Wake Up With Marci

Hello all and welcome back to Wake Up with Marcy. This is a podcast where we shine a light on stories of healing, transformation, and reclaiming your power. I’m your host Marcy Hopkins and I am so grateful to be here with you today. After nearly a decade on my own healing journey from trauma and unhealthy coping to complete transformation, I’ve made it my mission to empower women to prioritize themselves, find their voice, and live with intention. And on today’s show, we break down the masks of perfection, the silence of shame, and the weight of burnout. I know we’ve all been there. So, we are going to have an indepth conversation and I’m so honored to have Dr. Margaret Rutherford on the show, a clinical psychologist of over 30 years, TEDex speaker with over two million views and the brilliant voice behind the self-work podcast, which ranks among the top 50 mental health podcasts globally. She’s also the author of Perfectly Hidden Depression, a groundbreaking book helping people uncover the perfectionism that often hides emotional pain. So, thank you so much for being on the show today, Dr. Margaret. You’re welcome, Marcy. I’m I’m really honored to be here and and excited. So, thank you for having me. Very grateful. And I love this conversation. I know that it’s very important to both of us. And when I was doing some research on you and like what topic like you have so many things we could talk about and I relate to so many of them but this one really stood out for me and that was about your self-worth, perfectionism and not basing your worth on your accolades and your achievements. So I’m I’m excited to peel back the layers on this conversation. In fact, that is one of the major traits of what I call perfectly hidden depression. And and it’s it’s I want to make sure your your reader your readers, your listeners don’t um get confused. There’s really nothing wrong with what’s called constructive perfectionism or or there’s nothing wrong with success. I mean in in and of itself it is when you are needing you are actually camouflaging emotional pain with success. Um you learned early on perhaps that it was a way out that it was an escape from whatever you were escaping from and so that process has just become automatic and unconscious and it’s just who you are now. So I’m I’m delighted we’re talking about it as well. Yeah.

So tell me is is there like a deeprooted reason like you know looking for approval from our parents or why why is perfectionism something that is so prevalent especially in high achieving women? Well as we say in Arkansas there there are a lot of ways around the barn. No, it’s doesn’t have one root or one core cause. It could be because you have a history of sexual abuse, alcoholism, um, emotional abuse. It could be because you did grow up in a family that expected you to accomplish a whole lot and their their standards were very perfectionistic. It could be because you grew up in a family where no painful emotions were allowed to be discussed. Uh, you needed to look happy. you needed to keep secrets of what was actually going on in the family. So for some people, not for all, but for some people and for some women, then it becomes something that you turn to to protect yourself, to keep yourself safe. We were talking about that with you earlier. um to leave the the cultural expectations or the familial expectations and to somehow build something that makes more sense uh and that you do get accolades for. You you you’re good at sports, you’re good at school, you’re a natural leader, you’re um you know, whatever it happens to be. And so you start building this uh facade of okay, I’m I’m fine as long as I’m successful. The problem gets to be Marcy that what happens is that you you are only feeling successful when you have completed a task well and therefore you must go on to the next task and the next task and the next task task. Guilty. Yeah. It’s it’s perfectionism is kind of a a misnomer in some ways that it’s a problem. It’s really that the nothing’s ever good enough. And and and my addition to that uh perfectionism literature, I’m just a clinician. I’m not a researcher. But it is this this facet of it that is about a how it protects, how it hides, how it becomes actually its own prison. Um because you don’t want anyone to see how how much pain is inside of you. And you also don’t want to feel it yourself. You’re scared and you don’t even know how. You don’t even know how to express it. So you begin sort of hiding from the inside and hiding from the outside. Uh you’re both guard and the person who’s guarding the prison and the prisoner. You’re both prisoner and guard.

