#764 Social Anxiety & Perfectionism - Dr. Ellen Hendriksen Returns

Extra-value meals are back. That means ten tender juicy McNuggets and medium fries and a drink are just eight dollars Only at McDonald's for a limited time only prices and participation may vary prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California and for delivery Welcome to episode 764 with my return guest Dr. Alan Hendrickson This is the metal illness happy hour place for honesty about all the battles in our heads from medically diagnosed conditions Past traumas and sexual dysfunction to everyday compulsive negative thinking this show is not meant to be a Substitute for professional mental counseling. I'm not a therapist. It's not a doctor's office. It's more like a waiting room That doesn't suck There you have it the website metal pod comm metal pod social media handles you can follow us at We have a patreon patreon comm slash metal pod all kinds of different tier rewards at that one and This is the week where the bulk of the surveys will be on the five dollar and above patreon Let's get to some surveys. This is from the ask Paul anything Survey and this is filled out by a woman who calls herself Alex and she writes Now what advice would you have for someone who wants to move to Hollywood? I'm someone who's interested in writing directing crew hyphen a hard worker with an arts background and experience in both hospitality and fabrication I'm a horror lover and I plan to finally move out there to follow my dreams to make movies the things that helped me survive my childhood My knee jerk reaction was to say stay wherever you are Because this is a brutal town to make a living and I still do feel that way But who am I to snuff out someone's dreams? I know the people who work in the industry out here and things have really especially with with AI and CGI and and and a lot of Filming moving to other cities for financial reasons A lot of people are really struggling to stay employed out here. So That would be my Advice would be find any other way possible Something that I think is a good idea for anybody Who wants to create a great calling card to help become employed start posting videos of your work? What that would look like for you. I have no idea but Yeah, my my two cents, but I love that you have a passion and I'm certainly a Believer in following your passion It's just the reality is sometimes it can be really hard for instance I'm trying to supplement my income by making furniture and it's really fucking hard Getting people to buy stuff that I think is beautiful. I Think is really well made And money's tight Money's tight This is also from the ask Paul anything survey and this is filled out by a gender fluid person who refers to themselves as slowly transforming into a crab BRB I Wonder if they meant to write Crab bib because BRB is be right back. I don't know. I'm gonna put the investigation aside on what that What that means What would you like to ask Paul? Why is mean DJ voice from the Quad Cities as someone who is from the Quad Cities? It is always so disorienting when you mention it lol I Think I picked for those of you who are new to the show mean DJ voices is the voice that resides inside my head That just tells me mean shit about myself The negative cynical voice at my head and it kind of talks like a like a DJ from the Midwest And that's why I picked the Quad Cities I suppose I could have picked Chicago where I'm from but And I also used to do a lot of stand-up in The Quad Cities and for those of you who don't know the Quad Cities are and I didn't you have to look this up I remembered Rock Island Moline Davenport in Bettendorf, which is the best of the four. No fucking idea No, I did maybe maybe Davenport I Performed in all of them except for Rock Island Don't know what's in Rock Island other than Augustana College, which is where my cousin John who's like a brother was raised with us where he went to college All right, Paul that was a total waste of time Cup it up Three to row sticks This is from the voice in your head survey And this is filled out by a guy who calls himself the obvious child and I want to pair this with a Another survey I'm gonna read the other survey right after this one, but I feel like they were meant to be read back to back so This first guy the obvious child orders some of the things you tell yourself about yourself Ever since I can remember the voice in my head tells me that people don't want me around Despite having had people prove me wrong. I always assume that I'm annoying or not wanted This is so painful because it can make me feel so alone even when I'm surrounded by friends I also see how this belief can hurt people around me since I greatly underestimate how much I mean to some people and Parentheses sometimes people tell me that I mean a lot to them, but I still find it hard to really believe them This belief makes it hard for me to fully be vulnerable with people because I assume that I'm just weighing them down It makes me cry to think back to myself as a child I can still see that scared and sad little kid myself today And it makes me sad that his emotional needs weren't met. This is a big wound I need to heal but right now I'm going through a pretty turbulent period in my life having ended a four-year relationship Early this year finishing up my studies and not knowing what the future holds and dealing with a lot of emotional baggage And sometimes I fear I'll never be able to fully open up to and be vulnerable with people Fuck man. I just want to feel really loved by someone and truly believe it. You know the first thought that Popped into my head when I read this is there there's a saying in recovery that if you want to improve your self-esteem Do esteemable acts and the other thought that popped into my head is that this this is The result this is what happens when When we're raised in an invalidating Environment when we're when we're kids is there's a great article by dr. Alan Rappaport It's it's called co-narcissism and he's one of the things that he discovered in his research is that When we Grow up Around abuse or a narcissistic parent or something where our needs aren't being met when we become an adult We tend to believe that the rest of the world Feels the same way about us as a neglectful or abusive Caretaker did and it sounds to me like that is is wired in you right now and the way My opinion to help on wire that is to get some new wiring. You know, there's the neuroplasticity of the blame the brain and and Emotions and I think a support group Where you're being of service Sometimes by helping people sometimes by being the one who's being vulnerable and opening up I think you could Find that that helps at the very least it could help you in in other areas. I've seen it happen Thousands of times just profound changes in people when they get around community vulnerability trust service Asking for help all of the above. Here's the second survey. This is filled out by a guy who calls himself below 32 and for him it was a he filled out the light bulb moments survey and He writes some friends and I got together to start a new NA meeting We did all this work and preparing for the first meeting most of them for those of you that don't know NA as narcotics anonymous Most of the work fell on myself and my sponsor I chose to include a reading about Metal health being an inside issue in NA that I had put together. So at the meeting during discussion a Member shared that because of the reading I put together They felt safe to share how their mental health was affecting their recovery from drugs and they were so appreciative about it Warmth and gratitude just washed over me as originally my sponsor and I were uncertain about including the reading It felt really