Calling All Perfectionists
In my obsession with perfection, I forgot a valuable life lesson: pretty good can be perfection too.
Adventurous and fun-loving and driven and studious, I have sought it all. The dreamy vacation, the fulfilling career, the steamy romance. But the mind has always craved more.
Growing up, I would spend hours poring over an essay. I rehearsed clever rejoinders before dates. I would analyze events from 2002. I am laughing and cringing at these memories.
I was comfortable in my skin as long as I met my own exacting standards.
Adventurous and fun-loving and driven and studious, I have sought it all. The dreamy vacation, the fulfilling career, the steamy romance. But the mind has always craved more.
Growing up, I would spend hours poring over an essay. I rehearsed clever rejoinders before dates. I would analyze events from 2002. I am laughing and cringing at these memories.
I was comfortable in my skin as long as I met my own exacting standards.
The Joy of No Sex
Full disclosure: I work in advertising. It's an industry where husky-voiced, hair-flicking women smolder in ads selling cat food and sneakers, and where shirtless hunks flex fuzz-free pecs to sell salad dressing and synthetic butter.
The following viewpoint will therefore get me into trouble, which I’m familiar with.
Here are two commonsense truisms:
While great sex is joyful, lousy sex is not.
Happiness is possible without a daily grind (I’m not talking coffee).
Yet for reasons such as the availability heuristic -- a cognitive shortcut that encourages us to think of commonplace examples in our everyday environment when making decisions -- we often overestimate the importance to our well-being of having regular sex. When we pause to think of the world around us, we more often remember non-nude pretzel-like scenarios in which we were happy.
The following viewpoint will therefore get me into trouble, which I’m familiar with.
Here are two commonsense truisms:
While great sex is joyful, lousy sex is not.
Happiness is possible without a daily grind (I’m not talking coffee).
Yet for reasons such as the availability heuristic -- a cognitive shortcut that encourages us to think of commonplace examples in our everyday environment when making decisions -- we often overestimate the importance to our well-being of having regular sex. When we pause to think of the world around us, we more often remember non-nude pretzel-like scenarios in which we were happy.
Could There Be One Cure for All Mental Illness?
"One treatment to cure them all, one technique to find them, one network to bring them all and in the heterogeneity bind them."
Imagine: A cure all for ALL mental illnesses... sounds illogical, perhaps impossible, something straight out of fantasy, no? Well, at the SharpBrains Virtual Summit, Monitoring & Enhancing Brain Health in the Pervasive Neuroscience Era, where presenting cutting-edge innovative research was the norm, I was lucky to be witness to a truly tantalizing talk by psychologist Dr. Madeleine Goodkind that will likely change your perspective.
The current problem with finding a treatment that works for everyone is that each person’s presentation of mental illnesses is different, no one’s full set of symptoms and experiences are the same. And neither are their responses to treatment.
4 Steps to Setting Healthy Personal Boundaries
Sometimes it just feels easier to please others than to stand up for what we really want. Why? Maybe we don’t like confrontation. Or maybe we just like making other people happy. That’s not a bad thing. It can feel great to give others what they want, but it’s important to recognize when they overstep the mark.
Personal boundaries are how we set our personal limits. They are how we separate ourselves as individuals from the influence and intentions of others. They are an essential tool for communicating our needs, our integrity and our self-worth, both to others and to ourselves.
Without them, negative emotions such as resentment, guilt, frustration or shame could take hold. Your relationships may become frayed, and your self-respect could suffer.
Identifying How You’d Like to Spend Your Days
I recently penned a piece about the importance of being selective. Because the reality is that we can’t do everything. Our time is limited. And trying to do everything only stops us from focusing on what matters most (to us). It overshadows it. One day might run into the next, and before we know it, a week has flown by. And yet we feel empty and unfulfilled. We feel aimless.
This might be because we’re unclear about what is actually significant to us. We might not know our priorities. Maybe we’ve been so busy focusing on the minutiae -- checking off random tasks and chores -- that we’ve neglected the bigger picture. Maybe we’ve been so busy following other people’s definitions of success and productivity and meaning that we’ve neglected to consider what feels true and right for us.
These questions can help you name what’s important to you and discover how you’d like to spend your days.
This might be because we’re unclear about what is actually significant to us. We might not know our priorities. Maybe we’ve been so busy focusing on the minutiae -- checking off random tasks and chores -- that we’ve neglected the bigger picture. Maybe we’ve been so busy following other people’s definitions of success and productivity and meaning that we’ve neglected to consider what feels true and right for us.
These questions can help you name what’s important to you and discover how you’d like to spend your days.
Surprising Ways that Shame Can Serve Us
We often hear about the destructive aspects of shame -- how it’s toxic to our happiness and well-being. As a psychotherapist, I continually see how shame holds people back. But can there be a healthy and helpful aspect to shame?
Shame is that painful sense that tells us we’re flawed and defective. Bret Lyon and Sheila Rubin, who lead popular workshops for helping professionals, describe shame as "a primary emotion and a freeze state, which has a profound effect on personal development and relationship success."
