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Many people wonder how they became controlling, driven, and perfectionistic. Or, to use the clinical […]
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People pleasing and obsessive-compulsive personality occur together far more than many might think. Some people put all their determination and perfectionism into making other people happy with the assumption that it will come back to them in love, support or affirmation. It often does not happen that way.
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Rather than just write off compulsive behavior as neurotic, as contemporary culture encourages us to, we need to look beneath the surface to see what those urges are really calling for. Then we can understand the deeper intent and how these urges could contribute to our wholeness. Otherwise, if we just dismiss compulsive behavior as pathological, we miss the potential purpose and meaning underlying it.
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People with obsessive-compulsive personality and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) are driven to be as productive […]
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The television series The Good Place has lots of wisdom to offer compulsives and perfectionists. […]
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The doomed attempt to fix, perfect, and control puts your body on constant high alert. It feels like, “This is an emergency! A threat to my well-being!” Your death grip on the way you think things should be not only keeps your muscles tense much of the time, it also leads you to produce lots of the stress hormone cortisol. The compulsive disposition—fixing, perfecting and controlling–can be healthy and productive when used consciously. But if you’re too often at odds with the way things actually are, it can also lead to chronic stress. You communicate unwittingly to your body that there is danger ahead if things don’t go as you think they should go.
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Compulsives and perfectionists often feel responsible for making sure that things don’t go wrong. We’re naturally more meticulous, future-oriented, and risk averse. And all of those tendencies serve a very important function in relationships. But we need to be smart about how we use these tendencies. Without flexibility, they hurt more than help.
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While I find parts of the Tao Te Ching baffling, exasperating and mystifying, Lao Tzu’s encouragement to accept things as they are still conveys an attitude toward life that I find to be a good counterpoint to my driven nature. Since Taoist wisdom can be especially useful to people who are compulsive, perfectionist, and obsessive, I thought it might be helpful for me to share how this enduring and poetic book has helped me.
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Our North American culture has become obsessed with happiness and has made itself miserable in […]
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One way to free ourselves from unhealthy compulsive behavior is to understand our motivations, what drives and actually controls us. While we’re all unique, there are ancient and common patterns that underlie the roles we take on in life such as mother, father, warrior, healer, savior, priest, jester, caretaker and leader. These patterns are known as archetypes, and they’re illustrated in myths and symbols. These patterns exert a magnetic influence that can give us intuitive guidance and energy to help us do what we need to do. Or they can drag us into a perpetual rut of expectations and despair. Heroic energy can flow freely like water, or be frozen and rigid like ice.
The Healthy Compulsive book is now available in paperback in addition to hardcover and e-book format:
Healthy Compulsive Book
If you’d like to use your time in psychotherapy more effectively, check out my book on therapy.