great to know I had helped someone and that helped me too I'm gonna take a wild guess That in that moment when this happened That person was not thinking I am a weight on other people That this is how it works in my life is Isolation will kill me it will kill me. Yeah, there's solitary time which can be helpful etc. etc, but I Hope that helps This is also from the ask Paul anything survey, and this is filled out by Andrew and he writes I was listening to a recent episode where he talked about doing video for the podcast And I had a thought about getting the podcast more exposure on video platforms. Have you lurked looked into no He lurked if you looked into animations or other simple visual mediums mediums that would give you something to upload to YouTube I listened to more than a few podcasts via YouTube and some Like better offline just have a short Repeating loop of animation for the video component I Haven't I have seen videos where they do that and I hadn't considered that so thank you For that and I'm not sure what that would look like and how involved that would be Is it something that would be AI generated? I don't know Shoot me an email anybody who has thoughts on that As I shared in a previous podcast I had started doing video in the in the Legwork involved was just so Overwhelming to me probably not to the average person, but And then finally this is an awful some moment filled out by a woman who calls herself Alex and She writes one of my soul friends lives in Seoul so you well friends lives in New Orleans We met while working in the art and design tool crib at Columbia College in Chicago we both loved spooky stuff and tattoos and building things and thrifting and Bearing our souls in real talk and good food She grew up an avid bike rider in Chicago Southside and is one of the most stylish and independent people I've ever met One day down in Nola, which stands for New Orleans. She gets hit by a car on her bike She tells me and I'm freaking like are you okay? Oh my god. She goes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, whatever That's not why I wanted to talk to you so when I went through the windshield I was wearing those tights you sent me and the medics were taking them off because they were soaked in blood But I was begging for them back dude. I went through the class and they didn't even snag I wouldn't shut up about it to the medics the nurses the doctors I didn't get them back, but I just wanted to thank you again for the tights. They were amazing. I Had another pair of these tights in my wardrobe in a different color and sent them to her right away For three days, I've been on the verge of a fucking panic attack You know, I remember being young and just like hitting my head against the wall and I hate that, you know, that feels better I was suicidally depressed. This is everything I've always wanted times a million total despair and I've never been less happy Wandering around London. I don't really like not having control hoping I could step in front of a car crying uncontrollable Well-eating predators think that men will never talk about it. There's just no stopping it. Everyone's dealing with something Anger where I feel my jaw tightening. Oh, maybe tonight. I won't have 20 drinks. You're being disrespected Oh, I have a pretty deep and overwhelming. You're not being appreciated fear of abandonment. You're gonna die alone I'm trying to get to a place where I'm valuable Sometimes you just need to hang on one more day just because I exist I had crippling social anxiety and severe depression. My mom's response was to get me into modeling I'm here with a return guest Ellen Hendrickson Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me you are a clinical psychologist at Boston University and You kind of specialize there in Anxiety yeah, so my so my specialty is anxiety my super specialty is social anxiety and perfectionism So yeah, I will always have a job And we didn't really touch on perfectionism as much as social anxiety last time And that's one of the things we're gonna talk about today. Let's do it Let's talk about your perfectionism Yes, for sure. Yeah, no, I mean there's a there's a line for you know self-help book authors Which is right the book you need and so I've done that twice now I find it, you know as somebody who values privacy. I find it unbelievable. I now essentially make a living writing about my issues, but yeah, the last Time around was social anxiety and then I come from a long line of perfectionists for sure. I think my you know Cave person ancestors probably over thought the mammoth hunt and worried how they came off at the cave party You know so kept redoing the cave drawing exactly like this. This could be better. This isn't good enough My ass looks too big in that So I come yes, I come by this honestly and my Okay, so I as I was researching this book I came across a paper which I didn't end up using because it would it veered off into another direction But the title was gold and it was perfectionist at 20 work life balance problems at 40 I have to paraphrase that it's something like that and that was essentially the story of my life Like I was definitely I've always been you know a pretty intense Person we can talk more about the you know the exact definition of perfectionism later, but it certainly fit and You know, I I would do a lot of push push pushing. I would not ask for help, you know classic and by Yeah, by mid-life. I really started to burn out and so for me it manifested mostly physically I developed a G GI illness I woke up one morning. I couldn't turn my head to the right because my muscles were so tight I went through like five rounds of PT because I blew up my forearms from typing too much So classic sort of overwork over productivity your body telling you hey, stop it lady. Yeah, exactly exactly so I I think I've listened pretty well, you know, I Being an imperfect imperfectionist makes my head hurt, but that's what I'm aiming for I like that term imperfect Perfectionist I Would imagine most perfectionists are pretty intense whether they show it outwardly or not for sure. Yeah, definitely there's I There was a definition that I came across that I really appreciated and it was that perfectionism is demanding of oneself a level of performance higher than required for the situation and I like that because you could look at it Either way it was sort of like one of those Optical illusions where you look at it one way It looks like one thing you look at another way like the bunny in the duck or the young lady and the old lady because demanding of oneself a little level of performance higher than is required for the situation Can be really great that can make the world go around like that's how we aim high and do good work and Strive and achieve and whatnot But it can also absolutely go the other way if we're demanding of oneself a level of performance higher than is required Yeah, it can lead to burnout can lead to spending excess energy in places that don't matter, you know can lead to spinning our wheels and I can lead to some trade-offs where if we're Overworking or over preparing or over performing over achieving then something else is not getting done and usually that's our health like in my case or our relationships or Enjoy remembering to enjoy life. So yeah, it's so similar to addiction and that it throws your life out of balance You use it as a you know as a way to I don't know distract yourself It's it's an oblivion of sorts because it's so consuming I would imagine there are people that use it to distract themselves from Trauma they don't want to deal with or relationships hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. There's so I mean, this is the work of doctors Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett