Emotional Perfectionism, Part One: Making sure you feel the "right" things, not the real things

I define emotional perfectionism as the rigid habit of feeling what one "should feel" in order to satisfy the real or perceived expectations of others.

It is a sub-type of General Perfectionism, where behaviors and expressions are tailored to meet external expectations. This is a codependency behavior designed to help procure safety, belonging, and worth.

Emotional perfectionism shows up as:

- Ignoring what you actually feel and forcing yourself to feel differently about something

- Saying you feel one way, but you actually feel differently

- Showing up a particular way so others won't be upset or bothered in some way

- Shutting down your feelings and putting on a "happy face"

- Trying to heal your emotions so you feel the "right way"

What is actually needed:

- Meeting ourselves as we are

- Understanding and seeing our emotional experiences as how we feel about the thing/circumstance/experience

- Believing that what we feel isn't wrong and doesn't really need changing. It needs to be known and valued as it is

- Sharing what we feel in clear, kind, direct ways with people that receive it with warmth

- Letting ourselves breathe emotionally



A tool: ALI Practice: https://ali.freetheself.com



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