Quite often when I ask a client about their trauma history, they either don’t know what counts as trauma, or they don’t realize that particular experiences would qualify as a traumatic experience. It’s not unusual for people to believe that if they weren’t physically or sexually abused or they didn’t experience combat from military service, then their painful experiences don’t qualify as trauma. I’ve long believed that trauma is in the eyes of the beholder. What feels traumatic and painful for you, may not feel traumatic to another, and what’s traumatic and painful for someone else, may not feel traumatic to you. One can experience trauma as a result of a car accident, the sudden or unexpected loss of a loved one, a difficult break-up or loss of friendship, having a birth plan and suddenly being rushed in for a c-section, or other experiences of traumatic births. There are many different experiences that constitute trauma, and just because one experiences trauma does not mean they experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), although they may have some of the symptoms of PTSD. It’s important that we honor and process these painful experiences so that they don’t affect the way that we respond or act towards others or specific situations or prevent us from living our best life. Often trauma is most effectively addressed by participating in trauma therapies such as EMDR and Hypnotherapy, however, some people prefer processing their experiences with talk therapy. Whatever your choice, please show yourself the grace to acknowledge and address your trauma, but most importantly please don’t allow others, or yourself, to minimize what you feel.
Perfectionism Is a Lie
By the time I went to college as an older adult I had perfected (pun intended) my skills of beating myself up, sometimes even berating myself when I didn’t meet up to my perception of perfect. After Sociology class one day, where it was announced that myself and another student had received the second highest score on an exam, the professor stopped me and asked what I thought about that. I think most of you, particularly the perfectionists, will know what my response was to that question. Naturally I said, “Well I wish I would have gotten the highest score.” Although I already had some awareness of my perfectionism, I don’t think I ever really had anyone shine a light on it for me, until that day. My professor responded with “Don’t do that to yourself. Perfectionism is a lie. My exams are hard and it’s an accomplishment to earn the second highest score.” That experience has stayed with me to this day, and in fact I frequently repeat that sentiment to my clients when I observe them trying to reach an often unobtainable standard they set for themselves.
Sometimes the path to perfectionism is clear, we have a parent or other family member who is continually shaming us, or even punishing us when we don’t live up to their standards. I want you to pay attention to the last part of that sentence, “Their Standards,” not ours, and most likely not the standards of anyone else around us. But we internalize those messages that tell us we aren’t good enough, and that if we don’t continually work harder, strive for more, then we clearly are failing. Sometimes the path to perfectionism isn’t so obvious. Perhaps our parent or loved one isn’t telling us we need to do better, but we see them always chastising themselves for not meeting their invisible standard. Or perhaps we have a 5th grade teacher who each day re-arranges the seating in the classroom based on your score on the math quiz the day before. Regardless of the contributing factors, sometimes it’s difficult to recognize ourselves as a perfectionist because we’re only perfectionist about one or two areas of our life. I’ve had clients who when I noted their perfectionism, they were confused about me calling them perfectionist because it was just one area of their life. Although I’m going to guess that if they really examined their lives, they might find another area or two where they were also perfectionist.
Yes, perfectionism is a lie! But in some ways, we excuse it because it’s what pushes us to achieve more, it’s what pushes us to earn that 4.0 GPA, it’s what pushes us to be a better employee. However, perfectionism also pushes us to the edge and beyond our physical, emotional, and mental limitations. Perfectionism is a recipe for burn-out, and remember we don’t just get burned-out on the job; we can most certainly become burned-out with our lives. We joke about people being high-maintenance, and yes often those around us end up compensating or sometimes even suffering as a result of our virtually unobtainable standards. But keep in mind that despite how it might seem, the high-maintenance, perfectionist lifestyle, is truly hardest on the perfectionists themselves. I encourage you to begin paying attention to your internal dialogue. The next time you find yourself worn out and ready to fall over because you’ve already given it your all and yet you find more that you feel you can do to make it better. Or the next time you compare yourself to that woman on Twitter or Instagram with the immaculate home and perfect children, remember you’re not seeing the whole picture, and you’re not hearing her internal dialogue. I encourage you to ask yourself, do I really need to do more in order to make this even More Perfect than it already is, or Honestly, is it good enough?!! And at the end of the day, or actually, at the beginning and end of each day I want you to remind yourself… “I am good enough; I am SO good enough!” Because, Perfectionism is Most Certainly A LIE!!