Tiny Buddha

Tag: perfectionism

  • The Power of Imperfect Work in an AI-Driven, Perfection-Obsessed World

    The Power of Imperfect Work in an AI-Driven, Perfection-Obsessed World

    “Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.” ~Salvador Dalí

    We live in a world that worships polish.

    Perfect photos on Instagram. Seamless podcasts with no awkward pauses. Articles that read like they’ve passed through a dozen editors.

    And now, with AI tools that can produce mistake-free writing in seconds, the bar feels even higher. Machines can generate flawless sentences, perfect grammar, and shiny ideas on demand. Meanwhile, I’m over here second-guessing a paragraph, rewriting the same sentence six different ways, and still wondering if “Best” or “Warmly” is the less awkward email sign-off.

    It’s easy to feel like our messy, human work doesn’t measure up.

    I’ve fallen into that trap plenty of times. I’ve delayed publishing because “it’s not ready.” I’ve rerecorded podcasts because I stumbled on a word. I’ve tweaked and reformatted things no one else would even notice.

    Perfectionism whispers: If it isn’t flawless, don’t share it.

    But over time, I’ve learned something else: imperfection is not a liability. It’s the whole point.

    A Table Full of Flaws

    One of the best lessons I’ve ever learned about imperfection came not from writing or technology, but from woodworking.

    About a decade ago, I decided to build a dining table. I spent hours measuring, cutting, sanding, and staining. I wanted it to be perfect.

    But here’s the truth about woodworking: nothing ever turns out perfect. Ever.

    That table looks solid from across the room. But if you step closer, you’ll notice the flaws. The board I mismeasured by a quarter inch. The corner I over-sanded. The stain that didn’t set evenly.

    At first, I saw those flaws as failures. Proof that I wasn’t skilled enough, patient enough, or careful enough.

    But then something surprising happened. My wife walked into the room, saw the finished table, and said she loved it. She didn’t see the mistakes. She saw something that had been made with love and care.

    And slowly, I began to see it that way, too.

    That table isn’t just furniture. It’s proof of effort, process, and patience. It carries my fingerprints, my sweat, and my imperfect humanity.

    And here’s the kicker: it’s way more fulfilling than anything mass-produced or manufactured as machine-perfect.

    Why Imperfection Connects Us

    That table taught me something AI never could: flaws tell a story.

    Machines can produce flawless outputs, but they can’t create meaning. They can’t replicate the pride of sanding wood with your own hands or the laughter around a table that wobbled for the first month.

    Imperfections are what make something ours. They carry our fingerprints, quirks, and lived experiences.

    In contrast, perfection is sterile. It might be impressive, but it rarely feels alive.

    Think about the things that move us most—a friend’s vulnerable story, a laugh that turns into a snort, a talk where the speaker loses their train of thought but recovers with honesty. When was the last time you felt closest to someone? Chances are, it wasn’t when they were polished, it was when they were real. Those moments connect us precisely because they are imperfect.

    They remind us we’re not alone in our flaws.

    The AI Contrast

    AI dazzles us because it never stutters. It never doubts. It never sends an awkward text or spills coffee on its keyboard. AI can do flawless. But flawless isn’t the same as meaningful.

    But here’s what it doesn’t do:

    • It doesn’t feel the mix of pride and embarrassment in showing someone your wobbly table.
    • It doesn’t understand the joy of cooking a meal that didn’t go exactly to plan.
    • It doesn’t know what it’s like to hit “publish” while your stomach churns with nerves, only to get a message later that says, “This made me feel less alone.”

    Flawlessness might be a machine’s strength. But humanity is ours.

    The very things I used to try to hide—the quirks, the rough edges, the imperfections—are the things that make my work worth sharing.

    A Different Kind of Readiness

    I used to think I needed to wait until something was “ready.” The blog post polished just right. The podcast that’s perfectly edited. The message refined until it couldn’t possibly be criticized.

    But I’ve learned that readiness is a mirage. It’s often just perfectionism in disguise.

    The truth is, most of the things that resonated most with people—my most-downloaded podcast episode, the articles that readers emailed me about months later—were the ones I almost didn’t share. The ones that felt too messy, too vulnerable, too real.

    And yet, those are the ones people said, “This is exactly what I needed to hear.”

    Not the flawless ones. The human ones.

    How We Can Embrace Imperfection

    I’m not saying it’s easy. Perfectionism is sneaky. It wears the disguise of “high standards” or “being thorough.”

    Here’s what I’ve found helps me. Not rules, but reminders I keep returning to:

    Share before you feel ready.If it feels 80% good enough, release it. The last 20% is often just endless polishing.

    Reframe mistakes as stories.My table’s flaws? Now they’re conversation starters. What mistakes of yours might carry meaning, too?

    Notice where imperfection builds connection.The things that make people feel closer to you usually aren’t the shiny parts. They’re the honest ones.

    The Bigger Picture

    We live in a culture obsessed with speed, optimization, and polish. AI accelerates that pressure. It tempts us to compete on machine terms: flawless, instant, infinite.

    But that’s not the game we’re meant to play.

    Our advantage—our only real advantage—is that we’re human. We bring nuance, empathy, humor, vulnerability, and lived experience.

    Robots don’t laugh until they snort. They don’t ugly cry during Pixar movies. They don’t mismeasure wood or forget to use the wood glue and build a table that their partner loves anyway.

    You do. I do. That’s the point.

    So maybe we don’t need to sand down every rough edge. Perhaps we don’t need to hide every flaw.

    Because when the world is flooded with flawless, machine-polished work, the imperfect, human things will stand out.

    And those are the things people will remember.

  • How I Learned to Treat Myself Like Someone I Love

    How I Learned to Treat Myself Like Someone I Love

    “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I built my life.” ~J.K. Rowling

    Most people who know me will say I am incredibly kind, loving, and empathetic. They know me as a safe person that they can share anything with and that I won’t judge. What they may not know is I am incredibly judgmental and unkind to myself.

    When it comes to others, I see light and love. I see confusion and fear behind their misguided actions. I see mistakes as learning opportunities. For myself, I used to see…if I dare say it, a stupid girl who should know better and do better and be better.

    That felt mean even to write. It is an odd combination to love and accept others so deeply but to not love myself in the same way. Sometimes I wonder if my ability to truly see others’ greatness, potential, and beauty is linked to the fact that I didn’t see my own—like perhaps I put all my energy into valuing others instead of directing some of it toward myself.

    I’ve always wished I could treat myself with the same love I’ve extended to others, but instead, I set myself a different set of standards—ones that cannot be reached because they’re unrealistic. The path of no mistakes, no pain, and no suffering. The path where everything works out according to plan. My plan was always simple: try to do the right thing and follow the rules so I can stay in control.

    So that’s what I did—played it safe and small in many life areas to avoid mistakes, conflict, and my own harsh judgment.

    With friends, I kept quiet when I had different opinions. In romance, I tried to be easy and straightforward. At work, I took the most cautious route, determined to prove my worth before reaching for more. I did it “the right way”—thoughtful, careful, and safe.

    So everything worked out according to plan, right? Wrong—that is not what happened. Because life never goes “to plan” for any of us.

    Case in point: When a discussion with one of my closest friends ended in a disagreement, I felt a stab in my heart that led to a free fall of tears. It wasn’t the disagreement that hurt but the realization that I wasn’t being my true self with her and that, perhaps, she didn’t accept my true self.

    This brought up feelings of abandonment. Was it safe to have a different opinion? Would I be pushed aside, or could I share what I believed to be true and still be loved?

    I now know the pain I felt after her abandonment wasn’t just about our friendship ending; it was about all the times I’d abandoned myself. The times when I’d chosen someone else’s approval over my own and blamed myself when things didn’t work out instead of accepting that pain is inevitable in life—and it doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong.

    When my dream job went to someone else, I felt the sting of rejection and replayed everything I might have said or done wrong. I thought of all the reasons I wasn’t qualified and didn’t belong. Being such a harsh judge, I could see all the reasons they hadn’t chosen me, but not the reasons I was still worth choosing. Before I knew it, I agreed with their choice.

    I chose to put other people’s feelings first—empathetically considering their perspective without considering my own.

    This realization hit me hard during a therapy session. I was speaking about a time growing up when my family had to suddenly move and how hard this was for everyone, but I struggled to express how hard it was for me, quickly transitioning to the bigger picture.

    I realized then that I needed to slow down and reflect on my own experiences and feelings in order to show myself the same compassion I so easily extended to others. It was no longer one or the other but both, and this wasn’t easy because it meant I had to sit with the pain of being my true self instead of covering it up.

    I’d always blamed myself for everything that had gone wrong in my life because it gave me a sense of control. If I was the problem, I didn’t have to sit with the pain of life’s unpredictability.

    In truth, I hated parts of myself and didn’t know why until recently. The quality I most despised was my insecurity. It led me to over-analyze my choices and compare myself to others instead of celebrating my own accomplishments. For example, when I was invited to teach a class in college, I turned it down, pretending to be sick, because I didn’t believe I was good enough.

    Many of my struggles stemmed from my sensitive and creative nature. I was a sponge, soaking up every detail, seeing things from all perspectives. This gave me the gift to empathize and support others on a deep level, but it also led to overthinking and self-recrimination.

    For example, in my twenties, I stayed in a relationship that didn’t feel right because I was scared and unsure of myself. When it ended badly, I blamed myself for not knowing better instead of recognizing that I couldn’t have known until I learned through experience.

    The inability to love my true, whole self—including my faults and past experiences—was at its core an unwillingness to accept pain. It stunted my growth and led to suffering. It kept me small and stuck in repeating negative cycles of overthinking, comparison, and insecurity.  

    In therapy, in coaching groups, and in my writing, I began sharing the stories I’d once hidden in shame, and my inner hatred slowly disappeared.

    I shared the many times I was confused about my own emotions and struggled to be kind to myself. With time, I began to see my own mistakes from a different lens—as the witness of my younger self rather than the judge. I felt different—like a closed door in my heart opened.

    I was finally able to have compassion for myself when I started seeing myself as deserving of love and allowed to make mistakes—when I allowed myself to be human just like everyone else. I also began to understand that not everything that goes wrong is my fault, and I don’t have to beat myself up just because things don’t go “to plan.”

    My friend shared a metaphor about turning a big rock upside down and how, underneath that rock, you’d find darkness, mud, and bugs scurrying around as they are exposed from their hiding place. That’s exactly what it feels like to me. Every time I share honestly and expose my heart, my fears, and the things I am ashamed of, I am left with the warm sun shining down, and those little pesky bugs disappearing.

    I now know that I deserve love too, even though I am imperfect. I am still worthy—but I have to believe it. It took a lot of tears to get there. A lot of embarrassment and confusion. A lot of willingness and courage.

    Reflecting on this reminded me of my strength and capacity to overcome hardships. Then another powerful realization occurred to me—I am powerful enough to get through any storm, and I wouldn’t trade this particular storm for anything in the world.

    I wouldn’t trade the pain, the hardship, or the dark nights of learning to embrace myself for the perfect plan I originally wanted—because this is what connects our hearts to each other, and that means more to me than anything.

    Recently, I received an email from a reader saying, “Thank you, and keep writing.” I sat in silence and cried.

    I have always dreamed of someone saying that to me, but this time it was different. It was like I truly felt it in my heart. In that moment, I believed my words had value. I believed that I have value. My own heart finally had room for me too.

  • Why You’re Not Happy (Even If Life Looks Fine)

    Why You’re Not Happy (Even If Life Looks Fine)

    Do you sometimes see people running around enjoying life and wonder what you’re missing? Sometimes I used to think I must be a horrible person. I had so many things going for me, and I still couldn’t be happy. I would ask myself, is there something wrong with me? Am I a narcissist?

    Then sometimes I would decide I was just going to be happy. I would fake it until I made it and just accept that’s who I was. But it wouldn’t take long for me to feel overwhelmingly depressed.

    I had a little dark hole that would constantly pull at me, and I didn’t have the energy to keep ignoring it. My attempts to do so just made it scream louder, and then I really was in a mess. This, of course, made me feel worse because it would remind me that I must be crazy.

    As I worked through my healing journey, I discovered there are three key reasons why we can’t just muscle up and be happy. We need to work through these three obstacles to move from just surviving and having moments of happiness to thriving and living a life full of joy and inspiration. To living a life where we love who we are and what we are doing and have hope for the future.

    Life is never perfect, but it sure is a lot more enjoyable and fun when we love, enjoy, and fully experience the present moments we are in.

    So what are these obstacles? And what strategies can you use to work through them?

    1. Validate Past Experiences

    When you don’t fully validate and process painful past experiences, the energy of those experiences gets trapped and contained within your body.

    It takes consistent and continual emotional energy to keep the walls around those experiences high and the energy within contained. The energy and emotion inside are deep and strong, and to keep these feelings away from our consciousness. we can’t allow ourselves to experience any deep or strong feelings, even the good ones.

    Allowing yourself to pull down these walls and grieve all the deep and strong feelings inside will free your emotional energy to feel deep and strong happy feelings too.

    For me, this meant feeling and processing the sexual abuse I endured as a child.

    For years I convinced myself that I was fine and that it happens to almost everyone. I tried to minimize my experience and leave it in the past. The walls I had built to keep all the grief and pain of those experiences out of my conscious daily awareness drained me and prevented me from feeling life in real time. I was guarded, with very shallow access to my feelings.

