Daddy Issues: What They Really Are and How to Heal the Father Wound

Terri Cole: For generations were handed this image of father as ruler, right? The protector, the disciplinarian, the provider, strong, stoic, silent, right? He was someone that you were supposed to look up to, fear often, but not someone you necessarily were supposed to know.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: If you’ve ever wondered why you over function in relationships, why you can’t ask for help, or why you keep ending up with people who can’t quite show up for you, there might be an answer way deep back in your history related to your relationship with your father.

Terri Cole: I was the fourth daughter of a father who absolutely should have had sons. He was an incredible athlete. He went to college on a full ride. He was a very skilled golfer, very successful white collar guy, had no interest in us at all.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: And that’s what we’re diving into today with my very special guest, Terri Cole.

Terri Cole: What I learned myself was that men were people to be managed and manipulated.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Terri is a psychotherapist who’s been in practice for decades. She’s the author of Boundary Boss, Too Much, and now a new book called The Father Wound. And Terri, welcome. We have so much to dive into.

Terri Cole: Oh, thanks for having me, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Daddy issues. Such a loaded term. Where do we even begin to wrap our heads around the impact of this primary relationship?

Terri Cole: Well, I think there’s some good questions we can start with, which is why everyone talks about mother issues. And the only time father issues come up is, like you said, almost as a joke, like, oh, she has daddy issues, right? But not really from a psychotherapeutic lens. So having a father wound, maybe let’s establish what it is, according to me. This is a psychological and emotional injury that stems from growing up with a father who, or a father figure, didn’t have to be your father if you were raised by a grandfather, foster dad, whoever, who was absent, abusive, emotionally unavailable to you, emotionally unattuned to you. They could have been addicted. They could have been a workaholic. They could have left you. They could have died. There are so many avenues that bring us to the same juncture, which is having an unhealed father wound as a grown up woman in this world. So at its core, a father wound is a worthiness wound. It’s somehow learned in childhood that we weren’t exactly good enough the way that we were, that we needed to be different or better or prettier or more accomplished or thinner to be worthy of love and consideration. So now you have this connection between working for love and this lack of, often, inherent value, this feeling of, like, I’m inherently worthy of good treatment. So that’s what a father wound is.

Terri Cole: And for me, I saw this over and over again in my clinical practice that I’d been in the trenches for almost 30 years where it wasn’t like a few people. It wasn’t some people. It was so, so, so, so many. And I predominantly treat women. And often, these are very high functioning women, right? Because in so many ways, you attract, you just attract people to resonate with you in your own life experience. So I like to, and I refer to a father wound as an invisible wound often, because when you’re very highly successful and highly capable, nobody’s like, “I hope Lisa’s okay.” They’re all like, “She’s fine.” Why? Because she’s always fine.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: I have a feeling, Terri, this is going to turn into my own therapy session by the time we’re done.

Terri Cole: Love it.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Looking forward to it. But yeah, exactly.

Terri Cole: High functioning. That we become the people that a lot of people come to. We’re the problem solvers. We’re very crafty. We’re smart. We’re strategic. We are doing the thing. But often, and I’ve seen this in my practice, being highly capable and highly successful makes the wound even more invisible because you’re like, “How bad could it be? Look at my life. I’m making tons of money. I’m in charge of everything. Everyone comes to me.” And that doesn’t mean you’re not suffering. And it doesn’t mean you’re not exhausted. And it doesn’t mean you’re not resentful. And these are all the things that if we continue to walk around with an unhealed father wound, they’re basically inevitable.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Wow. So much to dig into. And also, I just want to say for the benefit of our friends here with us today on Love, Happiness, and Success, tuning in. So Terri, I heard you say that primarily your practice has been centered on women. And I just want to say out loud, I work with a lot of men, honestly, and have met so many men who are also carrying their own wounds and unfinished emotional business related to their relationships with their dad that is just as impactful. And so I hope to represent that perspective over the course of our conversation and just know that this is not intended to be for women necessarily. I so value your perspective around what happens to women. And I have to tell you, I could relate so much to what you were saying, Terri, around “seeming like I have it together.” I’m always surprised because people will tell me, like, “You seem like you have it all together.” I’m like, “Oh, if you only knew, right?” And I probably fit the profile of a lot of women that you work with. My dad is loving, tried hard. I mean, like, you know, nothing like capital B bad. But very critical dude with very strong opinions about the way things should be, including me. And, you know, it influences you. So you kind of have to feel like you have it all buttoned up. And that makes it harder.

