I would call your VIP section. Right, to clean it up, where you have people who are just happy to be in your life, who just love you, who it's not them controlling you. Right. There's gotta be liberation, where you can give, you can be in the friendship.

Speaker 2:

If you are going through something in your life, your friend doesn't make what you're going through worse by being like well, what about me? I really wanted you to come out on Saturday, but you didn't. Right Like we don't need that. So I'm with Jen Gardner in feeling like friendships with guilt, I feel like we're playing something else out and listen. This doesn't mean you can't have feelings, you can't have real conversations with your friends. Of course you can, but there's a certain level of and I've had this I recently actually ended a friendship in the past five years of someone who I was friends with for a very long time and there was a lot of obligation and guilt and I thought, yuck, what is your experience with that?

Speaker 1:

I had the same thing happen to me in the last five years and, weirdly, this person reached out to me and I thought about you, terry, because okay, for people who maybe haven't heard the past podcast with Terry, terry wrote two books Boundary Boss and Too Much. Too Much is Behind, if you're watching, too Much is Behind Her. And I thought about the boundaries and I thought about you because when they reached out, I thought do I want to pick up this friendship the way it was before and has this person changed? And it seemed like the answer was no and it was hard for me because of my codependence and my people pleasing that I just wanted to be the good girl and call back and be friends again. But I realized and I love your VIP section situation because I want to surround myself with people that really do love me and support me and I want to support them too, and sometimes it's difficult that I think friendship breakups are sometimes as bad as relationship breakups.

Speaker 2:

Without a doubt, and in fact sometimes they're more complicated and more fraught. I've had therapy clients who, you know, have sort of been able to weather their romantic breakups better than their friendships. I can't tell you how many times I'm speaking somewhere about boundaries and about friendships and about frenemies and about, you know, toxic relationships, and people will say I'm in a long term friendship and I have to, I just have to end it. And I'm like, well, have you had a conversation? And they're like no, no, no, I can't talk to her. There's no. I'm like, okay, let's start with the fact that you can have the conversation because, listen, there's ways to just say, hey, I love you and what we've shared and I've outgrown this friendship, it's become unhealthy for me Wait.

Speaker 1:

Terry, no, Terry, nobody's nobody can do that Like, yes, you can do that, you can do that, you can do that, but I just don't see a world in which that I can. There's maybe one person I've had that conversation with, but I don't. I don't think anybody listening can, can see themselves or really doing that. So how can you do it another way?

Speaker 2:

That's not so Listen, what? Listen? All right, I'm going to give you another way. If the friendship has become like you're fighting a lot, there's a lot of like, bickering, there's a lot of back and forth, there's a lot of like, but you and but you, you both know it's become unhealthy, Right. So I think it's okay to say listen, I feel like we bicker and fight more than we just hang out, and for both of us it this has become unhealthy. Yes.

Speaker 2:

I think if there's bickering, but maybe if you've just outgrown somebody, is it okay and I'm asking for a friend Is it okay to just sort of take your distance without having to have a conversation? Absolutely, but I'll tell you a better way to do it, which is we're still not going to have a conversation. But there's an energetic thing that you can do. If you're in relationships with people and it's already sort of starting to fade and you know it's not a healthy relationship, you can I call it an energetic hit list where you can write the person down and you can visualize them like sort of floating away. Right, you can visualize.

Speaker 2:

There's this exercise that you can do. It's like you're breathing in on every exhalation. You're sort of seeing them in a pink bubble, like floating towards the horizon. Like you're breathing in on every exhalation. You're sort of seeing them in a pink bubble, like floating towards the horizon, Like you're not doing anything mean, we're not wishing anything mean on anyone. It's sort of a way to cut energetic cords. And there's many ways to cut energetic cords and you guys can just look it up on Google if you want to.

