Terror To Triumph
Childhood trauma is a taboo subject in that it's deeply emotional for people to learn, talk, and comprehend it. However, healing, true healing, can't come from silence. This podcast digs in to the emotions and reveals the symptoms of what can lead to childhood trauma, AND the tell tell signs that can alert us that something is wrong with the youths in our homes, schools, churches, or wherever. Whether it's physical, mental, verbal, or sexual abuse, this podcast takes a brave head on approach to tackle the difficult subject matters while providing the audience a platform to vent, and reach out for help.
Terror To Triumph
Perfectionism as a Trauma Response: Performing for Safety, Love, and Invisibility
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Tonight we're talking about perfectionism as a trauma response. Not ambition. Not excellence. We're talking about that internal pressure that says: if I make one mistake, I'm not safe.
A lot of survivors learned to be perfect to avoid abuse, earn love, or stay invisible. And the problem is, perfectionism can keep you alive in childhood, but it can destroy your peace in adulthood.
So we're going to name it, break it down, and talk about how to heal.
https://www.youtube.com/@TERRORTOTRIUMPHLIVE
https://www.peltsemporium.com
Welcome, Guest News, Global Reach
SPEAKER_01Welcome, welcome, welcome to Terror to Triumph. I'm your host, Alfonso Pelton. Thank you all for showing up tonight. Thank you all from wherever you are on the planet. I thank you all for coming and sharing this moment with me. Try to get my microphone right. It's good to see you all, even though I can't see you all. But I'm glad that you're here. Tonight, we're gonna be talking about something really, really prevalent to us as survivors. We're gonna be talking about perfectionism. But before I get into that, I would like to address the fact that we are having our first ever guest on the show next weekend, not this weekend, next weekend, Saturday, April 25th, 9:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We will be hosting Spiritual Advisor, Spiritual Therapist, Spiritual Mentor, Spiritual Practitioner Heather and Ferry. She will be on the show explaining her approach. She will be taking questions from you, the viewers, if you are on the show or watching the show from wherever you are, especially from Facebook and YouTube, from our YouTube channel. We will see your questions given there and even on Twitch as we stream live. My apologies. No, we won't be streaming live for that. We will do a pre-recorded show that will show for that show. That has to do with time constraints, with schedules and stuff like that. So that will be a pre-recorded show. You know, usually we do a live stream like tonight, but that one will be pre-recorded. I also want to acknowledge the spread of Terror to Triumph as we become more global. We are stretching out through our broadcast, our podcast broadcasting. And I wanted to let you guys know about where we're reaching so that we do have podcasts that reach areas that people would normally know of. Of course, you know us in America, but did you know we're also in Vietnam and the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Canada, India, Kenya, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Ecuador, Pakistan, Iraq, Brazil, Morocco, Ukraine, Colombia, Bangladesh, Chile, Chile, should I say, that's how you pronounce that. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Algeria, Argentina, Bolivia, France, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Bahrain, South Africa, Lebanon, Tunisia, Ugara. We're we are in quite a few territories and countries. And over 118 cities we are broadcasting to. Like I said, this movement is not just for me to get FaceTime. This is a plea to reach out to survivors like myself to get help where you need it. Because when I was younger and I was suffering my trauma, I had no outlet to go to. And there were no groups like AA for people who had been sexually assaulted, especially child abuse, sexual assault. There was no outlet nowhere. You know, the the only outlet we had was calling 911.
SPEAKER_00Let the police come.
SPEAKER_01But for us survivors, a lot of us don't want to call the police to get the police involved. We just want to escape. And that wasn't very realistic for us as children. We had nowhere to escape to. Or some of us didn't have some place to escape to. So this show is meant to bridge the gap between survivor and the help that you need.
SPEAKER_00Okay?
SPEAKER_01Because there was a huge gap, a disparity between the two entities. Survivors didn't know about these numbers down here on the ticker. You guys had no access to stuff like that. And these are numbers that are for Americans. But I can access numbers for your countries so that if you should ask me to find some numbers or help in your country to call when you need the help, I can give those to you. I can search the internet. This is what I'm very good at searching and scrubbing the internet for information. And this is what I'm doing it for.