So I know this is kind of scary to some people because they say, “Wait a minute. You mean that someone I know who looks like they’ve got life just going great, their life is going great, everybody loves them, they’re successful, they’ve got great kids, they’ve got a great family. You mean they could have ideas about killing themselves? And the truth is, yes. Yes. Since I wrote about perfectly hidden depression, I’ve heard from so many people who lost uh a wife or a husband or a child or a friend or whatever. And so this is this is a truly a huge problem. Added on to that what’s happened in our culture within the last 20 30 years. All the research shows that with more pressure about social media and and and self-focus that has happened. Um then the perfectionism rates are going up and there there are certain kinds of perfectionism that are worse than others. Um, and that one is highly correlated with suicidal ideiation. Now, you say you say that and I’m glad you brought that up because there’s no age that’s safe when it comes to this. We the last few years um there have been some some situations where a young person has taken their lives. Yes. Right. You hear the story about someone in college that’s taken their lives and and then you hear everyone say, “But they but they were doing this. They had straight A’s. They were top of the football team.” You know, everyone loved them. Right. Right. Why would they do that? So what is that you talk about and you’ve spoken about that but that hidden depression like you’re not allowed to feel your feelings or express your feelings and you feel like there’s no way out right is is that what it is like you just feel like there’s no way out the people who are a lot smarter than I am years ago there was a man that uh started the American Association of Suicidality yeah suicidality uh anyways or something like that. He said the the reasons people kill themselves is not because of depression. It’s because of intolerable pain. It’s just and he called it psyche. And you know, they don’t have to look depressed by the classic symptomatology. They just don’t have to look like that. Um, and and I I love that term psychic because it literally conveys this idea of this ball of pain inside of you that no amount of success can take away.

Let me make a distinction because I think it’s um it’s a great distinction to make. There is a thing called high functioning depression where people they’re they know they’re depressed. They know they they actually have some traits of classic depression that they’re either getting treatment for or they’re in medication for, they’re in therapy for, whatever, but they know they have these symptoms. Maybe they’re they don’t enjoy life as much as they used to. Maybe they’re carrying around a bunch of fatigue. Maybe their thinking gets foggy, right? But they still function pretty darn well. You know, now why that is, who knows? But they are going to probably think, well, I have perfectly hidden depression or I identify with that and they wouldn’t be wrong. But there is another group that I’m actually more concerned about. It’s the group that you and I have been discussing, which is they put on that facade. They put they started that camouflage so very early in their lives that they because they weren’t allowed to talk about pain because they were hurt whatever it happens to be where they were the star of their family it’s just become them and they don’t even realize that they don’t have access to their pay they have no way of expressing it I I figured this out years ago because I would have people come into my office who would have denied vehemently that they were depressed if I’d asked. In fact, they looked pretty chipper. They just said, “I don’t really know why I’m here. I just I can’t seem to do what I used to do or I’m thinking about changing jobs or my relationship is getting nasty or something.” And it was only but what what I noticed about these people Marcy is when I ask them about pain they go oh you know everybody’s family’s got something bad in it or you know I just am not a crier. If I started crying I’d never stop or something like that. Yeah. And they don’t know how. Uhhuh. Because they’ve they don’t have the words for it. They’ve not practiced. And so, right, and it is something to learn to express yourself and and express yourself in a positive way, right? To me, expressing yourself in a positive way is being able to talk about what’s not working, what’s hurting you, what’s angering you, what you’re afraid of. It’s not that you all of a sudden jump into to being a victim. It’s that you c you can connect with it. Doesn’t mean you stay there. I actually had some people accuse me when I first started writing about this. I mean, not in a mean way, but they were pretty critical. They said, “You’re you’re pathizing resilience.” It’s resilient people who can be strong in the face of adversity and who the what is that the when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It’s, you know, that’s stoicism. That’s resilience. That’s courage. I I agree. I mean, I’m not pathizing resilience. I think that’s great. Yeah. But do you have the option? Do you have the choice to then turn around and say, “Wow, that was really scary.” Or, “I have compassion for the child I was because she never got to she never got nurtured. She just was told to go out and succeed.” So, you know, it’s it’s about balance between, you know, in in the workbook I’m writing, I talk a lot about and statements. You can be happy and you can be sad. You can be purposeful and you can feel lost. You can succeed and you can struggle. I mean you it is an and and that’s that’s so much of what Yeah. who we are. Yeah. I love that.

