The Terri Cole Show

In this episode, we explore the hidden costs of "good girl syndrome"—the people-pleasing, conflict-avoiding patterns that leave so many women overextended and underappreciated. Learn how these childhood survival strategies become adult liabilities, and practical affirmations and boundary-setting tools to help you reclaim your authentic self without apology.

Get the full show notes at terricole.com/869

The relationship you had with your father may be influencing your career, earning potential, and financial confidence in ways you have never considered. In this episode, I explore the connection between father wounds, authority figures, and money, helping you recognize how early family dynamics can continue to shape your relationship with success and financial security. Uncover the patterns operating beneath the surface so you can begin untangling what may be holding you back.

Read the show notes for today's episode at terricole.com/868

In this episode, psychotherapist and debut novelist Jessica Ann Pressler joins me to explore the concept of the "Traitor Within," the part of us formed in childhood that self-sabotages our adult relationships and emotional wellbeing. Drawing on nearly four decades of clinical experience, Jessica unpacks narcissistic abuse, trauma bonding, and why intelligent, self-aware people still stay in toxic relationships. The conversation weaves together insights from her psychological suspense novel, her own personal healing journey, and practical tools for rebuilding self-trust and shedding shame.

You can get the show notes at terricole.com/867

The coping strategies you developed as a child were brilliant and necessary at the time, but they may now be quietly controlling your adult life in ways you have never examined. In this episode, I walk you through six powerful childhood adaptation archetypes, helping you identify which patterns are keeping you isolated, exhausted, or disconnected from what you truly want. This is an invitation to bring the unconscious into the light so you can finally make different choices.

Read the show notes for today's episode at terricole.com/866

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Shefali, a clinical psychologist, founder of the Conscious Parenting Movement, and New York Times bestselling author, to discuss her two newly released books: Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons. Dr. Shefali shares her origin story, growing up in India under a rigid patriarchy before arriving in America at 21 with $300 and one year to build a new life, an experience that fueled her lifelong mission to help individuals break free from unconscious cultural patterns.

You can get the show notes at terricole.com/865

Are you the one who handles everything for all the people? Are you the fixer? The one who rarely needs or asks for help? Are you the one who does all the things for all the people?

Be honest with yourself.

If so, you may have a father wound that is hiding in plain sight — because the very capability you have keeps this unhealed wound hidden.

That is exactly what this episode is about: why the father wound can be especially hard to recognize in high functioning women, how high functioning codependency can keep you stuck in patterns of self-abandonment, and why how you feel and what you want matters as much as what you accomplish.

Read the show notes for today's episode at terricole.com/864

Build an Empowered Blended Family with Cameron Normand

In this episode of The Terri Cole Show, I sit down with nationally recognized stepfamily expert Cameron Normand to explore the unique challenges stepmoms face and why traditional parenting advice often doesn't work for blended families.

Cameron shares practical guidance on building relationships with stepchildren, navigating parenting and discipline, setting clear expectations with partners, and managing the stress of stepfamily life. She also explains why it can take four to seven years for a stepfamily to feel cohesive and why moving at the children's pace is essential.

Cameron also shares details about her annual Stepmom Summit, a virtual event designed to give stepmoms expert guidance, resources, and a supportive community. The summit starts September 14th, and you can grab a free ticket at terricole.com/stepmomsummit

You can get the show notes at terricole.com/863

Having an unhealed father wound impacts your ability to create emotional safety in your relationships.

If you grew up in a house where emotional safety was not part of your relationship with your father, calm can feel weird or unfamiliar, and vulnerability can feel risky. Trusting another person to be there for you, if that wasn't your experience, may feel counterintuitive.

In this episode, we're exploring how father wounds impact our ability to feel safe in relationships, why calm can feel so unfamiliar, and what emotional safety can look like as we heal.