    No one wants to go back and work through the pain of the past, but I discovered that doing grief work with my therapist allowed me to truly let go of the pain and thrive in the present.

    2. Let Go of the Need for Control

    When you’ve been hurt in the past, it is normal to want to curate a life where you can’t get hurt again. We create a sense of safety by ensuring our life is as predictable as possible. Any time someone in our circle acts in a way that is outside our control, we ensure they “get back in line” so we feel safe.

    For example, if your partner doesn’t immediately return your text, you might get upset and lash out about how disrespectful he is being. If your kids don’t seem to be as concerned about their grades as you think they should be, you might panic and shame them, saying they will be stuck working in fast food restaurants for the rest of their lives. We want everyone to act as we think they “should,” so our world feels nice and safe and predictable.

    Zoom out and look at this scenario… Could it be any more boring? No wonder it’s impossible to feel true joy and happiness. Joy and happiness come from the ability to be spontaneous, light, free, and unpredictable.

    I think a lot of people mistake feeling safe for feeling happy. Being in a constant search for safety keeps us in survival mode. Knowing you are safe with yourself no matter what allows you to move out of survival and into a higher consciousness that brings joy, pleasure… and happiness.

    It is true that many of us have very real pain from the past, and it is perfectly normal to want to protect ourselves from feeling that pain again by attempting to curate a life we can fully control. This is an unconscious decision we make out of self-protection.

    Choose to make the conscious decision to let go of control. Trust that you now have all the resources within yourself to feel safe, no matter what happens. Releasing the need to control will bring you the ability to feel joy, pleasure, and fun again.

    This one was difficult for me and took a long time to integrate. Because of my abusive childhood experiences, I overcompensated for my feelings of worthlessness and lack of safety with a drive for success and perfectionism to try to control how others perceived me.

    If my co-worker wasn’t pulling her weight, I would stay late and work weekends to ensure the work was done, and done well. If my husband wouldn’t spend time with me or plan dates, I would plan dates and put all the reservations in his name so it looked like he was investing in me and our relationship. If my kids were not interested in wearing outfits that I thought would make our family look perfect, I would bribe them with candy so we could look good and put together as a family.

    I thought that making myself and my family look like we had it together meant that we did, and we would therefore be happy. Man, this couldn’t be further from the truth, and it actually drove not just myself but everyone in the family system in the opposite direction.

    No one likes to be manipulated, and even if we can’t exactly identify that’s what is happening, we feel it. Honestly, I had a bit of an identity crisis as I let go of how I wanted life to look and embraced living and feeling life in real time. What I can say is that since I’ve let go of control, life has been full of more peace and joy than I knew possible.

    3. Look for Happiness

    What we look for, we will find. There is a reason we constantly hear people talk about gratitude. When we look for things we’re grateful for, things we enjoy or love, we create more of those things in our lives. We begin to see how much joy and happiness we already have.

    We so often completely overlook the goodness that’s all around us because we are preconditioned to see and experience all the things that are going wrong.

    This third step is caused by not working through the first two. When we haven’t validated our past painful experiences, we look for validation in all our current painful experiences.

    It’s like those experiences keep haunting us until we take the time to turn around and look at them. They cloud our ability to see the happiness we already have all around us. We can’t experience the innocence and joy in our children. Nor can we accept the love and connection our friends want to offer us or appreciate all the amazing things we are doing well at work.

    When we are stuck in the need for control, we look for all future outcomes that will help us to stay safe instead of looking for all the joy and pleasure that is already in our life. We don’t have enough bandwidth to do both, at least not all at once; so, for example, if we spend all our time subconsciously looking for ways someone else might hurt or abandon us, then we don’t have the energy left to look for joy and pleasure in our relationships.

    One day I had to make a choice. I decided I had had enough of being tired, frustrated, and miserable. I knew it would take a while for my circumstances to change, but that didn’t mean I had to stay stuck and feel isolated, frustrated, and lonely.

    I made the hard choice to look for happiness. At first, I would journal things I found happiness in, and over time it became more subconscious than conscious. It also helped to talk about it with a good friend, as we both challenged each other in looking for happiness.

    Sometimes I still struggle. If I haven’t been taking care of myself, this one is the first to slip. I start to slide back into an old pattern of looking for how life is screwing me over. I know that I’m better able to keep my mindset in happiness when I engage in self-care as often as possible.

    If enough is enough and you are ready to move on from feeling like you are just surviving life, implement the following three strategies to overcome the obstacles to joy.

    First, start journaling or processing your feelings about past experiences. It could be a good idea to do this step with a professional, depending on what you have been through.

    Next, start identifying how much control you have over your life and the people around you and see where you can loosen up the reins a little.

    I can almost hear you saying back to me, “But everything will fall apart if I let go!” Let it fall apart. You don’t want a partner and kids who live only to make you satisfied and “happy.” Let life get a little messy. They (and you) will be so much happier if they just get to be themselves, make mistakes, and develop connections out of genuine love and respect… not out of fear of failure or mistakes.

    This last one is pretty simple: start looking for joy. Get curious when you find it hard or upsetting to look for joy. Often, turning things around is simply a choice. Change your subconscious conditioning from looking for what is going wrong to looking for what is going right.

    These three steps will help you attract the people and experiences that will bring you everything you are looking for.

    Before you know it, your past pain will be a distant memory that doesn’t impact your day-to-day life. Instead, you will feel a sense of freedom and joy because you’ll be able to live life in the moment rather than in your head trying to predict outcomes, and because you’ll have reset your pre-conditioning to look for the good in life everywhere you go.

    This is what it takes to be one of “those people” who just seem happy and full of life. Which strategy will you try first?

  • Why Holding Space Is Better Than Gripping for Control

    Why Holding Space Is Better Than Gripping for Control

    “Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to to let go.” ~Unknown

    There’s a story I read to my children, an old piece of African folklore. In the tale, a clever jackal outwits a mighty lion by convincing him that the rock ledge above them is about to collapse. The lion, believing the jackal’s warning, uses all his strength to push up against the rock, holding it in place.

    The jackal promises to return with a branch to support the ledge, but instead, he makes his escape. Hours later, exhausted, the lion finally collapses, throwing his paws over his head in fear—only to realize the rock was never going to fall. It had been holding itself up all along.

    By believing the jackal’s story, the lion not only lost his chance at a meal but also drained himself completely. His muscles trembled, his breath came ragged, his energy was spent. The rock had never needed his strength at all.

    I thought about this story the other day—not while reading to my children, but in a moment of quiet realization. A wave of exhaustion and relief hit me. I could feel the weight dropping from my shoulders, as if I were lowering my own arms from the rock ledge, only just realizing it had never needed my help.

    For years, I have tried to hold up things that were never mine to carry—relationships, outcomes, even the way the world moves. Intellectually, I’ve known for a while that control and perfectionism are two traits I need to release in order to heal and move forward. And yet, the need for control is so deeply ingrained that it slips in sideways, undetected, just when I think I’ve cracked the code.

    Take my writing, for example. It has always been driven by twin needs: first, to express myself, to shape my creativity and voice; but second, to make a difference—to shift the broader story unfolding on the global stage. Underpinning this is the belief that if I work hard enough, craft my words carefully enough, maybe I can influence something bigger than myself.

    But as I pictured the lion straining against the rock, I saw myself in him—struggling to change the world, to make an impact. And just like the rock ledge, the world moves as it always has, with or without my effort. No amount of willpower will shift it.

    At first, this realization felt disheartening. But then I saw it for what it was: an opportunity. A chance to redirect my energy toward what I can control—my own choices, my own growth—rather than exhausting myself trying to push against something that will never move.

    The same is true in my relationships. When I see family or friends struggle, my first impulse is to jump in and fix it for them. If I can’t fix it, I tell them how they should fix it. And when they don’t, I wait impatiently for them to act on my plan.

    Acceptance has always felt like forfeit, like giving in. But real love isn’t about control. It isn’t about making someone else change. If anything, my pushing only gave others something to resist—an excuse to avoid looking inward and making the change themselves.

    Just the other day, my son James banged his head. What followed was typical for him—rather than running to me for comfort like his sisters, he ran away crying, shouting, “Go away!” when I approached. It broke my heart.

    I didn’t listen. I inched closer, swatting away his flailing limbs, trying to soothe, trying to help, trying to fix. But the more I reached for him, the more he recoiled. My love felt like pursuit—like pushing, pulling, prodding. I was trying to make things better when what he needed was for me to simply be there, steady and patient, until he was ready to come back on his own.

    It’s hard to let go. Hard to accept that I can’t protect, guide, and mold everything as a parent, a partner, a daughter, a friend. But even a four-year-old sometimes needs the space to find his own way through. Sometimes, the best—the only—thing I can do is stop pushing and hold the space for him to find himself.

    Surrender is not passivity. Letting go of control doesn’t mean doing nothing—it means shifting my focus inward, toward what I can change: myself, my choices, my own growth. It means holding space for those I love, trusting that they will find their own way.

    The message was driven home again in the quiet of my dreams. I saw a large and beautiful rainbow-colored ring—bold, unconventional, unlike the traditional platinum engagement band. It shimmered with something deeper: a different kind of love, one unconstrained by rigid expectations.

    The next morning, as if to affirm the message, James’ tiny hand slipped into mine in the kitchen. With a delighted giggle, he rolled a bright, multi-colored playdough ring onto my finger.

    I looked at him, at his joy, at his offering. And I understood.

    Love isn’t about clinging, controlling, or shaping something into what we think it should be. Love is flexible. Love is colorful. Love is personal. And sometimes, love simply holds space, waiting patiently for the moment we are ready to return to it.

    This realization carries a tinge of sadness. How many years have I spent striving to move boulders that were never mine to shift?

    But beyond the sadness, there is also joy—deep, unshakable joy—in realizing I am free. Relief in knowing I don’t have to hold up the world, my friends, or my family.

    And peace—at last, within reach—in trusting that life is unfolding exactly as it’s meant to, as I slowly, gently, let go.

  • To the Parent Who’s Stressing About Being Imperfect

    To the Parent Who’s Stressing About Being Imperfect

    “Your greatest contribution to the universe may not be something you do, but someone you raise.” ~Unknown

    Have you ever heard the saying, “Mama knows best” or “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy”? Honestly, who decided that moms should know everything and that the entire emotional balance of the home rests solely on their shoulders? Isn’t Mom a human too? A beautiful soul navigating this life, trying to figure things out just like everyone else? How is it fair that we pile all the pressure onto this one person—the keeper of the schedules, the task doer, the tender space for everyone to fall?

    It’s no wonder the pressure on moms today is sky-high. We carry expectations that are impossible to meet—being nurturing yet productive, selfless yet balanced. And let’s not forget about dads, who often get a bad rap for not doing things “as well as mom.”

    We need to take a step back. Both parents are human. They come into parenting with their own limiting beliefs, inner critics, and childhood wounds. Being a parent doesn’t mean you automatically know what you’re doing.

    I’ll never forget the drive home from the hospital with my first son. I was in the backseat, staring at this tiny human, thinking, “They’re really letting us take him home?”

    It hit me, sitting in that glider in his nursery a few weeks later, that I had no idea what I was doing. I tried reading all the books, hoping the answers were tucked in there somewhere. But even after reading the same chapter of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child at least thirty times, I still felt lost.

    So, I did what felt natural—I called my mom. Surely, she had the answers. But all she said was, “This too shall pass.” At the time, her words made me angry. I didn’t have time for things to pass; I needed solutions. Yet, over the years, I’ve come to realize that she didn’t have all the answers either. None of us do.

    This journey of figuring it out—of reading books, blogs, and consulting my mom—lasted for many years. I wanted so badly to be a good mom. I was a good mom. I loved my kids deeply, left little notes in their lunch boxes, tucked them in at night, and kept them safe with helmets and seatbelts. But as he grew, so did the struggles, and often, so did my fear.

    When my son was in elementary school, he began struggling terribly. At first, I thought maybe he just needed a little extra encouragement. But when he would cry at homework or tear up on our way to school, I knew it was deeper. He would rush through his work just so he could turn in his tests at the same time as the other “smarter” kids. School was overwhelming for him, and it was crushing me to watch.

    Eventually, he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and a wave of conflicting emotions washed over me. I was relieved to know he had support now, but the meetings, the individualized education programs, the tutoring—all of it weighed on me.

    Sitting in those meetings with teachers and specialists, I’d feel a tightness in my chest and tears spilling over. I wanted him to have an easier path, but I was realizing that I couldn’t just “fix” it. I was the mother, the one who was supposed to protect him, but I was helpless in the face of these challenges he would have to navigate on his own. My heart ached for him, and I often felt ashamed of my own emotional unraveling.

    Reflecting back, I see how much of those tears were for him—and for me. I was spread too thin. Work was overwhelming, my marriage was strained, and I had little left to give. My life felt like a juggling act, and each new challenge threatened to tip the balance. The layers of fear, responsibility, and love were always there, piling up, and I felt the weight of every single one.

    And then came the teenage years. Those years where the stakes felt higher, where choices carried more weight, and where my fear around his decisions—who he spent time with, the roads he might choose—grew even stronger.

    I remember one day, standing in the garage in an argument with him. The tension was thick, and we were both yelling—my fear bursting out as anger. I don’t even remember what we were arguing about; it’s a blur. But the shame and guilt afterward were so clear.