and so they say that there are four types of Families that generally give rise to perfectionism and you can come out of any family perfectionistic But they say that the the the first type is obviously perfectionistic families If your parents model sort of hard-driving high-achieving behavior to you, you're probably gonna do that too second type is sort of cautious like Helicopter snowplow parents like a real sense of like following the rules doing it correctly like sort of treating you like you're not capable third type is where Love is contingent upon performance. So I love and pride get confused conditional love exactly and the fourth alluding to you know like addiction or whatnot is sort of more the like unstable chaotic family like with a parent who might have been Yeah addicted to alcohol. Yeah mental like severe mental illness something like that And then kids will often double down on some kind of performance to Show that you know to first some kind of control You know so at least if I can't if I can't stop mom's drinking I can get straight A's or if I can't stop dad from Yelling so much, but I can control everything that goes into my mouth and you know be like control my eating. So for sure It's so funny whenever I come across somebody who you know when they were a teenager They were school president straight A's I always want to say so which parent was the drug addict or alcohol exactly Yes, it's like you can see the past for sure. Yeah So let's let's talk about your perfectionism. When did it begin? What type of family did you come from? Did you fit into one of those molds? Yeah? So I mean I I think I'd I'm never gonna throw my family under the bus For sure. Yeah, I get a long line of perfectionists Yeah, my my my family was you know, certainly high achieving was focused on doing things correctly Making mistakes was not forbidden, but you know certainly avoided for sure. So I Came out of that. Yeah little hyper independence is my way of being perfectionistic And what do you mean by that? Yeah, like just not asking for help I say or you know like from you know from moving furniture to put it on my wetsuit to Like navigating friend drama like I did it all myself. And so I did what's called a perfectionistic self presentation where you show the world what's going well and Hide what you're struggling with or what's not going? Well, there's a colloquial term now called the Stanford duck syndrome Which means that you look like you're gliding along the surface But really your little duck feet are paddling frantically underneath. And so that is something I mean, there's enough of us that do that that it has a name So that's very validating. But when I first saw that I was like, oh, that's what that was. Okay. Oh, yeah And so did it get worse the older you got give me give me some snapshots if you can recall them from childhood adolescence If you can't think of anything, that's that's fine, too. Yeah, okay. Well here. Let's do this. So or your internal monologue Yeah, absolutely. So okay here. I'll wrap this in a little bit of academia, but it'll but yeah, I'll give you a package here so the two pillars of Perfectionism are self-criticism. So that needs no introduction, but in Perfectionism is particularly harsh and personalistic and so self-criticism might manifest as like name-calling like I'm such an idiot or like well, I'm so stupid it could be Rhetorical questions. Why can't I do this? What is wrong with me? It could be not even really overt thoughts, but more of like a general Underlined feeling of just never feeling good enough not being adequate and not doing enough not doing enough that absolutely that that was more Mine I never Overtly insulted myself, but there was always this just undercurrent the sense of like I should be doing better I should do more and so self-criticism is one pillar and then the other is something called Over-evaluation and that's when we conflate our self-worth with our performance and performance We can define very broadly so for me. I was the typical Striver student who Really over-evaluated my grades and so for me like getting straight A's or Yeah, doing well in school meant that I was okay that I was doing well But it doesn't have to be grades. It could be your work performance So I work with a lot of folks who you know work in offices who see their quarterly Evaluations as not only a referendum on their work, but on themselves like on their character Could be Musicians who are only as good as their last performance. I have a client who's a member of a major symphony And he came in after of what he considered to be a botched audition. It could be an athlete who's only as good as her last game Perfectionism is the heart of social anxiety could bear a social behavior a social performance. I said something stupid at that party That means I'm a loser that means I'm awkward and weird Somebody hasn't replied to my text in the last half hour. I must have done something that makes them hate me exactly Like I must that yeah, we we conflate. Yes our worth and our performance That had never even occurred to me until I was in my 40s Oh for sure. Yeah, this this person who was mentoring me in one of my support groups Said you don't have to dirt does do anything to be worthy of love Yes, you are yeah because you exist and that blew my mind I was on another podcast with a host who will go unnamed and I think this part got edited out But I was I was introducing over-evaluation and he sort of paused and just went but isn't that what we all do and it was just this moment of oh That's an option. I don't have to wait a minute. I don't have to do that or that's not that's that's not good Yeah, I thought I was my performance and I yeah, it's uh I in especially high like hi, just I'll put this in air quotes like high achieving people I think that's a common misconception and I would imagine a component of that is Self-obsession Which is also one of the components of addiction lack of perspective and self-obsession in it How could you have one without the other how can you have self-obsession and have An accurate sense of how large problems are where you fit in the world it just Sucks it. Yeah. No, I think part of the reason that okay So most people mellow as they age but people with perfectionism and this is the work of dr. Martin Smith He says for people with perfectionism as we get older the wheels start to come off and I think that's because if We are testing ourselves performance by performance like if we are yeah doing that over evaluation and Our standards are and we can talk later about how high standards are not the problem but if our if our standards are unrealistic or rigid then and Okay, and then also if we Define failure as not meeting expectations Like and we've got these high and rigid standards We're gonna rack up a lot of failures and then if we are what we do that over-evaluation comes into play then Over years and decades all those failures are gonna make us feel like failures So yeah, definitely an addictive quality because if we're trying to test ourselves and see if I'm doing hard things correctly That means I'm correct. That means I'm okay But we've had set our standards so Unrealistically and so rigidly that we can't meet them or we can only meet them if we really pull out all the stops and hit it Out of the park then yeah, we're we're not gonna get that like self affirmation that we need and We're just gonna reset those standards and try again And that's gonna take a lot of energy and bandwidth from other areas of our life So give me some tidbits from From your book your book is called Is the new one called how to be yourself how to be enough so they're really really similar I see your last one was called how to be yourself got