How to Stop Perfectionism From Replaying Every Mistake | Ep326

Vanessa: [00:00:00] So with a little more life behind us, if you get what I mean, a lot of us get more open to the kinds of support that we may not have had growing up, and that can be therapy or finally letting someone help us with things. So I wanted to start today with a question for you, and that is, what would it have looked like if someone offered you that kind of help at the age of thirteen? 

If you were the straight-A kid who replayed one mistake for years and years, you probably know exactly the girl I'm picturing. And I'll tell you, I wasn't the straight-A kid, but when I was about thirteen year old or so, I think I would have lived with a lot more confidence if I would have had more support back then. And because I would have found that confidence so much earlier, I would have learned to enjoy the moments I was in instead of pushing on until I accomplished A, B, or C, which is a lot of what we talked about last week in episode three hundred and twenty-five, How to Stop Living Life in the Rearview Mirror.

So for today, let's talk about what that kind of support can look like now for us, for [00:01:00] our younger version of ourselves, and for the ones coming up behind us. Here we go.

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Vanessa: Hello and welcome to episode 326 of the Free to Be Mindful podcast. I hope that you're feeling good, looking good, and doing better in this world than you were yesterday.

So if you've been listening in or following along on social media, you know I've been working on something big behind the scenes, and today I finally get to share it with you.

And what I've been building is for that moment where our brain keeps replaying when it really shouldn't. Is for the moments where we know rationally that should be over by now, and it's a thing that helps us to get [00:02:00] unstuck much faster -for our kids, for our teens, and for us.

But before we get there, I wanted to clear up two things I hear about therapy all the time because they keep a lot of us from ever reaching out at all.

And the first one is the worry that once we start therapy, it goes on for a lifetime. Most of us have picked up from TV or from movies that once we start therapy, we're on that couch forever and ever and ever. But especially for kids and teens, they're always changing. They're learning. They're growing. So their therapy changes right along with them.

I've worked with some kids over the course of years, sure, but it rarely stays weekly the entire time. And as we meet our goals, then we scale down from every week, to every other week to then once a month. Sometimes they take a break for a few months or maybe even a year or two, and then when another life transition comes along, like starting high school or a rough first semester of college, then they come back, [00:03:00] and that's okay. Coming back in a new season is part of how support works for all of us.

And the second myth, so to speak, is that therapy is only for when things get really bad. When we're overly anxious or when we're overly depressed. But it's actually quite the opposite.

It's recommended to start therapy long before all of that hits the fan. That way, we're not putting out fires once we're in the room. But we're building skills that help us handle whatever it is that life throws our way.

And as adults, we can go to therapy for a career change or for a big new role. For becoming a parent or stepping into a new season of motherhood. For burnout. Or for a moment from years ago that still shapes how we think and how we show up today.

And for teens, it can be pressure around grades or sports. Admissions stress for college. It can be a transition like a new school or leaving for college, or perfectionism and the fear of getting anything wrong. Or even one hard [00:04:00] moment that they can't stop replaying.

That last one on both lists is where intensives come in, because sometimes what we need is more focused help with one specific thing, and weekly sessions for months at a time aren't the only way to get there.

So something I see all the time with high-achieving kids, and with their high-achieving parents, is that rationally, they know what makes sense. They know that one bad test doesn't define them. But their brains can't flip the switch from knowing it to feeling it. And we can sit there and talk about the same things for weeks on end, and it won't land when the mind doesn't believe what they're saying.

That gap is exactly why EMDR is so effective. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which, yes, is a mouthful, so we call it EMDR. 

The way I explain it to my teens is it's a big traffic jam. You know when you're stuck on the turnpike or on the parkway [00:05:00] where nobody's moving, and you have no idea why, so you just sit there and get more and more frustrated, especially when you're already running late, which seems to be the time that it always happens?

Sometimes our brains get stuck like that, too. Something happens, maybe a long time ago, maybe something that we don't even remember clearly, and now certain moments make everything freeze up, even when we really just wanna go.

EMDR helps us find what's causing that jam, so that traffic can start moving again.

I compare talk therapy to cleaning around the furniture in your living room. It helps, sure, but EMDR is more like picking up the couch to see what's been hiding under there, dust bunnies and all, so that we can do some real, deep cleaning.

And before we ever touch a hard memory, we build calming and coping skills, so that there's a safe place to always come back to.

And the way we do this EMDR deep cleaning is with bilateral stimulation, [00:06:00] which is a fancy way of saying that we activate the right side of the brain, then the left side of the brain, going back and forth and back and forth. And that can be done with tapping, with eye movements, or even with sounds.

Recently, an adult client told me that she couldn't explain how, but the reaction that she'd been feeling for years was just gone. It was like she kept bracing for it to come back, but it never did. And really, it sounds like magic, but it's EMDR.

So it begs the question, what is it that gets stuck in the first place? And for so many of us, and for the kids that I see, it's usually one moment.

For those of us who've always held ourselves to a high standard, one moment can become the whole story that we tell about ourselves. Because a memory gets filed as proof that we can never mess up again. So every similar moment brings that same panic right back. And I see it in the teens I work with every single week.

One of the most frequent [00:07:00] things I see is panic, experiencing panic at school. And then it's the fear of having a panic attack that keeps them stuck. Another is performance anxiety before a big test or before a big game. The kind that our body feels before our brain can talk us down from it. And sometimes it's a comment from a coach, a teacher, or a friend that keeps replaying long after everyone else forgot it. Or it can even be a car accident, a medical scare, or a loss of someone, which can happen at any age.