    The truth is, every stage of my son’s life brought forward a new version of myself—a woman, a mother, learning as she went, trying her best to balance it all. My own fear of failure, of not being enough, would surface in unexpected ways. But somewhere along the journey, I realized that my fears and my need for control were driving a wedge between us. And the more I tried to grip tightly, the more I lost sight of the tender love and wonder I wanted to bring into our relationship.

    So, I started working on myself. I went to therapy and hired a coach—not because I was broken, but because I knew I wasn’t showing up as the parent, or the person, I wanted to be.

    Through my healing journey, I learned that my desire to control was rooted in fear—a fear that if I didn’t do everything perfectly, he would somehow slip through the cracks. I feared for his future, that he’d face pain or hardship. But as I began to peel back those layers, I started to see that my fear wasn’t protecting him; it was keeping me from fully loving and trusting him.

    As I did this inner work, something shifted. My approach softened. I wasn’t as reactive or rigid. I found that I could set boundaries from a place of love instead of fear, listen without rushing to fix, and let him make his own choices.

    I became less focused on making sure everything was perfect and more focused on simply being there. I was less afraid, more open—and, truth be told, I began to enjoy life more. I found joy in the little things again, the mundane moments I used to take for granted. And he noticed.

    My children began to see me differently. They told me I was more patient, kinder, and even more fun. This loop of healing—me working on myself, allowing my own growth to ripple into how I showed up for them—created a connection that only grew stronger. The more I invested in myself, the more balanced I felt, and the deeper my love for them became.

    So, what about that old saying, “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy”? Perhaps instead we should say, “No one is happy all the time, but if mom is struggling, she needs time and space to address her own issues, and everyone in the house will benefit.” The same goes for Dad. If he’s checked out, he needs to come back to this one life we’re given. Both parents need to heal, grow, and show up for themselves so they can be there fully for their kids.

    Just like the thermostat in your home, if things are too hot or too cold, you adjust it to find comfort. The same goes for parenting. When we take the time to work on ourselves, we create the right environment—not perfect, but balanced and loving—for our children to thrive.

    It’s never too late to start. Let’s embark on this healing journey together so we can show up as the best parents we can be—not because we have all the answers, but because we’re willing to do the work, grow, and love along the way.

  • The Art of Being Flawed in a Perfectionist World

    The Art of Being Flawed in a Perfectionist World

    “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” ~Vince Lombardi

    Okay, let’s be real for a second. As I sit here trying to write this perfect essay about embracing imperfection, the irony isn’t lost on me. I’ve rewritten this opening paragraph about five times now. Old habits die hard, right?

    Picture this: It’s 2:37 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon. I’m pacing the lecture hall, watching my law students furiously scribbling away at their exam papers. Their furrowed brows and white-knuckle grips on their pens remind me of, well, me, not too long ago.

    Flashback to my own law school days. There I was, the quintessential overachiever. Nose perpetually buried in a casebook, surviving on a diet of coffee and sheer determination. Perfect grades, perfect internships, perfect career trajectory—these weren’t just goals, they were my entire identity. The pressure I put on myself was so intense, I’m surprised my hair didn’t turn gray by graduation. (Spoiler alert: It’s starting to now, but I digress.)

    Fast-forward to my transition from practicing law to teaching it. I thought I had it all figured out. Professor Kalyani Abhyankar, the flawless legal mind, here to shape the next generation of lawyers. Ha! If only I knew what I was in for.

    It was during one particularly “memorable” lecture that my perfectionist facade began to crack. I had spent hours preparing what I thought was a flawless presentation on constitutional law. I was on fire, if I do say so myself, rattling off case citations like a human legal database. And then it happened. I mixed up two landmark cases.

    The horror! The shame! In that moment, I swear I could hear the ghost of Justice Brandeis weeping. I stood there, frozen at the podium, waiting for the ground to swallow me whole.

    But then something unexpected happened. A student raised her hand and asked, “Professor Abhyankar, are you okay?”

    And just like that, the dam broke. All my insecurities came flooding out in front of my class. My fear of not being good enough, the crushing weight of always needing to be perfect, the anxiety that one mistake would unravel my entire career.

    To my utter shock, instead of judgment, I was met with… understanding? Empathy, even? One of my students actually said, “Wow, Prof. We always thought you were this untouchable legal genius. But this… this makes you human. It’s kind of inspiring, actually.”

    Inspiring? Me? The one having a meltdown in front of her class? But as I looked around the room, I saw nodding heads and relieved faces. It was as if by showing my own vulnerability, I had given them permission to be imperfect too.

    This was the beginning of my messy, often frustrating, but ultimately liberating journey toward embracing imperfection. And let me tell you, it wasn’t a smooth ride.

    At first, I tried to schedule “imperfection time” into my day. Yes, you read that right. I, Kalyani Abhyankar, recovering perfectionist, tried to perfect the art of being imperfect. The irony is not lost on me, I assure you.

    There were setbacks galore. I’d resolve to be more laid-back in class, only to find myself obsessively color-coding my lecture notes at 2 AM. I’d promise myself I wouldn’t overthink my students’ questions, then spend hours agonizing over whether my off-the-cuff answer about tort law was comprehensive enough.

    But slowly, oh so slowly, things began to shift. I started to pay attention to my classroom with new eyes. I noticed how the most engaging discussions often arose from questions I couldn’t answer right away. I saw how students learned more from working through mistakes than from memorizing perfect responses.

    Here are some of the changes I stumbled my way through:

    1. Practicing self-compassion

    Instead of berating myself for every perceived failure, I tried to treat myself with the same kindness I’d offer a struggling student. This meant acknowledging my efforts, regardless of the outcome. And yes, sometimes it meant looking in the mirror and saying, “You’re doing okay, Kalyani,” even when I felt like a total impostor.

    2. Setting realistic goals

    Rather than aiming for an impossible standard of perfection, I learned to set challenging but achievable goals. This allowed me to celebrate progress and maintain motivation. Novel concept, right?

    3. Embracing the learning process

    I started to view mistakes—both mine and my students’—not as failures but as valuable teaching moments. Each setback became an opportunity to deepen understanding and foster critical thinking. Who knew that “I don’t know, let’s figure it out together” could be such powerful words in a classroom?

    4. Cultivating a growth mindset

    Instead of seeing legal aptitude as fixed, I began to emphasize to my students (and myself) the capacity to develop skills through effort and practice. This made us all more willing to tackle challenging legal problems, even if we didn’t always get it right the first time.

    5. Letting go of comparison

    I realized that constantly measuring myself against other professors or legal scholars was about as productive as trying to teach constitutional law to my cat. Instead, I focused on my unique strengths as an educator and mentor.

    Now, don’t get me wrong. I still have days where my inner perfectionist rears its meticulously groomed head. I still occasionally find myself up at midnight, agonizing over a single word choice in my lecture notes. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and recovering perfectionists aren’t cured overnight.

    But here’s the kicker: As I’ve learned to embrace my imperfections, I’ve actually become a better professor. Free from the paralysis of perfectionism, I’m more creative in my teaching methods, more willing to tackle controversial legal topics, and more open to feedback from students and colleagues.

    My students seem to prefer this new, slightly messier version of Professor Abhyankar. They’re more engaged, more willing to take risks in their thinking, and—dare I say it—they seem to be having more fun. Who knew that constitutional law could actually be enjoyable?

    To those still caught in the grip of perfectionism, whether in law school, legal practice, or any other field, I offer this hard-won wisdom: Your worth is not determined by flawless performance. There is profound strength in vulnerability, in admitting that you’re still learning and growing.

    Embrace your imperfections. They’re not weaknesses to be hidden but unique aspects of who you are as a professional and human being. Let go of the exhausting chase for perfection and instead, chase growth and authenticity.

    In doing so, you may find that you achieve things far greater than perfection—you achieve a life that is fully and beautifully lived. And if you happen to mix up a few Supreme Court cases along the way? Well, you’re in good company.

  • The Perspective Shift That Helped Me Overcome My Perfectionism

    The Perspective Shift That Helped Me Overcome My Perfectionism

    “Perfectionism is the exhausting state of pretending to know it all and have it all together, all the time. I’d rather be a happy mess than an anxious stress case who’s always trying to hide my flaws and mistakes.” ~Lori Deschene

    When I got my start as a math teacher, it was 2012, and I had not been in a classroom in over ten years. I really wasn’t sure how teaching got done anymore.

    I came into my first class with a piece of paper and many examples to share. I got up and started writing the examples on the board for my students. When I looked at the board after my lesson, what stood out to me was that my handwriting was sloppy. It looked like a third grader wrote it.

    I also noticed that many students laughed during my lessons, so, determined to find the cause of the laughter, I started to look at other teachers to see if I could come up with any ideas to improve my lessons.

    What stood out to me is that almost every teacher in the school was using some kind of multimedia display, and I was just writing with a marker. So, at that point, I decided to make a change to create all my lessons on multimedia.

    I spent considerable time and effort typing the examples before my lessons so I would not have to display my messy handwriting for all to see. I was very proud about how clear and easily readable my multimedia presentations were.

    Three years passed, and I was at a new job. About a month went by, and I was sure that I was impressing everyone with my beautiful multimedia lessons. But one day my manager brought me in and said that there was overwhelming consensus amongst my students and their families that I should handwrite my examples.

    Upon hearing this, my heart sank. In my mind, I was “tech savvy” and in control when I taught. With this new mandate, I was going to become the low-tech teacher who wrote like a third grader and had black marker ink all over his hands.

    During this time, I could not sleep very well. I also spent time searching online to see if there were other non-teaching jobs that I was qualified for. I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind of that whiteboard from 2012. I could just see how sloppy it looked, and I could hear the laughter of those students.

    As I started to make the requested changes to my teaching, not only was I uncomfortable, but I didn’t believe my students would want to learn from someone who had such sloppy handwriting. As time went on, I began to realize that handwriting the calculations made me much more nervous than just displaying them. I very often made mistakes and then had to erase and fix them.

    After a few weeks’ time, a light bulb went off inside me. If I, the experienced and degreed teacher, got nervous and made mistakes during my teaching, then how much more likely would it be that my students would make the same mistakes?

    I decided to change the tone of my teaching to not just handwrite the examples but to also explain my thinking process. I could tell the students exactly where they were likely to make errors during their work. Since I was working through problems and making myself vulnerable in the same way my students were expected to, we all had more of a common connection.

    My overall confidence as an instructor rose. I became more authoritative as a teacher. I wasn’t just the reader of the lesson; I was the author. Students didn’t ask anymore how our books define concepts; they asked me directly how I defined them.

    Today, nearly twelve years later, I still handwrite my examples live in the room with my students. At the end of a recent lesson, I looked at the board. My handwriting is still rather sloppy, but I just don’t pay attention to that anymore. Instead, I see effort, thought, expertise, and willingness to put myself in the shoes of my students.

    At the beginning of my teaching career, I was so fixated on one of my bad qualities that I went to great efforts to try to hide it. In turn, that blinded me to a multitude of other good qualities.

    How many relationships and marriages end because the only thing we can see in our partner is their ‘sloppy handwriting’? How much depression is there in this world because when we think about ourselves, the only thing we see is some bad quality?

    In truth, if we took the time to catalog a list of our good qualities, we’d likely see they far outweigh the bad. So often we just can’t see these qualities because we tend to focus exclusively on our negative qualities and our mistakes. We think that is all that we are. We want to destroy our bad qualities in the same way I almost destroyed my teaching career by quitting it.

    I recommend taking a small piece of paper and writing down all your good qualities and the good things that you do. Carry this paper with you everywhere you go. Take time throughout the day to read this list and add to it. Any time you think of or worry about one of your negative qualities, bring the list out. You will soon find that the truth is easier to see.

    Our list of bad qualities is a short list. Our list of good qualities is a long list. With some training, we can learn to recognize when we are focusing exclusively on the short list. Then we can change our focus to the long list. When we get this true and properly balanced picture of our lives, they flow much more smoothly.

    When we don’t focus on or worry about the bad qualities on our short list, we are free to reinvent them for our own purposes.

    On one occasion, I was working with a group of students, and one student was picking on another about his bad handwriting. I ran over to stop this potential bullying. I observed his handwriting, and it was true this student had lousy handwriting. Without any forethought, I said, “Well, doctors are known for having bad handwriting, so it’s really a sign of intelligence.”

    That student really appreciated my insight. Then I looked at him and said, “See, we both have something in common. We write like doctors.”

    It’s very possible to take things from our short list of bad qualities and move them to our long list of good qualities. Sometimes we just need a different way of looking at things.

  • The Consequences of Perfectionism and How to Embrace Life’s Messiness

    The Consequences of Perfectionism and How to Embrace Life’s Messiness

    “Perfectionism doesn’t make you feel perfect. It makes you feel inadequate.” ~Maria Shriver

    My name is Steffi, and I am a recovering perfectionist. This might come as a surprise to those who know me because I don´t fit the stereotype. The inside of my bag is as messy as my hair, and I always give off the impression that I left the house five minutes too late (which is usually true). My wardrobe is not color-coordinated, and I haven’t organized a flawless birthday party yet.

    It also goes against how I have always seen myself. My greatest life skill is my ability to freestyle—to think on my feet and go with the flow. Because it goes against everything I believed about myself, it took me a long time to recognize and accept my perfectionism.

    And yet, in the areas that I truly care about, I hold myself to the highest standards. I become rigid and controlling. I feel no joy or flow, just a crippling pressure to be perfect.