SPEAKER_00This is a cause that not only I believe in, but I lived through.
SPEAKER_01This is my story, and this is my passion to help to get people the help they need wherever they are. If you need the help, I'm trying to get it to you. That's what this show is about. Okay, let me get into it. It's good, it's good that you're all here. I'm I'm thankful for those of you who download the show. Thank you for downloading the show. We have a special guest, like I mentioned. I want you guys to subscribe to the channel. Go to Buzz Sprout and subscribe to the Buzz Sprout channel. That helps support the podcast and keep the conversations going. Also, you can go on over to www.pellsemporium.com and you can peruse and buy merchandise there. Any Tear the Triumph labeled merchandise there. The portion of that goes to help support and fund the podcast to keep it going. And I thank you for your contributions ahead of time.
Perfectionism As Survival Armor
SPEAKER_01Tonight we are talking about perfectionism as a trauma response, not an ambition, not excellence. We're talking about that internal pressure that says if I make one mistake, just one, I'm not safe. So a lot of us survivors have learned to be perfect, to avoid abuse, to earn love, or think that we're earning love, or to stay invisible. And the problem is perfectionism can keep you alive in your childhood, but it can destroy your peace in adulthood. So tonight we're gonna name it. You're gonna break it down, and then we're gonna talk about how to heal from it. If you're watching, you're watching live tonight. Why don't you drop a comment for us, a question, a suggestion? If you struggle with perfectionism, state that. Do you feel like you have to get everything right? You know, answer those questions and we'll have a conversation. I don't always have to dole out information. You know, I can talk to you. So this is what we're here for. Okay, moving on. Oh, disclaimer right quick. I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, and I'm not a therapist. I am a survivor. I talk from experience, personal experience. If you ask me questions based upon my personal experience, I can give you all kinds of information that you want. I'm an open book, full disclosure, nothing hidden. So I open myself up so that you can see what trauma is in real life, not from a book, from a real person who's experienced it, how I reacted and what I went through in my life. I'm I'm I'm trying to be the example of what to and not to do, especially the not to do parts. Okay. I don't mind opening myself up. People are not gonna like me because I'm opening myself up because of the things that I've done in my life or the places I've gone to in my life. I don't care. Because without this healing, you're not gonna go forward. And I don't want that for anybody. I went through hell to get to where I'm at today. I'm still going through some of it. I ain't I'm not gonna lie to you. But the truth of it is, I'm glad I'm here where I'm at now versus where I was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I'm 54 years old, and last year was the first time I ever tried to see a therapist. Decades of self-sabotage and then turmoil from denial. I got a lot to share. Just want to let you know. If you want to ask, I'm available. You know, I'm here right now. So as we go forward, uh thank you again, you guys, for being here. So perfectionism is not the same as having high standards, right? Perfectionism, perfectionism is wearing, is fear wearing a mask, is the cover, you know, to protect yourself. It's your armor, right? For us, survivors. It sounds like sounds like this. If I mess up, I'm in trouble. We try not to mess up. Matter of fact, we try to go beyond messing up. We try to be perfect, right? We try to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00It sounds like if I'm not the best, then I'm nothing because we feel like the love that we want to have won't be presented to us if we don't excel.
SPEAKER_01It can also sound like if they see the real me, they'll leave or they'll dog me, or they'll talk badly about me. These are things survivors do go through and worry about, especially a perfectionist, you know, that suffered trauma, we try to be perfect, so there won't be any thought to have an inquiry about our mental state, our past to drum it up. So that leads into the last one if I'm perfect or remain perfect, nobody'll know, so I'll stay safe. Okay, for survivors, perfectionism is often a nervous system strategy, okay?
SPEAKER_00It's control, it's prevention.
