Tags
Perfectionism is not the same as having high standards. High standards allow for failure, for learning, for effort that falls short of the goal and still has value. Perfectionism does not. It operates on a binary: perfect or worthless. There is no middle ground.
Much of the stress and anxiety of daily life originates in the attempt to control outcomes — to guarantee that a specific action produces a specific result. The therapeutic shift is towards investing fully in the action while releasing attachment to what follows.
Exploring the unconscious is not a journey with a known destination. It requires the capacity to bear uncertainty — to move without a map, to sit with anxiety rather than resolve it.
It happens regularly. A person arrives saying they want to explore their unconscious. Two or three weeks pass. Then: I don’t know where we are going. What is the plan?
Anxiety and excitement share the same physiological and psychological ingredients: fear and faith. What distinguishes them is not the presence or absence of either, but the ratio between them.
“Anxiety and excitement are the same soup with the same ingredients, but with different quantities. Anxiety is a bit of faith with a lot of fear. Excitement is a lot of faith and a bit of fear.” — Philippe Jacquet