Read Our Blogs - The Healthy Compulsive Project

28 Feb

The Need to Control: A Compulsive Recipe for Poor Health

Posted by Gary Trosclair No Comments

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.

20 Jan

Seven Ways to Achieve More Flexibility in Your Relationships

Posted by Gary Trosclair 4 Comments

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.

28 Dec

Taoist Wisdom for Compulsive Perfectionists

Posted by Gary Trosclair No Comments

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.

23 Nov

How Compulsive Perfectionists Can Cultivate Happiness

Posted by Gary Trosclair No Comments

Our North American culture has become obsessed with happiness and has made itself miserable in...

23 Sep

Are you a compulsive hero or a heroic compulsive?

Posted by Gary Trosclair 1 Comment

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.