SPEAKER_01It's trying to outsmart danger, and it shows up in different flavors,
Four Ways Perfectionism Shows Up
SPEAKER_01right? It shows up in different forms. Here's the four forms it shows up in the achiever, grades, awards, promotions, always proving yourself, saying that I am better, I am excelling. Love me, this is what I'm doing it for. The pleaser, the pleaser always says yes to everything, never disappointing anyone, being the chameleon, blending in, being what everybody wants or expects of them. The fixer, the one that's taking responsibility for everybody else's problems. Oh, you got this problem. Oh, okay, I could do this, I could fix it, I could do this. You you you you short on your rent, I I can help you with that. You know, we do it at the cost of hurting ourselves. Or the invisible one, right? The one staying quiet, the one staying small, the one never needing anything, or speaking out on his or hers her desires. All of these are ways of saying if I perform correctly, I never need anything.
SPEAKER_00Excuse me, if I perform correctly, I won't be harmed. If I perform correctly, no one will look at me with disdain or judging. So where does it come from, right?
Childhood Roots Of Conditional Safety
SPEAKER_01It comes from abuse of homes, obviously, because we're talking about trauma, childhood trauma, childhood abuse. So in abuse of homes, love can be conditional. Safety can be conditional.
SPEAKER_00So you might have learned in these homes that mistakes lead to punishment. No, that can happen in the average home, right?
SPEAKER_01Mistakes can lead to a punishment. But we're talking about child rearing, right? So a child can do something. If it's not a mistake, though, that can lead to punishment. But we're talking about mistakes. You do an accident, say you spill some Kool-Aid on the floor. That's an accident. Of course, the child doesn't want to spill Kool-Aid, the child wants to drink the Kool-Aid. But your child could have tripped, child could have bumped into something. You know, child could have turned around and knocked his drink out of his hand or whatever. But then abuse comes in when the whooping ensues after that. That's not necessary for that situation. That's above and beyond. So when we're talking about that type of punishment, punishment for things that are mistakes, punishment that shouldn't be given as corporal punishment, but it is. So this is what we've learned.
SPEAKER_00We learn that our needs lead to rejection. Well I can I will you may I when you hear a lot of no's and those no's lead to being cussed out, or those no's lead to ass whippings. It's just a question. But the rejection part of it, the berating part of it is is a downplay.
SPEAKER_01People say, Well, I just told them no, you know. It's one thing to say no, but it's another thing to crush a child with the rejection. And that is something that we extremely try to avoid.
SPEAKER_00Or how about your emotions leading to ridicule?
SPEAKER_01You start to cry, and they make fun of you because you're crying, not why you're crying, but it can even be why you're crying, they can make fun of why you're crying, but it doesn't matter, either way. They make fun of you, and that's not helpful. And then us as abuse survivors, trauma survivors of childhood trauma, we try to end up pleasing people because we want to avoid all these things. It can also lead to being seen, leads to being targeted. Or if I'm just in the area, I'm a victim. I will be a victim. If I'm around my abuser and my abuser goes off like a hair trigger, then I could just be around and receive abuse. In those types of environments, we've also tried to minimum, minimalize ourselves and make ourselves small and out of try to stay out of line of sight. So you become perfect to reduce the risk, you become perfect to earn scraps of love, you become perfect to avoid being noticed.
SPEAKER_00So sometimes perfectionism is what got praised. Maybe they didn't care about your feelings, but they cared about your grades.
SPEAKER_01And that's that happened to me. You know, feelings feelings wasn't something that my parents cared about at all, you know. But my mother, she was the main one, and you get good grades, so we bragging on you. That's her. My dad wasn't so much as a braggart. My mom was though. She told all her friends, oh, oh, little little Al got an A. Lil Al got double promoted, little Al got triple promoted, he's so smart, he did this, he did that, bragging, bragging, bragging, bragging, but whooping your ass every night.
SPEAKER_00When you express your feelings, rejected, denied. You told you're not gonna do that. Like your dreams and aspirations don't matter. Okay, maybe they didn't protect you, but they bragged about you, huh?
SPEAKER_01Just said that. The damn show didn't protect you if they abused you, right?
SPEAKER_00And they bragging about you. If you were abused at home, but at school you were the good kid.
SPEAKER_02You know, everything's gravy in school. No reason to get abused, right?
SPEAKER_01So this makes you wonder about people who put on a perfect air to themselves. Nothing's wrong with me. Everything in my life is great. This, that, and the other, this, that, and the other. They don't even have to say it. You can look at sometimes, you can look at people sometimes, and they will exude perfectionism.
