Until I had to look and go, oh my God, my mom played a part too.

Yeah, the co-wounding part is a very painful part in the book.

Because it's almost like we need the good one.

We need to feel like there's a good one in the process of this all.

And yet...

Obviously, we're grown up and we do this, so we know that people are flawed.

Parents are flawed.

What do you normally see when people come to you and you start to figure out the patterns? Like, what do you normally see that correlates? Because a lot of people were writing and going, how do I know if I am? Okay, so I call

I mean, luckily, I don't know many, but I can say right to the, like, I know exactly who I'm thinking of.

Indeed.

And a lot of times we're related to at least one, which makes it even more complicated.

Boundary destroyers, the best way to protect yourself is in a relationship with one is to be really, really up on the most common ways that they manipulate nice people.

If you're a nice person and you're sort of not naturally super manipulative, we do this thing that's called positive projection, where we project our good and decent qualities onto other people, even though they may not possess Those good and decent qualities that we have, just as we think I would never do that to someone.

That doesn't mean other people wouldn't.

So really looking at the evidence, like, and in the book, I walk you through how to sort of figure out who is a boundary destroyer.

What made you want to write this book and what are we going to learn in there?

now.

The other things you mentioned, attachment, how we relate to, if we want to look at all the ways.

But before we look at all the ways, Drew, let's do this.

Let's establish what a father wound is because I think that there's a barrier to entry for many people around this.

What I hear from clients and women in my mastermind and my groups and my father wound course is, it happened so long ago.

I should be over it by now.

My father did so much better than his father did.

So how do you draw the line between understanding and holding space for that and not expecting someone to be something that they just can't be versus excusing really piss poor behavior?

And you also have, you offer coaching and you have coaching programs, right? I

do.

I have courses on father wound and mother wound and narcissism and boundaries and codependency and love, basically.

I've been doing that since 2015.

And, you know, honestly, Laura, I didn't know when I...

I knew I wanted more impact and I knew that pay per play, one person at a time, I'd really done all that I could do.

I had multiple offices in New York.

no

than

what we had with our father, right? I always visualize it like the child within us being like, this is going to be like a do-over.

This time, it's going to totally be different.

And I say, from a therapeutic standpoint, if you don't get new tools, new insights, new understanding of why you are the way that you are, the likelihood of that different outcome is not high.

We create a different outcome by saying, I'm going to look at patterns.

I'm going to look at what I walk you through in the book, is we have to go back to go forward.

People want to just be like, how can I just have a better picker romantically? We need to understand why your picker is broken to begin with.

Just like, I kind of don't know where I live or where I'm placed because is it a father wound if I just don't trust them altogether?

right? We're

getting it all done at the expense of ourselves.

So for me, I think that I was a little bit blinded to it because it is such a personal wound.

And, you know, listen, I personally am a high-functioning codependent in recovery and I'm personally was a boundary disaster and I'm a boundary boss now, but this is different.

And this book is the most personal book that I've ever written because there was so much to say about my own experience.

And just like you just said, Krista, I was attracting all of these women who what I was talking about was resonating.

And so because there isn't a ton of research out there about this, I actually gathered 650 women who self-identified as having father wounds.

Yeah.

Now, would the same literally apply for a mother or is it very different?

No, it's very different because our expectations are different.

The roles are different.

What mothers and fathers provide for children are different.

And yes, hopefully this is changing both of us on the forefront of modernizing what is happening.

And that's amazing.

And I feel great about it.

And I wanted him to want that.

We always go to the mom first.

We do.

And the dads were like, in 1975, your father was babysitting his own kids.

Like nobody expected your father to be attuned to you.

But the point is in not studying it, then we minimize its impact.

And what I saw over and over again in my therapy practice of 30 years is its impact.

So I was like, why are there no seminal texts about father wounds? Well, I guess because I needed to write it, which I did.

You know, is there a question or some easy way to like ease into that conversation with your father, especially when you're being mistreated as an adult by an aging parent?

Yeah, beautiful.

So internally, what happens is your father or father figure is usually your first experience with the masculine.

So we have this downloaded blueprint about what is appropriate mating material.

Even if we didn't like the way our father treated our mother or the mother figure, even if we didn't like the way they treated us, it happens in our unconscious mind.

So part of our process is not beating yourself up.

When you find you're like, how am I in another relationship with another unavailable man? At least that was my trip, right? And it's like, it makes sense though, because we confuse familiarity with compatibility, but they're not the same.

So how do we tease that out, right? So I'm going to help you.

You know, like, I don't want my daughter or my son to live in the same place The feeling of that, that like I'm in your life, but I'm so lonely.

Mm

... well, you just change your mind, and you can just do this, and you can just do that.

As a psychotherapist for almost 30 years- I'm, I know we have to go back in time because there are things that need to be acknowledged and integrated into the experiences of your life, and we were taught to minimize what we experienced.

We were taught if your father provided a roof over your head, you should be grateful.

No, he doesn't have to be perfect, and I'm not saying anyone has to be perfect.