Speaker 1:

I've done actual meditations, guided meditations, cord cutting ones, and they work for me.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and me too. And just deciding that I'm going to be disentangled from someone, just just making that decision energetically, something shifts. Because what I noticed about myself when I was in a relationship, a friendship that I felt obligated to, I realized I was the one keeping it going to out of guilt. I would be like, oh, I haven't talked to this person in such a long time. I really should reach out to them and see how they are, because I know they're going to be mad but yeah, the wrong reasons, all the wrong reasons.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean. It's costing, yes, and why am I reaching out to keep a friendship going that I kind of literally don't even want anymore? And this is what we're talking about today in this episode is like a pattern interruption where, first of all, we have to give ourselves permission to keep the VIP section of our life really for VIPs, which is those are people who there's the mutuality where you like, as our friendship. Sam, you fill up my cup and I fill up your cup. When it's your show, literally, I'm in the front row, clapping my hands and jumping up and down and doing whatever I can to support and promote because I love you and because you are incredibly talented and funny and gorgeous and all the things that you know.

Speaker 2:

I hold you in high esteem. That's how I actually feel about you and it's not words. My behavior shows you that that's true. It's true, right. So it's the same thing for me, you do the same for me, shouting it from the rooftops, but again, not as a favor, as a sincere belief in the work that I'm doing, or whatever, and I think that that we belong in each other's VIP sections. Yeah, right, but there's many people over the years who I sort of have ushered out of my VIP section. What about you?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I mean especially because I feel like I am moving into a new chapter in my life. Yeah Right, and I want to leave. You know, it's like I'm almost writing a new book. I'm writing a new book and I kind of want to go into another bookstore but my other pages are still in the old bookstore and I'm like, oh my, I'm in between and I'm not saying I want to get rid of people in my life, but I have different likes now that I'm not the same person I was 15 years ago.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to do the same things that I did 15 years ago, 15 years ago, and I don't want to do the same things that that I did 15 years ago.

Speaker 2:

So it's, I want, yeah, I want to sort of take inventory of my VIP section. Yes, and, and listen, we can all do that, right, taking a branch of inventory. This is not being like who's going to be on the cutting block necessarily, right, it's telling the truth to ourselves, right, and we can put, we can put some of the questions in the show notes. I have a little teeny exercise that people can do, which basically, you're really looking at who you're spending time with and then how do you feel? Right, I leave a lunch with you and I feel energized, I feel excited, I feel lit up about what you're doing and the positive changes in your life and it just makes me so happy because I love you. Right, that's, that's friendship. Sometimes, back in the day, or 10 years ago, or five years ago, I might leave a conversation with someone and feel drained, feel tired, feel put upon.

Speaker 1:

Right, but okay, and I think there's some people probably listening that go, okay, but everybody in my life is sort of like that. Maybe they live in the same town they grew up in and they're wanting to expand their life and I don't know. It could be a million different reasons. How do you start to take that inventory? And just a real quick note like you said, it's not about cutting everybody out of your life and starting from scratch. You don't have to do that at all. Nor do I recommend it. I'm sure you don't recommend that.

Speaker 2:

Of course not, because this wouldn't have anyone in our life If everyone who annoyed us or drained us we got rid of. So it's not that, but it does give us an opportunity to look at our boundaries, right, if we are letting a friend who endlessly complains all the time about the same shit that they never changed right, we all have that friend Then then you have to have boundaries around how much time you're going to spend with them. You have to decide. Maybe you don't talk to them at night when you're tired and you just say, hey, I'm putting my phone down at six. You guys, unless it's an emergency, I'm literally keeping, because Vic and I now have started having a basket at the front door for the phones. Like, just know that. No, no phones when we're eating ever, but no phones when we're watching a movie. Just watch the goddamn movie. Please Just stop movie watching while you're scrolling IG.