We may have learned to protect ourselves through high-functioning codependency, hyper-vigilance, or hyper-independence. These strategies made sense at the time, but they can keep us from the safety we actually want now. From The Episode:

• A father wound is a worthiness wound. We may have learned in childhood that we weren't good enough as we were.

• Without emotional safety from our fathers, we find other ways to protect ourselves: high-functioning codependency, hyper-vigilance, or hyper-independence.

• When your system is more familiar with hypervigilance than with safety, you may be drawn to relationships that are familiar but not necessarily good.

• We repeat what we do not repair. If you're not attracting someone who's calm and securely attached, we may need to heal the wound first.

• Emotional safety is the felt sense that you can be yourself and still belong. You can have needs, say no, and make mistakes without being punished or rejected.

I wrote a whole book on father wounds to help you understand how they show up in your relationships, your sense of safety, your self-worth, and the way you give and receive love. If you're ready to start healing those patterns at the root, preorder your copy today.

Plus, when you preorder now at https://fatherwoundbook.com, you'll get a free 3-hour virtual healing retreat.

What if the key to better sleep and less stress wasn't doing more, but moving less?

In this episode, I sit down with Liz Tenuto, aka The Workout Witch, to talk about somatic exercises, nervous system regulation, and why so many of us can't sleep or relax.

Liz teaches tiny, lazy movements that release stored tension from the body, and she demonstrates three of them during our conversation. We also talk about why standard sleep advice fails trauma survivors, and how dissociation shows up in women who take care of everyone but themselves.

If you feel wired but tired and can't remember the last time you felt truly rested, this episode is for you.

00:00 Welcome to The Terri Cole Show 02:29 Liz's Origin Story: Chronic Pain, Bad Sleep & 10 Years of Searching 05:28 Why Somatics Is Not Woo-Woo: The Science & Ancient Roots 08:23 Why Sleep Issues Are So Widespread Right Now 10:08 How to Luxuriate Your Sleep Routine (Especially If You're a Trauma Survivor) 13:39 The Hip-Rocking Exercise That Helps You Fall Asleep 17:14 Fight-Flight vs. Freeze: What Nervous System Dysregulation Actually Looks Like 20:24 What Dissociation Really Means Beyond Just Zoning Out 22:41 Two Somatic Fixes: Ear-Pulling for Dissociation & Forehead-Swiping for Fight-or-Flight 25:15 Inside "When the Body Speaks" & Where to Find Liz you can get the shownotes at terricole.com/861

If setting a boundary feels like you're risking the whole relationship, your unhealed father wound might be why.

When the person who was supposed to protect you didn't, you can grow up without the sense that you're even allowed to say no.

In this episode, I'm walking through how the father wound shapes your boundaries, the different father archetypes and the specific boundary struggles each one creates, and why so many of us never learned we were allowed to protect ourselves in the first place.

Whether your father was absent, critical, emotionally distant, abusive, unreliable, narcissistic, passive, or played favorites, those wounds can make certain boundaries especially difficult. It often comes back to the same things: learning to protect yourself, honoring your needs, and being able to disappoint other people without abandoning yourself.

The best part of healing your father wound is that you don't have to keep going along to get along anymore. Not sure if your father wound is affecting your boundaries? Get the journal prompts from this episode to uncover how your father wound may still be shaping your boundaries, relationships, and ability to say no. terricole.com/860

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• If your father didn't protect you, you may have learned you weren't worth protecting. That belief shapes your boundaries in adulthood.
• Different father archetypes create different boundary struggles: absent fathers make saying no feel like abandonment, critical fathers make you fear getting it wrong, narcissistic fathers teach you that your needs don't matter.
• Pleasing, being compliant, achieving to belong — these are the opposite of having healthy boundaries. They kept you safe as a child, but they're not serving you now.
• You'll never build the life you want if it's built on self-abandonment.
• You don't need your father's permission or participation to heal your father wound. This work is for you.

I wrote an entire book to walk you through this work. Pre-order Father Wound and get access to a free 3-hour virtual retreat with me. fatherwoundbook.com