The 3 Signs a Father Wound Is Holding You Back (and What to Do About It) | Terri Cole

The most accomplished women in Terri Cole's therapy practice kept describing the same private emptiness, and almost none of them could name where it came from. After nearly thirty years and a research group of 650 women, she has an answer that has very little to do with what you would expect. It’s about something called The Father Wound.

Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist and the author of Boundary Boss and Too Much, whose new book Father Wound: Break Unhealthy Patterns to Reclaim Your Worth and Power is the first secular, science-grounded treatment of a subject she found almost nobody was writing about. She coined the term because she kept seeing it in her office with no name attached to it. For anyone in their forties or fifties who has done the work, checked the boxes, and still feels like something underneath is running the show, this conversation names the thing.

What you'll explore in this conversation:

• The question Terri's own therapist asked about her ambition that reframed twenty years of striving in a single sentence
• Why the traits most likely to get you promoted are often the exact adaptations that keep you from enjoying any of it
• The two behaviors that look identical on a Tuesday night on the couch and do opposite things to your nervous system
• What Terri means when she says you need nothing from your father to heal this, including his apology, his participation, or his being alive
• The fear that stops high achievers from starting this work, and her direct answer to whether healing costs you what you built

If you have built a life that looks right from the outside and quietly wondered why it does not feel like yours, this is the conversation about what is actually underneath that.

You can find Terri at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript

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