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

by Katherine Morgan Schafler

You acknowledge just how much you thrive by being pushed—you need a challenge or your boredom risks tipping over into a depressive episode.

I work mostly with women who can present well, who can seem completely put together when they want to seem that way, and whose problems aren’t immediately apparent to others. This is exceedingly nuanced work because, as I suspect you know all too well, no one can hide their suffering better than the highly functioning person.

Ambition is not a universal trait. Some people are not interested in continually pushing themselves towards their highest potential or chasing an ideal.

perfectionism is a power. Like any kind of power (love, wealth, beauty, intelligence), an inherent dichotomy of potential exists within it. Love can build relationships that are healthy and toxic. Wealth generates philanthropy and exploitation. Beauty inspires art and objectification. Intelligence eliminates communicable diseases through vaccines to save mass human life and builds atomic bombs to destroy mass human life. You need boundaries around any power, perfectionism included.

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Not everyone gets to experience that impulse you carry, pushing you to explore the bounds of possibility for yourself and the world around you. Perfectionists don’t allow themselves to be constrained by what’s “realistic”; that one mindset advantage alone is invaluable.

this book is healing me in ways i didn’t even know i needed healing…

As long as you’re playing small, that energy rattles inside you and makes you ache. Stop cursing the ache and become curious about why it’s there. If you’re a perfectionist, you want more of something. What is it? Why do you want that? How do you imagine getting what you want will make you feel? Perfectionism invites a deep, unending exploration of who you are and what you most desire from this life.

Perfectionists love working. Perfectionists love a challenge. Perfectionists want to contribute, create, and grow.

You don’t heal by changing who you are; you heal by learning how to be yourself in the world.