Tiny Buddha

Tag: standards

  • 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.

  • Sick of Toxic Relationships? Love Yourself Enough to Walk Away

    Sick of Toxic Relationships? Love Yourself Enough to Walk Away

    “There comes a time in your life when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.” ~José N. Harris

    Letting go of relationships that impact your well-being and make you feel unsafe may seem like a simple act for many, but for those of us who are cut off from our emotions, it is a challenge even to know how we feel around other people.

    Some of us have lived with a feeling of unsafety since birth. It was our normal from the beginning. It was in our first homes and in our first relationships.

    This was my experience for most of my life.

    I was born into a house where my mum had felt unsafe while pregnant with me. That fear she felt living with her in-laws and my dad was real. She had an arranged marriage at twenty-two and had no idea her father-in-law was an alcoholic.

    Her first experience of alcoholism was mine too, but I was a newborn. I have memories of her being too scared to go into the house. My body still remembers how this feels.

    So I came into this world on high alert, waiting for an eruption to occur at any given moment. I remember being terrified in my crib. This experience wired me to be sensitive to energy. As a baby I could feel the tension and would almost hold my breath around my family.

    I learned early that people were unsafe. I learnt about fear and how to contract my body. For me, fear was normal, and I felt constantly on the lookout for any perceived threat.

    My poor little body didn’t know how to survive, and my parents were preoccupied with dramas in our house, so I learned survival skills like freezing, not speaking, and pleasing my adult caregivers to keep the peace. When they were calmer, I got connection and love and was able to survive.

    We all learned young how to survive in the family we were born into, and our nervous systems were wired accordingly.

    As I got older and came in contact with people I felt unsafe with, I would do the same—freeze, rescue, or please others and silence myself. It crushed my self-esteem and made me quite the doormat for other people’s drama.  It made me suicidal, as I wanted to escape the pain yet felt trapped in these patterns.

    I let people talk to me awfully. I let people work out their trauma on me. I saw my parents doing the same and didn’t know it wasn’t normal. I thought being a punch bag for other people’s trauma was okay.

    I didn’t know how to express my truth or have boundaries.

    As I got older it became obvious to me that I had become a magnet for toxic relationships. I was constantly reliving these unsafe feelings from my childhood.

    I gravitated toward people who needed me to help them with emotional regulation, just as I’d learned to do as a child. These relationships drained me and kept me in a constant cycle of pain, yet I was almost addicted to these interactions

    I had become so needless and wantless myself that I didn’t know who I was without these people. I would get a dopamine high from getting their love and acceptance for a small moment after making them feel better.

    I was always chasing the love and safety I longed for in my childhood home. 

    I was attracted to people who required rescuing due to their own trauma and addictions. I was either trying to save them or letting them persecute me.

    I would say nothing when they blamed and shamed me without justification, internalizing their blame—just as I had as a child when my dad persecuted me for all the stress he felt. “If Dad says everything is my fault, then it must be,” I thought.

    I saw it as my job to take care of other people’s emotions. If they were sad, I would help them feel better, and if they were angry, I let them take it out on me, as I always had done. If someone was angry with me, I believed it must have been my fault.

    One day, I came across the drama triangle, and it made me look at my relationships in a whole new way. A drama triangle has three points:

    Persecutor: blames others for their pain

    Victim: feels powerless to a persecutor

    Rescuer: tries to rescue others to manage their emotions

    I found myself in the role of victim and rescuer for many of my relationships. I felt powerless to other people’s emotions and behaviors. Like I just had to accept them.

    The time came for me to take responsibility for my own happiness and build my strength to end this pattern I had been in my whole life. No more being a victim to other people’s trauma. 

    After hitting rock bottom, I finally started to invest my time, money, and energy in myself. I started small with little acts of love—walking in nature, meditating, exercising, and cooking myself healthy, nutritious meals.

    I started to notice feeling calm and relaxed in my body. I became aware of my own feelings and needs. I began to connect with the voice within me, which I couldn’t hear previously. It was always overpowered by other people’s voices.

    This voice guided me to begin to say no to certain events and prioritize my own time. This voice guided me to get therapy, read books on healing, and join support groups.

    There was no way I could make my relationships healthier until I had a healthier, more stable relationship with myself. Building this foundation is what gave me the strength to make more difficult decisions further down the line.

    Over time I became more grounded in my own energy, something I had never experienced before. I noticed which relationships felt safe and when I was getting what I was giving.

    It also became apparent which relationships didn’t feel good and negatively affected my well-being. 

    When I began this journey, I was in a workplace where, unknowingly, I was highly triggered on a daily basis. Once I started to incorporate self-care before and after work and during my lunch breaks, it became apparent that this job had to go!

    I had never expressed my truth in relationships, not even the ones I felt safe in. I just kept it all in and came up with my own stories and assumptions about how the other people felt about me. I drove myself crazy like that.

    I began to change this behavior by expressing my feelings in relationships I felt safe in. I realized how communication can make relationships healthier and more fulfilling.

    Self-expression in relationships created true Intimacy. I had always hidden my true self away.

    I had been single for most of my life because of my previous patterns, but after building a foundation of self-love, I was able to form a relationship with a man who is now my fiancé, who gave me what I’d learned to give to myself—unconditional love and safety.

    As my relationship with myself grew, so did my strength to walk away from relationships that felt unhealthy for me. Some of these were easier than others. I had never been okay with hurting people’s feelings, putting my needs first, or causing trouble.

    I was always the good girl. It took courage not to be.

    I became the one who was seen as selfish or the troublemaker in the family.