it while you're in a critic and rise above social anxiety This one's how to be enough self-acceptance for self-critics and perfection. So give us some some tidbits for somebody who's listening and me Who struggled with that mean voice Some practical ways that we can face this on a on a daily basis for sure Yeah, so I take that subtitle so self-acceptance for self-critics and perfectionist pretty literally in that I Okay, so We've got two levers we can pull we've got change and we've got acceptance and so change is when you know typically like cognitive Behavioral therapy does this you talk back to the inner critic. We try to change the thoughts We try to refute the content of the thoughts. So Here with the self-acceptance piece we can do something different And that is that we can just change our rather than trying to change the thought we can change our Relationship to the thoughts and by that I mean that you know again I I so I write about my own problems and so like I'm very familiar with you know here Honestly after I do anything with a microphone Oftentimes what happens is my inner critic starts going and I say like why did I say it that way or like oh my gosh Like I forgot to talk about such I forgot this or I sounded like a teenage girl or what am I doing? You know and or I should have prepped more. Anyway, it's like I've done this before or something Okay, so I know that my brain will just start going like that after something like this with a microphone And I've done this enough now that I know that's kind of just what happens that just like when you go to a restaurant There's a script like you get seated by the hostess You know you get your menu you choose what you want you order your food comes you eat you pay you leave That's just part of the script for me and at least my self-criticism around things like this It's just part of the script I go I have a lovely interview. I talked to somebody smart and interesting I leave my brain starts going and Then you know several days pass and it goes away But I now I know that I don't have to get yanked around by it just because I have the thought doesn't mean it's True necessarily doesn't mean I have to listen to it. And so I've started taking the stance of How I approach the music at a coffee shop like it's there I can hear it, but like I don't have to take it literally and seriously and dance on the table to it I can just let it be there in the background and know this is just what happens This is part of sort of the ambiance. Yeah. Yeah, and so that self-acceptance part knowing that my brain is sort of wired To be self-critical and of course this is gonna happen, but there's no moral judgment on it It's just part of the script and sometimes our brains will even go. Oh, why am I doing that? Yes, we put judgment on top of a judgment. Absolutely So how quickly let's say you catch yourself going beating yourself up questioning your performance being a guest on a podcast How quickly are you able to dissipate that? What was it like in the beginning? Oh days for sure. Yeah, no, yeah, and I think you would argue back against the part That's like you should accept that self or yeah, or I would just have like this pit in my stomach I'm like, oh like well shame, you know of of like. Oh, that was terrible. Why did I let myself be seen that way? and then This is a slight tangent, but that will often happen to folks. There's a colloquial term called cringe attacks where even Decades later. Oh my god of the time we I don't know tried to dance provocatively in front of our crush and they like looked at us weird or the time we like, I don't know farted in math class and just will be folding laundry or You know like brushing our teeth and the thought will just like slap us from out of nowhere and it's a physical You know cringe. It's a physical wince that is really common especially in people with perfectionism because Again back to those high and rigid standards if we expect ourselves to not make mistakes to never make a fool of ourselves to never do anything wrong any time we do do that is gonna stick with us and Flood back at that. You know when we least expect it. So yeah, anyway, that's a that's a another thing. Yeah. Yeah So how does somebody who? is ambitious and goal-oriented How do they balance that? With yes not falling into perfectionism because I think a lot of people when they hear perfectionism and they hear somebody accept yourself, you know They think oh, you're just settling for mediocrity because I know there are people listening who are like no if I don't do this I'm gonna be mediocre and if I can just make this about Stuff that I do for a second The woodworkers that I love the most are the ones who are the perfectionists And when I'm woodworking all I see are the mistakes and I've heard these people say every project I've worked on there are mistakes and part of that is finding a great way to fix your mistakes, but There's always this battle in my head Where I say is this project good enough right now that I can finish it? Or do I really need to go back and strip the finish and re-sand it because there's one little dip? Because I imagine a potential customer looking at it and going oh my god. Yeah, how much for this? Oh look at this little dip right here. Hey You keep up the good work. I'll see you later and I feel it in my stomach. Yeah, so how? How do you? strive and Become better at what you do. Yeah. I'm not falling into that trap. This is the sixty four thousand dollar question This is great. I'm so glad you asked this okay because so going back to that over evaluation again I alluded to this before like high standards are not the problem. Please keep your high standards. That is fantastic That's gonna make you do excellent work, right? Okay, but we want to I know we can't separate it entirely So if you can picture like an overlapping Venn diagram that's almost entirely overlapping of performance and self-worth we want to separate those a little bit and I think that the typical advice for perfectionism has recently been yeah Stop when things are good enough you have to lower your standards And I don't agree with that at all because if we've got some over-evaluation Going on then and it reflects on us and our character or you know our moral values or something like that We're not going to lower our standards because exactly settling for something subpar or mediocre would mean that we're subpar or mediocre So what we can do is instead of lowering our standards We can make even a little bit of room for mistakes like even a one percent Room for mistakes, but again, that's not lowering our standards keep the high standards. So I'll tell you a story. So I was working with A client who's a pediatrician and she had been a doctor for 25 years Treated many many children and she came into session and she was just beating herself up saying I should get my head examined Maybe I should retire early I'm a terrible doctor because she had had a patient come in and she misdiagnosed her With constipation when actually she had appendicitis and this little girl ended up going to the emergency room was was fine You know was okay, but my client the doctor was just beating herself up and So we talked about okay like what? How many what percentage of misdiagnoses? Would you expect from anyone else with a 25 year history and the answer can't be zero like and so just even moving from I Expect no mistakes of myself to like, you know because I'm human not because I'm incapable or Incompetent but because I'm a person I'm probably gonna make a few mistakes and to like just make some wiggle room for that We'll often make all the difference again keep the high standards But to make a little bit of of room I can tell you another story if you want Yeah, so I also