So tell us like how did the book come about? How did you discover this? Well, I feel sometimes like what is that Hansel and Gretle that follow the breadcrumbs? Is it was it Hansel and Gretle? I followed the breadcrumbs in 24. I had been blogging a couple of years and I started thinking about I was writing my weekly blog post and you know I had some followers but you know it was okay and I thought about some of these people that you and I are describing and I just picked a name out of the air and I said the perfectly hidden depressed person. are you one? And the damn thing went viral and I was writing for the Huff Post at the time and they featured it and I got hundreds of emails. Hundreds of emails. It’s like you’re in my head. How do you know about this? I you know I I was scared somebody would find out whatever it was. So I got curious frankly Marcy and I found Bnee Brown’s work. She had just published Gifts of Imper Imperfection which was of course a huge bestseller. and she’s written like I think 20 other books since then. Yeah, she’s amazing. Um, but even she did not get to this what I have seen in my practice, which is these, as I said a few minutes ago, these perfect-looking people coming in and talking to me about how absolutely miserable they are and how much psychic they have or how much they have in their lives that they can’t forgive themselves for and they carry around with shame and fear. But they but they I really had to work with them to get them there. So I tell my clients all the time that if you think something should exist and it doesn’t then create it. So although I’d never written a book and I didn’t want to write a book, I started writing a book. And then some more breadcrumbs appeared and I got an agent and uh New Harbinger came on the scene who published the book and five years after I wrote that post the how to perfectly hind depression was published. That’s amazing. That’s amazing.

Like for someone out there though that’s high functioning or they’re pretty happy or they’re saying I there’s no reason I should I should be happy, right? like my life is so great. Maybe they don’t really know what cuz depression can look so many different ways. It can. It can. And so like someone out there that’s listening like maybe they have some sad moments and they’re not sure why or they’re feeling down and they’re they’re angry at themselves because they feel like they shouldn’t be. Like what does depression look like? I know it looks so different for so many people, but just maybe some things that they could say, “I’m not going crazy. There is something going on.” Well, the term perfectly hidden depression is it works for people. it makes sense to people. The more I’ve lived with this concept and thought about it, the 10 traits that I came up with after interviewing over 60 people who volunteered to talk to me who are identifying with Berkeley hidden depression really the 10 traits you’re somebody who always is taking responsibility. You’re someone who discounts or denies any kind of pain you might have had in your earlier life. Um, although you’re very sensitive and and have a lot of empathy for your friends and you know them well and you you remember everybody’s birthdays, but no one really knows you that well. Maybe somebody does. They usually live in another city, so you don’t see them very often. Um, you you tend to feel like you’ve got to be grateful for everything. And there’s a thing called toxic positivity um that Susan Davis um out of Harvard has written a lot about and she says you know it’s we’ve our culture has developed this just keep a gratitude journal and then you that’s what you need. Yes. Like I said before you want to be grateful and sometimes the very things you’re grateful for have things about them that are hard. Um, I had a woman in my office who has come in because of identifying with a PhD as I call it and she looked at me in an early session and she said she has a special needs child and she said, “I can’t talk about how hard that is because I literally think I’m being a bad parent if I talk about it. I’ve never talked about it with anybody.” Yeah. And it’s that rigid I’ve got to be on. I’ve got to be successful. I’ve got to be everyone’s I’ve got to have everyone else’s best interest at heart. I And I I simply don’t ever want to touch what’s beneath all of that because I don’t know how. It scares me and I’m fine the way I am. And I think that’s what you’re talking about. You know, I’m fine the way I am. Thank you. And yet it’s a really dangerous it’s a dangerous line to walk. Yeah.

And it it it sounds like kind of going back to like how we are programmed, you know, about like the shame and like judgment. Like if you feel the feelings and you put them out there that you’re going to be judged and people are not going to like you. Your facade will come completely apart. I’ve had people say to me, “If if everyone knew what I was like at home or what I was really like or how I really felt or what I really thought about, I’d lose my job. I’d lose my friends. I’d lose my partner. I lose. And you know, sometimes that’s accurate because if you’ve chosen other people who need to look perfect or who need to stay very thin or who need to look a certain way because it’s the way you’re supposed to look, then they won’t understand what you’re doing and they won’t necessarily support what you’re doing. Um, so it’s so very important to just kind of look down into yourself and the the two things that I think are most important and these are, you know, words that a lot of people use, but it’s having compassion for the person uh the child that you were or the person you are now. And then I have a working definition of what self-acceptance is. And self-acceptance has nothing to do with success. It has to do with well my working definition is recognizing that neither your strengths nor your weaknesses completely define you and vice versa. I think that is so important to recognize the the gift of self-acceptance.

