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February 7 - February 18, 2025
You’re already whole and perfect; you don’t need to become something you already are.
You’re worthy of peace now; you’re worthy eve...
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Your potential is endless, it’s calling you, and wouldn’t it be exhilarat...
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you perceive your childhood to have been dysfunctional and you’re stuck inside the notion of process-oriented perfectionism, you feel you’re sentenced to a life in which you’re perpetually “behind.” The process of becoming who you are didn’t start out perfectly, so how could it ever be any good?
The process started out perfectly, so the pressure is on; the rest of their life must unfold perfectly because in their eyes, they have no excuse for it not to.
Emotional perfectionism is the desire to be in a perfect emotional state. A perfect emotional state here does not mean happy or at peace; it means you want to perfectly control what you feel, when you feel it, and the degree to which you feel it.
damn
When you fail to properly control your feelings, you become punitive with yourself.
Nowhere is emotional perfectionism more evident than in the perfectionist’s vision of what it means to be healed. As “proof” that you’ve healed, you want to feel a specific way to a specific degree in a specific circumstance.
Preconceived notions about what it means to be “officially healed” loiter around in our minds and hearts.
Maladaptive perfectionism can manifest as a reaction to trauma,
As is the case for many victims of trauma, being present with her pain felt too unsafe for her.
Perfectionists intellectually understand that they cannot change the past, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to change the fact that the past had an impact on them.
You accept the event and reject the impact. You say some version of “Yes, that happened but I’m fine.”
“Several studies support the idea that perfectionism develops more easily in families with extremely critical parents and that an authoritarian parenting style may lead children to adopt a perfectionist orientation during the course of their lives.
Whether you’re modeling healthy or unhealthy behaviors doesn’t matter; the child learns one just as easily as the other.
Similarly, if you grow up in an environment of abuse, neglect, or conditional love, it’s nearly impossible to relate to the idea that someone could love you no matter what you do or fail to do in this life.
When someone who is loved conditionally is told, “I love you,” what they hear is, “I love you for now, so don’t mess up.”
Children who don’t feel loved will do anything to earn that love.
Connection is the source of all growth and healing.
Our collective avoidance of discussions around suicide is both understandable and eerily, gravely negligent.
When I talk with people who are intersecting with the suicide spectrum, it’s not that they want to die; it’s that they want to experience relief from the pain they’re in. I
Over half the completed suicides in the United States are by firearms.
in 2018, twice as many people died from gun suicides as from gun homicides.
The sense that you “plant” the idea of suicide by bringing it up is another misconception. Research
suggests that acknowledging and talking about suicide reduces suicidal ideation and can lead to an increased willingness to connect to support.[27]
Perfectionism is positively correlated with suicidality.
when you’re imposing perfectionistic standards on yourself because you think others expect perfection from you, you may be more vulnerable to humiliation and shame because you feel there’s an “audience” watching you.
You did it perfectly or you should be ashamed of yourself; you’re super productive or you’re a bumbling slob; everyone loves you or you’re a burden to the world; you’re number one or you completely wasted your time.
When you’re punitive with yourself, the grand plan is to hurt yourself in order to teach yourself a lesson.
You’re not addressing the problem when you use punishment; you’re avoiding the problem and creating a new one.
The former engenders a mentality of “I’m scared to do the wrong thing.” The latter engenders a mentality of “I actively want to do the right thing.”
CLASSIC PERFECTIONISTS: Dissociation Going through the motions of her to-do list, she focuses on empty busyness as opposed to meaningful engagement.
PARISIAN PERFECTIONISTS: Endless people-pleasing She insists on proving herself—“singing for her supper”—even when no one’s asking her to. She prioritizes other people’s pleasure and comfort over her own. Enacting a version of herself she believes everyone will most easily connect with, she denies herself the opportunity to authentically connect with anyone.
positive emotions produce optimal functioning. In Fredrickson’s words, “Positive emotions promote discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds, which in turn build that individual’s personal resources; ranging from physical and intellectual resources, to social and psychological resources. Importantly, these resources function as reserves that can be drawn on later to improve the odds of successful coping and
survival.”
As Dr. Brené Brown’s research demonstrates, “blame is an attempt to discharge your pain.”
As your pain grows, at some point your primary goal shifts from growth to pain avoidance. Instead of being motivated to practice habits that support your goals, you become motivated to practice habits that support numbing your pain.
Guilt says, I’m sorry about what I did. Shame says, I’m sorry about who I am.
Your frenzied work life leaves you so exhausted that you no longer feel anxious about presenting. You in fact no longer feel anything except “tired all the time.” Are you tired all the time, or are you numb?
oh
The people in recovery who actually recover are the ones who respond to their mistakes with self-compassion.
Not only does withholding compassion hurt you; it hurts everyone around you.
Change is not something you have to force; change is a natural by-product of healing.
Always blame yourself—that way you can stay in control, because if everything is your fault, you can fix it all when you finally get your shit together and become perfect.
Parisian perfectionists work harder to do more for other people at the cost of meeting their own needs.
You will never experience the future; you’re always and only in the present moment. If you’re waiting on the future to feel joy, you will never feel joy.
You can’t control grief by subtracting joy from your life. You can’t control grief, period.
The more you honor your instincts, the deeper you heal. Only you can honor your instincts because only you can hear them.
Another way to say you’re honoring your intention is that you’re consistently animating your values.
Chasing your ambition and running from your desperation are not the same thing.
Self-compassion begins with giving yourself permission to encounter what you feel.