have a client will call so I just I want to emphasize Oh, this is sort of the same theme, but it's just really different examples because perfectionism can be so heterogeneous You line up a hundred people with perfectionism. You're gonna see it in a hundred different ways So this is a client will call Jamie who's a mom who is very concerned with being a good parent She grew up in sort of an unstable Family with some emotional and physical violence and so she's working really hard to break the cycle for her own kids and She will you know, we all default to our factory settings when we're under stress And so when she's having a really hard day, she will yell at her kids And she'll just kind of lose her temper and yell and then she'll really get down on herself and say like I you know I'm just like my parents. I'm failing my kids. I'm screwing them up And so we did something quite similar where we talked about rather than this all or nothing evaluation of like okay, I'm doing all right and then as soon as I Lose my temper and yell again not because I'm a terrible person, but because I'm human She would throw herself into from all to nothing into I'm a bad mom So all the work she had done all the time she had stopped herself before Meant nothing and so here I would argue if you told her to lower her standards That would be inappropriate both for her her and these kids So we talked about how often would she reasonably expect herself to screw up in the elder kids? the answer can't be zero and so, you know, she decided that 90% of the time she would expect herself to stop which I thought was a pretty high bar but even that little 10% gave her some wiggle room and Allowed her to be human without lowering her standards and I would imagine when we're it involves other people the thing that we're being perfectionistic about is You know making amends Realizing it's I don't Know anybody Who expects a friend to be perfect? But one of the things that we do value in a relationship is that person owning their shit? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah No, I mean so could because perfectionism comes from Perf like again that overlap of self-worth and performance I will often see either high achievers or people with social anxiety or what not come in and they think they have to Earn their way into belonging to social groups that they are already part of that They have to continually prove themselves in their friend group And so we will talk about okay Well, why why are you friends with your friends? Are you friends because of their performance? Are you friends because they pick good restaurants or they're they tell articulate stories or they have a good taste in beer? You know, whatever, you know, no, yeah, I mean that might be a little tiny part of it But you're friends with your friends because of how they make you feel about how they you feel understood or supported human Amazing. Yes. So when we when we put all our eggs in the basket of performance We forget about connection and we also forget about enjoyment So we can try to you know, take some eggs out of the you know, keep some in performance for sure But to put some in connection focus on just yeah connecting with each other focus on enjoying oneself and Those are harder because those are harder to measure. They're more qualitative and less quantitative and especially if you have social anxiety Absolutely. Yeah, and there, you know, we're we're measuring ourselves by our social performance And so it can be really hard to shift from Performing to connecting but when we do when we stop focusing on you know ourselves and start focusing on other people Even if it's just listening to what they're saying, you know looking at them rather than monitoring internally while we're having a conversation if we can it can become a lot easier to connect One of the things that I find really helpful when I'm agitated depressed sad, you know whatever about a Project or a social interaction or I find myself just using a terrible cope, you know, try to impress people Yes, I'll ask myself. What was my intent in in trying to was I looking for love? was I trying to be perfect because I Want more money Because then it's so much easier to figure out. Okay, what's maybe a better tool to upgrade for dealing act? Is it acceptance? Is it letting go of the things that I can't control is it? Talking with somebody and saying I'm sorry. I'm really anxious right now. It's why I canceled our You know our dinner plans rather than you know making an excuse, you know, or telling a lie Absolutely. Yeah, no, I appreciate so well So something that I think you stumbled on there is that the opposite of perfectionistic self-presentation There's a little bit of vulnerability because when we like I used to do like the only show what is going well and hide What's going poorly we come off as a little bit like? removed or like if we're being impressive like superhuman or Unrelatable and that okay perfectionism is interpersonally motivated We do it because we want to connect but perfectionism tells us a lie in that we can gain Acceptance and connection by performing as well as possible by being good at things and that doesn't work that backfires Right and so the what so what to do instead of you know What perfectionism is telling us to do whispering in our ears to be as impressive as possible is to be a little vulnerable and to show people some of the mess and to Say you know you love you for it. Absolutely. Love you. It helps them open up because then you're relatable You know then you come that rather than being superhuman your human just like them safe amazing. Yes, exactly And so yeah, so resist the the siren song of perfectionism and yeah show folks some of the mess Especially the people you want to get closer to Because when you say hey, okay, here's a little bit of my mess. Well often, okay, you know what here look here's some of mine too Right, and then that brings our relationships closer. Is there anything that human connection and vulnerability can't make better? Yeah, no, I haven't found it yet. Yeah, yeah, we are gonna take a quick break and see if we have any sponsors Give us some more tidbits for more from the book. Yeah, um, so your life. What yeah, yeah, no good I mean I could talk about this for days Okay, let's do some more myth busting so I was taught okay So with the asterisk that I love Kristen Neff's work from she does she's a self-compassion researcher at the University of Texas And I really appreciate she's done a lot for the field And I think one of the things that she teaches which is that self-compassion is like talking to yourself like a good friend Has sort of taken on a life of its own Mm-hmm, and so with me and my unrealistic standards when I heard that I thought that meant that I had to spout forth a you know articulate paragraphs of self-compassion at hype to be kind to myself and that was way too high a bar I was like I was doing that wrong so I have found that Not only if we're gonna talk to ourselves like a good friend. Can that be way easier? That can be one word like gentle or easy or a phrase you're okay, so really lower the bar or Even easier is self-compassion doesn't have to be words at all. It can be actions. So our are out of thoughts Feelings and behavior behaviors with the easiest to control like we can't control our thoughts You know don't think about a cheeseburger floating above my head We can't really control our feelings, you know anyone who's ever been told just relax Knows that that people love impossible. Oh, yeah, that always makes you friends. Yes, but we can we can by-in-large control our behaviors And so if we think about self-compassion as a behavior So even just giving ourselves a few minutes in the morning to savor our