What EMDR can do is help that one moment lose its grip. So the memory is still there, but the next test or the next game can start to feel like its own moment again.

And I'll admit, I've had these types of moments too. As I shared, as a kid, I was not a straight A student. I was a solid B student at best. However, when I was earning my master's, I had a perfect 4.0 until the semester before I graduated and that was [00:08:00] when I had to take statistics.

I really, really, really struggled in that class. And I probably should have earned a C, but somehow I pulled off a B+, which took my GPA from a perfect 4.0 to a 3.96. And let me tell you, I cried over that lost 4.0. 

And at graduation, I was honored as the College of New Jersey's School Counselor of the Year, and they only gave two awards like that in the whole program, which was an amazing honor. But I didn't even enjoy it to its fullest capacity because when they gave out the awards for perfect GPAs, my brain just held on to that B+ in statistics and forgot about the award that I actually got.

Traumatic? No, not at all. But my mindset stopped me from fully enjoying a moment that I'd worked so hard for. And that happens with so many of us and with the kids we're raising.

So if someone came to mind while I was telling my story there, someone who can't fully enjoy the good moments because one thing [00:09:00] keeps replaying over and over, whether it's a comment from a boss, a missed shot at a big game, or their own version of my B+, send this episode their way.

And those replaying moments are exactly what we work on with EMDR. Whether they've happened last month or 20 years ago. And the format we use can make a big difference in how quickly we start to feel lighter.

So then the question becomes, why not bang it out? That's how I like to think of intensives. In a regular 50-minute session week after week, it is possible but it is hard to fit this work in. Because I like to say we open up the jar, and then we do our thing, but then we have to close it tight again before the session ends so that you can go about your day and about your week.

In my practice, I offer extended 90-minute sessions for my current clients when they've requested it ahead of time, but EMDR intensives gives us more time at each sitting because we can really get down to that target without a [00:10:00] whole week in between.

And it's still play-based for teens and for adults. In my practice, we use sand tray, we use artwork, so it's far from sitting in a chair just moving your eyes back and forth, which is the way that a lot of adults picture it going.

And the reason I love intensives is because it fits a teen or college student who's working on one specific event, and it fits their schedules and their family schedules when a weekly session is just hard to keep.

However, there is one important note. If your teen is in an active crisis right now, an intensive is not the right first step. And on the consultation call that I provide, we talk about when it is a good fit.

And speaking of schedules, this is where the calendar actually works in our favor. We know that a teen's calendar looks like practices and games and somehow a social life squeezed in between while we're the ones Ubering them everywhere. And with weekly therapy, that can turn into one more thing to fit in. But that's where an intensive [00:11:00] helps.

The Thanksgiving long weekend is a great window since there's time to rest afterwards, and this work can get really tiring. High schoolers can also use their weekends over winter break. For college students, winter break, that December and January, is a great window of time and so is spring break.

So once it's on the calendar, every intensive is built around the person sitting in front of me. It's all very much customized. Teens get their own workbooks. Parents of kids under 18 get a parent guidebook, and we build in parent check-in sessions along the way so that you stay in the know.

And if your teen already has their own therapist that they love, they can keep them, and then they just do the intensive work with me for one specific target, and I collaborate with your therapist so that their care stays continuous. And this can be true for adults, too, for those folks who offer adult intensives.

And what families start to notice is that you make meaningful progress on one target in a weekend, [00:12:00] let's say, or in a matter of three weeks with fewer disruptions to school and to sports.

It is heavy work, so your teen, again, will feel tired afterwards, or maybe have vivid dreams, or notice their moods shift for a little while as your brain keeps reprocessing even long after they leave the office, which we all get prepared for ahead of time.

And while I've been talking about, again, teens and college kids, EMDR intensives work for adults as well. So if you've been listening and wondering whether this can be for you, it absolutely can be.

So I wanna leave you with something you can carry into your week, wherever you are right now, in the car, folding laundry, or walking into your next meeting, I want you to bring one moment to mind.

And if you're in the car, I do want you to keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road, and you can come back to the tapping part a bit later.

Bring to mind a time you felt calm or proud of yourself, even with something small. And notice where that feels in your body.

For [00:13:00] those of you listening instead of watching on YouTube, I'd like for you to cross your arms over your chest so that each hand rests near the opposite shoulder, like you're giving yourself a big hug, or you can think of, like, Wakanda Forever. And then slowly, with your hands opened or closed, you can do slow taps on your chest and say to yourself, "I'm safe right now, and I'm proud of how far I've come."

And you can keep those slow taps going for a few rounds, and notice what it might feel like to fully enjoy the good moments without the old one following you in. And when you're ready, let your arms relax and come back to where you are.

And if the moment you thought of is one your teen keeps replaying, the next step is to book a free 30-minute phone consultation. We talk through about what's been going on and whether an intensive is a good [00:14:00] fit, and if it isn't, I'll tell you.

For teens, the next step after that is then a parent intake, and for college students 18 and older, they can reach out on their own. And you can find more information about these intensives at freetobemindful.com/emdrintensives, with sessions being held in my office in Ridgefield, New Jersey.

And amigas, if the moment you thought of was your own, that same call is the place to start. Hope you enjoyed this and learned something new.

And as always, remember, in a world where we are free to be anything, you're always free to be mindful. Catch you next time. 

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