We talk a lot about self-care and how important it is to take good care of ourselves. Sounds obvious, right? However, a lot of us find self-care really challenging, and I believe this is because of the common misconception that self-care means “I need to look after myself instead of others” rather than “I need to look after myself as well as others”.

A perfectionist: somebody who strives for absolute perfection and sets very high standards for themself.

The term perfectionism can hold positive connotations in our society. It’s what we often turn to as a humble ‘weakness’ in a job interview to imply that we are too hard-working. The assumption that perfectionists make the best employees makes sense, given that there are a lot of adaptive qualities about perfectionism. People who strive for perfection are often highly motivated, and tend to possess a high level of persistence, tenacity and drive. Those who strive to be perceived as perfect by those around them tend to also have extreme levels of empathy.

This all sounds pretty good, right? Well, not always.

Enabling is a pattern of seemingly helping a loved one. However, what seems like helping to keep the peace or not cause distress, is actually disempowering because it allows the issue to continue rather than being solved. This disempowerment occurs because it teaches the other person that regardless of what they’re going through, there will always be someone there to rescue them or make sure they don’t have to deal with what they’re going through. Enabling therefore allows loved ones to not face the natural consequence of their actions. Allowing this to happen can seem hard and almost cruel to allow, however patterns of unhelpful behaviours don’t change if enabling continues.

We’ve all heard of fight, flight, and freeze, but what is fawn? Fawning is the art of people pleasing. Hands up if you’re guilty of this one. I’m raising my hand here. Fawning is a recently acknowledged anxiety state where we often acquiesce to people’s requests because we are full of apathy, overwhelm, guilt, and/or shame. These emotions are often driven by a sense of responsibility for wanting to do good by others as well as a desire to be accepted, to not want to be seen as a bad person, to be seen as helpful, resourceful, capable, and the list goes on. When we feel these deep emotions, we often disconnect from our own needs abandon our boundaries and lose our sense of self. In our bodies we can experience a feeling of anxiety, emotional overload, intense physical sensations and sometimes numbness. In this state we essentially sacrifice our own needs to ensure the needs of the people around us are met. If we do this relentlessly and forget about our own selves in the process, it can leave us feeling resentful which eventually leads to burnout. Sound familiar? So what do we do about it?

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the book launch of a friend, and the afternoon was spent talking about the central themes of her book – motherhood, identity and finding oneself after becoming a mother. These lovely discussions left me thinking a lot about what it means to become a mother and I thought it would be an interesting topic for this week.

Have you ever considered group therapy? Did you know that group therapy is a highly effective therapeutic process? I think most people, when they think about therapy, are thinking about the one on one space, but in reality there are lots of ways to access therapy and group therapy is one of those wonderful options. Group therapy is commonly used in inpatient settings and in community settings (think support groups or alcoholics anonymous), but there are lots of group therapy programs in other settings too that can be a wonderful treatment option. I have had the privilege of being a group therapist at various stages in my career and have found the process rewarding and fascinating. So, how does it work?