coffee Giving ourselves a few minutes under the you know the warm spray of the shower on a cold morning What my favorite example is like maybe making ourselves go to the gym because we know from experience that that makes us feel better or Giving ourselves permission to skip the gym because what we really need is another hour of sleep You'll notice that those are really different. Those are opposites in fact But if self-compassion is turning towards our pain and suffering and saying what do I need right now? It could be something or it could be allowing yourself not to do all you expect of yourself so how do you phrase it the going to the gym because For me, it's it's never been gentle Well, yeah, so this is this is the this is the what do I need? How do you make it not the taskmaster? Okay, okay here. So there there Okay, here this this segues into rules. Let's talk about rules. All right, so People like me with perfectionism love rules We orient towards rules because again if we're doing things correctly We are correct and if there are no rules we make up rules and then we follow those think about like at least You know for me, maybe yeah, like the some sort of cadence of going to the gym or like what we consider healthy eating There's gonna be a lot of rules in there again. We're doing things correctly. Therefore. We are correct. Okay, so We can try to shift from did I follow the rule? to Values and I know this is another one of those words that gets tossed around a lot so we can define it but To values and measure am I being the person I want to be am I living the life? I want to live and so That those are really different yardsticks. Did I do the thing correctly? Am I being the person I want to be? Those those are here. Okay. Let's let's do this way Values Again, it's been kicked around a lot. So I'll define it. There's four four parts to a value and I think the last one is the most important So first and this is from doctors Michael to Higgins Clarissa on who wrote an excellent book called the anxious perfectionist So they say a value is continuous. So you're never done living a value. It's different than a goal so like making a million dollars is a goal but like Financial security or wealth or I don't know something like something that you're never really done with is a value So, you know, somebody a pianist is never done practicing piano a person of faith is never done practicing their religion same thing with values To values are intrinsically meaningful meaning you would care about it even if no one ever knew So getting famous isn't a value per se, but like putting in the work is Three values are under your control. So they're not contingent upon anyone else So being loved is not a value but being loving is and the fourth one And this is again the one I think is most important. It's freely chosen. So values are never coercive or obligatory So you freely choose to follow them And you're likely willing to tolerate a little bit of discomfort or a little bit of inconvenience to do so So your values a value of like giving back might be why you're willing to go volunteer and help Do a beach clean up on a Saturday morning as opposed to going to the beach and like hang like Like hanging out on that same Saturday morning. So this gets back to your question about the gym So if you are trying to motivate yourself to go, is there a little bit in there? That's freely chosen. Is there something that is important or meaningful or purposeful to you that you can run towards Again, maybe you like how you feel afterwards. Maybe you know, it makes you feel powerful Maybe you really value taking care of yourself We can't gaslight ourself into this right if there's real if it's you know, if you really don't want to go You can't make yourself. That's so is telling yourself. You're lazy and you're ugly Yeah, well, I mean we all do that, right? Yeah, and so but if there's something Because that again, if this is the person we want to be so I want to be somebody who you know values my health who You know feels good after a workout like if we if we look at our lives and think okay That was the person I keep on saying the person I wanted to be but that's the life I wanted to live right then. Yeah, that's what we run towards and Again, it's got to be freely chosen and the quality of the experience starts to shift when we Stumble upon that like here. I'll give you an example. I'm terrible at getting through my email When whoever said email is a to-do list that other people make for you like that that oh my gosh That's my biography. So I when I look at my email I often feel quite resentful and I will put off answering it for like days sometimes which is doesn't work That's so good to hear though. That's so good to hear. It's not it's like it's not great But that's how whatever I'm wired. So I have found that something that does help me get through my email is thinking about You know, I actually do value my relationships with these people with the you know the people, you know In the on all the names lined up in my inbox Like I do care about my relationships with them and that feels freely chosen that feels like oh, okay Well, I actually would like to get back to this specific person Because I value, you know my connection with them and that that kind of frees it up a little bit and I feel like I can It I'm not explaining this very well That it it doesn't feel coercive It feels it feels like I am choosing to get back to them as opposed to oh my god I've got to answer these stupid emails. Yeah. Yeah, and so that little bit I can run towards and that helps to me values are The connection to the and sounds so cheesy, but the spiritual or realm because if if When I first started going to my support groups, you know, people talked about, you know, a Higher power and there was a part of me that that's like, I don't know that sounds so vague and so I thought Well, one of the way and so I imagined what a loving higher power would be like and what qualities it would embody and then I thought Those are the values that I would like to have Showing up on time and I fail often at some of these or you know being kind Being considerate of other people being patient Passionate but what I and and what I find is if I'm able to successfully embody that Value not because I'm trying to impress somebody. There you go But because I want to feel a connection to the universe and that I believe there is something out there That sounds freely chosen. Yes. Um, I find I'm more relaxed. I'm less self self-obsessive I have more clarity on things that are seemingly unrelated to that and I find that that and this isn't my goal But I find that people enjoy my company more yelling that they're not skating hard now imagine that yeah, no I mean your listeners can't see me, but I was nodding and nodding nodding as you were talking Yeah, and that that is what I mean by being the person you want to be living the life You want to live in terms of following our values and so I'm gonna make this worse though Okay, sure so following your values doesn't always feel good because I find that a lot of my clients will Come in with a perception that okay if I just choose the right value. I'm gonna feel amazing not always unfortunately So I'll tell you a story I had a client that will call Steven and he was a you know working dad who was a little bit of a workaholic And so he would find himself frequently like answering email on his phone on the soccer sidelines of his kids game But then he would miss all the action or he would duck out of like kid bath time and bedtime to go do more work and He this is not the person he wanted to be plus his his partner was really mad at him Because she was picking up all his slack and then his son would go to mom for everything