Speaker 2:

It is so bad for your brain, but it's also it does something. It's almost like technology becomes like a mistress or a lover in in relationships when we let it insert itself too much. So I'm really doing my best to move that out. And with my friendships too, I'm not talking to anyone when I'm looking at the top of their head. No, thank you, because I could be doing shit too right. I don't need that. So I think that, anyway, back to you have. Maybe you have better boundaries with people and when you do, maybe you wouldn't feel so much. And I don't mean you, you, I just mean in general. Maybe we wouldn't feel like we needed to get away from them, because part of the overwhelm is, if we are not establishing boundaries as we go, that's when people hit the wall and go. I got to get out of this friendship because you've been not honest for so long that you're like I have a joke with my friend Paul.

Speaker 1:

I just say beep, beep, and a beep beep to me is that I'm staying in my lane this year and I have friends who is what you just said keep complaining about the same things and do nothing about it. And they call me all the time. And I did this kind of at the beginning of the year. I called you know those friends and I said I love you so much that I, if you want my advice on this, I'll give it to you once now. Other than that, if you want to vent, that's fine, but I'm not going to say a word. I'll listen for a little bit, but only for a little bit, and then I'm going. I cannot. I cannot continue to take this on, because you're making this my problem and it's not my problem.

Speaker 2:

And really, if we were to actually be accurate, you made it your problem because you're a high functioning codependent and they, they wanted you to. So everyone was happy with that agreement until you were not happy with that agreement and I fully, I'm fully on board with the blanket statement of Right. I got better things to do with my life and I think that that's fair, like I don't think that's that's being mean, because part of it is you also. The truth is and we know this from high functioning codependency is that you don't know what they need to do and I don't know what they need to do, just like your sister.

Speaker 2:

That story about your sister sister Exactly my sister being in a terrible relationship, in an abusive relationship, living in the woods, without running water, with no electricity, just a whole nightmare, and I thought it was my job to get her out until my therapist and I had been trying for a long time, bawling my eyes out until my therapist was like, uh, hello, what makes you think you know what your sister needs to learn and how she needs to learn it in this life?

Speaker 2:

And I was like wow, I don't know, am I allowed to not quote, unquote save her Cause? I thought that was my job as her sister. And she was like hey, that's impossible. I'm not saying you shouldn't save your sister, I'm saying you can't. That it's an inside job. She's got to be ready to be done with that relationship and you can have a boundary that says hey, I can't talk about this guy, like I love you and if you ever want to get out, I'm here for you. Which is exactly what I did, which, of course, was very challenging and I felt very guilty about it. But less than nine months later, she called me and said hey, are you still my person?

Speaker 1:

I'm ready and I was like yeah, man getting in my car, and so that why that's important is I think some people would think that before you were saying well, no, you shouldn't be responsible for anyone. It's like, no, you can show up for people. You can show up for people when they ask and they need your help and they're willing to make change. Yes, that is when you become a quote unquote good friend and you're there, but you don't need to insert yourself in every daily detail to fix their lives, because what you will end up doing is drowning yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and what I like to say about that situation is that then Vic and I appropriately helped her. Then Vic and I appropriately helped her, we were able to offer her this little we had this little teeny lake house that we winterized so that she would have a chance like a clean slate, so she could have like two years of not paying rent. She decided to go back to school. She got sober, but that's appropriate. She said I would. I said I offered it when she was whatever and she said, yes, that would be amazing. Thank you so much. But there were no strings attached because we were able to do that. It didn't cost us a lot of money to do it. We already owned the place. We put a little money into renovating, but those that's an appropriate way.

Speaker 2:

And in the end, instead of me being the hero of my sister's story, throwing on my cape and quote unquote saving, she, got to be the hero of her own story and that transformed her self-worth, her self-esteem. That was decades ago. She's still sober. She's never been in another abusive relationship Like. Would that have happened had I quote unquote saved her? No, she would have been humiliated. Her baby sister fixing it all for her again. Right, it feels loving, we feel like we got to do it, but really it's not. It's overstepping boundaries actually.

Speaker 1:

I feel so incredibly lucky that I have you as a friend, because if shit goes down, I could always call you. I love that you do a mastermind for people because not everyone has the luxury of having Terry Cole as their friend. Can you tell people about the mastermind? Because there's been so many transformations with the people, the women that come, and I think that there are people probably that want change and don't know where to start, so can you talk a little bit about it? I?