All I'm saying is that for once in our lives, can this just be about us? Can we realize that we can tell the truth about what we experienced, about what we did and didn't get, and not have it be about anyone else, just about us, our young selves, so that we can integrate these experiences, which will give us the power to release ourselves from unsatisfying patterns that don't work for us, but we cannot stop them? Because here's the thing, if you compulsively fix other people's problems, if you ...

You know, people will s- I'll get pushback on the internet being like, "Terri, maybe I'm just a nice person." Hey, I have no doubt you are a nice person, and if you can't not do it, it is not a choice.

Mm

[upbeat music] We're gonna take a really fast break and tell you about some of the things coming up at Choose.

Men, can I ask you a question? Have you ever found yourself thinking, "I know why I do this, so why do I keep ending up in the same place?" I'm Halee Roderick, and I've had the privilege of sitting with many men in this healing space over the years.

And one thing I've learned is this: that insight is important, but insight alone doesn't create transformation.

You can understand your story, you can recognize your patterns, and still find yourself feeling stuck.

And that's exactly why we created the Awakening the Man Within Somatic Intensive.

It'll be held November 8th through the 11th in Spanish Fork, Utah.

And this isn't just another weekend of lectures.

Yeah.

W- why is some, is a parent saying that to their child not only so devastating, but why did it take her 25 years to escape that line that her father delivered when she was 13 or 14?

Because you have to want to escape it, and you have to...

How do we do that? You have to raise your awareness of what original injuries might still be running the show of your life.

Why do I call a father wound an invisible wound? Because it's exactly what you're describing, John.

There is so much that's happening unconsciously.

So for that lawyer, she put this in her mind, right? It was...

This happened to her.

How do you distinguish, when you look at that, personality from adaptation?

Yeah.

But also in the end of that, I added something that I did after my father passed away, and I don't think if I ...

You have to do the, it in order because if I hadn't done the healing, I don't think I could've done this part.

But it can be very illuminating to find out more about your father, especially if you had a dad like mine who didn't, never talked.

So I knew ver- not much about him other than he was successful and whatever.

And I remember asking my mother, I was like, "Why do you think Dad had the fucking emotional IQ of a sneaker? Like, do you have any thoughts about why he was so shut down?" And she said Tara, in high school my father was a, a s- like a very athletic guy, and he was going to college on a full ride.

Anyway, it's his senior year, and he and his best friend were at an away game, and they flipped a coin to see who would drive, and it was a snowy night.

Yeah

Ooh

... because you were a particular...

You know, I was the fourth daughter, but I was the designated oldest child.

Like, all of us have these nuanced and intricate experiences that have our unhealed father wound be expressed in a very particular way, but there are themes throughout.

So before we get into it, let's just start so that we're sort of all on the same page definition-wise.

I define a father wound as a psychological and emotional injury that stems from growing up with a father or father figure who was absent, abusive, or not emotionally available to you.

It could be someone who was addicted, someone who was psychologically unwell.

Mm

Right.

Right.

Like, do I have a right to even feel that way when what was expected societally, because we were all raised, because here's the thing.

Even if you had a great dad, you were still raised in a patriarchy.

We still internalize these limiting beliefs about women in just societally, even if you don't want to.

It's just the, it is the water we swim in.

So there's also that piece of father wounding, which is attached to the patriarchy.

How do we raise the bar?

It sure

was.

It was the 80s, him and all those PBS specials.

Well, let's get on the same page as to what I say the definition is of is being overly invested in the feeling states, the outcomes, the circumstances, finances, careers, relationships of the people in your life to the detriment of your inner peace.

So the clarification is it's not just us being concerned about the people we love, but obviously of course we are.

We want all of our people to be happy and get what they want and all those things.

When you're codependent, you feel responsibility.

is it just women? Is it gender coded like that? I

If you don't want breaking down the different types and how they can show up and then how we can start to navigate setting boundaries with our narcissistic mothers in situations of family gatherings.

It's so painful.

First of all, I'm giving everyone who has a narcissistic mother a virtual hug right now because it's brutal.

It's really hard.

A lot of times with narcissistic mothers in particular, mothers and daughters, it's a very specific thing.

I actually have a course called the Mother Wound Course motivated by so many of my people being like, what do I do? It's painful because a lot of times narcissistic mothers are incredibly charming.

A lot of times they're very beautiful because they're kind of vain.

Or is there any type of persuasion? Like how do you navigate that dance where it's a little difficult for that person to

[laughs]

... because I don't have bio children, so they are my only children.

You know, it took time for me to hold onto my sense of self and my sense of, you know, so if I was getting, like, back talk from...

My youngest son was kind of a pain, and so he would be sort of snapping.

I would have to myself be like, "Hey, hey, hey.

I think you just asked me to do a favor and drive you to Billy's house.

So if you actually want me to do you a favor, back it up and lose that tone, 'cause no.

Uh-huh

But to your point, someone can then say back, "Well, if you, if I, I could trust you, why wouldn't you show me?"

Because I shouldn't have to show you.

So I could flip that around on you and say, "Hey, if you trusted me, you clearly don't.

I've given you no reason not to trust me.

What I want us to do is build trust, as opposed to when you're interrogating my emails and going through everything in my phone.

What you're saying every time you do that is that you don't trust me.