because that's what he was sort of Trained to do so then Steven had to if he wanted to run towards the value of attentiveness to his child that meant that he started to pay attention to the soccer game and To be present for you know bath time story time but that meant that he felt his phone buzz in his pocket and Felt some guilt felt some anxiety felt like he should be doing more at work But if you're gonna feel lousy either way if you're gonna feel uncomfortable either way whether you're turning towards your values or not You might as well feel uncomfortable Living your values so he knew that if he answered email on the soccer sideline He was gonna feel guilty and you know disappointed in himself And if he didn't he was gonna feel anxious and also guilty So he chose to do what was important to him and again, that's the being willing to have a little bit of you know inconvenience or Values can cost you money. Yeah for sure. They have cost me. Yeah money, but I sleep well yes, at least in terms of You give a sponsor. I remember this. Yeah my attitude when I when I attempt to fall asleep is not one of You're not the person. You know, you should be it doesn't mean I don't I don't fail in certain areas of my life for sure But morally yes, I like who I am. Absolutely. I still feel lazy But I don't feel like somebody without screw yeah, yeah that right to me is Is something that really enhances the the feeling of living, but that cost. Yeah, for sure It it it brings burdens. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah following your values didn't feel amazing. Yeah, I like your values. Yeah, fantastic but peace yeah peace to me is It it's gold. Mm-hmm And if I can find things that bring me peace I really try to do them because an Unpeaceful life is so lonely. Mm-hmm. It's it's just so I Don't know. I'm not making sense, but well, no, I think you are doable Yeah, for sure, but you have to be willing for it to cost you money Yeah, cost you friendships right cost you other things, you know, yeah Well, and then I think that you're again all of that is freely chosen. You're not saying I have to do this, right? Because this will bring me peace. So I had I Give this example a lot But I think it bears repeating is I had this client who said through a combination of God and my mother I was taught to be generous, but for her it was manifesting as a rule So she said if somebody on the street asks me for a dollar if somebody asks me to babysit I have to do it. I have to be generous and that is a value masquerading Well, no, that's a that's a rule masquerading as a value. There we go and so because that Coversion that of that feeling of of it being obligatory Means it's functioning as a rule when it again that the quality of the experience will shift It's gonna feel different when it's freely chosen. Yeah, yeah I also believe that there is no peace without values. Mm-hmm there. I've never met somebody who is An unscrupulous business person who looks relaxed. Yeah, never. Yeah, I agree with you for sure Give us another tidbit from the the book and then we'll uh, yeah, we'll wrap up. Sure. So let's see So I'm gonna go back to your woodworking example. I really like that. Yeah So I'm here in LA for a family reunion And so I dragged some of my family to UCLA today to see where I went to grad school And we came across this statue of John Wooden from you know, the the legendary UCLA basketball coach. So In the book I tell the story of John Wooden and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when he was still Louis Alcindor on the UCLA team and So so John Wooden had this I mean had an amazing winning streak so much so that crazy crazy winning streak that to Education researchers so doctors Roland Tharp and Ronald Gallimore sat in the stands for the 1974 1975 Season of practices to just see what he did. He's like, what is the secret sauce? and they discovered that John Wooden very seldom praised or Criticized his players that instead of offering evaluation. He would say things like pass from the chest Run don't walk take lots of shots where you might get them in games pass the ball to someone short He would give information as opposed to evaluation and they found that he 75% of the time he was giving some kind of information Which just compared to other coaches at the time just blew blew them out of the water Like most people or most coaches were giving information like 30% of the time So we can take a page from that and when we're trying to work on something we can keep our eye on the work we can take the stance of like a Sculptor eye in a block of marble and saying what would make this work better or for the woodworking egg What would make this thing better as opposed to? Evaluation of ourself like are you idiot? Why can't you do this or you know for me? You know criticizing myself like what is wrong with me? Like did my in addition to my type of hyper independence like an overall an over identification with productivity has been my problem for a long time So when I get through 25% of my to-do list for the day because I'm being way overly You know hard on myself But what I think I can get done or what I should get done and you know There's those days where you cross off the you know the day at the top and just write the next day because nothing got done Then instead of saying like oh, what is wrong with me? Why can't I focus? Why did I get distracted so much like I can I can focus on the work as it like okay Like let me let me focus on these projects as opposed to Evaluating myself right so that is so focusing less on the outcome and more on the On the thing itself. Yeah, and ironically when we focus on the work as opposed to the are you know ourselves? That's when the best work gets done and the most enjoyment. Yeah, absolutely That's when we get and find flow. That's when yeah, we find that like time passes without us realizing it You know we get really absorbed. Yeah for sure there there's a story about John Wooden that he was he was He was known as Mr. Fundamentals It was all about fundamentals and the first thing he would do when he got a new player is He would focus on how they tie their shoes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah there. I read Kremu Doljibar is one of his memoirs and he said for the first practice his freshman year. Yeah coach Wooden said okay gentlemen, we're gonna we're gonna learn how to put on our shoes and socks correctly and He and Kremu Doljibar wrote I came to learn at the feet of the great John Wooden I didn't realize the experience to be quite so literal. Yes Where can people find you and let's plug your your book one more time It is called how to be enough Self-acceptance for self-critics and perfectionists got it and it is out already. It's out already You can find it anywhere you like to get your books and the place I buy post most often on the internet is sub-stack I have a newsletter called how to be good to yourself when you're hard on yourself And then my previous book how to be yourself Quiet your inner critic and rise above social anxiety is still hanging out around there So feel free to look at that one too. Thanks so much Alan. Thank you. It's great to be here again such great topics and I don't know if the day goes by that I don't struggle with perfectionism and Anxiety never used to think of myself as anxious and now I think I Think it might be one of the biggest One of the biggest struggles because I always thought that you know for somebody to be anxious Their hands have to shake. They have to be sweaty But it can just be a feeling of Just could be dread it could be Catastrophizing Cuz my my stomach very rarely gets tight or I very rarely shake but Almost every day through there's something where I'm just like oh, that's too