For too many of us, shame brings order to the world -- order feels like control and control feels like safety. But it's the type of safety that results from hypervigilance to threat -- an illusory safety in which we give up our enjoyment of the present moment for constant reassurance that we are not being harmed. This reassurance is so fleeting that we must constantly chase it, and that can be exhausting.
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It's 3am and you're scrolling on your phone to try and get a break from your repetitive thoughts about the uncomfortable conversation you had earlier with a coworker. Or maybe you're attempting to mentally plan for every possible outcome of a future conversation. Your thoughts are as overwhelming as the hundreds of lines of text and images pouring down your screen. You ask yourself, “What could I have said better? What could I do to prevent this discomfort in the future?” You feel exhausted yet, sleep doesn't come. What can you do?
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Do you believe you should be able to please everyone all the time? Do you become angry with yourself or intensely embarrassed when you make mistakes? You might have some perfectionistic tendencies. Where does perfectionism come from? And how do we begin to transform our perfectionism into discernment, self-care, and respect?
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Do you find you’re pretty hard on yourself? Do you tend to set high standards for yourself that are almost impossible to achieve? Many of us receive spoken and unspoken messages that only certain outcomes in life are acceptable: good grades, always saying “yes” and being helpful to others, being in the right relationship, looking a certain way, having a certain job, the list goes on. If we don’t meet these standards, we feel like failures, like we’ve let everyone down, or like maybe there’s something wrong with us.
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