Terri Cole: And I think that it’s important that because this can be a barrier to entry to doing this work for people. So let’s talk about it. Yeah, you can love your father very much. You could have had a father who did the best they could. And actually, you could have had a great father. And here’s the thing. We were all raised in a patriarchy. And if you look at who’s the original bad daddy, it is the patriarchy. The original bad daddy is the patriarchy because this is a, it is the water we swim in that women are second class citizens, that they’re less than, that there’s the lesser sex. I mean, listen, this is literally a phrase, right? The weaker sex, which is a joke. But this is real. And as much as times have, you know, yes, times have changed, but we have to think about at least a woman couldn’t get a loan without a male co-signer until 1986.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: I think that so many men are equally impacted by the patriarchy and by sexism because it defines who they need to be in this societal landscape that can be so limiting to them. And I think prevent them from being the full range of who they are really capable of.

Terri Cole: The patriarchy didn’t do any favors to men. And men absolutely have father wounds. And from my perspective, the reason when people are like, well, why didn’t you write this book for everyone? I’m like, because first of all, men can absolutely learn a ton. You know, I probably, 15% of my audience is probably male. But here’s the thing. Well, how fathers, father sons, how they’re supposed to, what they’re supposed to teach them is different than how fathers, father daughters, how they’re supposed to, whether they do or not, right? Like, what are we looking for? So my feeling is, of course, with the patriarchy having this outdated, you think about people who were raised in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and the oughts, let’s just say, there was still, there’s still an outdated idea of like, you know, we were handed this, generations were handed this image of father as ruler, right? The protector, the disciplinarian, the provider, strong, stoic, silent, right? He was someone that you were supposed to look up to, fear, often, but not someone you necessarily were supposed to know. You know, I knew you have a lot of comedians talking about this, like, and in my own life, I had three older sisters. I was the fourth daughter of a father who absolutely should have had sons. He was an incredible athlete. He went to college on a full ride. He was a very skilled golfer, very successful white collar guy, had no interest in us now, but he was a fiscal provider, right? So he was dutiful in ways, and my parents got divorced when I was 13. But my point is, what I learned myself was that men were people to be managed and manipulated. Never people to have an open hearted conversation with because they were not people you could trust. It was always the women you could trust, but you couldn’t trust men because they were with my father. He made the money. And so in some ways, he had the power. My parents got married in 1958, and my mother was pregnant, right? So at a time when you were pretty psyched that that person was going to marry you because it would have been socially, like social suicide, to be pregnant out of wedlock in 1958. And there wasn’t choices then to decide to end a pregnancy. So we’re talking about a different, in a way, a different time, but so much of those old images have stayed the same.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: So interesting. Well, and it can take so many different forms, just since we’re sharing, my dad was a feminist, and my dad was actually, in some ways, the emotionally safer person in my house. And still, though, there are ways that I’m so aware that relationship shaped me.

Terri Cole: Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: And so this is a multi-dimensional experience here.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: But you know, for somebody, our friends listening to this and thinking, I think that my relationship with my dad and the historical patterns that I developed because of those experiences is still present. How do I get into this? How should somebody begin to become aware if daddy issues, for lack of a better word, are present and where they need to go in order to understand this dimension of self?

Terri Cole: I think we should start with how it presents in your grown-up life, right? Like, what does it actually look like in your life? So suffering from perfectionism, feeling unworthy, like chronic self-doubt, people pleasing. Because here’s the thing, even if you’re successful, because I know this, I’ve done both sides of this success, where I was successful very young as a talent agent negotiating contracts for supermodels and celebrities before I became a psychotherapist. And I was literally leaping up the Hollywood ladder, like just so ambitious. And that ambition is something we should unpack, certainly, because not all ambition is made the same. And I remember my therapist when I really started deciding that I was going to do this father wound stuff. I didn’t call it that, but I’d been avoiding unpacking my relationship with my father, I think for years, because I minimized it. I was like, it doesn’t matter. My mother was great. He was whatever. He paid for college. Yay me. That was it. You know what I mean? Exactly. Who needs him? My therapist had said to me, she was like, “Oh, let’s talk about ambition.” And I was like, “Okay.” And then she was like, “All right, so let me ask you a question. Do you think you can make the distinction between, are you running towards something or is it possible you might be running away from something?”

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Power question.

