Killing the Perfectionist Within

Honor Jane Newman

Description

Release high expectations, reduce anxiety, and come to accept yourself completely as you are right now. Honor teaches us the beauty of being average through her fun and accessible writing style and practical workbook exercises.

• Live with greater self confidence and energy

• Reduce anxiety and self-pressure

• Be the person you’ve always wanted to be

“Loved the book! I enjoyed reading it today with cups of tea and my feet up. It’s very accessible and easy to read, as well as very insightful, helpful and practical.”
—Shae M (psychologist)

Sujets

• Développement personnel
• Développement personnel
• développement personnel
• Développement personnel
• Self-help
• health
• Personal Growth

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press AU
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781452529530
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

KILLING THE PERFECTIONIST WITHIN
A Self-Help Guide for Women Suffering from Perfectionism, Anxiety, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
HONOR JANE NEWMAN


Copyright © 2015 Honor Jane Newman.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com.au
AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
 
 
 
ISBN: 978-1-4525-2952-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4525-2953-0 (e)
 
Balboa Press rev. date: 07/19/2022
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
What is perfectionism anyway?
Revised introduction
Introduction
Meet your perfect friend…
Perfectionistic parenting: critical and over indulgent
The critical parent: Mummy, Daddy do you approve now?
The over indulgent parent:
The larger critical parent
The yes/no monster
Unhelpful thinking styles
Social anxiety
Burnout and chronic fatigue
Perfectionism in intimate relationships
Guilt
Isolation
Perfectionism and suicide risk
How to live a joyously flawed life
The beauty of being average
Self-awareness
Positive self- talk
Self- esteem building or cultivating a good relationship with YOU
Body Image - The great female struggle
A self -marriage ritual
The art of mindfulness
Rest
What are your pleasures?
Femininity and going with the flow
Creating networks
Managing guilt
Conclusion: Where to go from here…..Living the dream
You are not Peter Pan; you cannot lose your own shadow!
More on guilt and shame love and money
Your energy field
How I became a perfectionist -updated story
Have you ever heard of the burnt chop syndrome?
The mask and neurodiversity/autism
On codependency
 
Epilogue
One last thing…
Bibliography
APPENDIX 1: My Pleasures
APPENDIX 2: List of workbook exercises
About the Author
Preface
“The greatest perfection is imperfection”
– Lucillo Vanini
The inspiration for this book came about after my own personal experience, research and client work. About 10 years ago I found myself in the midst of a personal health crisis. I was struggling for energy almost constantly. No one in the medical profession could give me a straight answer as to why. So I had no other choice but to embark on my own healing journey. I started with diet and counselling. I made a tree change, moving my inner city lifestyle out to the leafy, slower paced outer suburbs. I experimented with lots of different ways of eating including macrobiotic, vegan and raw foods. These all helped a lot. However I still felt like I was on the verge of being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. At the time I had been eating out quite a lot, and had been undergoing some quite intensive psychotherapy. This psychotherapy had been very helpful, however the length and duration of emotional purging of past traumas had, coupled with me trying to complete a Master’s Degree, working part time as a psychologist and planning a wedding left me feeling extremely burnt out. I remember at the time being completely lost and confused as to why I was tired. I had no concept of how much was a reasonable amount of things to have on my plate or how to really truly care for myself properly. I then got pregnant. My husband and I moved house and I had a bit of a melt-down. I was told quite sternly by my partner to stop and take it easy. The pregnancy was a blessing in a way (apart from the obvious reasons) because it caused me to cut down and then stop work and think about my wellbeing more. The year after my baby was born I was a vegan and by the time she was one, I was extremely physically healthy, yet still tired, after being back at my university course (lucky she was a good sleeper!!) So the long and the short of it was that I slowly learnt, through counselling and taking better care of myself nutritionally, why I had reached that point of burnout. There were certain things about the way I was viewing the world that were affecting my interaction with it and causing me to overburden and stress myself to the limit on a regular basis. I learnt that these were patterns that had developed over the course of my young life to become personality factors. These personality factors are what I want to talk to you about. How they are formed and how they can be undone. As part of my Master’s thesis I also met and interviewed 10 people with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia about their experiences with these illnesses. I saw that these people had common behaviours and personality characteristics. I started scratching my head. I also saw lots of clients in my practice who presented with anxiety and had these same characteristics. Then I began helping them to get better. This book is about that. How I helped myself, my clients and how I can help you too.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my wonderful husband Thomas, who is always so supportive of my artistic and creative endeavours. Thank you also to all the people who proof read my draft and baby sat my kids so I could get this done. And of course, to every single person who ever believed in me.
PART 1
What is perfectionism anyway?
“Good enough is good enough. Perfect will make you a big fat mess every time.”
— Rebecca Wells , The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
Revised introduction
Since I released this book in 2015, I have learnt many new things about perfectionism in terms of the causes and treatments. That is why I have decided to release this new and updated version. To talk about all the things that I did not know then that I have since discovered. I understand more deeply what it takes to treat perfectionism, so I have added some new chapters on shadow integration, guilt, shame, love and money, energy fields, neurodiversity and more …juicy hey.
Enjoy.
Introduction
The word perfect comes from the Latin word ‘perfectico’ which literally translates as: To finish or bring to an end. The Greek word for perfect ‘teleiotes’ literally translates as, ‘Completeness’. Philosophers Aristotle and Aquinas defined perfect as a thing that is perfect in it- self and perfectly serves its purpose. Aristotle added that it must be a thing which is so good, nothing of its kind could be better.
Research over the past 15 years in Australia has shown that around one million adults suffer from depression each year. Studies over the past 25 years have also shown that women experience depression in significantly greater numbers than men and are also at greater risk of developing anxiety. It has also long been known that perfectionism can have a detrimental effect on mental health, particularly in the form of depression anxiety, eating disorders and suicide risk. Additionally, not only does perfectionism exist alongside the above psychological problems it has also been found to be something that maintains them. For example, a researcher named Barlow found that perfectionism contributed to the maintenance of anxiety. Much empirical research has shown that people who are perfectionists don’t respond as well to either medication or counselling as people who do not possess this personality aspect. There are number of reasons for this. One is that this trait seems to interfere with the establishment of an effective working relationship between the client and therapist. (Clients may either try to be the ‘perfect’ patient or direct hostility toward the therapist). Additionally the ‘rewards’ of perfectionism such as high achievement and success are generally reinforced in our culture and the desire for these rewards may deter sufferers from seeking treatment. Overall, there is much evidence that perfectionism has negative impacts for mental health. So what does being a perfectionist or having perfectionism actually mean? What does it look like and what causes it? Let’s find out…
Dictionary.com definition of perfectionism: A personal standard, attitude or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less.
Perfectionism is something that has long been known to be problematic to a person’s mental health. There has also been much discussion in psychological literature on perfectionism’s nature in the last century. If we explore this concept through the lens of psychological research, it bec