    In my work, I am always analyzing where I need to do better. I constantly wonder whether I am a good enough partner, friend, and family member (and the answer is usually no). And I really want to live a sustainable life and feel guilty when I am not meeting my own standards.

    Even in the areas where I seem to have embraced my own messiness, I kind of wish it was different. I judge the inside of my bag and my mediocre event planning skills. I feel judgment about all the parts of my life that don´t feel perfectly put together.

    To my great frustration, my perfectionism has the opposite of the desired effect: I become worse at what I do. I am no longer able to be flexible, experimental, and curious. I notice that when my perfectionist tendencies are at their strongest, my creativity doesn’t flow, and I can’t show up in my relationships the way I want to.

    When my perfectionism feels extra strong, I self-sabotage by just not showing up at all. I choose the disappointment of what could have been over the potential pain of being confronted with my own shortcomings.

    The difference between healthy self-reflection and perfectionism feels very clear to me. When my perfectionist tendencies show up, my body becomes tense, my breathing shallow, and my thoughts scattered. I want to immediately go and fix things and drop whatever else I was doing in that moment.

    Perfectionism can be seen as a positive force for improvement and progress, but it does not come from a positive place. It is a fear-based approach, and underneath it lies a fear that if we are not perfect at what we set out to do, we are not good enough. And because we set the standards impossibly high for ourselves, we will probably not live up to them.

    Underneath it lies a fear of criticism, not just from others but mostly from ourselves. When someone finds fault in what we do, that is the confirmation of what we feared all along: that we simply are not good enough at what we care about the most.

    While, for some people, perfectionism brings them great success in their career, it often comes with a high cost. It can lead to frustration, exhaustion, and burnout. The intense pressure we put on ourselves can rob us of our joy and peace.

    When the pressure gets really intense, it can even lead to procrastination. As we are convinced that we can never live up to the standards we put on ourselves, we stop trying altogether. This way, we avoid criticism from ourselves and others, but it also robs us of the chance of achieving something meaningful.

    Perfectionism is, in essence, the fear of not being good enough. We believe that if only we are perfect in that area, we will finally be worthy of good things: a successful career, money, love from other people, or health and well-being. We subconsciously believe that by giving it our all, we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from the pain of feeling that we are falling short.

    The problem is that, eventually, we do fall short. Because perfectionism means we have set standards for ourselves that we can´t always fulfill. Life and other people and their opinions are simply not always within our control.

    The irony is that perfectionism not only can’t stop us from falling short, but it can also encourage it. Oftentimes, we become so critical of ourselves that we don´t even try, or when we do, it stops us from fully showing up.

    While my perfectionism pops up from time to time, I now know how to recognize it and stop myself from spiraling. I focus on calming my mind and body and making space for the joy and messiness of life. If you recognize this feeling of your perfectionism running the show, here are some things you can do.

    1. Learn to recognize your own critical voice.

    What are the areas of life that you feel most protective of? What are the fears and doubts that come up when you think about those areas of life? What do you believe it says about you when you don´t live up to your standards?

    You can even go back and see if you can remember when you first heard that critical voice. Does it sound like your own, or like the voice of a teacher, parent, or someone else you know?

    Reflecting on what your critical voice sounds like and becoming familiar with it will give you insight into where it comes from. It also helps you recognize your perfectionism when it comes up in your day-to-day life.

    2. When your perfectionism shows up, pause and take a deep breath.

    This might feel counterintuitive, as your perfectionism probably wants to propel you into action. It can be very tempting to follow the voice and fix what you feel needs fixing. But this only supports your perfectionism.

    Focusing on your breath gets you out of your head and your critical thoughts, even if it is just for a moment. It then gives you a choice: Do you want to act from a place of fear or move forward with more kindness toward yourself?

    3. Notice the sensations in your body and make loving space for them.

    When you have taken a moment to breathe, see if you can notice your physical sensations.

    Perfectionism means your nervous system feels activated, so where do you notice that in your body? Where do you feel tension or contraction?

    Give yourself the space to really experience what you are feeling. It does not need to go away or be any different. Make loving space for your experience. Just breathe and feel.

    As you breathe into the tension, you might feel emotions coming up. Just let them flow. With some loving attention, you will probably feel the tension dissolve, even if it is just a little.

    Your perfectionism is a form of self-protection. It is there to keep you safe from pain, disappointment, and rejection. By giving the experience your gentle care, you are giving it the opposite from the criticism it usually receives.

    4. Implement a calming practice.

    Perfectionism is fear-based, which means you are no longer looking at your situation from a neutral perspective. Calming your nervous system helps you open up to a new perspective, as your mind feels calmer when your body is relaxed.

    It is really helpful to find out what feels calming to you. It could be humming, taking deep breaths, practicing gentle movement, or looking at the clouds. For me personally, it is walking barefoot, feeling soft fabrics around my body, and hearing the sound of the ocean.

    Finding your own calm resources means you will always be able to access them. Over time, this will help you feel triggered for shorter periods of time, and it will be less intense.

    5. Allow yourself to be a little messy.

    Make the conscious choice to be a little messy in the areas that you feel most perfectionist about. Life is a little messy, and so are we. When you choose your messy moments, you become more equipped to handle them when they inevitably happen.

    Now, I am not saying “let everything go and be messy.” Instead, I encourage you to choose flexibility where before you felt rigid. It is like you are gently stretching your resilience for messiness.

    That could mean leaving the laundry for the next day, buying a birthday cake rather than making one, or allowing your unfinished art projects to be seen by your loved ones. Maybe it means giving yourself a day to eat unhealthy food, starting a new hobby that you have no talent for, or freestyling a presentation at work.

    6. Connect with your joy.

    Perfectionism and fear are the opposites of joy. Finding a little bit of joy in the areas you feel perfectionist about changes the narrative that you have about those areas. It can be incredibly liberating to invite in joy where you previously just felt pressure.

    So, whether your source of pressure is parenting, cooking, cleaning, your work, or all of the above, see where you can be a little creative. Try out a new recipe, make cleaning more fun with music, or go crazy with the decorations at the event you are organizing. Do a course that you enjoy, give yourself space to experiment at work, or take your kids to a theme park that you love.

  • 6 Mindset Shifts to Overcome the Need for External Validation

    6 Mindset Shifts to Overcome the Need for External Validation

    “Relying on external validation to understand your worth is not sustainable. If you depend on people to build you up, you also give them the same power to break you down. You are worthy regardless of their opinion.” ~Unknown

    In my heart of hearts, I knew I wasn’t supposed to rely on others for validation. Yet, for the longest time, I found myself seeking external approval to define my worth.

    I was constantly seeking reassurance from friends, family, and even strangers. Their validation became the measure of my self-esteem, leaving me trapped in a cycle of doubt and insecurity.

    I had several achievements under my belt, yet the accolades and praise never felt quite enough. The need for external validation consumed me, overshadowing my own sense of accomplishment and robbing me of genuine pride in my achievements.

    It seemed like I had the best job and everyone admired my success. Despite the external validation pouring in, there was an emptiness within me, a hollowness that reminded me I was seeking validation in all the wrong places.

    I had a nagging feeling that something was amiss.

    But was it the right thing? Is doing anything in life out of a desperate need for validation truly fulfilling?

    Interestingly enough, not only did I know I didn’t want to rely on external validation, but deep down, I also knew that those who constantly sought validation were often less fulfilled.

    I was one of those individuals who would sacrifice their own desires to gain the approval and validation of others. It became clear that this dependence on external validation was holding me back from true self-acceptance and happiness.

    So why did I continue down this path? Why did I keep seeking validation from others when I knew deep down it wasn’t serving me? And most importantly, how can one overcome this toxic need?

    Before I get to the mindsets required to overcome the need for external validation, let’s talk about the mindsets that will almost certainly lead to a dependence on external validation.

    See, it’s often better to figure out what to avoid first instead of trying to navigate through a maze blindly. I know, because these are all mistakes I’ve made myself.

    Mindsets That Lead to a Dependence on External Validation

    1. The Pursuit of Perfection

    For the longest time, I couldn’t escape the allure of perfection. I always had to strive for flawlessness, believing it was the key to validation. But the truth is that perfection is an illusion. It sets an unrealistic standard and creates an insatiable need for external validation.

    We develop a flawless mindset because we’re driven by the fear of being judged or rejected. However, it hinders self-acceptance and prevents us from embracing our authentic selves.

    2. Fear of Failure 

    Fearing failure is closely linked with seeking external validation. That’s the trap we fall into—we perceive failure as a reflection of our worthiness. We think that just because we’ve stumbled, we are somehow lesser. We don’t recognize that we can learn and grow from failure because we’re too afraid of what other people will think.

    3. Comparison Trap

    Seeking validation in comparison leads to a never-ending cycle of frustration. For me, it was having an incessant need to be better than others. For others, it’s simply being acknowledged as equal. Some might siphon validation through getting more social media likes or job promotions than their peers. Whenever we seek validation through comparisons, it tends to be a trap.

    4. Seeking Approval from Everyone

    Even though I didn’t always love being a people-pleaser, seeking approval from everyone and sacrificing my own needs and desires became ingrained in my identity. Then, when the realization hit, I found myself having to build a new life based on my own values and aspirations. Had I established an identity of wholeness rather than seeking universal approval, I wouldn’t have fallen into the trap of constantly trying to please everyone.

    5. External Validation as a Measure of Self-Worth 

    You should get that promotion, those accolades, and the approval of others. Living on external validation is the only way to measure your self-worth, right? You should have a constant stream of praise to feel good about yourself.

    But you shouldn’t. You know the tropes, but here’s the truth: External validation can never truly define your worth. And you’re the only one who can recognize and embrace your inherent value beyond others’ opinions.

    6. Neglecting Inner Reflection

    I was caught up in seeking external validation for so long because I didn’t know who I was. But in the wake of countless disappointments, I completely gave up on that approach.

    For months, I quit searching for approval and turned inward. I got more and more in touch with my values, my passions, and my true self. It’s only through putting ourselves first and nurturing self-awareness that we can cultivate a strong foundation of self-validation.

    So, what mindset can help you overcome the need for external validation?

    I can’t give you any definitive answers because I don’t know you. I’m not a psychology or mental health expert. I’m just a guy who’s tried, failed, lived, failed, and done it all over again.

    So, just like I’ve given you insights about what not to do based on my personal experience, I’m going to give you some insights based on the way I’m living my life now.

    1. Embracing Imperfections

    Every experience I have now is an opportunity for growth. I do my best not to strive for perfection but rather to embrace imperfections as part of being human. I don’t feel sour about my flaws; instead, I see them as stepping stones to becoming a better version of myself.

    I try to look at outcomes as lessons rather than measures of my worth. Instead of using external validation as a benchmark, I’ve become more focused on self-acceptance and personal growth.

    You can’t experience true growth without embracing imperfections. They operate on different ends of the same spectrum and wavelength, shaping us into resilient individuals. If you try to avoid imperfections, you deny yourself the opportunity to learn, evolve, and ultimately become your authentic self.

    2. Self-Defined Success

    This doesn’t mean I don’t care about the opinions of others; I do. But I’m not going to construct an identity around their validation. I’m focused on living a life that aligns with my values and aspirations.

    I’m more than welcome to let people into that experience, and of course, their support and encouragement are valuable. But I’m no longer going to chase external validation or base my self-worth on it. And I’m not going to analyze every comment or reaction as though they’re saying something about who I am. The goal is to be true to myself, define my own success, and find fulfillment from within.

    3. Authenticity and Vulnerability

    I feel no pressure to present a curated version of myself for validation. I could easily mold my image to fit societal expectations, but it just doesn’t matter. I don’t go on a quest for likes and approval. I just do me, unapologetically.

    This isn’t just a mindset I’m using for personal gain; it’s about living authentically. I’m now embracing authenticity and vulnerability as strengths and prioritizing self-expression over seeking validation from others. It’s a path of courage, growth, meaningful connections, resilience, and living with integrity.

    4. Internal Validation Practice

    I learned how to validate myself—who I am, what I enjoy, and my values—because I realized that seeking validation from others was an endless pursuit, and I could never control how others perceived me. I also took time to acknowledge and celebrate my own accomplishments. I took the approach that everything in my life, both big and small, deserved recognition.

    Moving forward, my attitude shifted toward self-appreciation and recognizing my worthiness independent of external validation. This is a never-ending process, but it’s also the most useful process for self-empowerment, self-compassion, intrinsic motivation, balanced self-perception, and authentic self-acceptance.

    5. Constructive Self-Talk

    I’ve had moments of insincerity when I’ve portrayed a persona that doesn’t align with my true self, leading to a feeling of dissonance and self-deception. I’ve also spent a lot of time criticizing myself, doubting my worth and capabilities, without realizing I was viewing myself through a distorted lens.

    Moving forward, I’ve decided I’m going to be honest about who I am. No more pretending to be someone I’m not. And I’ll no longer lie to myself about my worth.

    That’s the hardest part: replacing self-criticism with self-compassion and encouragement. However, fostering a mindset of positive and constructive self-talk is essential for nurturing self-esteem and self-acceptance.

    6. Embracing Supportive Relationships

    The irony is that we often hide who we really are so other people will validate our worth—but how can they if they don’t truly know us? We might also try hard to seek validation from people who are unable or unwilling to give it.