Speaker 2:

sure can. I started doing this about three years ago because people were asking me and I don't know where to start. So can you talk a little bit about it? I sure can. I started doing this about three years ago because people were asking me and I don't really have a private therapy practice per se a few high profile people, but that's it. And I love groups. You know I'm such a group girl and what I learned how to do in my life.

Speaker 2:

So you have the successful business of building an empire. Basically, I've got a top 20 rated mental health podcast for the last 10 years. I've got, you know, a four book deal for my first book deal. You know all of these things not bragging, this is just the truth of like. I spent many, many years becoming an expert in my field and then started doing these things. So the mastermind is for ambitious women who know that there's more for them, who knows that there's more joy, more satisfaction, more money, hard cold cash. People who want to scale their businesses or get out of their businesses. I've had everyone from therapists to coaches to an. Last year I had an oncologist who lives in London who decided she wanted to open up a more holistic medical practice and sort of get out of oncology and do more holistic health, and I helped her do that. Like there's, there's all different people and then you could have someone who is doesn't know what they want to do, who was a mortgage broker but wanted to do something different.

Speaker 2:

And while she was in the mastermind container right, and it's a very small container there's usually 10 women in it and we're together for nine months. So this year 2025, we're starting in the in mid March. I think our first mini is March 13th. So you know it's it's intimate, because even though all my other friends who do masterminds have like 40 people in it, I can't do it like that because I meet individually with people three times each in the over the nine months.

Speaker 2:

Each person meets with me individually and it's the only way to get that one-on-one work with me. But then each week we meet, we do co-working sessions together, we do sessions together, we do I have guests come in. I also do one-on-one coaching once a month in that group. So there's all kinds of support that you have besides creating the support of the container itself. So you have all of these amazing women and many of them, when they first came in, did not have great experiences with other women. And me personally, I've always just me had great experiences with other women. This is part of not perfect, but just.

Speaker 1:

I've always loved the power of gathering women, but you're the one who started that in my life, that is true. Years ago you invited me to a lunch with other women, and some of those women are still friends of mine to this day. You do connect other women and bad-ass women too, together. But for anyone listening if they're listening to this episode after the mid mid March. You still do onboarding throughout the year too.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'll be, I will be doing onboarding and I also have a community, if people are. I also have a Terry Cole membership, so it's just terrycolecom TCM and for the other it's terrycolecom forward slash flourish, which is the name of the mastermind, so we can put them both in the show notes. I will. But when I was thinking about the women who we gather is how much lives transformed and people who never would have, never would have like gone for buying this new house, that was, you know, outside of their comfort level, of what they thought they needed to sell their house for a certain amount, and the whole group, we were all just manifesting. And while we were together in Denver that year, she got the call that they accepted her offer and she was like, oh my God, I have to sell my house. And within five. I was like, oh, you're going to sell your house within five days. And she literally sold her house on day four.

Speaker 2:

And you know, you're the queen of manifesting, that there's something about our collective intention for each other that is so incredibly powerful, because if I believe I can do it for me, part of my ability to believe it is because you believe I can do it for me, and then we, also within the group we share, like the women, will have private coffee dates with each other, right, so that each person, each people, get to know each other, and then we meet as a group for three days, twice during that time.

Speaker 2:

So, like this year, I think it's going to be San Diego and I'm not sure the other one, which won't be until October I was going to do, I was going to do Paris, but don't feel like, with the state of everything, maybe we should be leaving the country. So maybe it's going to be it'll be somewhere else. But the reality is it doesn't necessarily matter where you're gathering, because it's a deep dive into being together. And what makes this unique is that it's because I've been a psychotherapist for 27 years. You have these two massive columns, where the business column is this side, I also have guests come in and working sessions, but then we have the psychological piece, because how many women suffer from the imposter syndrome?

Speaker 1:

Oh, my gosh Right, every day, every day.