So, one of the things that you talk about self-acceptance and self-worth, like finding that is centered a lot around um love and connection with others and feeling right. Right. Feeling safe. Right. I know that for me necessar I I lost myself a long time ago in the abuse and and like you said, sexual abuse was one of my things. my my parents being alcoholics, abandonment, all those things. So, it was all about um once once I started on steady path, a positive path, it was all about the accolades. So, it was really about my achievements. I never appreciated what had happened. I never was patting myself like good job Marcy like that’s a great win, you know, like you did that, right? and and and it was just always like, okay, I did that. What’s next? Exactly. What’s next? Right. I love this metaphor that uh Dr. Gordon Flet uses, who’s a premier researcher in perfectionism up in Canada, and he says a certain kind of perfectionism, which is what you’re describing, which is called socially prescribed perfectionism. But he said it’s like being on a treadmill where you have no you have no control over the incline or the speed. And then I add to that and you don’t know even where you’re going or when or how long you’re gonna have to be on it. 100%. Don’t have any I love that. You don’t know where you’re going. Uhuh. You have no except for the next thing somebody asks you to do what the next goal you set for yourself or Right. Right. Exactly. And it’s So you talk about not being in the moment. I mean, you’re not in that moment because you can’t really stand be in that moment. I couldn’t stand myself. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Did you tell anybody you couldn’t stand yourself? Of course not. Of course not. Exactly. Exactly. And so that’s you’re keeping those secrets. And now, you know, I don’t think you should blab your things. You know, I I I obviously don’t think you should open up your innermost secrets to just anybody. I mean, it has to be somebody you can trust. But at the same time, in the book, I have again the number 60 for some reason. I have about 60 exercises in the book to help you make that journey. But I also say from the very beginning, start looking around in your world. If no one really knows you, who would you trust to be to begin to know you? Because where the real healing comes in, I mean, they can read my book and put it down and forget it. Where the real healing, as you were pointing out, shows where it begins to show itself is when you can look at somebody and say, “Man, I’ve had a rough day.” Yeah. you know, or I feel like a failure or I get worried that if I gain any weight, I’ll be ostracized or I’ll lose my job. Whatever it is that your shame is about. Yeah. So, you know, I watched my mother struggle with this. Obviously, I didn’t call it perfectly hidden depression. I didn’t know what to call it, but she looked perfect in every way, but she had absolutely no real selfworth. Mhm. And so she turned prescription drugs to and became addicted to them. Yeah, I can relate. I can relate completely to that. Yeah. Yeah. Um and you know, same with my mom. You know, she was addicted to alcohol, but if you saw her from the outside, you would think she had it all together. Yeah. Until Yeah. until about 5:00 in the evening when everything started changing, right? um behind closed doors. Yeah. And it and it God, it’s just so sad, right? Because so the talent we all have such gifts and talents and these things that are taken away from us.