Terri Cole: It was the latter. It was running away because I felt that my father wanted a boy. I was his last chance, so I was the ultimate disappointment, gender wise. So I was like, “I’m going to be so successful that I’ll be more successful than any stupid son he could have ever had.” So it won’t matter. This is how I’m going to even the playing field is I’m just full speed ahead. And that’s what I’m doing because that’s what mattered to my father was achievement, success, good grades. This is the only time there was any real interaction. So I was like, “Okay, well, that’s my only avenue to having a connection but what I realized through,” and then really obviously Bev and I, my therapist for many, many years, we unpacked. What did it mean? And it was that my success was like proof of value. But the problem with success like that is that you’re only as valuable as your last success. When you don’t feel like you have inherent value, it’s exhausting. The goalpost is always moving. There’s got to be more. So now another, a more famous client, more money, better deal, whatever it is. Back to the symptoms, but I wanted to say that because I feel like a lot of times people think that success means you figured it all out. You’re doing great. It just means you’re making money. But the question is, what is your internal experience? And on the other side of healing, being in the process of healing this wound is success. I’m doing what I’m doing for joy, for satisfaction, with expansion, with creativity, with flow, with security, which is very different than doing it from fear, which is what really everything was driven by. Fear of not being good enough, fear of being kicked out of a tribe, fear of being abandoned by boyfriends, by anybody for that matter. Okay, back to let’s just do our list and unpack them.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: No, this is so interesting though. But you’re saying that one of the big signals is this feeling like you have to prove yourself all the time. And that if you don’t have something to be like, look, see, I am valuable and important. It almost feels like your identity collapsed.

Terri Cole: Correct.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: That you don’t have an internal sense of worth to stabilize.

Terri Cole: Exactly right.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: It has to be external.

Terri Cole: Yes, exactly. signs. So feeling unworthy, which looks like, but also people pleasing, having a harsh inner critic that makes you question your worth, compare and despair syndrome with other people, also having dysregulated emotions, right? So either having anxiety or it could even go the other way, or it can just be numbness, feeling overwhelmed by what you’re doing, but you’re still doing it. Because that’s another thing. My people have a tendency to just be like me, just keep going no matter what. If you just don’t quit, you can’t fail, right? Because you haven’t stopped. Self-abandonment is a huge indicator of an unhealed father wound that I’ve seen. And this is just a tendency to prioritize other people’s wants, needs over our own. It impacts, it could be your body, your time, your finances, your emotional wellbeing, because it’s exhausting on your own list. Having crappy boundaries is another one.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Well, and I know you talk so much about boundaries and I’d love to get your perspective on that because you’ve done so much work. But the relationship between, you know, that’s this type of father wound, and then this orientation towards abandonment of the self. What is the relationship there? How does that turn into self abandonment?

Terri Cole: The person who was supposed to protect you and think about you and be attuned to you and worry couldn’t, didn’t, wasn’t. The message is so clear unconsciously that perhaps you are not someone worth protecting. So it’s way more important when you learn that to make sure other people are comfortable, make sure other people are happy. You know, what I did because there wasn’t a lot of information out there, at least on this, honestly, there was tons of stuff about mothers and attachment theory. Of course, because researchers looked where they expected to find problems. No one expected fathers to be attuned to their kids. They were like helping out at home, quote unquote. They were babysitting their own children. Babysitting. So when you think about this, if this person doesn’t think you’re worth protecting, how does that impact what you think about yourself? And it just does. And I think that this whole thing about attachment theory too, which I talk about in the book, the conventional wisdom says you have one primary attachment style, let’s say. And the internet just decided this was like a hard science and anyone in the business knows it is not. But it is value, right? There is value to understanding our tendency, our relational tendencies, right? Because then we can do something about them. But what I learned, and what I was going to say before, my God, my brain is dead, is that because there wasn’t a lot of research out there, what I did is I went to my community and I gathered 650 women who were self-identified as having father wounds. And I went to the source of like, how did this affect you? So one of the areas that it really affected was sex, sexuality, sexuality. And this is where the self-abandonment, see, I was getting all the way around the barn to come back to self abandonment, because that was my point I wanted to make, which is that the self-abandonment piece, even sexually, they were like, who could worry about my own pleasure or my own orgasm, right? I just wanted my partner to be satisfied. And if they were, then it was fine. The same management that high functioning codependents, which this is another sign of having a father wound, is we’re doing all the things for all the people, controlling the shit out of everything, doing our very best to do that because we don’t trust. And if we’re not in the head of it, sort of, right? We’re worried about how other people feel and what they’re doing in their lives. And we can’t stop auto advice giving because we really just don’t want anyone to have any problems. This is part of the process. But you can see how hard it would be to be in a vulnerable receiving position in sexually or any way. So we’re going to get to that because the next one is this hyper independence that comes along with having an unhealed father.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: It’s been so interesting because like, we had, it sounds like we had different genres of dad, like just the way that you described your dad, very different from mine. But still, like so much of what you’re describing, like I can so relate to you personally. I’m sure that a lot of our friends listening can as well, this idea of hyper independence, I’m fine. Thinking more about other people than you are about yourself. And that’s fascinating.