much. That feels overwhelming Anyway enough about me As I mentioned earlier in the podcast If you would like to hear more surveys, they're available on our patreon and we could definitely use some more help on patreon listener donations are 90% of our income these days and we we Could use some support. It's patreon.com/metalpod and at the five dollar and above level you get access every other week We post a bunch of bonus surveys This is from the axe Paul anything survey and this is filled out by a guy who calls himself Hank and I believe Hank is filled out some surveys for us before and I recognize part of his story and He writes to the question. What would you like to ask Paul? He writes could a mother engage with her teenage son without sexual intent or arousal while and then he lists a bunch One he is naked getting in or out of the shower sometimes erect sometimes flaccid to peeing with an erection commenting on how he does it And if he is spraying Three watching him shaving his pubic hair For rub his feet while he has morning wood hanging out of his boxers and parentheses. Oh, she was baby talking Five leaves her G strings and victorious secret catalogs all over the bathroom and randomly bursts in without knocking almost daily Six was having affairs and telling my girlfriend about them Seven refused to stop seeing me naked when I asked her to turn her head And she called me a pervert and then told all my family. I was doing weird stuff in the bathroom Eight walking in and watching me pee while my girlfriend of a year is in the hall She did nothing else while in the bathroom and came out with me Nine talks about giving me suppositories and discusses the greasy marks in my pants Ten told my wife. She hoped my sister-in-law was sexually pleasing my brother 11 let me be comfortable exposing myself even to the point of me asking her to blow my body Including my penis dry with a hairdryer 12 never ever told me not to play with my penis in front of her I often get or got erections from spinning it or whatever else 13 laughed when I put a towel on it and flexed my erection 14 hated me after I asked her to turn her head and began grounding me in college from my girlfriend. I Mean that is a pattern of incest just fucking straight up, you know, there doesn't have to be The abuser doesn't have to be naked or have their their clothes off. It is up to the parent to set the boundaries and Healthy mom mothers often do you know Tell tell their sons or their daughters, you know, that's there's nothing to be ashamed of but that's for you to do in private or but this In in my experience of talking to Dozens if not hundreds of people who have experienced incest this is These are the most textbook ways I have seen that mothers Are incestuous with their children It's rare that you see one where there is like Super overt Sex it's almost always Some version of these things and the most common of the ones that I read from your list is the not giving the child Privacy in the bathroom and vice versa often calling the child into the bathroom while the while they are using the bathroom and Then I have to imagine that this Other one Was filled out by your Wife And I hope That I'm not outing each of you Because under the thing do you have any comments to make the podcast better she writes your podcast is unlike any we Have ever found we have read all the books listened to tons of podcasts been shamed by a therapist your work is important Thank you. She calls herself Polly and She filled out the fear survey and she writes I fear my husband being taken advantage of and being naked While I am excluded from the situation before he understands how he deserves dignity and privacy Now and how he deserved it from his mother all those years ago I fear that I will not be able to handle any more denial from him in Parentheses he has allowed me to be excluded by his mother and several powerful people while he was naked I'm not sure who the powerful people would be and I will have to leave due to the trauma I went through when I helplessly witnessed his mother's inappropriate behavior with him and he refused to change it I Hope if if You if these are connected That and you want to stay together that You see a qualified therapist and I think a Seesap would probably a good be a good type of therapist That's a certified sex addiction therapist and that's not me diet diagnosing The husband as being a sex addict, but the Places Where children are sexualized Somebody who understands that environment and how to help the adults heal is what is Important in finding help because there are sadly a lot of therapists out there who are really really clueless about incest both covert and and overt And then finally this is an awful some moment and this is filled out by a Woman who calls herself a bipolar's epic dentist crush and this is our friend from our waiting room, which was our Sunday afternoon zoom support group and I'm assuming she's okay with me reading her name, but I'll withhold it just in case It's Megan Yeah, I mean she shared this with the group so I'm sure she's fine with it being Read aloud She writes I've been going to the same dentist since 2019 for the first couple of years He was just the guy fixing my teeth I probably couldn't have picked him out of a lineup then one day after COVID restrictions lifted I was standing in line at my favorite coffee shop when I noticed this tall physically attractive man and then the horror set in It was my dentist Married with kids. I Panicked joked with friends and tried to shake it off Months later. I walked into the clinic and all those feelings came flooding back when I panic I make jokes and one offhand comment about vanity snowballed into a full and visa line journey That meant more than a year of awkward monthly visits me trying to act normal while he's literally in my mouth By the end I thought I cannot keep dragging this out and all that time He'd never mentioned a wife never wore a ring and I figured hopefully worse case This would just come across as a compliment best case Maybe we were both separated parents tumbling through life. So I decided to tell him then switch dentists So I'd never have to face it again on my last day I wrote a thank-you card with his initials on the front inside it said I've developed a crush So I'll have to move practices. If the feelings mutual here's my number. I handed it off like some nervous spy passing state secrets Except he opened it right there with the assistant still in the room My shaking went off the charts. She finally left and in my panic I touched his arm and whispered maybe later like a soap opera extra Later, I couldn't even take off my necklace for the x-ray The assistant had to undress me while watching me fumble at close range I thought I was safe, but then at the front desk there. He was again Panicked giving me the wrong Instructions about what to do next while I corrected him like I was covering for this mutual secret We now shared Finally, I paid Bolted and collapsed into my car and then it hit me. Oh my god. I actually did it I Asked someone out for the first time in my life and went sideways in every possible way, but it also felt incredible It That is such a great awful some moment Megan, thank you. I Hear such great awful some moments and and and happy moments, too in our zoom our zoom groups and I'll often ask them to please go fill that out as a survey if you're comfortable so I can share it on the podcast Anyway, if you're out there and you're and you're feeling stuck Your tribe's out there somewhere just a matter of finding us and Gracie says hello and Just never forget that you're not alone and thanks for listening Everybody I know is bizarrely beautiful everybody. I know it was arly beautifully fucked up in some weird ways