The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power

by Katherine Morgan Schafler

You relieve yourself of the responsibility to compensate for the external dysfunction that you have no control over, and so you gain the energy to encounter your internal world. You let yourself feel the sadness or undesirable feelings you were previously trying to cover up with all your organizing and perfecting. You realize how full of empathy you are. You attend to the parts of yourself that need your own loving care. You make room for the chaos life brings. You make room for the chaos inside yourself. You still love planning, you still love organizing, you still love making it beautiful—but you do it because you want to, not because everything will fall apart if you don’t. You operate from a well of desire, not a pit of desperation.