Um but you yourself, I mean, you’ve gone through your own hardships. I mean, you’ve gone through most of which I created for myself, by the way. Yeah. Well, I you know what? um you you you recognize your part and that’s that’s something that I’ve learned if that’s what I’m hearing you say that that you created it for yourself but you’re recognizing today you’re have the ability through all that you do um to recognize that right and that’s one of the hardest things that that we can do is look at ourselves and acknowledge that we had a role in something and that’s the only way we can change ship. But you went through two divorces. That’s right. And you had a lot God. And those were chaotic relationships. They were not like they were not healthy. The first one was just a bad choice on my part. And the second one actually there were reasons I tried so hard with that one. Um I thought, you know, I was trying to make him into the one and he was abusive. And so I stayed with him well seven years, five dating and two married. Um but as I began to get healthier, um I recognized that it was emotionally killing me to stay with him. And even though I was so ashamed of being divorced, not once but twice at the tender age of 33, I chose to do so. But I carried a lot of shame about it around a lot. Yeah, I’m sure. To the point where when we moved here to Fable, Arkansas from Dallas, I told my therapist in Dallas, I said, “I’m just not going to mention it.” I’m just not going to mention it. It’s like somebody asks me, “Have you been married before? I’m not going to lie, but I’m not going to offer the information.” And that was the truth until and so I and we were in invalable several years. Again, I didn’t lie, but I didn’t offer. Um, right. But one woman came and sat in my she’s a new patient and she was crying and she said, “I’m getting a second divorce.” But then she looked at me and said, “But you wouldn’t know what that was like.” And it was at that moment that I had to make a choice. Yeah. And I looked at her and I said, and I was kind of yearning to make that choice. It was time. And I said, you know, well, no, you’re about to be a member of a club that I’ I’ve been a member of for a long time. And she looked at me kind of shocked and I didn’t talk anymore about it. It was her it was her therapy session, not mine. Yeah, of course. But, uh, you know, it it and that has that that began the easing and the letting go or letting it be of just letting my shame be and just there it is. Okay. Yep. Yeah. That’s a fact.

So, um, but how did you but how did you get stronger? So, if you’re in an abusive relationship, I mean, that destroys your self-esteem in so many ways, right? And changes the person that you are. So, let’s go there. Like, how did you start rebuilding your self-esteem and self-worth? I mean, there’s a lot of women out there that it may not be physical, but it’s mental or maybe they’re going through a divorce. They have so much shame about it. They’ve lost themselves in a divorce. Like, how can we start to to heal, move forward? Well, in my particular instance, I was in the music business. I was a professional singer and uh both my husbands were first husbands were musicians as well. uh one was a professor and then the other one was just a a wannabe and very good-looking and um as they Yeah. Yeah. I was and so the first thing I had to realize was that the music business was not was I was not thriving in the what I was doing in my life. I was not thriving in that environment. Um, and that had nothing to do really with any kind of partner I had, but it it was pulling out the some of the things that were bad for me and and and weaknesses of mine. So, I thought, what else can I do? And I heard about something called music therapy and I put all the money I had in the world down on the first year of that program and then luckily got grants and stuff. But I went into music therapy and I thought, okay. Oh, and I started volunteering at the domestic women shelter. So, I began trying to help people whose lives were in more chaos than mine, uh, at least on the surface. So, I changed my attitude to what I was doing. I tried to do something with my life that was about helping other people, and I really enjoyed that. That led me into music therapy. I was there for two, three years and but I we did a a residency or not a residency an internship um at a psych hospital and I realized no I want to be a psychologist and I had been in therapy for years. I got therapy that’s another thing I did. Yeah. So I didn’t have a psychology degree. So I had to go back and take psychology courses. Basically, when I got out of the music business, which was I began to feel more like I had before the chaos began and except older and wiser. And then I began to meet people who were telling me things that was very different than what my second ex-husband was telling me. He would say things like, “You better stick with me because if anybody knew who you really were, they they wouldn’t they they they wouldn’t be in a relationship with you.” And I believed him at the time. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But we got married and uh my mom on her prescription drugs out of out of her head when that happened. Um I understandably why. I understand why now. Um, but he finally said one too many things to me that didn’t jive with this person I was becoming. And I had the strength to saym um and so we we went back into therapy, worked on it. It was not like I gave up easily, but there was something in me that said this is not where I need to be. Uh, and I was I was reared in a very religious home. And you know, my grandmother uh took me out of her will when I divorced the first time because that’s not what you do. And so there was a lot of shame around all that for me. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean again through through the things we’re talking about, right? like whether it’s addiction or being unhappy or depressed or putting down the facade, you know, of these are these are things like you were programmed to believe that there’s shame around divorce and like it’s got to be your fault if it didn’t work out, right? Definitely. Uh, in fact, I had an aha moment because I was in training at the Southwest Family Institute and we studied like families. We study genograms and that kind of thing. And we did a genogram in my family and I realized, wait a minute, there hasn’t even been a separation. There hasn’t been a divorce, you know, and uh yeah, I I got both prizes like the first and the second. But maybe, like we’ve talked about before, maybe you’ve broken a generational cycle just because they say marriages. They weren’t happy marriages. No, their lives that they were like so unhappy and really we’re supposed to be living in love and peace and joy. It’s I mean some people may think that’s so cheesy, but it’s true. Um my dog’s tail keeps popping up in the Oh, I did see that. Um um but yeah, it it was it was hard on my parents. I mean, they really were embarrassed that that I was doing what I was doing and and But right mortified. Mortified. Small southern town. Yeah. Not about how you’re feeling or my how’s my child feeling, right? Because this happened to my aunt, my grandfather. Like it was her fault the divorce happened and you know she found it was always about finding the perfect man, right? The man that would define us, right? And then letting them down. So again, like now you’re trying to not let the guy you’re married to down. you’re trying not to let your family down. Like where where are you in the equation? Right? So it it’s and we’re really supposed to live like sometimes we choose the wrong person. And and I think again having these conversations around it, not that I want to um advocate for divorce, but it it’s okay if things didn’t work out right. If somebody treats me wrong. Oh yeah. They they may not show who they are in the beginning. So, well, sadly, he showed me who he was, but I didn’t believe him. I’ve been there. I get it. I get it. Oh, no. He just needs to be loved. I know. Love, love. Finding love. What that really means?

