“It sounds obvious now, but it took me decades to learn: you can just do Wednesday. You don’t have to catch up on Tuesday first. You don’t have to restart, or figure out how to prevent yourself from ever slipping again. You can just do the next thing.” ❤️
Wow! It makes me think about different systems--church, school, work. They are there to support the system itself, never the individual. And those old thoughts keep showing up, for all of us. I think that is part of growing up, learning to question and quiet the thoughts, come up with new ways of seeing ourselves and the world.
Yes! That distinction between the system supporting itself vs. supporting the person is so powerful. What a gift to be able to pass that on to the next generation a little sooner than we got it.
Perfectionism can look so much like virtue from the inside. Especially when you’ve spent years being praised for conscientiousness, obedience, and trying harder, it can take a long time to notice when “doing it right” has become the thing keeping you from doing it at all.
“Doing it right has become the thing keeping you from doing it at all” I might steal that line, it’s so precise. And yes, we were well conditioned. Weren’t we good students?! 🤦♀️
Oof, this one is brutal. My perfectionism pops up in other ways now, like a strange whack-a-mole— but what a great reminder that nothing will ever be as crushing or relentless as the expectations I held (and failed to meet) as a young person
Whack-a-mole is exactly right! I don’t think it ever really leaves either. It just finds smaller and smaller homes in our brains. But progress is progress!
There is a concept in psychology called the Persecutor Protector that I sometimes wonder whether I have one inside my head, along with (but different from) the Internal Critic.
“It sounds obvious now, but it took me decades to learn: you can just do Wednesday. You don’t have to catch up on Tuesday first. You don’t have to restart, or figure out how to prevent yourself from ever slipping again. You can just do the next thing.” ❤️
Wow! It makes me think about different systems--church, school, work. They are there to support the system itself, never the individual. And those old thoughts keep showing up, for all of us. I think that is part of growing up, learning to question and quiet the thoughts, come up with new ways of seeing ourselves and the world.
Yes! That distinction between the system supporting itself vs. supporting the person is so powerful. What a gift to be able to pass that on to the next generation a little sooner than we got it.
Perfectionism can look so much like virtue from the inside. Especially when you’ve spent years being praised for conscientiousness, obedience, and trying harder, it can take a long time to notice when “doing it right” has become the thing keeping you from doing it at all.
“Doing it right has become the thing keeping you from doing it at all” I might steal that line, it’s so precise. And yes, we were well conditioned. Weren’t we good students?! 🤦♀️
Oof, this one is brutal. My perfectionism pops up in other ways now, like a strange whack-a-mole— but what a great reminder that nothing will ever be as crushing or relentless as the expectations I held (and failed to meet) as a young person
Whack-a-mole is exactly right! I don’t think it ever really leaves either. It just finds smaller and smaller homes in our brains. But progress is progress!
There is a concept in psychology called the Persecutor Protector that I sometimes wonder whether I have one inside my head, along with (but different from) the Internal Critic.