Speaker 2:

Right, but we normalize it through talking about it, and you know because you do. We normalize it through talking about it, and you know because I do one-on-ones with everyone. I also get a really deep and intimate idea of the roadmap of your life before now Because therapeutically I can sort of see something might be happening at work and I can help you understand. Oh, this sounds a lot like that bully situation you had in sixth grade or your brother who is mean to you or whatever it is, because psychologically, a lot of times we really need someone else to help us figure out why am I either keeping my life small or staying in a relationship that's crappy or whatever it is? So I don't know how to do the business aspect without also cleaning up the personal stuff and helping with the personal stuff. So I do believe it is a really unique.

Speaker 1:

Because, yes, you're right, because every, every I don't know what the word, the right word, would be, but every sort of um situation that's not so great that you get into, I think, in a business realm you know, in in that category has to do with something that happened in your childhood. And if you continue to attract a narcissistic boss, I'm sure there's some sort of tie with where one of your parents are narcissists, you know, and I not. You know, the one and only Terry Cole is priceless.

Speaker 2:

Well, what I can say? Thank you for saying that, and you are absolutely right, sabrina, about you know what I call them repeating relationship realities, where we are trying to work something out. If you find yourself repeatedly in an unsatisfying whether it's a romantic situation or a work situation, any situation, even with friends I'm going to give you guys a tip right now that you can use and we can throw in the show notes. That's easy, breezy for you to dissect and understand where you might be having a transference, which means responding in real time, fueled by a situation from the past that needs your attention. So let's just say the example you gave is a great one, sabrina. Let's say you keep attracting narcissistic bosses. You're going to ask yourself these three questions. I call them the three cues for clarity. I use them all the time in my personal life and in my therapy life, and you'll be using them now too. You could keep them right in your back pocket. First question who does this person remind me of?

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Second question where have I felt like this before?

Speaker 2:

Third question how is this behavioral dynamic? So let's say it's a narcissistic boss who is, you can never please them. So the dynamic would be you killing yourself, twisting yourself up in a pretzel, lighting yourself on fire to please this person and still not being able to please them, or being able to please them once in a while. So that reinforces you trying to please them and you may see if you ask those three questions, I guarantee you something will come to mind. May see, if you ask those three questions, I guarantee you something will come to mind, especially if this is a repeated problem, because that is one of the indicators that there is a past or an original injury, I would call it. That needs your attention. And the last part of the question that we can add is when I am interacting with my boss like this, if we use that example metaphorically, who does my boss become and who do I become? So you may become your 10 year old self and they may become like your mean father even though they're not.

Speaker 2:

So why does this matter? Because if we're having a transference in our professional lives that we're unaware of, who wants their 10 year old running the show for their career? You don't. So this is very valuable information, so let's just say you go. Oh, my God, I just realized right now I attract narcissistic bosses because my father or my mother was a narcissist. Now we have an actual place, so those questions will act as a GPS for you to go. Oh, I need to work on what happened in my childhood with my narcissistic father, because it's still here.

Speaker 2:

And if it's still charged, it means you have work to do.

Speaker 1:

Boom shakalaka. Oh my gosh, terry, seriously. Thank you so much If everyone who's listening, if you're driving, don't worry, look at the show notes when you're done, I'm going to put Terry's links to her, both of her books, which I highly recommend, and the exercise that you were talking about, and also the mastermind and your community.

Speaker 2:

Yes, please, I would love to have any and all of you come apply. And here's the thing Even if you're not sure, apply and I'll hop on a call. No, no strings attached. We will immediately hop on a 20 or 30 minute call just to see if it might be right for you. I did that last year with someone and then, or two years ago, and they didn't join that year but they joined the next year. So my feeling is for me. I love meeting new people. I have no problem. So fill out the application and just see you know you've got nothing to lose, nothing to lose Right.

Speaker 2:

And I'm still waiting on all your problems in 20 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love it. Can I do this? Yes, you can Thank you, Terry.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me you.