So, tell us about you. You’re I know you’re writing another book right now. Tell us about that. I’m actually writing a workbook for the book and and I’m I’m I’m um I have about two or three more weeks to clean it up and then but it won’t be uh won’t be published until the spring of next year. Um, and I went about it a whole different way because one of the things that I think was the best part of the book are the exercises and one of the hardest things about the book were the exercises. And so a lot of people read the book but said that the exercises were a little overwhelming for them. The people who did it have written me and said, “Oh, I’m so glad I did the exercises.” Yeah. Uh, so this one I decided to make a little more approachable, a little less. It still gets to the point, but it’s not as um as one critical review says on Amazon of my book, I loved the book the last like the first part of it, the first fourth of it, but then it started feeling like a therapy session and I thought, yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted it to feel like, right? So, you know, some people don’t want to do therapy in a book. So, this book will be easier. It’ll be um it’s a whole different take on it. It’s deep. Anyway, I won’t go into the, you know, the Yeah. But ins and outs of it, but what you’re saying, right, is we’ve got to take action to create the change for ourselves. Yes. And sometimes that can be really hard or maybe you know one thing you’re saying isn’t connecting but if you hear multiple things or a different way like you’re you’re going to be presenting through this workbook. Um maybe somebody would be able to digest it and do the work a little bit more. But we got to do the work. I I have to keep my routine. I’m almost 10 years sober. Changed my mindset about everything. Reprogrammed my brain. And it’s a daily action. I I have to do these things to set myself up for the day and keep myself grounded through the day. And one of the best things I did was because we’re talking about the perfectionism was let that go and start laughing at myself. Yeah. Yeah. It would eat you alive. Yeah. Eat me alive if I made a mistake. And now I let it I let it go. But it it it took a long time to to get there and and be able to do that.