    After growing and experiencing relationships in which boundaries are respected, you cannot accept it when people ignore your boundaries and have complete disregard for your feelings. I realized it’s not healthy for someone else to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, blame you, and focus solely on winning an argument.

    You cannot ignore the drama in a drama triangle when you step outside of it.

    Some people just do not want to respect your boundaries because of where they are in their own healing journey.

    You will realize that walking away from some people you have loved your whole life is essential for your own well-being, whether it be for a short period of time or forever. You cannot keep putting yourself last to continue a relationship that does not feel good for your health, no matter who they are. Especially when your inner voice is shouting at you to walk away.

    Many family systems run on the drama triangle with us each taking on our role. But when we step out of it, we give others the opportunity to grow and emotionally regulate themselves.

    It is natural for your family to have a reaction to changes to the family dynamics. But it is not your responsibility to ease that discomfort for them. That is down to each individual.

    My self-love journey empowered me to heal my nervous system from past trauma and stress. My body did not function properly anymore because of the wear and tear from my relationships. I finally listened.

    I invested in body-based treatments such as cognitive breathing, craniosacral therapy, trauma-release exercise, and qi gong. These modalities helped my nervous system heal from the past.

    It took bravery and courage to step away from the toxic relationships in my life, but it’s been my greatest act of self-love to date.

    Begin to tune into the relationships in your life. How do they make your body feel? What is your body telling you? Is it time to set a boundary, express your truth, or step away?

    If that all feels too scary right now, just focus on building that foundation of self-love. And recognize that you don’t deserve to be blamed or shamed for someone else’s issues, and it’s not your responsibility to fix or save them.

    In time, as your love for yourself grows, so will your strength to put yourself first and no longer accept relationships in which you are not treated with kindness, love, and respect.

    You are worthy of relationships that make you feel loved, energized, and happy. Most importantly, you are not responsible for rescuing anyone else or being the place where they project their pain.

  • Toxic Masculinity and the Harmful Standards We’re All Expected to Meet

    Toxic Masculinity and the Harmful Standards We’re All Expected to Meet

    Recently I woke up uncharacteristically early for a Saturday to meet a friend and her baby for coffee. I am embarrassed to say that by “uncharacteristically early” I mean 8:30am, which is not that early. I get it.

    As I walked by two chipper twenty-something-year-old girls in skintight leggings either in route to or on their way back from a workout class, I found my mind reeling.

    Why is it that I see so many more women in New York City whenever I wake up early on the weekends? Why do they seem so much more productive than men?

    I first noticed this trend when I graduated from college. I would be out way too late at a local watering hole and overhear a couple girlfriends talking about their plans to wake up in six hours and meet for a workout class. My only plans for the next day were to sleep in till noon and order a bagel (with scallion cream cheese, obviously).

    Reflecting today, I noticed that this tiny, little behavioral difference is so emblematic of society’s varying expectations of men and women.

    Toxic masculinity has bred men to be the life of the party. Drink hard. Smoke cigarettes. Do drugs. Be indomitable. This behavior always necessitates sleeping in to recover afterward and lower productivity.

    For women, on the other hand, there is more of an emphasis on looks, composure, and output. Essentially, on being perfect.

    This may sound misogynistic, backward, and antiquated, but unfortunately, these expectations still affect our society, though they are slowly changing. And the result is not very positive for men or women.

    Women often burn the candle at both ends, affecting their stress levels and happiness, while men try to be tough and unbridled, which often leads in behaviors that are severely damaging to physical and mental health. In fact, toxic masculinity is often linked to why men have a shorter life expectancy than women.

    Looking at these two women this morning, I felt a twinge of envy. I wish I was more of a morning person. I wish I took my fitness so seriously. I wish I was more productive. But I suspected I was zeroing in on the perceived positive side effects of the expectations of women.

    Perhaps these girls were extremely tired from the night before and trying to please everyone and do it all and look beautiful and never complain. Or, perhaps, they did not go out and genuinely are morning people. Perhaps this is simply their way of practicing self-care. Why must I try to define them?

    Nevertheless, I did feel envious. I am still unlearning habits formed at an early age.

    In high school, when I was closeted and trying to fit in, I found one of the easiest ways to do so was to drink. Even more, I would be rewarded for drinking heavily. It was a demonstration of my masculinity. Even worse, the escapism that this provided me from the haunting mental occupation with my sexuality made alcohol even more seductive and compounded the drinking. The habit was forming, the instructions clear. I should drink a lot. The benefits are endless.

    What they don’t talk about is the anxiety and laziness that is birthed from a lifestyle of partying to prove something. Most of my twenties, I would waste my weekends and leisure time imbibing like it was the night before the apocalypse, then feeling sad the next few days. I was stuck in this cycle.

    It took getting cancer to become more reflective on these feelings of depression, due in large part to drinking, to cut alcohol out of my life. And the difference is major. My productivity has skyrocketed. (Though, I still decidedly am not a morning person).

    Seeing these thin, legging-clad women bright and early brought me back to my twenties. Reminded me of this toxicity that I am unlearning. Reminded me that I have made changes, and that it is okay not to live up to the standards someone else put on me. But this morning also reminded me that women have it no easier in terms of what society asks of them. The grass is always greener.

    We all need to come to the middle and find some balance. These expectations on everyone are too much. We all need to define what is meaningful for ourselves—this should not be up to society.

    Who knew Lululemon could trigger me so much?

  • The Standards for Your Life

    The Standards for Your Life

    The standards for your life

    Source: Steven Aitchison