    None of us can do life alone. But instead of changing to please others or fighting for approval from the wrong people, we all need to surround ourselves with supportive and uplifting individuals who value and appreciate us for who we are.

    —

    So, what should you do with these pieces of advice?

    I suggest you analyze them. Discard the ones that don’t resonate with you and keep the ones that do.

    The important thing is that you see what mindsets are guiding your life and release the ones that aren’t serving you so you can be free and present, not controlled by other people’s opinions and the endless pursuit of validation.

  • A Mindfulness Technique to Overcome Perfectionism and Step into Self-Love

    A Mindfulness Technique to Overcome Perfectionism and Step into Self-Love

    “When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we are not pretending, we are not hiding—we are simply present with whatever is going on inside us. Ironically, it is this very feeling of authenticity that draws people to us, not the brittle effort of perfectionism.” ~Maureen Cooper

    Most of my life I have been really good at following the have-tos and oughts of perfectionism.

    I have to keep the house clean. What will the company think?

    I ought to be pleasant and pleasing. Stop being stubborn. Worse yet, stop being angry.

    I should not have told that long story to my coworker. They looked bored. Oh, yes, they were probably bored.

    Doing what I thought other people wanted and doing it in just the right way was my attempt to use perfectionism to belong.

    We all want to belong, and some of us, myself included, learned that belonging comes with strings attached. If I could control those “strings,” then I wouldn’t have to feel rejected and judged. Perfectionism was a way of exercising that control.

    The intense need to meet my too high expectations filtered into every area of my life: relationships, academics, body image.

    I remember from an early age becoming obsessed with getting straight A’s in school. Anything less than a 100% was not good enough. Anything below an A- was a moral failing.

    I worked out until my BMI was low enough to still be considered “healthy” because I wanted to be pretty enough for other people.

    All the perfectionism in my life was a way to protect myself against the inevitability of being judged. Of being seen as someone less than, flawed, failing—human.

    And if I wasn’t judged, then I might be liked? Accepted? Maybe even loved? Even if I didn’t like, accept, or love myself.

    Perfectionism, at its core, is a drive toward accomplishment, characterized by an internal pressure to avoid harsh criticism and failure.

    The problem with this way of thinking is that you can’t control other people. No matter how perfect you try to be, someone will judge you. You will fail. No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to maintain the facade of perfection.

    Perfectionism is the armor I have worn through my life to protect myself from what is underneath the judgment and criticism. Perfectionism protects me from the fear that I am not good enough. If I am not good enough, then I am not worthy of belonging.

    I desperately wanted to be loved, but in trying, I stopped loving myself.

    From small details, like what to wear to a party, to big problems, like the realities (and conflicts) of an authentic and healthy relationship, my high expectations made it impossible for me to relax into who I am.

    I was constantly beating myself up. I didn’t wear the right outfit. I look too dressed up/not dressed up enough.

    I was constantly biting my tongue, hesitating to share bits of myself. What will he think? That part of my personality is too weird, too different, too messy to be valued?

    My life was a constant struggle to meet unattainable ideals. The maintenance of which was stressful, all consuming, and riddled with anxiety. Furthermore, no matter how hard I tried, I still didn’t feel like I belonged.

    It was not until I decided that my relationship to myself was the problem that I started to see changes.

    If I wanted to feel connected to other people, belong to a community, a friendship, a partnership, I had to let go of being perfect.

    I had to let people see me authentically, and I had to be willing to let go of the too high expectations that were keeping me from being myself.

    To help me let go of perfectionism, I started practicing the art of mindful self-compassion.

    The tenants of mindful self-compassion are based off of the work of mindfulness teacher Tara Brach. To explain mindful self-compassion, she coined the term RAIN.

    RAIN stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.

    Recognize and allow your perfectionism to be what it is.

    Based on RAIN, the first two steps of mindful self-compassion are the basis of any mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing non-judgmental awareness to your present moment experience.

    In other words, you first recognize or bring awareness to your lived experience in the now and then you allow, without judgment, that experience of thoughts and feelings to flow through you.

    When it comes to perfectionism, this means recognizing the need to worry over, hustle through, force, or avoid a particular way of being. It also means allowing those same feelings and thoughts to exist without trying to change them and without trying to act on them.

    For example, if I notice I am feeling the need to write and rewrite, edit and re-edit this essay because isn’t “good enough,” then instead of continuing on the track of perfectionist behavior, I can recognize that I am feeling worried and allow those feelings to exist without doing anything to change them.

    Investigate the deeper why.

    The next step of the RAIN mindfulness technique is investigate. Investigating and the last step of nurture are the two aspects of this technique that have helped me see the biggest changes in my own habit of perfectionism.

    Investigating means you dig a little deeper. You ask yourself, why are these feelings and thoughts here? What is actually at the heart of my need to control?

    Investigating requires you to be vulnerable with yourself. Are you worried about failing? Do you think that if you let go of control people won’t like you?

    In what ways are your perfectionist tendencies guarding your heart?

    If we go back to my writing example, the reason why I am trying to perfect the outcome of this essay is because deep down I really, really want you, dear reader, to like it. If you like it, then that means that I am a “good” writer, and I so desperately want to be a good writer.

    By investigating my feelings around perfectionism, I get to the real reason for my actions, which is that I want to be accepted. I want to be liked. I want to belong.

    Which brings me to the last component of RAIN, nurture.

    Nurture the feelings and thoughts behind the perfectionism.

    The last step of RAIN, nurture, asks you to take all of your feelings and care for them. How can you give love to the person you are today who is worried about being good enough and worried about belonging?

    Maybe this looks like reaffirming you are good enough and that everyone feels like you feel right now from time to time.

    Maybe this looks like journaling about your feelings or talking it out with a good friend.

    Maybe this looks like giving yourself a hug, taking a warm shower, or doing some breath work, then going back to the task when you feel ready.

    Ultimately, nurturing what is underneath the perfectionism means giving yourself a bit of a break. You don’t have to do everything just the right way for it to be enough.

    For me, in the context of perfectionism related to publishing this essay, I would take a break, go for a walk, and remind myself that 80% is good enough.

    Overall, RAIN is an incredible mindfulness technique for letting go of perfectionism.

    By using this technique, perfectionism is less at the forefront of my life. RAIN helps me let go of the big feelings and thoughts associated with perfectionism and tend to the underlying beliefs and assumptions I have about myself that contribute to it.

    Ultimately, I have learned that I don’t have to be perfect to be loved and that being imperfect still makes me worthy of belonging. The RAIN technique helps me see that I am good enough for others and, most importantly, I am good enough for myself.

  • 5 Ways to Heal from a Highly Critical, Controlling Parent

    5 Ways to Heal from a Highly Critical, Controlling Parent

    “You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ~Louise Hay

    When I was growing up, it felt like nothing was good enough for my dad. And all I longed for was his acceptance and love.

    He had this temper that would blow up, and he’d blame me for how he felt. He would outright tell me his behavior was my fault. That if I’d behaved better, he wouldn’t have had an outburst.

    When he told me I wasn’t enough or worthy, I believed him. I was constantly walking on eggshells around him, trying to not annoy him, as his angry words would really hurt.

    The confusing thing about my dad was that he wasn’t like this all the time. Sometimes he was loving, affectionate, and warm, and then in a moment he would switch to cold, controlling, and cruel.

    As a child, I believed to my core that I was the problem. The only way I thought I could keep myself safe was to try and please him and be the perfect daughter.

    I became obsessed with achievement. It started first with my grades and school, and then it was getting the job he wanted me to have. Because sometimes an achievement would get me a crumb of love from him. I would push myself as a child, forsaking rest and hydration at times, so he would see how hard I’d worked.

    But it was never enough for him. He would lose his temper on the one day that I was taking a break, telling me that I would never amount to anything.

    He would even tell other people how awful his family was when he was drunk. It was beyond humiliating.

    Now, at forty-one, these memories with my dad are in the past, but they still haunt me. He has since passed—he took his life fifteen years ago. Turns out my dad wasn’t okay and was struggling with the impact of his own childhood trauma.

    But rather than seeking help, he took it out on his family and himself through addiction and, ultimately, his suicide.

    His controlling, critical voice still lives in my subconscious mind. It’s his voice that tells me to work harder or that I am not good enough, or questions, “Who do you think you are?”

    Even though I consciously know now, as a trauma transformation coach, that his behavior was due to his pain and his words were not the truth, the younger parts of me still believe him. Because those younger parts still feel blamed, shamed, and not enough.

    After his passing, I found myself in relationships where others would criticize, control, and deny my reality, and found myself powerless again, just as I’d felt as a little girl.

    But by investing in various safe spaces, like support groups, therapy, and coaching, I have been able to step away from these relationships or maintain boundaries so that my younger self is no longer triggered by the pain of the past. This has created space for kinder, more loving relationships to come in.

    However, more recently I noticed that even though I’d stepped away from toxic relationships, I had become him to myself. I would speak to myself critically and put myself down. Nothing was good enough, and I would push myself to achieve at any cost, going through cycles of overworking and burnout.

    I would push myself to have the ‘perfect body’ with extreme exercise and diet. But then my inner rebel would push back and sabotage the diet and my health through emotional eating.

    Constantly pushing myself to be better, I realized, unconsciously, I was still chasing his love. His acceptance even though he wasn’t here.

    I had become the controlling critical parent to myself. It was time for me to become the parent I’d longed for and not the parent I’d had.

    Here are the five practices that are helping me to heal from my controlling, critical parent—practices that could help you too.

    1. I ask myself: Am I being kind to myself?

    I have created a pattern interrupter by asking myself, at least three times a day, if I am being kind to myself and, if not, how I can be. I notice my behaviors and inner dialogue and explore how I can shift into kindness.

    For example, if I don’t sleep well, is it kind to push myself with a cardio workout and long day of work, or would it be better to go for a walk in nature and take a slower pace?

    Or, if I am speaking to myself without self-compassion, is there a more loving way to communicate with myself rather than being nasty?

    Each day I make a conscious choice to step into that kind energy. I treat myself how I wish he had treated me.

    2. I celebrate myself weekly.

    Each Sunday, I reflect on what I am proud of and celebrate myself, even if I’ve done something small, like being consistently kind to myself. I become the cheerleading parent I longed for, and this builds self-esteem.

    3. I use affirmations.

    I affirm throughout the day that I am safe and enough. That I don’t have to prove my worth or people-please. I can just be me. This helps soothe the critical voice that goes into past fear stories.

    I use affirmations to say I love and care for myself. That I am my biggest priority.

    4. I listen to my body and choose to take care of it.

    Instead of pushing myself physically, I ask myself: How should I nourish myself? Or how should I move my body? What shouldn’t I put into it out of love? I check in with myself if I need rest or if a certain relationship or situation is causing me physical and mental stress. I speak kindly about my body rather than shaming it for not being enough.

    5. I reparent the parts of me that are in pain from the past.

    My dad will always be part of my story. I can’t change the past, but I can take care of the different parts of me that were hurt. I can show those parts kindness and love through reparenting and inner-child work.

    My favorite practice is going back in time to visit my younger self. I give her a hug, ask her how she feels, and then do whatever I can to fulfill her needs. I soothe the hurting parts of her rather than getting her to perform and achieve.

    Some days my old behaviors come out, but I use the question “Am I being kind to myself?” to get myself back on track. I also practice self-compassion and forgiveness, as I would never say the things I have said to myself to others.

    —

    If you can relate to what I wrote because you had a similar parent, step into being the parent you wished for yourself. Because a happy, loved, affirmed child is better able to live a happy, healthy life than a bullied child that hates herself. Give yourself the gift of love and kindness and watch your story transform.

  • Learning to Speak Up When You Were Taught That Your Feelings Don’t Matter

    Learning to Speak Up When You Were Taught That Your Feelings Don’t Matter

    “A proper grown-up communicates clearly and assertively.”

    This is something I have heard many people say.

    By that definition, I wouldn’t have classed as a proper grown-up for most of my life.

    There was a time when I couldn’t even ask someone for a glass of water. I know that might seem crazy to some people, and for a long time I did feel crazy for it.

    Why couldn’t I do the things others did without even thinking about it? Why couldn’t I just say what I needed to say? Why couldn’t I just be normal?

    Those questions would just feed into the shame spiral I was trapped in at that time in my life.

    But the question I should have been asking myself was not how I could overcome being so damaged and flawed, but how my struggles made sense based on how I was brought up.

    Because based on that I was perfect and my behaviors made perfect sense.

    I was the child that was taught to be seen and not heard.

    I was the child whose feelings made others angry and violent.

    I was the child whose anger got her shamed and rejected by the person she needed the most.

    I was the child that got hit again and again until she didn’t cry anymore.

    I was the child whose needs inconvenienced those who were in charge of taking care of her.

    I was the child whose wants were called selfish, attention-seeking, or ridiculous.

    I was the child who was made wrong for everything she felt, wanted, or needed.

    I was the child who was called a monster for being who she was—a child.

    I was the child that grew up feeling unwanted, alone, and entirely repulsive.

    So why would that child ever speak? Why would that child ever share anything about herself? She wouldn’t, would she? It all makes sense. I made sense. It was a way of living. A way of surviving.

    I had been taught that I didn’t matter. That what I wanted or needed and how I felt was something so abhorrent it needed to be hidden at any cost. And I did it to avoid getting hurt, shamed, and rejected. Even when I was with different people. Even when I was an adult.

