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You feel overwhelmed because you are trying to accomplish so much; there never seems to be enough time to complete what you have started.
Your standards are so high that you view many activities as obligations or ordeals to get through, instead ...
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You procrastinate a lot. Because your standards make many tasks feel overwh...
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You feel irritated or frustrated a lot because things and people around you do not ...
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Things like love, family, friendship, creativity, and fun—the things that make life worth living—take a back seat to your obsessive quest for perfection.
Unrelenting Standards are passed down through generations in this way. Your parents give them to you, and you give them to your children.
The level at which you expect to perform is so high that it is overwhelming.
The dogged pursuit of your standards destroys your chances for positive feelings like love, peace, happiness, pride, or relaxation. Instead you feel irritation, frustration, disappointment, and, of course, pressure.
It is time for you to wake up to what your standards are costing you. Is it really worth it?
Try to determine what reasonable standards are by getting a consensus or objective opinion from people who seem more balanced.
work,
having order,
What good is a top-level job when it leaves no time in your life for pleasure and love?
What good are your creature comforts when you are too exhausted to enjoy them?
This exercise can help you understand that the disadvantages of your life are directly linked to your Unrelenting Standards.
If you lowered your standards, you could eliminate many of these disadvantages.
Consider What the Effects Would Be If You Lowered Your Standards about 25 Percent.
Between perfection and failure there is a whole gray area.
you could settle for this lower level instead of insisting on perfection, you would still get a lot of the same rewards in terms of career advancement, financial success, praise, or status without having to pay such a heavy price.
DEPENDENT ENTITLEMENT • If you are the dependent type, you feel entitled to depend on other people. You place yourself in the weak, incompetent, needy role, and expect other people to be strong and take care of you.
pouting, passive-aggressive behaviors,
You do not necessarily feel that you are special. In fact, you may try very hard to please and be accommodating. Yet you feel entitled to be dependent. Your entitlement comes from the fact that you feel weak and vulnerable. You need help, and people must give it to you.
You have trouble tolerating frustration enough to complete long-term tasks, especially boring or routine ones.
Your difficulty postponing short-term gratification may also take the form of addictions
drinking,
More typically, they occur as explosiveness, temper tantrums, or inappropriate behavior.
Between the impulse and the action, she had to learn to place thought.
Parents serve as models for self-control and self-discipline.
When adults cannot control themselves, they are unlikely to control their
children.
When we have parents who provide clear, consistent, and appropriate limits, then we learn to apply these limits to ourselves.
The origin of Dependent Entitlement is parents who overindulge their children in ways that make the children dependent on them. The parents take on everyday responsibilities, decisions, and difficult tasks for the child. The environment is so safe and protected and so little is expected of the child that the child comes to demand this level of care.
Anger is another factor that can drive a person to develop Entitlement as a coping mechanism for deprivation. Extreme anger can be a strong motivating force for people to overcome the conditions of their childhood. It gives them the will to set right something they see as unfair.
Certainly someone who feels defective or socially undesirable may compensate by feeling special.
If your underlying feeling is, “I’m inferior,” you can counterattack by saying, “No, I’m special, I’m better than everyone else.”
Are afraid to express their own needs and feelings.
Do not have a strong sense of self, and allow themselves to live through you.
We urge you to approach change in a strategic way, not haphazardly.
We must find a balance between the needs of society and our own personal fulfillment.
We must find out what makes us happy, without relying solely on what makes the people around us happy.
We feel that the best therapists can blend a variety of techniques and strategies, depending on the needs of the patient. That is why we have a preference for integrative therapists.
You want someone who is empathic and understands you.
You want someone who seems genuine, whom you can trust. And you want someone who can handle you—who sets clear limits and confronts you when you get off track.
You need someone who will push you to relate.
One aspect of therapy involves providing a partial antidote to problems in your childhood.
Your therapist can also be a role model in a domain where you are having difficulty.
Your therapist can model effective ways of resolving problems.
We also encourage you to join reputable self-help groups.
CODA (Codependents Anonymous),
T. S. Eliot’s Little Gidding: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