Terri Cole: Overgiving, over-functioning. Again, think about codependency any kind. So I coined a phrase, high functioning codependency, which is what my second book was about. Because the codependency, the way that we knew it in the industry, didn’t fit my clients. And the thing is, I would bring up codependency to them because I was looking at a codependent relational pattern. They’re literally telling me. And I would say, oh, that’s, okay.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: So there’s a codependent piece there. And just to define our terms really quickly for people who aren’t familiar with that. So codependency and very broad strokes is over-functioning in a way that enables somebody else to under function, essentially. So you’re like supporting somebody else’s ability to kind of fly under the radar is maybe a simple way to put it. So you see it a lot in like addictions, recovery, you know, one person is the alcoholic, the other codependent person is over-functioning, like calling their boss and telling them that they’re sick, like to hide them.

Terri Cole: Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: So thank you.

Terri Cole: Yeah. And my own definition of high-function codependency is where you are overly invested in the feeling states, the outcomes, the circumstances, the finances, the careers of the people in your life to the detriment of your own internal peace.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Yeah. Yeah. To the detriment of your own internal peace. Right. So it’s not just helping and being supportive. It is actually taking a toll on you. You’re worse off.

Terri Cole: Yes. And you’re also likely trampling other people’s boundaries in the process. You are overly invested in what’s going on with other people. So we have a lot of external focus, a lot of what’s going on with you. And we are auto-advice givers often. Someone comes to you with a problem and you’re like, I have the perfect oncologist. I have the perfect person for this. I just look this up. I have a book I’m going to send you. I underlined. We can’t stop solving problems for other people when they have, even when they haven’t asked us to. So that, whether you think of it that way or not, is trampling on the other person’s sovereignty, right? Everyone has the right to succeed and fail, right? To thrive and to flail. But if you’re a high functioning codependent, we do not like people flailing in our vicinity. Please don’t, right? We like things to run the way they’re supposed to run. If you’re in pain, because what happens is many of us who have unhealed father wounds or you’re in recovery, we are super empaths. So other people’s feelings absolutely impact us. So our desire, like any form of codependency, regular, you know, Melody Beattie, Codependent No More codependency where you’re dealing with addiction or Terri Cole’s high functioning codependency where you’re dealing with everything. It is an overt or a covert bid to control other people’s outcomes. So I love you and I don’t want you to be in pain. It’s like, if your partner comes home, you’re in a great mood, your partner comes home from work and they’re in a bad mood. How quickly does their bad mood become your problem to fix? Same thing. Your best friend calls you, right, with an issue. You’re like, I want you to check your urgency, you guys watching and listening. Think about the last time someone you love called you with a problem. How quick did you take full ownership of that problem? And I want to make a distinction that’s important, which is that I’m not saying your best friend calls and they’re in pain. And obviously, if I’m doing, I will step away from what I’m doing. I will say, how can I best support you? That’s not the same as immediately getting into fix it mode where you’re like, and we think we’re doing that out of love and partially we are, but we’re really doing that because that person’s pain is causing us pain and we want our pain to stop. Does that make sense?

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: I get that. Yeah. And I can relate to, and I think especially when I was younger, I can absolutely identify with that, but so, so interesting what you were saying. And I’m almost wondering like, how many therapists have daddy issues that like kind of drive us into this? Well, you were saying about that, the empath part and really like being able to have that mindsight and understand how other people feel. I will say though, and maybe, and I don’t know, I’d be interested to hear your perspective, like on the path to changing this response inside of yourself. I think that because of my work as a psychologist, I am now very, very comfortable with people being in their dark emotions. And I really value that. And I don’t try to change that for them. And I think that that’s helped me create some distance around like needing to emotionally manage other people, although I can definitely like step into that if I, but this, this tendency to make other people, people’s problems, your responsibility to manage and fix and try to change how they feel for them is a real sign here. And is that, would you say because of historical life experiences of seeing other people manage dad and dad’s and that’s how we handled the man in the house kind of thing?