    That pattern ran my life. I just couldn’t get myself to say the things I wanted and needed to say. It felt too scary. It felt too dangerous. It was too shame-inducing.

    So if you struggle to express yourself and feel embarrassed about that, I get it. I did too. But I need you to know this: It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.

    And yes, life is harder when you didn’t get to be who you were growing up. When the only way you could protect yourself was by being less of you. When you could never grow into yourself because that would have gotten you hurt. When you couldn’t learn to love yourself because that was the biggest risk of all.

    But today, that risk only lives on within you. In your conditioning. And that’s where the inner healing work comes in.

    For me, that meant getting professional support to help me learn how to safely connect to myself and my truth, and how to banish the critical, demanding, and demeaning internal voice that told me my feelings, needs, and wants were wrong.

    It meant learning to regulate my nervous system so that I could get past my fear and be honest about what worked for me and what didn’t. This was a major turning point in my relationships because I started to represent myself more openly and assertively, which meant that my relationships either improved dramatically or I found out that the other people didn’t really care about me and how I felt.

    It also meant opening up emotionally and learning to understand what my feelings were trying to tell me. Since I’d learned to avoid and suppress my emotions growing up, I knew it would be challenging to truly get to know myself.

    I had the great opportunity of reparenting myself—giving myself the love, affection, and attention I didn’t receive as a kid.

    And that’s what ultimately allowed me to finally feel safe enough to express myself.

    The relationship I had with myself started to become like a safe haven instead of a battleground, and my life has never been the same since.

    Everything on the outside started to align with what was going on inside of me. The safer I became for myself, the safer the people in my life became, which allowed us to develop deeper, more meaningful and intimate relationships.

    So I know that that kind of change is possible. Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. I know that it is possible because today I am the most authentic and expressed version of myself I have ever been.

    Just look at everything I am sharing here with you. That’s a far cry from asking for a glass of water.

    Today I no longer choke on the words that I was always meant to speak. I speak them.

    Today I no longer hold back my feelings. I feel them. I share them. Freely.

    Today I no longer deny my needs and play down my desires. I own them. I meet them. I fulfil them.

    Today I own who I am and I don’t feel held back by toxic shame in the ways that I once did.

    Back then I would have never thought this was possible for me.

    I hope that in sharing my story and my transformation you will follow the spark of desire in you that wants you to express yourself. To share your thoughts and desires. To express what it’s like to be you. To finally get to meet more of you and eventually all of you.

    That’s what you need to listen to. Not the voice of fear or shame. Not your conditioning. Not anything or anyone that reinforces your inhibitions or trauma.

    You were born to be fully expressed. That was your birthright. That is the world’s gift.

    Just because the people who raised you didn’t understand you as the unique miracle that you are, that doesn’t mean that you have to deprive the world, and yourself, of experiencing you. More of you. All of you.

    It’s never too late to open your heart and share yourself in ways that feel healing, liberating, empowering, and loving to you.

  • Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

    Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

    “Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don’t match our own beliefs about how we should look.” ~Martha Beck

    I have so many women around me right now—friends, mothers, clients that are on a diet—constantly talking about their weight and how their bodies look, struggling with body image.

    I am profoundly sad about the frequency and theme of those discussions.

    At the same time, I deeply get it; it is hard to detach from our conditioning.

    I too struggled with body image at one point in my life, and for a very long time. I suffered from anorexia in my late teens and early twenties. I was skinny as a rail and thought I was not thin enough. I hated the way I looked. I was never perfect enough.

    I controlled my food intake as a way to regain control over my life, as a way to maybe one day be perfect enough that I might feel loved. I almost ended up in the hospital, as my weight impacted my health, physically and mentally. I had no period, no healthy bowel movement. I was so unhappy and depressed. I had no energy.

    The messed-up thing is that the skinnier I looked, the more compliments I received from a lot of people, from family to friends: “You are so slim and gorgeous.” To me, this just validated the way I treated my body—and myself—with control, self-criticism, and harshness.

    Then there were the magazines, showing skinny models, getting so much positive attention. I was obsessed. The more my body looked like those magazine pictures, the better; though I could never quite get to a point where I looked at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw. It was an endless circle of judgment, control, and unhappiness. 

    It took me many years to change the way I saw my body and debunk the standards created by “society” for women.

    For many years I bit my tongue each time I would hear other women around me comparing and judging their body size and shape, repeating the same narrative of needing to lose weight. These conversations felt like an unbearable ringing in my ears, a knot in my stomach, the story in my head of “I am not good enough.”

    I was in the process of creating a new set of standards for myself, of what it was to be a woman in this world, but the old stories were hard to escape and easier to follow because they were the gold standard. I did not have any role models of women out there, younger or older, loving their body just the way it was.

    There was a point, though, when it was just too draining. I noticed that it was not the striving to get to a perfect body that brought me love. What brought me love was being vulnerable, authentic, sharing my inner life, supporting others, having deep talks, being kind with myself and others, and doing the things I loved.

    From then on, I started to soften and release all those standards that had been gifted to me. I allowed myself to be okay with how my body looked, to enjoy food, to enjoy movement, to enjoy my body. I learned to truly love my body, and with that came a different type of respect: I learned to rest when my body was tired. I learned to eat really nourishing food. I learned to move every day in a way that was respectful to my body and that I enjoyed.

    Thinner is not better. Healthy, connected, and happy is.

    Practicing yoga helped me so much in embodying this new belief, and studying neuro-linguistic programming as well.

    The truth is we are “society”—all of us, women and men—which means we are the agents of change. So let’s pause, reflect, and choose new standards. Is this constant need to lose weight healthy or serving anyone?

    There are a few different things to separate and highlight here.

    If your weight negatively impacts your health or your life, if you feel heavy in an unhealthy way and can’t do the activities you’d like to do, that is a different story; and yes, please, take care of your body, through what you think will work best for you: exercise, nutrition, mindset, support.

    Your body is your vessel to experience life, so finding your way to a healthy body is a worthwhile investment. And daily movement and good nutrition will have such a positive impact on your vitality and health, physical and mental, so yes, go for it, with love, softness and kindness—no control, judgment, or harshness.

    But if you feel that your body is strong and healthy, but you don’t like the way it looks… I feel you. I was there. I felt the shame, the discomfort, the sadness, the feeling of not being good enough. Allow yourself to feel this pain. It is okay, and human nature, to feel concerned about your appearance. We all want to be part of the tribe, to be loved and admired.

    But then, ask yourself, is it me that does not like the way my body looks, or is it because of society’s beauty standards? Is it because of all the noise from my friends, constantly talking about weight and looks? Do I want to transmit those standards to the next generation? To my sons? To my daughters? Is it really the most important thing for us women, to look thin and good? Is this story serving us all? Is it love?

    No, it is not love, and it serves no one. Not the women suffering in silence because they believe their body is not slim enough. Not the partners of those women who can’t appreciate their true beauty and fullness. Not the daughters that will believe the same messages and suffer as well. Not the sons that will not know how to recognize beauty in its diverse shapes and forms. Not society as a whole, which will be robbed of having a happy, compassionate, loving, self-confident population.

    So let’s choose differently. Let’s celebrate our different body shapes and weights and strength. Let’s feel good and enjoy life, movement, and food without counting and restricting and denying love to our bodies and selves.

    Let’s stop talking about our weight constantly and find other ways to connect.

    Some might say that I am too slim to really speak about this subject, that I have it easy. This is not quite true. My body has changed so much throughout the years. I went from an ultra-skinny teenager and twenty-year-old with anorexia, to a healthy weight in my thirties, to ups and downs with weight throughout my two pregnancies and breastfeeding journeys. I have seen my body change quite a lot and have been judged for how I looked oh so many times. I have been judged for being skinny, or envied for being slim, and I have been judged for gaining weight.

    Today I am forty-three. My body is not as slim as it used to be. I have a bit of fat around my belly, and my breasts are not as round and firm as they once were, but I feel strong and healthy. And I am SO grateful for my body for enabling me to experience life so far, and for creating life and feeding life, that I don’t want to ever criticize or shame my body again.

    I have learned to love every scar, my stretch marks, my extra skin, because they are the witness of my life, my loves, my years.

    So thank you, body, for everything you allow me to experience.

    The alternative to loving my body—the constant internal criticism and self-doubt—is too draining.

    We, as humans, are society, so let’s change this conditioning. Let’s never transmit this idea of what a woman’s body should look like to our daughters, to our sons. Let’s invent a world where it does not matter what you weigh as long as you feel healthy and good within. Let’s change the chattering from what diet we are on to how our heart is feeling.

    Let’s celebrate bodies, in their diverse beauty and forms.

  • The Real Glow Up

    The Real Glow Up

  • How I’m Overcoming Perfectionism and Why I’m No Longer Scared to Fail

    How I’m Overcoming Perfectionism and Why I’m No Longer Scared to Fail

    “Perfectionism is a self-destructive belief system. It’s a way of thinking that says: ‘If I look perfect, live perfect, and work perfect, I can avoid or minimize criticism and blame.’” ~Brené Brown

    I struggled with trying new things in my past. I learned growing up that failure was bad. I used to be a gifted child, slightly ahead of my peers. As I got older, everything went downhill.

    Whenever I tried out a new activity, I would quit if I wasn’t instantly perfect at it. If there was the slightest imperfection, I would get extremely frustrated and upset. I would obsess over the same mistakes in my past over and over.

    This made me procrastinate and avoid trying new things, fearing failure. I would simply tell my friends “I’m not interested” when they tried to get me to grow outside my comfort zone.

    I tried out various passion projects, solely focused on the results. Sketching was a fun hobby of mine, but I was slowly losing steam. “All the drawings I’m doing aren’t good enough! Argh!”

    I attempted public speaking competitions. “I didn’t get any prize? This is such a waste.”

    And even stopped having an interest in sports when I was dominated in a match by my friends.

    I didn’t know it at that time, but this was a clear case of unhealthy perfectionism.

    Growing up, I thought I was good at everything. I embodied this identity with pride. But when I did something that contradicted this identity, like failing at something, I did everything I could to not feel that pain again. Even if it meant I didn’t pursue my passions and feared failure my whole life.

    Now that I’ve grown internally more, I’ve realized that perfectionism is really about control—trying to control how people see you. Perfectionism is, at its core, about earning approval and acceptance.

    “Perfectionism isn’t striving to be our best or working towards excellence. Healthy striving is internally driven, perfectionism is externally driven with a simple, all-consuming question: ‘What will people think of me?’” ~Brené Brown

    Studies show that perfectionism actually hampers the path to success and leads to anxiety and depression. Achieving mastery is fueled by curiosity and viewing failures as opportunities for learning. Perfectionism kills curiosity.

    When I was struggling to reach my own high standards, I learned that it’s better to move on and figure out how to thoughtfully bridge the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be over time, rather than spinning my wheels and being stuck in place in an effort to get everything perfect today.

    Curing my unhealthy perfectionism and letting in authenticity, I believe, mainly came down to grace.

    I gave myself the acceptance and grace to be where I was that day, and to enjoy the process rather than the result. I allowed myself to make mistakes, be curious, and experiment. This was a major turning point in my life. I didn’t want to live with fear anymore, so I vowed to live authentically and be free.

    I stopped putting pressure on myself and let my childlike curiosity out. I became adventurous and started trying new things. Every time I did something outside my comfort zone (and a little scary), I wanted to jump with excitement. I felt truly alive and present.

    This is what it means to be successful—growing from failures and enjoying the journey instead of trying to do everything perfectly.

    I practiced mindfulness, self-love, and gratitude to further improve my mental state. I realized that I badly craved approval from the outside world, even though I used to deny it and have this “I don’t care what others think of me” attitude. I used to be wary of how others would judge me, so I focused on developing my relationship with myself and loving myself exactly as I was.

    But of course, the change wasn’t immediate, and it took me some time to fully cure my perfectionism. I started slowly changing my thought patterns by speaking kindly to myself, as if I was my younger self. I imagined myself as a young child who just needed love and acceptance. I forgave myself when I made mistakes, let go of the past, and moved on.

    I encouraged myself to keep improving and I continued to work on my passion projects—showing up every day. Now, it has led me here, where I can share my guidance and love with those who need it. I am more fulfilled and happier than ever.

    And I now know that failing doesn’t mean I’m a failure. It means I’m someone who’s brave enough to try new things, and that’s the identity I now embody with pride.

  • Workaholics: Why Staying Busy Feels Safe and How It Takes a Toll

    Workaholics: Why Staying Busy Feels Safe and How It Takes a Toll

    “The ego desperately wants safety. The soul wants to live. The truth is, we cannot lead a real life without risk. We do not develop depth without pain.” ~Carol S. Pearson

    Workaholism is the body’s wisdom in action, literally.

    Some people develop workaholic tendencies because they crave to be seen as the best through their accomplishments.

    But I’m not here to talk about people who’re obsessed over their image.

    The particular strain of “workaholism” that isn’t talked about enough is a perfectionist’s addiction to productivity.

    It has little to do with being recognized for your brilliance or achievements in the outer world, and much more to do with your own unattainably high standards for yourself and others.

    It’s not about winning a shiny trophy at the end of the day so everyone will know you’re the real deal, but knowing that you’ve improved yourself, others, or the environment around you–even if it’s just neurotically reorganizing your closet.

    It’s knowing that you made the world a better place and that you didn’t cut any corners to get there.