SPEAKER_00But sometimes people behind this perfectionism are a mess. So perfection becomes your identity, and if you stop being perfect, you don't know who you are because you wrapped yourself up in perfectionism.
Adult Costs: Procrastination And Overwork
SPEAKER_00Okay in adulthood, perfectional perfectionism can look like procrastination. Because if you don't do it perfectly, you avoid it.
SPEAKER_01Let me break that down for a second. So if you don't do it perfectly and you avoid it, that could be exhausting if you think about it. If everything you do, you do it perfectly. You try to, you're to your best ability to do it perfectly, right? You're tired. Everything you try to do, you do it perfectly. It's exhausting. You become labored, burdened. And then when a task comes up that you have to perform and you know you have to do it perfectly, I don't feel like doing that right now. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. I can wait. Because you know when you actually do do it, you're gonna do it to the best of your ability. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Overworking because rest feels safe. That's a lot of us. I know that's that's me for sure.
SPEAKER_01I do this podcast, I work, by the way, and the money I get for my job goes directly to this podcast. It doesn't go on a car, it doesn't go on a home, it doesn't go on frivolous things, it goes to this podcast, it goes to my website, it goes to the book that I'm trying to have finished before the mid the end of June, July. You know, I'm working hard on three different projects at the same time, and I'm working. So I don't have time to really unwind or rest. I mean, I do sleep, but that's my only unwind time, really. You might I might catch a movie on TV or you know, try to watch a couple episodes, but right after that, I'm going right back to work. I know it doesn't seem like it to the people who know me the most when I tell them I'm all I'm going to work. Even they were like, ain't this your day off? I don't have a day off. I'm always working, I'm overworking. That's me. I'll tell people, you know, I'm a workaholic. I just do, I like to work, and I found that out about myself to be true. If I work at a job that's very easy, I will get bored quick. I don't like it. I don't like easy jobs because that means my mind can't focus on anything, and I have to focus on something that's really easy because it's part of my job. But I make sure that I do other things while I do that to keep my mind focused, to keep me engaged, because if I don't continue to do things, I'll be I'll feel like A, I'm not doing enough. B, I'm becoming complicit in my laziness, and and C, I'll feel like, you know, I'm not supposed to be doing this because it's too easy. It feels like I'm cheating the system, even though that might be my job. That's just me. That might be that perfectionism coming out, but you can see that overworking. And I've been told that. Now that I mentioned that, I have been told that people say, Man, you're doing things the hard way. But I never looked at it as being the hard way, I looked at it as a challenge. Because I'm gonna beat this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna make sure I can. Okay, that's another side of it. Not trying to get away from the context, but anxiety. Okay, we all got anxiety for I can imagine all of us survivors have anxiety in some way or another. But in this case, you have anxiety because your brain is always scanning for what could go wrong, and you're trying to belay that by doing everything perfect.
SPEAKER_00You can see how that can be exhausting by itself.
SPEAKER_01Then you have control because uncertainty feels like danger. So you try to control every facet of your life, and if you can't control it, you feel like the next one. Shame spirals because mistakes feel like proof of your unworthiness. Proof, not proof. PRO OTH. I don't know what's going on with my little teeth are acting weird, or I'm my tongue is acting weird, or I'm getting lazy in my speech. So forgive me for that. Perfectionism is exhausting, it's a full-time job, and in relationships, perfectionism can keep you from being real. We all heard this. Just be real, be 100, be yourself. Your perfectionism is not being yourself, and we're about to discuss that in a minute, okay? So you might, as a survivor that's performing perfectionism, you might hide your needs so you don't seem too much. Like you don't seem like you're needy, which would be a turnoff for people. So you act like you don't need anything.
SPEAKER_00When people ask you, what do you want? I'm good. People ask you, what do you want to do? Uh don't matter to me what you want to do.