Terri Cole: And for so many angles, at least like part of what matters in this book and in this whole conversation about father wounds is what I care about is what is happening in the lives of women. That’s my audience, right? Meaning, what is happening that is painful? What is happening that is unsatisfying and making the connection? Because listen, coaching will tell you, well, you just change your mind and you can just do this and you could just do that. As a psychotherapist for almost 30 years. 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 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. It is a compulsion. So you can frame it any way you want, but the truth is, if there’s no space, anything that you are consciously choosing, who am I to say whether you should or shouldn’t do that? What I care about is what you are compulsively doing that is not in your highest and best for what you want to create in your life. So again, I think acknowledging what happened, those childhood experiences, which I walk you through, one of the first things we do in the book is we unpack your downloaded father wound blueprint, because there is absolutely no one size fits all. And in anything, psychologically, it is so unique. So what I do in this book, this is not a book that you read, it’s a book that you do, right? You read it, and you do it.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Nice. I love it. The experiential approach.

Terri Cole: I can share a story with you, and I’m happy too. But that’s not the same as you going. But what do I need to ask myself? So I always say, I’m nobody’s guru, but I certainly am a damn good GPS to get you to the answers that you need within you to spark this liberation from things that no longer serve you. Because so much of this shit is unconscious and you know it, right? We unconsciously attract, right? People are like, how does your father wound play out in your romantic relationships?

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Yeah, that you know, how it impacts our intimate partnerships, like you started talking about sexuality earlier, but I’m so interested to know what you’ve seen around how it impacts romantic relationships, marriages.

Terri Cole: I do two chapters in the book, one completely dedicated to romantic relationships, and one to all the other relationships in our lives and how they’re impacted by an unhealed wound. So let’s go to the romantic stuff. What happens? Well, Catherine O’Baugh would say, we repeat what we do not repair. This is true in romantic relationships. Freud would call it repetition compulsion, right?

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Carl Jung had an iteration.

Terri Cole: Yes, he sure did. Yeah. I call it repeating relationship realities. So we all have our own way of describing that you don’t attract what necessarily you want. You attract what is familiar and we often mistake familiarity with chemistry, right? Where we’re like, Oh, what happens is unconsciously. So for me, I was attracting super unavailable men. My father had the emotional IQ of a sneaker and no, and barely a connection, right? So I was attracting men who were emotionally unavailable and it would be so painful and I would get out of the bed and cry at night. I was like having this whole dramatic, you know, in my 20s experience over and over again. And then when I started getting a little bit healthier in therapy, I’d stopped drinking when I was 19, got into therapy immediately. I started and I was traveling for being an agent and just traveling because I wanted to. And I said to my therapist, Bev, like, I really feel like I’m changing who I’m attracting. It’s so exciting. Now I’m attracting all of these very warm and affectionate and romantic European men. And then she’s like, but Terri, all of these men you’ve been dating live on other continents. So, so how are they available? Right? I thought because they were emotionally available. She was like, that, hello. She was like, well, how do you feel? And I was like the same. I feel lonely. I’m left longing. It’s the same thing. So it can be very sneaky, even when you start working on it.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: But smoking a cigarette. Exactly. Exactly.

Terri Cole: So we start the repeating realities, right? How do we shift? Because you may say, I would never ever date someone like my father and then find yourself in a relationship with someone like your father. So understand that that’s part of the human condition. So it’s raising awareness is the first pillar of my five pillars of transformation. And that’s what I’m really talking about is you must look at, and I walk you through it in the book, your romantic history. We do all kinds of stuff about the childhood. Yes. Very important. We’re unpacking these experiences so that you’re looking at, Oh, this makes sense. But we also have to look at your past relationships because the, you have receipts for everything that you’ve experienced in your life. It’s called your life experience. And it takes willingness to say, okay, I’m going to look at this, not for blame, for data. We’re looking at our patterns to go. Wow. Because I remember again, Bev saying to me years when I was, I was complaining about, I don’t know, my boyfriend did this. My best friend did this. My boss is an idiot, whatever the thing is. And she was finally like, and this is when I started working on boundaries. She was like, Terri, you are the common denominator in every one of those experiences though. So it can’t possibly be, every other person can’t be an entitled idiot. Right? Is it? Are they that or are you saying yes when you want to say no? Are you offering to do things you don’t really want to do? And they’re taking you up on it and now you’re pissed. What’s really happening? And so what was so powerful about that is when we can turn and look at ourselves and go, okay, what is my 50% of every relationship I’ve been in? What was I trying to get? What did I think I was getting? And then what did I actually get? So we do a lot of unpacking of your past experiences. But the most important thing and probably the easiest way for people to start a process, if you want to look at what needs your attention, this goes back to what you had asked sort of at the top of this is we can do a resentment inventory, which that also, yes. So what does that do for us? It shows us where we are being probably less than authentic in our lives. Why am I resentful? Am I tolerating? Cause another thing with father wounds is that often if you had a father and it doesn’t sound like either one of us had this kind of father, but if you had a father who was verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, explosive, right? It can teach you to tolerate really bad behavior and to normalize it where you go, well, men can’t handle their anger. This is just how it is. He doesn’t mean it. He’s going to blow up and then it’s going to pass.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Or, or I deserve it. That’s very toxic. Yeah.

Terri Cole: What, what did I do? Yeah. What could I have done differently so that I didn’t make him so mad? So we need to look at all of those dysfunctional and name them for what they are because you may not see a red flag where a red flag should be because of what you experienced in your childhood. I remember, and I write about this in the book, distinctly in fourth grade is the first time I ever realized that anyone else could have a father who was like not scary as hell. And I was at my friend’s house and I would always be gone before her dad would come home from work. And my father always came home late because he was a workaholic and a high functioning alcoholic. So I remember her dad coming home. We were playing at her house and I immediately went to grab my sneakers. I’m literally hopping down her step, putting my sneakers on, trying to run away. Dad’s coming home. Before I even had to interact with him. And then he comes in and he’s like, “Terri, where are you going?” And my friend said, “Where are you going?” And I was like, “Your dad is here. I should go.” Right? Out the window. I mean, not kidding, Lisa. If I could have jumped out the window, I probably would have. And the dad, because he was not that kind of dad, was like, “Terri, stay for dinner.” And I was like, “Oh my God, what? Okay.” I didn’t know how to say no. I was so scared. Are you hungry? And then watching this guy, who was Italian, very warm, very funny, was super accessible, played with us after dinner. The whole time I just remember my fourth grade mind was blown where I was like, “There is a father that you don’t have to be terrified of. This is unbelievable to me.” And that was the beginning of me even thinking that something could be different and that I could want something different in my life.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: So, we’ve been talking about so many interesting things. How to get visibility into the way your relationship with your father has impacted you, the patterns you now engage in, starting to think about how to shift some of those so that you have more agency in your life and the ability to, it sounds like, have relationships that are better for you.

Terri Cole: So let’s talk a little bit about what is on the other side of healing. What’s the motivation? Why do it? Because again, a lot of people are like, “Oh, I don’t want to go back.” And I understand what is on the other side. And literally everything you want is on the other side. So, learning how to put yourself first without feeling guilty, realizing that’s not being selfish, that’s being healthy, knowing that what you think, what you want, and how you feel is important, but it has to be the most important thing to you. We can always choose to compromise. We can always be generous and giving and kind the way that we are. But here’s the thing, if you don’t really get what you think, how you feel, and what you want matter, and you don’t negotiate for that, you don’t push for that, you’re not living a healed life. So, on the other side, you will be just negotiating for your needs more readily, easily, trusting your own instincts and your own decisions, handling your emotions. One whole chapter is on emotions and I call them activation points as opposed to triggers because triggers feel like it’s got to be trauma with a capital T. And there are many things that are activating that are not trauma with a capital T, but they still interrupt our lives. So we talk all about that. Releasing yourself from resentment prison. Right? We just process the crap out of all of this resentment so that we’re grasping that it’s like Buddha said about, I mean, I’ll butcher it, but Buddha said about forgiving, not forgiving someone else is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Right?