    Whether it’s your career, community projects, or personal to-do lists that consume your everyday life, your addiction to activity is problematic for many reasons. Once you get a dose of completing a job, an impulsive urge to drown yourself in more activity immediately creeps in. Without it, you experience a profound sense of worthlessness.

    You struggle with accepting your work as it is, and your inner critic never settles for okay enough.

    This kind of “improvement” workaholism is about self-worth and a felt sense of safety. Because idleness feels unsafe in the body of a workaholic, non-activity is misconstrued as uselessness, which feels like a gaping hole in your beingness. The wisdom of a workaholic’s body knows that not creating, producing, or improving oneself or the environment is on par with being an unlovable sack of garbage.

    So your body keeps you busy.

    Addiction to activity shows up in myriad ways. Doing your coworker’s job for them because they’re not meeting your standards. Working long hours to perfect a project that you logically know doesn’t need to be perfect. Cleaning the house when it’s not dirty. Pouring more energy than is necessary into helping your kids with their homework. An inability to rest, relax, or experience pleasure unless it’s “earned”–and even then, it’s a fleeting and rare occurrence.

    When the Body Goes to War

    My workaholic perfectionism took a toll on my body starting in my mid-twenties. It’s common for people fixated on perfectionism and activity to chronically hold tension in their bodies. I was so armored in my muscles that I injured my neck from stiffness, leading to some of the worst pain I’ve ever had.

    I was living in rural Japan at the time. Desperate for help, I drove forty-five minutes through snowy conditions down a country road to see specialists who spoke no English, and to this day I have no idea what their area of specialty is called–I’ve never seen it anywhere else. But they treated me in their home on a regular basis to bring me the relief I needed to keep my sanity.

    And that was just the beginning.

    From that point onward, I continued to injure my neck several times a year. After returning to the U.S., I saw chiropractors, physical therapists, and massage therapists on a recurring basis. They certainly treated my symptoms, but I didn’t understand why I was so chronically rigid and injury-prone.

    And then came the injury that changed the course of my life.

    In my early thirties, I developed tendonitis and a repetitive motion injury in my right arm from using the computer in my office job. I worked hard, perfecting every task, email, and spreadsheet that came across my desk. I continued to hold tension in my body, and I rarely took breaks. Desperate to keep working despite the pain in my right arm, I compensated with my left arm and injured it too.

    Different parts of my body were at war with each other–one part guilting me to stay in the hustle cycle, another part sending smoke signals to get me to slow down and rest.

    I ended up on disability for eight months.

    I struggled to take care of myself. Bathing, cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry were no longer feasible. I could not hold open a book to read. It took months to be able to return to normal activities. For someone who’s historically been addicted to staying busy, it was a nightmare to not be able to work per doctor’s orders.

    Two years later, my doctors agreed that I have a permanent partial disability. I am no longer able to work in any eight-hour desk job. A throbbing hand reminds me when it’s time to rest, and now I know to listen.

    Sprinkled through my late twenties and early thirties I also experienced episodes of suicidal ideation and general depressive states. I felt profoundly worthless even though I had my dream job in a beautiful coastal town of California.

    My monkey mind was full of chatter. I fixated on how to feel better, but I was just clinging to the same old habits of endless mental and physical activity.

    Through that difficult passage of time, I believe my psyche was taking me down the dark path of individuation, the transformative process of integrating one’s unconscious and conscious mind-body.

    It’s everyone’s birthright to return to wholeness—a magical reunion of parts that were separated and abandoned in the process of childhood. I discovered that I had banished lazy self-indulgence deep into my shadow.

    Jungian depth psychology and pole dancing opened me up. I healed through embodied sensual movement, accessing my creative inner guidance, making time for spontaneous play with no agenda, and finding peace in my deep stillness.

    Today I move with ease in my body. I find pleasure in places where I could not before. I know how to be in my deep stillness, and I have what feels like true, sustainable joy.

    It doesn’t mean I never slip into old habits. In fact, I still find new iterations of old patterns as I move through life, but I know how to work through them. It’s become my superpower.

    The Unconscious Driver in Your Mind and Body

    Often, we glorify hard work, refusing to admit the destruction it does to our minds and body when it’s become a habit.

    Many workaholics see their patterns as justified, always armed with a list of reasons why they must deliver the much-needed improvement or task despite the obvious sacrifices being made. They do not respond well to being told that they need to slow down or prioritize their well-being.

    Best case scenario, they agree that they work too hard but don’t know how to be any other way.

    If this resonates, maybe you beat yourself up for not being more present with yourself or your loved ones. And maybe you have a tendency to be your own worst critic due to your sky-high internal standards, so you’re particularly sensitive to critical feedback from others.

    The good news is that there’s nothing “wrong” with you. You’re not a bad person because you’re too busy to show up for others. You’re not a self-sabotaging idiot because you worked so hard that you injured yourself. You’re not broken because you can’t sit still.

    Just like any other addiction, workaholism is a coping strategy.

    Workaholism is a learned behavior that serves to protect you from feeling the pain and discomfort of being completely tuned in to your deep stillness without the activity. A work-oriented perfectionist unconsciously harbors a belief that they’re unworthy unless they’re busy fixing themselves or the world.

    Your workaholic tendencies have an incredible intelligence. Your body is brilliant, much more than your conscious mind and ego-persona, which think they know better. But they’re vastly mistaken.

    Five percent of your cognitive activity is conscious and the other 95% is unconscious.

    The 95% largely drives your actions, non-actions, urges, and beliefs. Your endless activity isn’t coming from your conscious thinking mind. You might be convinced that your sheer willpower and self-discipline are the reasons you’re so productive. But that’s simply not the case. You’re the result of unconscious conditioned patterns that influence your behavior in the world.

    If that isn’t humbling, then I don’t know what is.

    The urge to work longer and harder than is good for you is a felt sense in your body. Your impulses—if you pay really close attention—are a reaction to not wanting to feel a certain way. Ultimately, it’s to avoid the discomfort of being fully present to your perceived worthlessness in the midst of being idle, non-productive, and undisciplined.

    It’s so sneaky that you often never feel the first dose of discomfort because your body is so well programmed to keep you busy that it knows exactly how to keep you from feeling like a useless waste of space.

    Your body in its wholeness is so much smarter than your tiny fraction of conscious thoughts.

    It’s not your fault that you’ve never learned how to be any other way. It’s not your fault that most therapists, mentors, educators, and caregivers have no clue how to actually help you change your patterns.

    The great news is that you can change. Your mind-body is not permanently wired this way.

    Science and many different proven techniques tell us how we can change ourselves in ways that seem unimaginable. Unfortunately, these methods lag behind in formal education and the knowledge base of many healers. But, there are many entry points to working with your mind and body to transform how you show up.

    Mind-Body Practice

    While it’s not your fault that you’ve been conditioned to stay perpetually busy, it is your responsibility to do the inner work if you want to enjoy life as your best self who doesn’t need to work to feel worthy.

    If you have a conditioned tendency to avoid stillness because your body misconstrues it as dangerous, then you have to prove to yourself that endless activity is not the way to live fully in your pleasure, presence, and peace.

    Partner with your body and get lovingly curious about yourself.

    The precise activity that you avoid most, idleness, is one way to get acquainted with your inherent, non-negotiable worthiness. This will inevitably dredge up anxiety, depression, and other uncomfortable feelings.

    Learn to be in touch with what you’re feeling in your body, known as interoception. This alone is a practice that will pay you back tenfold in overall well-being, decision-making, and trusting your inner guidance.

    Observe where you’re holding any physical tension. Pay attention to places where discomfort begins to stir and notice what your first impulse is. Often, the urges that arise have a positive intention of squashing the discomfort. For someone with workaholism, that urge is productive activity.

    The body is excellent at reacting at warp speed to these signs of discomfort. Notice where the unease is showing up in your body and develop a practice of sitting with it–another practice that’s worth learning if you want to take the risk of being a human in a world of uncertainties. The treasures of life are found in the unknown.

    Over time, you will learn when your activity is exiting the healthy, productive realm and entering the unhealthy, self-sacrificing realm–so you can intervene.

    You’re incredibly capable of healing and changing your life. You’re not broken, no matter what your struggles are. Trust me, every practice I preach is one that I’ve used to transform my own life.

    Remember that you’re a beautiful creature who’s learning to exist exactly as you are—magnificent, perfect, and worthy.

  • Stop Waiting for Perfection and Fall in Love with Your Life Now

    Stop Waiting for Perfection and Fall in Love with Your Life Now

    I know, so cliché, right? I can practically hear your eyes roll. But hear me out.

    In a society driven by results, achievements, and ideals of perfection, there is a huge pitfall that I am becoming increasingly aware of—that we can be so focused on trying to achieve our “best life” that life itself could pass us by and we would have missed it. Missed the beauty of just being here.

    We’ve all heard the sayings “Slow down and smell the roses” and “Life is a journey, not a destination.” We hear these sayings and pass them off as embroidery on a quaint pillow, but what if we didn’t? What if life really is in the details?

    I mean, how many of us will ever actually attain the “perfect life” we are being sold? Are we just trapped in never-ending, self-defeating cycles of diets, bad habits, and perpetual “self-improvement”?

    What if we just paused for a second. Took a break from social media. Blocked out all the outside noise. Just got quiet. What would your inner voice, your subconscious, tell you?

    What makes you truly happy? What feeds your soul? Makes you tick? Even reading that back I realize I sound very “new age,” but what I mean is, aren’t we done with being told what will make us happy? And why does life have to be spectacular to be fulfilling? Can’t what we have just be enough?

    Recently, I lost my dad after a very short and aggressive battle with cancer. I didn’t see it coming. I thought he would go on forever.

    I had been estranged from my dad for a few years before he got sick. We had drifted apart for lots of reasons but mainly because he was never there for me. Our relationship was very one-sided and usually consisted of me running after him, wanting him to notice me, to give me the love and approval I so badly felt I needed from him.

    He wasn’t any of the things a father should be. He wasn’t reliable or safe or protective or even present, and I resented him for abandoning me when I was little.

    But when it came down to it, when I faced losing him, when I saw him in his hospital bed and he told me he “wasn’t long for this world,” all of that melted away and I longed desperately for more time.

    I wish I had let go of my expectations, my resentment, and my pride and just accepted him and salvaged a relationship with him. I loved my dad, and I wish I had spent more time just being with him. Now, that time has passed.

    His loss taught me something. Life is precious. We don’t have forever. We have now. This moment. We can choose to love our lives now.

    Don’t wait until you’re skinner, prettier, fitter, earning more money, famous, a millionaire. (Most of us will never be those last two things.)

    If your life is particularly hard right now and your needs aren’t being met, work to change what isn’t working. But don’t get so focused on what you want that you forget what you already have.

    Let’s stop wasting the precious time we have here with the people we love, who make our life beautiful.

    Appreciate all the little things that make you happy.

    For me, it’s coffee shops and lazy mornings, walks by the river or in nature, grabbing lunch with my friends or dancing the night away, cuddles on the sofa, spending time with my kids, those few precious moments with my partner in the morning before the day begins.

    These things are what make a life. While we are striving to “live our best life,” we run the real risk of completely missing the one we are already living.

    My one wish is that we all wake up and start appreciating the life we have right now. That we reject the notion that we have to have perfect bodies, perfect faces, perfect houses, families, relationships, to have a truly happy life.

    Wake up to the fact that we are being sold this lie purely so that we buy more stuff, work more hours, keep striving for the mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    Love your life now. Fall in love with all the little things. Happiness doesn’t come from physical possessions. It comes from appreciating everything money can’t buy. You could already be living your “best life” without even trying.

  • How to Show Up When Nothing About Your Life Is Perfect

    How to Show Up When Nothing About Your Life Is Perfect

    “I saw that you were perfect, and so I loved you. Then I saw that you were not perfect, and I loved you even more.” ~Angelita Lim

    I’m not a perfect parent. I’m not a perfect partner. I’m not in perfect health. I’m not a perfect friend. And I’m far from perfect with my finances.

    Hell, nothing about my life is perfect. And guess what? I’ll never be able to attain perfection in those areas. And I’m sorry to say it, but neither will you.

    Don’t be fooled by calling yourself a perfectionist. Perfection as a destination is what causes procrastination. And for most of us, it’s nothing more than an excuse to avoid putting in the work, because why try if we don’t have the skills to be perfect?

    Unfortunately, this belief that we can attain perfection is bullshit. It’s an idea adopted from the school system. Grades were meaningless because they had nothing to do with effort. They were a simple way of ticking boxes for the masses.

    Conversely, a meaningful life comes down to your effort when no one is watching.

    What did you do today? Did you show up? Did you make an effort to be a better parent, a better partner, be in better health, a better friend, and better your finances?

    No effort = No progress = No reward.

    We can’t put off living our lives hoping that someday these areas will magically be perfect.

    Yesterday is dead and gone. Tomorrow is nothing more than a dream. So focus on today.

    You’re living right now. This is your chance to be better.

    Want to be a better parent? Want to be a better partner? Want better health? Want to be a better friend? Want better finances?

    Start by putting your phone down and giving each area your undivided presence.

    Be with your kids. Be with your partner. Be with your health. Be with your friends. Be conscious with your money.

    Perfection is horribly discouraging because who the hell has time for their ideal two-hour morning routine? I sure as hell don’t. With a kid who isn’t in daycare, running a business, and paying bills, many days feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants.