SPEAKER_01Or if you you have a significant other or special person in your life, and they ask you, where are we going to eat? Wherever you want to eat, I'm laughing about it because I've done this stuff before. And I don't want to, in those cases, I didn't want to be rejected about what I want. So in hindsight, I I have looked at that and I was very, very much so avoiding conflict, not giving my needs out. Which brings us into the next one. You avoid conflict so you don't get rejected, right? No one wants to be rejected. Everybody wants the same thing. They want love, they want attention, they want everybody to be on their team, right? We all want that.
SPEAKER_00So what do we do? What do we do? We avoid conflict. How do we avoid conflict? By being peaceable to everybody.
SPEAKER_01Everybody, everybody around us, we try to be peaceable. So if we're gonna be peaceable, that means you have to do what they do to blend in. That's when becoming a chameleon comes into place. Try to be that perfect friend, even if they do something that you don't necessarily want to do or desire to do, you do it anyway because you want to fit in, you want to be a part of their world, you want them to be a part of yours. You want to feel like you belong. Perfectionism is not the right way to do it, though. You can also perform happiness so nobody sees your pain, which means you're always gleeful when you're around others, you're always smiling, you're always trying to be the uplifting person, even though you might be the one suffering inside the most. Okay, you might try to be the perfect partner so you don't get abandoned. Hello, that's me, that's your boy right here. I'm that guy. I'm not gonna lie, I'm that guy.
SPEAKER_00Um, I can attest to this, both my first and my second wife, they both felt that way. That I wasn't being the husband that I should have been.
SPEAKER_01My first wife said something to me. She said, that's not love, that's fate. That's like that's that TV love. And I couldn't understand what she was talking about because it what her what I was giving her, it did feel like it was coming from my heart. Because that's what I thought true love was, and I did have something truly in my heart for her.
SPEAKER_00Did love her. I just didn't know how to really show it.
SPEAKER_01And I used the TV examples to show what I thought affection was. That wasn't affection, that wasn't intimacy. So I got married young, by the way. So not super young, but I was a guy that was not very social. So I didn't know about relationships and the depth that they can be in. So I was very immature emotionally back then. So yeah.
Relationships: Intimacy Needs Imperfection
SPEAKER_01So now you know, perfectionism has a price, and that price is intimacy because intimacy requires imperfection. What does that mean? It requires honesty. Well, we're already gonna try to be honest with the person. You can be honest with a person, but you can also be fake with them at the same time. What does that mean? You can say the things that you want to say, to be honest, answer questions honest or whatever. But your feelings and what's inside of you, what makes you you, you hide behind the perfectionism. Remember that shield to keep yourself safe from her, that also is a hindrance in adult relationships because now you're sending off somebody who's trying to get to know you on an intimate level. And they can't reach you where you're at because you have this shield up. You say you're trying to do the right things, you think you're trying to do the right things, you think you're doing everything perfect, but that's not what a relationship is, that's not what intimacy is. Now I had to learn that the hard way.
SPEAKER_00So perfectionism ties your worth to performance. Okay, so when you succeed, you feel temporary relief. Feel like you can breathe. Relax for a minute. But when you fail, you feel like you are the failure.
SPEAKER_01Like there's no other failure worse than you in the world when you fail. That's trauma logic. Okay, your worth is not supposed to be something you earn, your worth is supposed to be something you have, something that you are, not something that you can gain by working. Working doesn't make your worth increase. We are all worthy to be worth more than what people think, first of all. So, second of all, when you think of self-worth, you have to understand that you are worthy of love, you are worthy of compassion, you are worthy of good relationships, you are worthy to be respected. But the fear of rejection, the fear of somebody knowing about your past creates this thing inside of us that makes you want to say, I'm a I'ma keep myself safe. I don't want nobody to notice stuff. So then we make this thing where we have to be valued in order to be loved. So we try to make ourselves worth something when we're already worth something, we're worth greater amounts than what the world will tell us that we're worth. Okay, some survivors become perfect to stay invisible. What do I mean by that? Because you learn if I'm quiet, if I don't say nothing, if I'm low maintenance, if I don't need anything, I won't be targeted.
SPEAKER_00I'll stay low key, low pro, low profile, and I'll go under the radar, right?
SPEAKER_01So you become the person that never asks for help, you never complain, and you never take up space. But adulthood requires that you are to be seen to advocate for yourself, to have needs, and perfectionism can block that, it can stop that. So you end up hurting yourself.