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: I love that saying, but this is like, I just wanted, because one of the things that you said a couple minutes ago, I could see some people having a reaction to, you said you have to put yourself first unapologetically, right? And I think what you’re saying is that if you don’t, if you continue compromising and sacrificing and “oh, it’s fine,” you’re not really not doing anybody any favors because it does contribute to that resentment and that emotional exhaustion and like really not being okay. And

Terri Cole: That’s not sustainable. Let’s talk about the nuance of it though, because here’s the thing. Yeah. If you, it’s about knowing what you want. When you have minor children, you’re not putting yourself first, you’re putting minor children first, because that’s the phase of life you’re in and that’s normal. So let’s, it’s, none of this is like black and white. What I’ve seen in my therapy practice is women just defaulting to this self-abandoning position of whatever anyone else wants is fine. Or even though I want to do this, but you want to do something. So I will give up what I want to do because what you want to do, I will prioritize. And I’m not saying sometimes that’s not appropriate. It is, but often it’s not. And I’m inviting you to think about even the small things in your life, the small preferences that you have and being able to make time and space for them. There’s so much that we can do on our own that doesn’t even involve other people. When you stop to say, Oh, I have this light in my office that’s bothering me. It’s too bright. Change the light, get better sheets, like care about how you like your coffee. Don’t just say, “I’d like it any way,” because you don’t. Be specific. Your preferences are not a burden to other people, but they’re the way other people can love you well.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Yeah. And just to share perspective, I have also met and worked with so many men who also have that. It is very difficult for them to advocate themselves or to have a perspective or to opinion or to say what they want. And so like, this is really impactful.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: So one other question, and I’d so love to hear your thoughts about this, Terri. We’re talking about how to heal the father wound once it has happened. And for our friends with us who are in some stage of parenting, who are either the father figure in a family or partnered to a father figure that they co-parent with, what advice or thoughts would you have for father figures to be the positive influence that will develop healthy children who have confidence and worth rather than wounds. They have to deal with beautiful therapists like myself. And you, 20 years later.

Terri Cole: So for dads and for anyone in a father figure position, one thing is time. Time without screens. Just put your phone down. Stop interacting with kids with screens. Just stop, please. Because it’s really bad for self-esteem. Be a good listener. Stop auto advice giving. You don’t need to fix it. Your wife doesn’t want you to either. So if you could just listen. Everybody hates that. Literally everybody hates. So I’m sorry that the patriarchy told you, you had to fix everything because that isn’t your fault. But know that what we really want is your presence. We want your attunement. So if you have a kid that you’re raising, daughter or son, and they come home with a problem, the first thing you’re going to say to them is, Oh, I’m sorry that happened. So tell me, what do you think you should do? Before you say a word, the kid could be six, 16 or 60. I don’t care. Because what we’re teaching children is to, we’re teaching them deductive reasoning, critical thinking, right? How do you problem solve if dad is always telling you exactly what you have to do. So we’re not looking for you to say, it doesn’t mean you won’t weigh in. They may have a very bad idea of what to do. And you may need to say, well, let’s rethink that.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Or you could try that.

Terri Cole: Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Right. But like helping our children trust their own judgment.

Terri Cole: Yes. That alone. How many of us got that from father figures? Maybe not. And I think the most important thing is that when you think about today, attention is the most expensive coin we spend today. It’s attention because we live in such an attention deficit place where people you’re on their phones all the time. I’m not because I have zero tolerance, but some people are.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: No, I am. Yeah.

Terri Cole: Yeah. Can’t do it. I have a basket in my front door. Put your mother effing phone in there because

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Put the lotion in the basket. I mean, the phone.

Terri Cole: I don’t need to look at [inaudible] teenager, my nieces. I’m like, no, go or go in the car. If you’re going to do that, like we need to be together and to actually be looking in people’s eyes. I also wanted to tell you, I don’t know when this is airing, but I have bonuses and free stuff that for people who are interested in like, Oh, I really want to get moving on this. Like I want to. So the new pub date is November 17th because of paper shortage or something. So anyway, it was supposed to be October 27th. So what we’re doing is on the 15th of October, I have a completely free love, boundaries, and father wound two and a half hour deep dive with Nedra Tawwab, Dr. Alexandra Solomon, Vienna Pharaon, me, and Dr. Shefali. So it’s amazing, bright female minds doing something great. So you guys can just go to terricole.com/fatherwoundevent. It’s right there. It’s totally free and it’ll be in all of my, if you follow me on Instagram, it’ll be in my, in my link tree. And then on the 24th, we’re also doing something that if you pre-ordered the book, I’m doing a three and a half hour deep dive where you’re going to be unpacking your own father wound blueprint. So it’s going to be a totally experiential thing where I’m providing what’s in the book so that we can all sort of work together and really get sort of moving on this healing journey together.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: What a fantastic offer because, you know, and I think we’ve all had this experience. You sit down and you inhale a book and you’re like, yup, all good ideas. But then when it comes to being able to go there experientially and also apply it, that can be a different animal. So I love it that you’re making these opportunities available. Wonderful. Terri, this has been such a fascinating conversation. And I also know that there’s so much more. I mean, we had a little sampler of everything going on here in father wound. There’s just so much here. Is any last words for friends with us today? Or if you were to share again, you know, where to continue this conversation, this work, father wound will be coming out later in the fall. You have resources available at terricole.com.

