Terri Cole: High-Functioning Codependency—Breaking the Cycle

    —
October 15, 2024

Terri Cole: High-Functioning Codependency—Breaking the Cycle

Terri Cole October 15, 2024

High-functioning codependency? That’s not an oxymoron. For psychotherapist Terri Cole, a pattern emerged in her practice that led her to take a deeper look at what we traditionally define as codependent. With her new book, Too Much, Terri introduces high-functioning codependency (or HFC)—illuminating the key traits and behaviors associated with HFC, how it gets passed from generation to generation, and how we can finally break the cycle to reclaim our time, energy, and independence. 

Join Sounds True founder Tami Simon in conversation with Terri Cole about: giving unsolicited advice; the habit of auto-accommodating; the FAQ “is this codependent, controlling, or caring?”; the compulsive nature of codependency; when efforts to help backfire; allowing others to experience the consequences of their actions; giving without resentment; how to know if you’re an HFC; taking a resentment inventory; the emotional drivers of HFC; the environmental factors that propagate codependency; self-awareness on the path of recovery; tolerating the discomfort of changing our behaviors; the connection between being easily defensive and HFC; letting go of defensiveness as an HFC; getting back to your “just right”; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Terri Cole, MSW, LCSW, is a licensed psychotherapist and global relationship and empowerment expert. For over two decades, Terri has worked with a diverse group of clients that includes everyone from stay-at-home moms to celebrities and Fortune 500 CEOs. She has a gift for making complex psychological concepts accessible and actionable so that clients and students achieve sustainable change. She inspires millions weekly through her blog, social media, signature courses, and her popular podcast, The Terri Cole Show. For more, see terricole.com.

Author photo © Anastasia Chomlack

Listen to Tami Simon's in-depth audio podcast interview with Terri Cole:

Becoming a Boundary Boss »

600 Podcasts and Counting…

Subscribe to Insights at the Edge to hear all of Tami’s interviews (transcripts available too!), featuring Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Adyashanti, and many more.

Meet Your Host: Tami Simon

Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo © Jason Elias

Also By Author

Terri Cole: High-Functioning Codependency—Breaking t...

High-functioning codependency? That’s not an oxymoron. For psychotherapist Terri Cole, a pattern emerged in her practice that led her to take a deeper look at what we traditionally define as codependent. With her new book, Too Much, Terri introduces high-functioning codependency (or HFC)—illuminating the key traits and behaviors associated with HFC, how it gets passed from generation to generation, and how we can finally break the cycle to reclaim our time, energy, and independence. 

Join Sounds True founder Tami Simon in conversation with Terri Cole about: giving unsolicited advice; the habit of auto-accommodating; the FAQ “is this codependent, controlling, or caring?”; the compulsive nature of codependency; when efforts to help backfire; allowing others to experience the consequences of their actions; giving without resentment; how to know if you’re an HFC; taking a resentment inventory; the emotional drivers of HFC; the environmental factors that propagate codependency; self-awareness on the path of recovery; tolerating the discomfort of changing our behaviors; the connection between being easily defensive and HFC; letting go of defensiveness as an HFC; getting back to your “just right”; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Terri Cole: Becoming a Boundary Boss

Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist and global leading expert in personal empowerment. For two decades, she has worked with some of the world’s most well-known personalities, from international pop stars to Fortune 500 CEOs. She has a gift for making complex psychological concepts accessible and then actionable. With Sounds True, Terri Cole is the author of Boundary Boss: The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen, and (Finally) Live Free. In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Terri about how absolutely critical it is to have good boundaries. Terri shares the personal journey that brought her into this work, explores where our boundary blueprints come from, and gives us her five keys for self-mastery. Together Tami and Terri discuss why having healthy boundaries might very well be the apex of how humans can learn to put truth and truth-telling at the very center of our lives.

You Might Also Enjoy

Kristin Neff & Caverly Morgan: Self-Compassion as...

Can the simple act of being kind to yourself actually be a doorway to awakening?

In this special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon brings together two remarkable teachers whose friendship has sparked a revolutionary approach to inner transformation. Kristin Neff—the researcher who first measured self-compassion and author of Fierce Self-Compassion—joins Caverly Morgan, a meditation teacher and former Zen monk, to explore how self-compassion practices can become what they call “a lifeboat” to our deepest nature.

Together, they reveal why self-compassion isn’t just a psychological tool for feeling better—it’s a direct path to recognizing who we really are beyond our limited sense of self.

In this interview, Tami, Kristin, and Caverly explore:

  • Why every moment of self-compassion is a moment of “letting go of identification with the small, separate, limited self”
  • The difference between witnessing awareness and embodied loving awareness—and why it matters
  • How gender conditioning shapes our relationship to both compassion and awakening practices
  • The power of “relational dharma” and why we sometimes need another person to help us access self-compassion
  • A guided practice for moving from suffering into the “stance-less stance” of presence

If you’ve practiced self-compassion but sensed there’s something deeper available, or if awakening teachings have felt too abstract or disembodied, this conversation offers a bridge between heart and awareness that could transform your practice.

This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.

Mark Nepo: Age Like a Meteor

What if aging isn’t about decline, but about becoming brighter—like a meteor that grows more luminous even as it falls through the atmosphere?

Tami Simon speaks with beloved poet-philosopher Mark Nepo about his deeply moving new book, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life. Drawing from Chinese wisdom traditions and his own journey through chronic pain and back surgery, Mark illuminates aging as the “heavenly pivot” (love that phrase) which is the transformative shift from living outwardly to inhabiting life from the inside out.

Join Mark and Tami for this episode to explore:

  • The meteor metaphor: how we grow brighter as our outer casing flakes away • “Entering time” versus moving through it—and why slowing down opens the eternal moment • The paradox of limitation: how loss simultaneously deepens and expands us • Breaking through to joy as the depth of being that holds all the waves • Why the heart, not the mind, must lead in the second half of life • Living with chronic pain and learning to let beauty in while suffering • The difference between being victims of life versus initiates into life • How grief changes everything and why we don’t get over it, we get under it • Being swift of heart—living without hesitation from the inside out

Mark’s wisdom arises from decades of spiritual practice, surviving cancer, and facing the inevitable losses that come with a long life—essential listening for anyone navigating aging, chronic pain, loss, or simply seeking to live more fully present to the life they have.

Listen now to discover how the second half of life can be your most luminous yet.

This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.

Michael Singer: Living Untethered

What would change if you could witness your thoughts and emotions without being consumed by them? What if the energy you seek through external circumstances has been flowing within you all along, simply waiting to be untethered?

This week, Tami Simon revisits a beloved conversation with Michael Singer—bestselling author of The Untethered Soul and its profound sequel, Living Untethered: Beyond the Human Predicament. Michael is also the author of The Surrender Experiment and the creator of Sounds True’s transformative online course Living From a Place of Surrender.

Join Tami and Michael to explore:

  • The seat of awareness and what it means to truly be “in there” • The three-ring circus of consciousness: sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions • Shakti—the energy flow within that either expands or contracts based on our internal blockages • Samskaras: the stored impressions from past experiences that shape our present reactions • Practical techniques for letting go: positive thinking, mantra repetition, and witness consciousness • The profound process of transmutation—how blocked energy transforms into love when we stop resisting • The difference between the conditional lower heart and the boundless spiritual heart • Why “you must die to be reborn”—letting go of who you think you are to discover who you really are

If you’re ready to stop bothering yourself about the moments in front of you, to untether from patterns that no longer serve you, and to discover the inexhaustible source of energy already flowing within—this conversation offers a clear, practical roadmap home.

Listen now and discover what it means to live untethered.

>
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap