What Is Perfectionism?

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Self-oriented perfectionists often struggle with feeling empathy and compassion for themselves.

"The Invite" shows us how our shame around our needs may harm ourselves and others.

Our choices may bring us closer to or further away from acknowledging and fulfilling our needs.

Extreme lack of empathy is one of the defining traits of narcissism and psychopathy. It means that an individual is unable to place themself in another’s shoes to imagine how their decisions affect them; they can only grasp how their choices affect themself. (Arguably, they understand it, but can’t feel the pain they cause.) Many of these people are other-oriented perfectionists, demanding and unconcerned with how their expectations and punishments are received. (For clarity: Not every other-oriented perfectionist is narcissistic or psychopathic.) Those whom we would call self-oriented perfectionists have the opposite problem. While many of them exhibit a significant amount of empathy for others, they often have little left over for themselves, many believing they don't deserve it. (Of course, you can be both a self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionist.)

Self-oriented perfectionism is defined, in part, by a lack of empathy, too; a lack of empathy for oneself. Furthermore, if you can’t feel your own pain (or at least take it seriously), you’re also unable to gift yourself compassion. The new film, The........

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