By EK Wills
I am sitting in a vineyard bach (villa) in New Zealand after having gone out for dinner and can look forward to a swim in the pool after breakfast. But it is tainted.
The day before, the family sat on the beach talking about meal plans: not because we were budgeting (although we do that too) but because my teen was stressed about her weight.
Her distress centres around confidence or lack thereof. She tells me that if her weight were better then she would feel more able to be centred and thus able to be outgoing and joyful.
I tried to explain that the way to feel better is to "feel the fear and do it anywa'y": to put yourself out there and engage and it will become a habit. But to someone with a perfectionist outlook, i's not that easy.
In the car, my other teen shared a podcast on perfectionism called 'How to unf@*ck your brai' that I thought held some insight. Perfectionism is living in the future because it is all about our potential and what we should be. No-one can ever live up to that because no matter what we do, there is always room for improvement in the future.
We can all take stock of our thoughts when it comes to negativity because we are hard wired to doit.
I notice that I am doing it on this trip. I look at the yachts on the water and think, "Wouldn't it be nice if..." or when we go to a restaurant, mindful of the budget, and I think "If only we could..."
We listened to the kids' music when the radio was out of range and Bruno Mars sang "I wanna be a billionaire so fuckin' bad". They were singing along and it was great fun but the flip side is that this mantra is what many of us are thinking and our kids are taking it on, too.
We measure ourselves against the successful and perpetuate the feelings o being "not good enough".
There are so many podcasts and blogs available to teach us the meaning of happiness, how to improve our thoughts and there are social influencers telling us their method for success.
Why is it in this age of a global village, where we are all meant to be so well connected, that so many are feeling so isolated and alone?
Of course FOMO comes into play but the levels of depression and anxiety are escalating, while people sit in their rooms on devices and are not engaging with the world.
Is it too hard to compete? It is too much effort to do it yourself when you can watch someone else do it and change the channel when it gets boring? Is it just too mind-blowing to have to compare yourself to everyone?
We always had the "keep up with the Joneses" adage, so is the difference now that we have coaches telling us how we need to think too?
Everything needs to be improved and perfected, even our imperfect thoughts.
Thankfully, there are techniques we can use to pull us out of our thoughts and train our brains when we are feeling like we need assistance. There are many approachessuch as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), interpersonal therapy (ITP) and more long term psychotherapy to mention only the tip of the iceberg.
The key is to find what engages us, feels authentic and makes sense to us personally.
There is no single answer that will satisfy everyone. We just blunder through our lives and make as much sense of it as we can for our own situation. And if podcasts help, then turn to them. If listening to Bruno Mars makes you feel better, then do that. I find writing to be my therapy, like writing a journal, because it is like venting with a friend.
If we lived in a perfect world, there would't be a need to unfuck your brain. In the meantime, we need to find our own way.
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