SPEAKER_02Self-sabotage 101, one we talk about self-sabotage all the time.
SPEAKER_01This is another thing that causes that.
Healing Steps: Safe Imperfection Practice
SPEAKER_00Okay, so healing starts with this truth. Perfectionism is not your personality. Nope, it's not your protection. Perfectionism is not who you are. It's what you created to avoid getting hurt.
SPEAKER_01That came from your childhood, the trauma you suffered. But we're talking about the healing portion of it now. So now you know what perfectionism is, you can name it. So step one, you have to identify what perfectionism is protecting you from, and it might be different from what it's protecting me from, but you have to name what it's protecting you from.
SPEAKER_00You can ask yourself, what would happen if I made a mistake? You can ask yourself, what am I afraid that people will do if I'm not perfect? You can ask. Those are some crucial questions you can ask yourself.
SPEAKER_01So, step two is to practice safe imperfection. I know you probably haven't heard that one before. Safe imperfection. What is safe imperfection? I'm glad you asked. Let me explain it to you. Do something small, tiny, right?
SPEAKER_00Imperfectly, but on purpose. Doesn't that sound a little strange? I'm sure it does. But this is what you do.
SPEAKER_01You do this not to be reckless in the mind. You know, I'm not just throwing stuff everywhere. But you do this to retrain your nervous system. Because you're trying to have everything like you're trying to have everything neat, you're trying to have everything in order, and you're trying to have everything organized. You're trying to make it look like nothing is wrong in your life when everything is in shambles on the inside. So when you do this something small imperfectly on purpose, it could be something like send email without rereading it 10 times. Because a perfectionist always is going to reread something to make sure there's no typos, there's no mistakes, there's no incorrect word usage, you punctuate it right. Might use AI to try to rewrite it for you, but then you look at AI and say, but that's not me, I'm gonna rewrite it. Trust me. I've been through it, I've done it. Sometimes I still do it, just don't do it 10 times anymore. I'm being real with y'all. I just don't do it 10 times no more. I might read over something like four or five times, changing it four or five times, but not ten times. I don't think I'm I'm that bad anymore. The goal is to get better. It's a long road, but you can do it. You can do it. So you can post a video even if your voice shakes. Like, I know I've made mistakes in this video. I'm still gonna post it. Well, matter of fact, it's live. I don't care. I'm still gonna do it. This is part of that process because I'm gonna get better regardless. I'm gonna get used to speaking, I'm gonna get used to talking, I'm gonna get used to enunciating. And I have to do this because it's not gonna happen if I don't. If I want to be perfect and I'm just gonna sit here and try to memorize everything I need to say, it's not gonna work out that way.
SPEAKER_00It's not gonna work out that way. So
SPEAKER_01You let the house be messy for a day. You can try that. Or it don't have to be the whole house, it could be a part of the house, like the living room or the kitchen or the bathroom. You know, you can leave something in disarray, you know, and it's not forever, it's just for a moment. And then you have to notice, you have to take heed and notice.
SPEAKER_00Did the world end because I did this? Did I die? Am I bleeding? Did I survive? Did I was I able to wake up the next day?
SPEAKER_02The world didn't end, did it?
SPEAKER_01So when when you when you start doing this stuff, you're retraining the nervous system. This is what we're talking about. Step three is to separate excellence from worth because the two are not equal, right? You could pursue excellence because you value growth. Growth is good for everyone. I encourage growth. And it's okay to pursue excellence because you want to be better, you want to be smarter, you want to know more. Anything. You know, you want to be stronger. So we pursue excellence for these values in growing. But you cannot use excellence to prove you deserve love.
SPEAKER_00I became a billionaire, so everybody should love me. I'm not Donald Trump. Can't make a statement like that. Not for me.
SPEAKER_01And even if I was Denzel Washington, I don't think I would make that statement if I was him.
SPEAKER_00I don't think him being him would make that statement. Because it would take a narcissist to make that kind of statement.