Believing that there is something inherently wrong with us, we're robbed of the capacity to feel good about ourselves, accept ourselves, and affirm our basic goodness, which has a crippling effect on our lives. Such shame may be so painful that we dissociate from it -- no longer even noticing it.
The Life-Saving Power of Purpose
Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Two years ago I tested that theory.
I’ve always been depressed. I must have emerged from my mother’s womb with an overactive amygdala and a deficient prefrontal cortex -- creative brain wiring that generates panic and sadness. I was almost hospitalized in the fourth grade because I simply could not stop crying.
However, since December of 2008, when the market crashed, I hadn’t been able to surface into the land of the living and do things like pick up the kids from school and be at places like swim practice without hearing constant
Two years ago I tested that theory.
I’ve always been depressed. I must have emerged from my mother’s womb with an overactive amygdala and a deficient prefrontal cortex -- creative brain wiring that generates panic and sadness. I was almost hospitalized in the fourth grade because I simply could not stop crying.
However, since December of 2008, when the market crashed, I hadn’t been able to surface into the land of the living and do things like pick up the kids from school and be at places like swim practice without hearing constant
Best of Our Blogs: May 24, 2016
I've been guilty of doing it late at night-staying up to pound through various books, blog posts, and rigorously searching for the "right" way to do things. Anything less than that would cost me unbearable shame and validate a deeply hidden sense of unworthiness.
After stacks of books couldn't "cure" me, I realized the answers rarely rested in those pages. Before I could do any permanent change, I needed to revisit my belief of conditional worthiness. Regardless of what I did or said or accomplished, I deserved love, compassion, kindness, acceptance and forgiveness. If I wasn't willing to first give it to myself, I would never be able to receive it from someone else.
As you peruse our top posts this week, I hope you will do so mindfully. Read each with the awareness that while there may be best ways to approach a situation, making a mistake and messing up does not mean you are a failure. It does not mean you are a terrible person. It means you are human, a work in progress, and on the road to becoming a better version of you.
After stacks of books couldn't "cure" me, I realized the answers rarely rested in those pages. Before I could do any permanent change, I needed to revisit my belief of conditional worthiness. Regardless of what I did or said or accomplished, I deserved love, compassion, kindness, acceptance and forgiveness. If I wasn't willing to first give it to myself, I would never be able to receive it from someone else.
As you peruse our top posts this week, I hope you will do so mindfully. Read each with the awareness that while there may be best ways to approach a situation, making a mistake and messing up does not mean you are a failure. It does not mean you are a terrible person. It means you are human, a work in progress, and on the road to becoming a better version of you.
Why You Should Support Your Child’s Interests
My 11-year-old son Tommy collects stuffed bananas. You know, stuffed banana plush toys. He found his first one (and all of them, in fact) at the thrift store. This initial stuffed fruit was not just an ordinary banana, it was a stuffed Rastafarian banana complete with dreadlocks.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It’s a Rastafarian banana,” I said with glee.
Needless to say, Tommy had to have it. The price was right -- $3. We bought it and took it home.
This purchase brought on an extensive Internet research project on the Rastafarian religion.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It’s a Rastafarian banana,” I said with glee.
Needless to say, Tommy had to have it. The price was right -- $3. We bought it and took it home.
This purchase brought on an extensive Internet research project on the Rastafarian religion.
How Quitting Facebook Helped My Mental Health
About a year ago, I quit Facebook. It had become a place for me to experience disappointment and agitation. Distant relatives whom I hadn't seen in years were messaging me for favors. The presidential election was gearing up and people were getting very vocal about politics. And some of my best friends were dropping out of the site or not sharing anything anymore.
I decided it was time to close my account and do something more positive with my time. It was hard to break the habit, but there was much to be gained.
I decided it was time to close my account and do something more positive with my time. It was hard to break the habit, but there was much to be gained.
How to De-Escalate Fights with Family Members
Ever find yourself on the receiving end of verbal attack? Many people have loved ones who lash out in verbally abusive ways. Some of these people refuse to listen to reason when angry. They take no accountability for their role in creating strife. They might insist that you are the cause of their abusive behavior and they would stop hurting you if only you would change. But relationships are always about two people. Each person interacts and affects the other.
For example, Moira, a 45-year-old wife and mother of three, was abused as a child. Moira was easily triggered into jealous rages. These rages could be set off by the smallest thing: perhaps her husband glanced inadvertently at another woman, or complimented a coworker. Or perhaps her teenage daughter talked back to Moira or expressed affection for a teacher, igniting Moira’s jealousy.
For example, Moira, a 45-year-old wife and mother of three, was abused as a child. Moira was easily triggered into jealous rages. These rages could be set off by the smallest thing: perhaps her husband glanced inadvertently at another woman, or complimented a coworker. Or perhaps her teenage daughter talked back to Moira or expressed affection for a teacher, igniting Moira’s jealousy.
3 Common Breakup Tactics of an Abusive Narcissist
Don't fall prey to these underhanded and manipulative end-game tactics.
DON’T ever underestimate the breakup maneuvers of a narcissistic partner. A narcissist’s end game tactics are varied. If he still sees value in the relationship he may try to win you back so he can resume his control and abuse of you.