So there’s one thing that a lot of us talk about um me as a an advocate and living it and you as a doctor really shifting our mindset, right? Our mental wellness and reprogramming the our thoughts. What does that exactly mean? Well, when I hear that phrase, I think it is a study of your thoughts. I think you you have to get far enough away. You know, like when you stand by a mirror, you can’t see yourself very well if you’re real close. Yeah. You have to get enough inches away to actually beginning to see your reflection. Your thoughts are like that, too. I think you just say, “Well, that’s what I think.” But when you get a little more distance away from, well, why do I think that? Is that a rational thing to think? Is that a reasonable thing to think? Where does that come from? Is that a rule I’m having to follow? So, you know, when you say that kind of phrase to me, it it means that you are reassessing and then if you don’t like if you don’t want to have that thought, you replace it. The CBT people say you thought stop and if you if you find a thought that just isn’t helpful to you or is wrong, you you stop that thinking. You literally tell yourself to stop, which I do all the time. And and then you replace it with another thought that is more helpful. And that begins to reprogram your thoughts. It does. It does. And and one of the things I love is that you can’t think of two things at one time. That’s right. So if you’re thinking of something negative, um I didn’t use affirmations a lot, but I’ve started using them a lot more. So you know it’s like we have all of these modalities that can help us and you know they they evolve, right? So like the different things that help us maybe in different stages of of our healing and and the neuroplasticity that goes even deeper and behind that, right? So so that that reprogramming you’re literally changing right the transmitters in your brain and you’re certainly changing the pathways that Yeah. that thought. Yeah. Yeah. Um so you know and you can do that in therapy, you can do that in your just normal life. You just have to uh examine your life and examine your thoughts and examine your emotions. It’s it’s something that that some people don’t want to do frankly. It’s too difficult. It takes time. It takes energy. Uh and at the same time it adds a meaning and a fulfillment to your life that um when you are noticing what’s going on with in your mind in your heart in your soul that um feels good or feels congruent with what your values are then you know you say oh my my actions and how I am out in the world fit what I believe myself to be or what I want to be inside. And then sometimes they don’t. And so, you know, you can say, I I want to align more with this if I say I I want to be generous or I say I want to be kind. Um but is this a kind action? Is this a kind thought? You know, if it’s not, then yeah, we have to stop it.

So, if someone’s out there and they’re attaching their self-worth to achievements and accolades and validation from others, how can they start what are some things they could implement to start creating some change for themselves or just I just identifying that they’re doing it? You know, I think that consciousness again, perfectionism and being very successful and something, you know, I know if I do it, I’m going to do it well. Again, there’s nothing innately wrong with that. It is when that is your only go-to. When you can’t say no, when you can’t allow yourself to just do it in sort of a mediocre fashion. I fixed some mediocre spaghetti last night. It was I didn’t have a lot of time and I didn’t really care much and we tasted it and went but you know I think you you have to become conscious of it and realize that maybe there are aspects of that drive and that perfectionism that are unhealthy for you and that you’re afraid of admitting that. Mhm. So, and then you have to commit um and that commit the whole commitment process is hard because I remember going to a um conference years ago on eating disorders on anorexia and the speaker said when you ask anorex an anorexic to stop restricting. It’s like you’re telling them to no longer have their best friend because their best friend they they feel in control with their best friend. They just don’t eat. And so, you know, you’re asking the same thing of a perfectionist. I have used the metaphor in uh my book that when you’re working with someone, either yourself or if as a therapist, if I’m working with someone uh with perfectionism, we have to be very careful that if you remember the Jenga game, you know, have you ever played Jenga? Oh, yeah. You you you pick a a a p piece that you don’t think the whole structure will fall down if you put out and then put it on the top. That’s what we have to do. We we don’t want to take a piece and then the whole thing crumbles or tumbles to the ground. That is not where you want to go. You want to say, “Well, maybe I can shift this just a little bit. Maybe I can shift this just a little bit. Maybe I can share with a friend. You know, I don’t really know how to talk about myself very well.” That’s all you have to say. The friend will go, “Well, you know, I’ve kind of noticed that.” Or they’ll go, “Really?” That’s probably not the friend you dug to trust. One of the friends will say, “Well, I’ve noticed you don’t. You just seem very private.” And you say, “Well, I’d like to try not to be, but I’m I’m going to work on that.” You know, and but that’s really all you have to do. Just start where you are. Start where you are. Then the third step that I suggest in the book is to look at the rules you’re following and the beliefs underneath those rules. M um meaning if I show my anger, if I showed my anger when I was a child, I was punished for it. What did I learn? When I get angry, I’m not safe, right? And so you you’re still carrying around that belief. I can’t show my anger because I won’t be safe. that belief is. And so you have to change. You have to recognize the beliefs underneath the rules you’re following and then see how you could maybe shift those beliefs. Um yeah, the fourth step is to look at your life um all the way from when you were two to when you were 82 and to look at the things that you recognized were really positives in your life that helped you find your way and that were things that really helped you become the person you wanted to be. But what got in the way of that? What was traumatic? What was difficult? Um what hurt you? What pained you? That could be anywhere from getting bullied to moving around much because you were in a military family to or maybe that was a positive. Some people that would be a negative, some people that’d be a positive. And then you go back, it’s called an emotional a trauma timeline. And then you can begin to see patterns. So that is a very helpful exercise. And then the last frankly is what do you decide to change? You know, if I had done this interview probably eight years ago, would I have welcomed the idea that you talked about my two divorces? I probably wouldn’t have said anything, but I probably would have liked it. I don’t care now. I get it. I get it. Yeah. And so, you know, it’s like because that’s how far I’ve come. I maybe more like 10 or 12 years ago, I wouldn’t have liked that because it’s it’s been okay for a while. But I’m just trying to say that you you you have to change. I I believe that after all the people that I’ve watched try to change that you actually you get insight gives you it’s very pleasant. It like goes, “Oh, I get it. I understand the pieces fit together and those aha moments are good.” But where you get hope is from behavior change. I don’t all of a sudden I don’t feel that way anymore or all of a sudden it seems like all of a sudden or I I don’t want to get mad about that or I do want to get mad about that. I mean, it’s when you can see yourself actually changing. Yeah. I love that. I love that. And I had to just to not get act because I would react to life. Just react, you know, instead of now responding. And I still guilty. I’m human. We’re all human. Oh, yeah. Um, but it’s those things really, you know, they really work when like you just pause, count to five, like, you know, Mel Robbins says or um breath exercise, breathing techniques, and and those really work. The box breathing. Sure. Um, and just do not respond to that text or email. Oh my gosh, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve just jumped right in. And then, you know, we got to unravel all that, right? And it’s so much work. We just make something worse. And half the time we misunderstand it. I am so glad that texting wasn’t a part of life when I got my Oh my lord. They were hard enough as it was. Oh gosh. I know. I know.