SPEAKER_01And child abuse survivors are not narcissists. We are empaths. We're because we suffer so much, we can connect easy to what other people are suffering. We can tell when another person is going through something. Even though we might not say nothing about it, we can see it, we can feel it, even though they might not say nothing about it.
SPEAKER_00So just think about that for a minute.
SPEAKER_01So you can pursue excellence because you value growth, but you cannot use excellence to say that you deserve love. Okay? So your worth is not negotiable. And I got to do another show based on this because this is very interesting to me. Depending on, well, not depending on, but how our society is built. It's built up with us learning the value of excellence, being excellent in all things. We have to be excellent in sports. We have to be excellent in science. We have to be excellent in math. We have to be excellent in English. We have to be excellent in economics. We have to be excellent, excellent, excellent. It's drilled into us from kindergarten on up. We have to be excellent. You have to learn how to color between the lines. What do they do when we do what they want us to do? They say how excellent of a job we've done. We're graded. And then we're graded from E to A. And then you get an A, A, and you get a gold star or whatever. That makes you feel like you did something good, right? Well, I was able to achieve this. But that's just you learning. Learning shouldn't be put on a curve where you did good, but because you didn't, we're gonna give you a bad grade. Well, this person might not even learn the same way this person learned, but you graded them on the same scale. That's not fair. But you know, I digress, not gonna go there. But for a survivor, I'm talking about a survivor, us survivors growing up in this society of learning excellence and perfectionism already ingrained in us because we suffered trauma and we're trying to be mental. That that that's a wicked combination there. But that's something I I think I'm gonna do for another show. So your worth is not negotiable. Just want to let you guys know that. Let's see what we're going to next. Okay. We need on step four, we need to replace shame with compassion. Okay. When you mess up, talk to yourself like you would talk to a child. You don't berate a child, you don't cuss a child out, you know, if they make a mistake. You you nurture them. You talk to them. You reassure them. Okay, you messed up this time, but you can do it again. You can you can do it right.
SPEAKER_02You know, you just have to learn, you gotta stick with it. It's okay. You're still worthy.
SPEAKER_01You didn't get it right, but you're still safe, you're not hurt. There's no problem, no real problem here. You just gotta get the experience.
SPEAKER_02You disappointed someone, so what? You're still lovable.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't mean you go around disappointing people all the time, but you just have to learn how to do it right the next time. That's all. And when you talk to kids like that, they they can have constructive learning moments, and then they can build, right? You have to talk to yourself that way so you can have reconstructive moments with yourself. Okay, so step five learn to tolerate being seen. And that's hard for us perfectionists and survivors in general because we try to keep a minimum profile. We don't like being out there in the open generally. We try to stay hidden, quiet, invisible. So if perfection and if perfectionism helped you stay invisible, healing means learning to take up some space. So it means spreading out, stretching out, letting people know that you're there. Not necessarily physically, but you can let people know what you want.
SPEAKER_00You can let people help you if you need help.
SPEAKER_01You can set boundaries with people who you feel like are invading your boundary or your space. That's making space for yourself, allowing yourself to have a safe space for yourself so that you can grow healthily, or in a healthy way, rather. So being seen is not the same as being unsafe.
SPEAKER_00Being seen is more like letting the world know you exist, which you do, and there's no shame in existing, okay.
SPEAKER_01Step six, you build relationships where you can be human, where you can feel human. You don't want to be around somebody that wants you to be perfect all the time. Expect you to be perfect all the time, expect you to do the same thing all the time, expect you to no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00Healthy love does not require performance.
SPEAKER_01Healthy love does not punish mistakes. Woohoo, woohoo, I said something there. Healthy love doesn't punish mistakes. Okay, hold on. So, in a relationship, if if somebody doesn't do something and another person, the significant other comes back and says, if you don't do such and such, I'm not gonna do such and such. Ultimatums. You heard what I said. Healthy love doesn't punish mistakes. So if you're in a relationship to somebody that's giving you ultimatums, oh, I got plenty of chances to get somebody else if you don't pay me enough attention. Oh, I don't need you. I can go over here and get this. Oh, I can sleep with any man I want. I don't have to sleep with just you, and you'll never know it. But these things are unhealthy.
