What if being the “strong one” is actually making you weaker? What if all that advice-giving, crisis-managing, and problem-solving you do for everyone else is slowly draining the life out of you?
You don’t think you’re codependent. You’re not sitting around waiting for some addict to come home. You’re not needy or clingy or desperate. Hell, you’re the opposite—you’re the one everyone depends on. You make the money, handle the crises, give the advice, and keep everyone’s world spinning. So when someone mentions codependency, you immediately think, “That’s not me. Everyone’s dependent on ME.”
But here’s what nobody talks about: there’s a brand of codependency that hides behind competence. It looks like strength, sounds like leadership, and feels like love. I spent years thinking my ability to fix everyone’s problems was my greatest asset. I was the friend with all the answers, the daughter who managed family drama, the partner who handled everything so smoothly that no one even knew there were problems to handle. From the outside, my life looked like I had it all together. On the inside, I was drowning in everyone else’s emotional chaos while completely abandoning my own needs.
“So my definition of codependency is when you are overly invested in the feeling states, the outcomes, the life, the relationships, the finances, the careers of the people in your life to the detriment of your own internal peace.” Terri Cole
There’s a big difference between being genuinely helpful and being compulsively responsible for other people’s outcomes. And if you’re a high-achieving woman who’s always been told you’re “so strong” and “so independent,” you might be suffering from something that flies completely under the radar. Because from the outside, your life looks like you’ve got it all figured out.
Look, we’ve been trained since birth to be the fixers, the peacekeepers, the ones who make everything okay for everyone else. We learned that our worth comes from our usefulness. That love means sacrifice. That setting boundaries makes us selfish bitches. But what happens when those “good girl” patterns become the very thing slowly killing your soul? What happens when being endlessly accommodating becomes the prison you didn’t realize you built?
The stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be a “good” woman are ancient programming running on outdated software. These patterns repeat across generations because we mistake them for love, for strength, for virtue. But consciousness is asking us to evolve beyond the martyrdom that masquerades as service.
What if the exhaustion you feel isn’t because you’re doing too much, but because you’re doing it all wrong? What if there’s a way to be caring and capable without constantly abandoning yourself in the process?
Today our guest is Terri Cole, a licensed psychotherapist and relationship expert who coined the term “high functioning codependency” after seeing the same patterns show up repeatedly in her practice with successful, accomplished women. She’s the author of “Too Much” and has spent decades helping people recognize and break free from these invisible chains.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
• How to spot the signs of high functioning codependency – the difference between healthy helping and compulsive over-functioning
• Why your advice-giving might be hurting more than helping – and how to support people without fixing them
• Two simple questions to ask before saying yes to anything – so you can stop abandoning yourself in the name of being nice
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