Well, how can we connect with you? I mean, um, your your TEDex talk is a mustwatch and and your book and just all the things you’re doing are absolutely phenomenal and you’re a phenomenal woman. So, where can we find you if someone’s looking for help out there? Well, thank you, Marcy. That’s very kind of you to say. I’ll have to go downstairs and tell my husband that he’s married to a phenomenal person. You just have to believe it. I’m sure he will. I agree. He’ll go in fact, I know what he’ll say, which I probably can’t say on the air. Um, my website’s drgarford.com. Very creative. Uh, it’s the self-work podcast and it’s on Apple, Spotify, uh, everywhere you listen to podcasts. Um, the book is in the library. It’s, um, you know, and then the workbook will be coming out in the spring. And the the TEDex has uh the message is one that is really resonating with people. So, and it might uh interest your listeners of I guess it’s watchers too. Um that I actually was I’ve told you this before. I was having a panic attack. I have performance anxiety and the bottom half of my body was locked into a position where I was fighting my anxiety and where I was trying to move the rest of my body like it was just fine. So, it gives you a little bit of u uh what was going on for me. Uh I actually was pretty amazed came off. Yeah, we can do hard things, right? We can do hard things. That’s right. When when you look at people and you think, “Oh, they do it with such ease.” Believe me, they’re going through it, too. No. No. So, again, thank you. Thank you so much.

And for all those out there that are listening or watching, if today’s conversation resonated with you, if you’re feeling stuck, burned out, or you feel like you’ve lost touch with yourself or your worth, I want you to know that you’re not alone and you don’t have to navigate this life alone either. I mean, there’s so many of us and it is about that connection and that love. I’d also like to remind you and invite you to join me that something that’s really meaningful for me and that is the shatterproof walk. I’m going to be mcing the one in New York which is October 25th and then the one in LA November uh November 9th I believe. Um and I’m also putting together a team. So I’ll put all that information below along with Dr. Margaret’s and I’m just so grateful that you are here and I will see you next time. I again great I’m here to remind you that healing is power, right, Dr. Margaret? And your worth is not up for negotiation and the best is yet to come. That’s right. All right. Thank you and I’ll see you all next week. Okay. Thank you.