SPEAKER_02Okay? It's just that simple.
SPEAKER_01Unhealthy. Healthy love doesn't make you earn safety. Okay, it's nothing you can do to earn safety. You have to make sure your surroundings are safe. Boundaries says boundaries. So emotionally you can be safe. But if a person wants to keep crossing those boundaries, that's unsafe. You have to remove them from the equation. Okay, so if you only feel safe when you're perfect, that's not safety, that's survival. So that means if you only feel safe when you're perfect, you're surviving around that person.
SPEAKER_00Let that sink in for a minute.
SPEAKER_01Because that means you might be doing everything that you feel like you need to do, being a perfectionist, but you're walking on eggshells at the same time.
SPEAKER_00That's not safe for you. That's not safe for you emotionally. So we gotta we gotta think about these things. And when then we have to implore them into our constant daily walk.
Reflection Questions For Real Change
SPEAKER_01And ask yourself these questions. What did you have to be perfect for as a child?
SPEAKER_00Was it safety? Was it love? Was it invisibility? Ask yourself what happens in your body when you make a mistake?
SPEAKER_02How do you feel?
SPEAKER_01Connect with your physical self.
SPEAKER_00Do you procrastinate because perfection feels required? How about this one? Who benefits when you stay perfect? Who loses when you stay perfect? What would it look like to be loved while you're still healing? These are all valid questions you guys should be asking yourself from now until next week. From now until now on, actually. For healing's sake. You know, not for me.
SPEAKER_01For anybody out there who wants to heal from perfectionism as a trauma response. This show was for you. It was for me also, because I learned some stuff in this show. Well, when I do my research, I don't really read the stuff that I set up in this show. I might tweak it a little bit just before the show, trying to get it right. Because I'm a perfectionist a little bit. I try not to be, but I'm trying to grow out of that. But when I read what is here, it makes me think. So a lot of times I come away from this. I had headaches, my head be spinning sometimes. Like, wow, really? Was I doing that? I did that. Or I didn't know that was something that was going on with me. You know, now I gotta really think. So these shows are just as much for you as they are for me.
Weekly Challenge And Closing Notes
SPEAKER_01So this week I want you guys to do one small thing imperfectly. Just one. Let your nervous system learn. I'm still safe, regardless. It's okay. I didn't take the trash out today. I'll take it out tomorrow. It's not gonna be in the world, it's not gonna kill nobody.
SPEAKER_02You don't have to be perfect in everything.
SPEAKER_00And if you need a phrase to hold on to, use this one. I don't have to perform to be loved. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's the basis for the show. I want to let you guys know that Terror to Triumph here is supported by Belt Symporium, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show. Every purchase except for Crystal's Corner, anything that's tagged with the Terror to Triumph logo, as we call it, the Triple T logo, proceeds from that goes to help this podcast stay afloat. So we implore everybody to go to Pell Symporium, www.pelsemporium.com, to peruse, purchase items, and then you will be able to wear your support and show everybody else. Hey, you know, I supported this cause, I believe in this cause. This guy's doing a good thing, and it's some good-looking stuff over there, too, if I do say so myself. Toot my own horn, because I designed those things, you know. Yes, I designed it. So you will be wearing clothes, gear, and other things, home stuff, that's all created by a survivor. So you will be wearing survivor gear. That sounds kind of sweet. Survivor gear. Okay, anyway. So don't forget to go over there and check that out. Your mistakes don't make you unworthy. Humanity does not make you unsafe. Okay? Now I've been Alfonso Pelt. This has been Terror to Triumph. We'll see you Saturday for Storm and I's info session again, 9.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We will be on all three platforms. That's Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube on our YouTube channel, Terra to Triumph Live. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can either leave a message on either of those platforms or you can contact us directly at terror the number two triumph at gmail.com and we will answer your questions, concerns, or respectfully hear your comments. So we thank you for coming to the show and shout out to everybody around the globe for supporting the podcast, downloading, and everything. We love you, and we want you to stay safe. We want you to continue healing, keep moving forward, and remember, remember, remember, help is closer than you think.
SPEAKER_00Y'all have a good one, all right? Love you.