    And that’s also why many of us fail to progress on what’s meaningful. If you get stuck in an all-or-nothing mentality, it almost always means you’re doing nothing.

    But suppose you did something radical and showed yourself empathy in these moments. In that case, you’ll change the entire trajectory of your life by simply showing up.

    Don’t have time to go to the gym? Don’t have time to do an at-home workout? Don’t have time to go for a walk? Don’t have time to do ten squats and a few pushups?

    Pick your kid up, throw on some Taylor Swift, and throw a dance party, you crazy fool.

    Change the scope of what you deem a win for the day.

    When you accept that perfection is impossible, you can get down to the actual work of making improvements because you’ve given yourself a way to show up every damn day.

    Every action you take (or don’t take) is a vote toward the person you’re becoming. Don’t discount the truth that small actions create colossal change.

    Think of a single vote: In a democracy, a single vote can be the deciding factor in an election, which can have significant consequences for the direction of a country.

    Think of a small spark: A small spark can ignite a large fire, which can have severe consequences for people and the environment.

    Think of a tiny seed: A tiny seed can grow into a large plant, providing food, oxygen, and habitat for various living things.

    Think of a simple idea: A simple idea can lead to development of a new technology or product that changes how people live and work.

    Think of a single word: One word or phrase can spark a movement, change public opinion, or inspire others to take action.

    Dedicate today to taking one small action on something that matters to you, even if it’s just five minutes and feels insignificant.

    This small, simple, single step you’ve been putting off could be the catalyst for the explosion that propels you forward and transforms your life (and the world) for the better.

    You got this.

    You deserve a better life.

  • I Worry I’ll Never Change – Here’s Why I Still Accept Myself

    I Worry I’ll Never Change – Here’s Why I Still Accept Myself

    “Our journey is not about changing into the person we want to become. It’s about letting go of all we are not.” ~Nikki van Schyndel, Becoming Wild

    I recently went on personal retreat to once again try to heal my wounds, see my patterns, and find my purpose. I loaded my car with journals from the last two decades and a book of poetry dating back to 1980. I packed my cooler full of nourishing food, but then added a six pack of beer and an expensive bottle of wine—completely unaware that I was about to sabotage my personal growth by continuing to numb my pain.

    I had decided to use my retreat time to review my journal writings, pull out any wisdom I wanted to keep, and release the rest in a burning ceremony. On my first day, I labeled each journal with the year it was written and organized them all chronologically. This task felt arduous yet satisfying when I sat back and looked at the twenty-five volumes all laid out neatly in order.

    I spent the next three days re-reading each and every one. Re-living the emotional angst of problems in this relationship, then the next … and the next. Teasing out the patterns of insecurity, sabotage, and grieving. Re-visiting the same themes and my same desire and commitment, after the ending of each relationship, to be this person who stopped drinking in excess, meditated daily, ate healthy foods, and took good care of her body.

    Over and over, I had glimpses of this centered, calm, wise woman who I’d like to think is the real me. Yet over and over, I’d jumped into another relationship, lost myself, and repeated the pattern. Pages and pages full of the same story, only with different characters and at different times. As I read each journal, I tore out pages to burn, cut out sections to keep, and drank to numb the pain.

    On the fourth day I finished organizing the scraps of paper I wanted to keep and sat back with immense satisfaction. By early afternoon I had my fire going and drank my first beer of the day as I burned … and burned … and burned. Words turning into ashes. I stayed emotionally distant, cut off from my feelings, not making much of a ceremony of it after all.

    Feeling restless, I downed the last of my beer and pulled on my hiking boots. The trail outside my cabin began with a steep decline, winding along the side of the mountain and deep into the woods. As I walked, I kept thinking, “I haven’t changed. I’m still the same. What will it take to change? Why can’t I be that person I say I want to be? My life is one big loop.”

    I thought maybe the answer was that I just needed to be more self-disciplined. However, I immediately noticed the word “discipline” repelled me. If there is one thing I know about myself, I am not one to obey rules or codes of behavior—and I already punish myself enough. So, no, self-discipline wasn’t the answer. It was clear that I had spent a lifetime trying that approach and beating myself up for not succeeding. I kept on walking.

    At some point I questioned if maybe this was what life was really all about: the striving to be someone we are not. By that time, I was walking back uphill and had to stop frequently to catch my breath.

    Standing alone in the woods with my heart beating hard, staring blankly at the trees, I wondered if maybe the answer was just to embrace who I am. It’s pretty clear, after reading over my life for twenty years, I haven’t been able to change.

    My mind continued to whirl: But I’m not able to accept those parts of myself that drink too much or can’t stay focused. I don’t want to be that person who is overweight. I really do want to meditate. I stopped again, looking down the mountainside from which I had come. Apparently embracing myself wasn’t quite the answer either.

    By the time I had returned to my cabin, I no longer wanted to drink. I reflected again on the common thread throughout the years and suddenly saw the essence of myself that is timeless.

    It was there in my poetry from over forty years ago, in the heartbreak when I sabotaged yet another relationship, and in the yearning to be different.

    In a flash of insight, I recognized—contrary to the self-criticism that had been running through my head—the unchanged me was not a bad self. She is someone who wants to do better, who wants to be better, who recognizes the impermanence of time and seeks to grow.

    As I saw her, I knew this was the me I could totally embrace. I briefly thought about starting a new journal with this great insight, then laughed because I knew, if I did, I’d be reading it in twenty years, shaking my head, and saying “nothing has changed.” Then I would beat myself up for not being who I thought I wanted to be, and the cycle would just continue.

    In this recognition, I knew that those parts of me I so strongly criticized weren’t going to go away. And while I couldn’t embrace them, I could accept them with greater compassion and love.

    I saw the truth that even if I don’t meditate daily, exercise, eat healthy all the time, and have a full and balanced life, the part of me that strives to do those things is always there. She was in every page where I said I wanted to make those choices, and she’s been with me all along. She is the one I need to accept and embrace; it’s not who I want to be, it’s who I am.

    The review of my life helped me understand it’s a process. That timeless part of me may come and go, just like I have my moments of awakening to my wisdom and then forgetting it all. Sometimes the me who struggles to make healthy choices is going to hijack my life. I can accept that is a part of being human. It’s not self-discipline I need, it’s self-acceptance of my duality. Both my wise woman and my saboteur.

    I am a wise and powerful woman. I am a kind, sensitive, and caring soul. I love deeply. I care deeply. I feel deeply. I don’t need to escape from who I am; I simply need to remember. Ultimately, what really needs to change is that I need to nurture self-compassion and self-acceptance at the deepest level.

    My last day at the cabin, I awoke to sunshine and blue skies. I felt good and strong. I spent part of the day shopping in the craft stores of the nearby village, and before I knew it, I was halfway to the liquor store. I kept trying to convince myself it was okay, but recognizing I wanted to make a different choice, I managed to turn around before it was too late.

    I chose a waterfall hike and scrambled past the tourists, up to the top of the falls. The rocks were a slippery slope, but the irony of that and the potential of me drinking didn’t quite register until later. When I reached the top, I sat a moment to meditate. As I closed my eyes, I embraced this timeless essence and felt so much peace and gratitude for her presence.

    My inner saboteur tried to take over again when I got back to my car. Sitting in the parking lot, I asked myself, “What do you hope to accomplish by getting a drink?” Then, I laughed at the quick and witty answer, “A hangover.” I drove back to my cabin, made myself a healthy meal, and drank a glass of water.

    I understand now this journey is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment reclaiming of who I am. I also understand the part of me that has been in control when I’ve forgotten my essence isn’t going to disappear overnight.

    However, I no longer fool myself into thinking anything is wrong with me. I recognize and embrace my commitment to growing in wisdom, strength, and joy. And I embrace all of who I am, while having compassion for the parts of me that struggle.

  • 10 Highly Sensitive People Share What Helps Them Take the Sting Out of Criticism

    10 Highly Sensitive People Share What Helps Them Take the Sting Out of Criticism

    Criticism can be especially hard for highly sensitive people because we try so hard and we care so much. It’s really fascinating how much it can affect HSPs in particular.

    I want to share that because it normalizes our experience, to know we’re not alone in how we experience things. I certainly have developed some tools to help with criticism but can still be impacted at times.

    On an anonymous survey I posted, someone wrote that they find my voice so shrill that they could not stand listening to me. I felt the sting.

    But it’s important to realize criticisms are opinions that vary from person to person, and therefore, we have to be careful about what we take in and what we believe. To provide an example of that, many others have shared my voice is soothing, calm, and nurturing. Notice how opposite those opinions are?

    So the next time you receive criticism, I want you to remember this example and know that criticism has nothing to do with us personally and usually comes from a painful place inside another. People are going to have many different types of opinions. What’s important is that we don’t soak them in.

    It’s helped a lot to do my own personal growth work and build my self-esteem. When my self-esteem was low, criticisms knocked me down hard, and for a long time. When I had no personal value, I believed the criticism.

    It took time to build up my sense of self, and it will take time to build yours if that’s an issue for you too.

    When you feel the sting, acknowledge it and give yourself some compassion. Remind yourself of your value and your intentions. Also, focus on some positives about you so that negativity bias of the brain doesn’t take over. Remember, it takes eight positives to neutralize one negative.

    Not everyone is going to like us, and that’s okay. What’s important is that we learn to love and support our sensitive hearts and know our intentions come from good places.

    I don’t think anyone is completely immune to the impacts of criticism. Case in point, here’s what some HSPs in my Sensitive Empowerment Community commented after reading some of my thoughts on criticism:

    1. The power of self-compassion

    “I remember when I would be hurt when I was a kid my mom would tell me to ‘get over it.’ I remember that being invalidating, unhelpful, and actually hurt me more. I think it would be powerful to teach our sensitive children the art of self-compassion. Can you imagine a whole generation of sensitive children raised with self-compassion? I have found that skill to be one of the best things that I’ve developed. It helps me with everything now. I think that it’s probably a tool that we can constantly sharpen.”

    2. The importance of self-care

    “Criticism is still extremely hard on me to the point where it will put me out of commission for a minute (or days even). I’m working on not letting others’ criticism flatten me. I just know, when my rest and my health are in order, it’s much easier to shake it off. When I feel criticized, I’m starting to immediately make a list of people who support me and think differently than people who criticize me and speak unkindly.”

    3. It’s more about them than us

    “I find criticism extremely difficult. For me, there is a family wound around criticism, so I can have a deep, painful reaction. Self-compassion has really helped me work through those reactions. I heard something once that often comes to my mind these days—what someone says about us tells us more about them and how they see the world than it is information about us. I find this really helpful because I used to take every single thing someone said about me as truth, but seeing that people are seeing us through the lens of all their wounds and experiences takes the sting away a bit.”

    4. Perfectionism vs. our innate drive for excellence

    “What you said resonated so much with me (and a big yes to the knife in the heart analogy!)— especially that the desire to avoid criticism is what has caused or contributed to your perfectionism. I feel exactly the same way. Now I work really hard on trying to figure out when something is just my innate drive for excellence or when it’s more a perfectionism driven by fear/avoidance.”

    5. How it helps to build our self-esteem

    “I used to hold onto criticism much more when I was younger, and it hurt terribly. Working on myself and building up my self-esteem was integral to healing. I used to work with a boss who was critical of everything I did, and I dreaded going to work every day. One day I decided to begin therapy, and soon I built up enough energies to apply to graduate school. Once I got in, I put n my two-weeks notice. Going back to school was an investment in myself.”

    6. Other people’s opinions are none of our business

    “This is still something I’m working on for myself, although I’ve had huge growth in this area. I once read somewhere or heard someone say that ‘what other people think of you is none of your business,’ and I try to remember that if I get that sting.”

    7. People who criticize often lack courage

    “Criticism can indeed be hurtful. It can be good to remember that people who criticize are often either unaware of how much work you put into doing that which they are criticizing, or they are taking out their own frustration on you. For many people, it’s more ‘comfortable’ to criticize others who have the courage to do something than to actually do something themselves.”

    8. Criticism isn’t always true

    “I’ve come a long way working with the deep sting of criticism and feeling the knife in my heart. There are moments I still feel the deep sting, but it doesn’t ‘take me out’ in the way it used to. Often, I ask myself ‘is this really true what they said?’ That helps me to come back to myself, along with breathing. I am soothed when I see the criticism is simply not about me! A work in progress going forward.”

    9. Hurt people hurt people

    “Criticism is so hard, especially because everybody wants to be accepted and respected for who they are, and the judgments of others can be hard to bear. Depending on our mindset and self-acceptance/self-confidence, it can make us see ourselves as less than if we do not have the right tools in place. I always try to remember the simple truth that ‘hurt people hurt people.’”

    10. When criticism gets to you, it’s because you care

    “I found it quite emotional reading all the posts and having my intense and long-lasting reaction to criticism normalized. I have struggled with this for a long time. I had a similar thing to you, Julie, with a comment in a survey. It was a really mean, unthoughtful commentf about a presentation I gave, and coming from someone well respected in my field of work, it was hard to take and still gets to me years later. It is helping so much to reframe it as an issue they have rather than a failing of mine! It’s a very empowering feeling. I am also trying to celebrate the fact I find criticism hard knowing that it’s because I care so deeply about doing things well and with care.”

    What about you? What helps you take the sting off criticism?

    **Some of the community comments have been edited for clarity and grammar.