Earlier this week a client of mind told me how much it helped her to listen to a 20 yr old woman named Emma Chamberlain, who produces frequent podcasts about her personal experiences and has a huge following. My client said a podcast  posted 12-2-21,  “Getting Back on Track”, was particularly helpful to her.  I was curious so listened to most of this podcast myself.  Emma described how recently she had an “existential crisis” where she was wondering “what is the meaning of life…what makes life worth living..where do I go next?  She had become so discouraged that she had stopped her good habits of meditation,  home cooking, and limiting her time on social media. Emma then shares how she “got herself back on track.” I enjoyed Emma’s candor, honesty, sense of humor and bluntness.

Tonight I was thinking about Emma’s podcast, wondering  how someone with over 11 million youtube subscribers and over 14.7 million Instagram followers would feel depressed about what makes life worth living, ?” From my view point,  she speaks a language that is reaching and helping millions of people! I would think that would make her feel her life was worth living and this was her purpose in life. But in reality it does not matter what I think or the millions of her followers think about her. What matters is how she feels about herself.

That is the problem with perfectionism. You can never perform well enough or accomplish enough or be enough. I know- I have struggled with it also. I asked myself tonight, “If you were perfect at ___________, would you be happy?” Probably not, I would want to be better than perfect! LOL!

Unrealistically high expectations cause us to feel overwhelmed, tired, anxious and all tangled up inside.

Recovery International is an organization that helps people change their thoughts so that they are more content. The founder, Dr Lowe, has sayings that members memorize and remind each other when they feel upset or disturbed. Dr Lowe says “There will always be people who do better than us and people who do worse than us”. He also says “Comparisons are odious” (like when we compare ourselves to others and think they are better than we are).

The Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book has a story where one of the members writes that he realized “My serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations of Max(his wife) and other people are, the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations”. In Emma’s Getting Back on Track podcast, she exhorts her listeners to stop fighting their feelings and instead learn to accept their feelings.

One of the people I admire the most in my life is a friend of mine who has suffered greatly from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for about 45 years. She often has tremendous physical muscle and head pain.  She is only able to be out of bed 8 am to 11 am and 2 to 5 pm. due to feeling so weak and tired. She told me she wants to do a lot more than she can do but she has learned to accept she can’t do these things. She told me she only has the energy to interact with a relatively small number of people but she has come to the conclusion that if she has only helped  these few people, then she has achieved her purpose in life. I am one of the people she helps, by being an example to me.  She has come to a deep level of acceptance and peace in her life, despite having barely enough money to support herself and having so little energy to even talk to other people.

I would say our anxiety levels are in proportion to our perfectionism and high expectations. So to get relief from anxiety, the best way is to reduce unrealistic self-expectations and let go of perfectionism. Do you expect more from yourself than you expect from other people? Do you find yourself being hard on yourself but easy on others? That is not fair, is it? The solution is to gradually develop and practice kindness towards yourself. Sometimes when I suggest this to a client she will respond with something like “easier said than done”.  True, however being a perfectionist is certainly not easy either. It steals our peace and ability to relax.

Do you put yourself down a lot? Do you judge yourself? Do you think you should be making progress faster than you are? Do you feel other people are better than you? Do you have a feeling that you use buying things, eating, using marijuana, or playing video games excessively?

A popular 12 step phrase is “Easy does it.” This principle can be applied to perfectionism recovery by letting go of being perfect a little at a time. Notice your improvements no matter how small they may feel to you.  When you find yourself being mad at yourself for something, step back and look at the big picture. Think of all the other factors for the situation. Remember what you have done well.

For instance, if you are mad at yourself for not losing weight, ask yourself if you have sought out enough support to do something like this that can be extremely challenging and difficult. Did you make enough time in your schedule to shop for and cook healthy food ahead of time? Is your schedule so filled that you are too exhausted to care if you eat healthy of not? Do you spend too much time helping others and neglecting yourself?

Perfectionists often had parents who had unrealistic expectations of them as children. I had one client whose father was mad at him for not learning a foreign language fast enough at age 4. Other clients grew up in very dysfunctional families, began eating to soothe themselves and then the parent calls them “fat”, “lazy”, and/or “stupid”. Often parents compare their children to siblings in negative ways and ask them why they are not like their siblings. Many parents are perfectionists themselves and highly driven, unintentionally modeling this to their children. The American culture is generally unhealthy, prioritizing earning a higher income and accomplishments over good relationships, relaxation and self-care.

If you have tried to help yourself with these struggles but feel it is not enough, it may be time to seek therapy. My favorite therapeutic tool for perfectionism is EMDR (Eye Movement Desensization Reprocessing) I have an interview explaining this method that can be found: here

When a client is a perfectionist or has unrealistic expectations, I gather background history to see how their upbringing may have contributed to this pattern. Then I use EMDR to clear out unresolved emotional pain still inside people that keep them from feeling they were not good enough in their younger years, often related to specific traumas. These experiences carry over into adulthood until they are fully processed.

I can also use EMDR to reduce the desire to be perfect by having the client feel the great desire to be perfect or reach an unrealistic standard, and using the eye movement/bilateral stimulation to bring that desire to a lower level. Sometimes when I use this method, those frustrating desires totally go away. It is truly amazing how much EMDR can sometimes help a person in even one session. I have seen it happen over and over again.  If you are interested in a free 15 minute consultation with me to see if you might want to see me for therapy just email me at suzanneenergy@gmail.com or call or text me at 586-799-2399.  It is time for you to experience peace of mind.