You're projecting onto me that I'm untrustworthy, and I've given you, I wanna know from you what evidence do you have that I'm untrustworthy?" And how long do I have to keep proving my fidelity to you? It could be an endless, never...

Yeah.

I just felt that.

Yeah.

To be really talking about how healing this wound is how I changed my life, and I tell this story in the book, um, of how I, I was so blinded to so many things because of how much this was under the surface.

This program of not enough-ness was running me for such a long period of time.

I always thought my ambition, right, I was like, "I'm just ambitious," as I was telling my [laughs] my therapist, and she was like, "I- is it ambition?" And she asked me a really poignant question.

She said... 'Cause I was y- you know, I was in entertainment.

I was a talent agent negotiating contracts for supermodels and celebrities, but I was, like, leaping up the Hollywood ladder.

Yeah

"I gotta get this at the store for my school project and I have to get it now." "Well, I said I've gotta work now." "Well, yeah, but I really need it." Well, so it seems like it's a very porous boundary if I'm having to say, "Here's the boundary, but if you need something just call me."

Well, here's the thing.

It's a porous boundary if poor planning on the part of the other person continually constitutes an emergency for you, right? Like, if you say, "My working hours today are this," what might be helpful, that if you have a door, put, put a sign on the door.

My husband knows.

He just came to the back door where I am, and there's a sign on there that's like, "Do not enter [laughs] because I'm recording and I don't want it to be loud," or whatever.

And he's like, "Okay." And he has a studio where he works.

But maybe if you put a thing on there and then you stick to it.

Yeah, but I would be concerned that if you said that to Bob, knowing Bob as I do, [laughs] that he, he may, he may not like that, and then if Bob has the ability to sabotage you somehow be- and to get back at you for your criticism, 'cause that's, I suspect, how he would perceive it, um, you gotta be careful about that.

Mm.

We look at what did we witness Did you have a maternal figure that was a people pleaser, that was doing everything for everyone? That, the woman we were talking about with the sauce, it wasn't just with Michael she was that way.

She also wor- volunteered at the rectory three times a week, and she also did food shopping for the guy next door, and she also...

Like, there were so many things this lady was doing.

Again, a lot of it, high-functioning codependency stuff, taking responsibility for things that were not hers.

There's a tendency to be endlessly judging, because there's an illusion of control that comes from this behavior.

There's two things that I've seen that I think are really devastating for being an HFC.

Mm.

Why on earth then is high functioning codependent usually attracted, and you see the dynamic often that you talk about in your book, with narcissists?

Mm-hmm.

It's a match made in heaven between a high functioning codependent and a narcissist.

I mean, until all hell break lo- breaks loose, which it will, because you have a narcissist who's like, "It's all about me," or, "Focus on me.

Everything's about me." And then you have the codependent who's like, "Great, it's all about you.

I'm gonna focus on pleasing you and fulfilling your needs and having you think I'm the best Right? Because think about what a narcissist does when they get us into a relationship, right? If you've ever had a relationship with a narcissist, you know it starts amazingly, that there is all of this love bombing where they are looking at you like you're the most special, you're the most beautiful.

Sex is amazing.

So give me an example.

So for you being married for 30 years, what was that journey of? Did you go through that, like getting hurt? sharing something vulnerable and feeling like you guys slapped in the face? Or was it always like this for you and your husband where like you guys both knew you are my person, I'm not going to hurt you intentionally? Like, what was that like?

Well, I think you bring up a really great point, though, and your realization about Charlotte is really beautiful and so important.

So when you make what Dr. Becky, what is her last name? I can't think of it, but she's like a kid's therapist online.

Dr. Becky Kennedy is her name.

She talks about the most generous interpretation.

So that that's what you just described about Charlotte, that when something happens in misunderstanding or you feel like a little stung by something or snubbed by something, when we can take the most generous interpretation, we go, okay, I know she's not purposefully trying to hurt me.

What could she mean? Right? What, what could her, her, her intention be with Vic and I, we both had had a lot of therapy and that was my prerequisite.

so do you think that's one thing I wanted to ask you like it's amazing to hear how you knew you knew what you wanted and you were good with not knowing or good with knowing that I don't need love to live a happy life and then you found this love that you rode off into the sunset with and still riding off into the sunset with do you feel like you put yourself in a position to find that love like you, for lack of a better term, manifested the love that you have now by doing the things that you were doing before and being sure of what you wanted.

Mm.

So wherever you are, if you're listening, and you feel like either you're way over here, meaning giving too many Fs to too many people, or you're way over here and you're just so bitter at everyone, because this is, this is where we end up if there's no intervention, is we're just so mad about all the things that we've done that feel unreciprocated or that feel unappreciated.

And here's the, you know, herein lies the rub w- rub with that, is that if I'm doing it to control things, I'm not doing it, right? If I'm giving to control things, right? I take a hit for the team.

"Don't worry about it.

Y- you guys go.

I'll stay home with the sick kid," or, "I'll stay home," whatever.

If I'm doing that to avoid conflict, 'cause this is one of the major things with being a high-functioning codependent, we might be high-functioning, but we're not necessarily high-conflict.

Mm.