Terri Cole: Yes. My last words are that you are worthy of the life and the relationships that you really desire. Like your heart’s desire. You’re worthy of it if you’re willing to work for it. So yes, you got to do a little bit of work, but I promise you that freedom, that liberation that imagine never walking on eggshells again in your entire life. That’s what freedom looks like on the other side of healing this wound. And that is what I want for you. And I promise you, I’ve walked thousands of women through it. And men, and again, for the men in the audience, if you love women, read this book. And I have so many men with my other work too saying, Hey, this applied to me too. So it’s, you know, we’re all human beings. Like we all have these feelings, but you’re worth the work and you living a life that thrills and fulfills you is possible.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: Wonderful. Well, Terri Cole, thank you so much for spending this time with us today. What an inspiring conversation.

Terri Cole: Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby: You guys, such a good conversation with Terri. I hope you got as much out of that as I did. I thought her perspective was so interesting. And really, I think we can all relate, right? How we were shaped with our experiences of our parents, our dads can be very significant as can moms. And you know, one of my takeaways in talking with Terri, maybe you had the same experience is how much work it can be just to get visibility into ourselves, right? To get under our own hood. And what an experiential process that is, you know, Terri talked a lot about her own experiences of being in a relationship with a therapist who was able to challenge some of her old ideas or like narratives, right? Like when she was talking about how I’m being victimized by all these people and her therapist was like, how are you co creating this experience potentially, which, you know, can be challenging to hear, but also unlocks this whole universe of agency, right? Because if you are collaborating on your life experiences, it means that you also have the ability to change them and to change the outcomes. But none of us can do that if we’re not aware of what we’re doing in the first place. And I know that in my own life, I have had relationships with a variety of coaches and teachers and mentors who have given me that visibility. And it’s been so valuable to have somebody who knows us very well. And who cares about us to say, you may not have noticed, but I see this thing that you might not see and shine a light on those blind spots. And so Terri certainly offered many ways of cracking into that through her book. But I also wanted to offer, you know, that you can embark on your own relationship with that type of person in your life. To do this type of work, there is a therapeutic component. Obviously, we’re going into the past, we’re seeing the old patterns. But we’re not necessarily talking about the treatment of a clinical mental health condition, right? We’re not talking about the management of PTSD or an anxiety disorder or depression. We’re talking about how to get visibility into ourselves to learn, grow, develop, and figure out what we need to do differently in order to create different outcomes. And so if you would like to have this type of experience that doesn’t pathologize you, my advice is to work with a therapist who is also a certified coach who practices coaching competencies that will help you crack into all of this in a very deep, powerful, impactful, experiential way, but to talk about, so what do we do, right? And so you can have that experience with the clinicians in my network, Growing Self. And it all starts with a free consultation. Come to growingself.com and you’ll see a big orange button at the top of the site that says, “Get connected,” and that’s all you need to do. Tell us a little bit more about what you’re wanting to work on. Answer a couple of questions, and then you can immediately book a free consultation with a clinician on my team who specializes in just that. And it is very important to us that this does start with a no-obligation, free first phone call because the vibe fit is so important and you need to be shopping around. Who you work with really matters a great deal. And I believe very strongly that you should get a sense for who people are. Do you feel comfortable with this person? Get to ask them questions. Do you have experience in helping people work through what I’m hoping to work through? And hear what they have to say so that you can make informed choices about whether or not this is something that you want to get involved with before making that decision. So that’s how we start here at Growing Self. GrowingSelf.com, schedule your free consultation and just have a first conversation and talk about your hopes and goals for, you know, I’d like to break free from some of these self-limiting old patterns that I seem to have developed due to my historical relationship with my father. Can you help me? And then go from there. All right, you guys, thanks so much for joining us today. And I will be back in touch soon with another episode of Love, Happiness, and Success.