Slow Down
Take your time now...
Thanks for joining me here at Say Yes to the Mess! This is my weekly-ish note of encouragement for those who are tired of pleasing, performing, and pretending to be perfect. It’s exhausting and I hope you enjoy leaning into the messiness of life here. I’m Amber Keating—licensed psychotherapist, healing coach, and recovering perfectionist. I love guiding people into greater connection with themselves, their loved ones, and the incredible world around us.
Tapping the ❤️ button lets me and others know that you find my words helpful (or just plain fun!). Forwarding this to a friend may be exactly the thing they need to drop their own perfectionist ways. This first post of the week is a freebie, so please share if you feel so inclined. We’re done with pointless rules, LFG!
This week’s post is inspired in part by the song Slow Down, from Morcheeba. It was so funny to me that after my previous post on waking up from our zombie-like ways, I felt the urge to write about slowing down. The truth inside paradox never quits, does it? Because here’s one thing I know… Every time I think I’ve rested enough, it becomes clear that I could rest even more. I want to daydream by bubbling creeks. To hear nature whisper to itself in the wind and wonder at what it’s saying. To watch clouds drift through the sky and make up stories from their images. Tell me that doesn’t sound lovely! No honking cars, no police sirens, no unrelenting phone notifications. Just the sound of my own breath, moving in time with the rhythms of nature.
‘Cause you love the chase
Oh, how I loved that chase! It was the needle in my arm (perhaps also between my toes) for so many years. I’d complain about it, the stress and busy-ness, but had minimal awareness that I was choosing it over and over again. Like that Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob keeps stepping on rakes that hit him in the head. For intelligent, adaptable creatures we can sure be resistant to learning sometimes!
Maybe like the title song says, I just needed my own space. Because ever since I got that space, I can’t get enough! I’m far more protective of my time and energy now. All my free time is treasured these days. Just because I have available time, that doesn’t mean others have a right to access it. When others extend invitations or requests for my time, I like to immediately respond with, “Let me think about it.” That’s because I have all too often said yes to things that I later felt frustrated by. “Why did I agree to this?!” Usually because I was exhausted, even if genuinely wanting to join in, or because I didn’t really want to go in the first place! We complex trauma survivors can have a hard time recognizing there’s a person in here who has their own needs and wants, so actually stating those out loud is a Herculean task.
Connection vs. Addiction
Maybe your drug of choice is different from mine. Endless scrolling, dating, overeating, gambling, sex, people pleasing, exercise, porn, booze, cleaning, food restriction, drugs, shopping. So many things to get addicted to! But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t offer you some hope! You know how I’m always saying “connection matters most”? I once read a study from the late 1970s that showed how connection is an antidote for addiction. Yeah, we started understanding this nearly FIFTY years ago (and I’m sure ancient cultures - maybe even some modern ones - have known this far longer). This study has come to be known as Rat Park and clearly demonstrates that social connection wins out over the lure of drugs. Furthermore, even if the rats did partake of the available drug-laced water bottles in Rat Park, they only did so occasionally. Whereas if left completely alone with access to plain water vs. drug-laced water, isolated rats would obsessively drink the drug-laced water until they died. I think that’s one reason people have found long-lasting recovery in 12-step programs and other socially grounded intervention models: they give us a new experience in which the social connections create a buffer against our desire for our drug of choice.
Sick from Stress
So who and what got us to disconnect in the first place? Who and what benefits from us disconnecting from our feelings, then stuffing them all down deeper with a substance or behavior? For me, it started as a child living with people who found my existence inconvenient. A basic need we all have (children & adults alike) is safe connection, which grows out of being seen. I was able to find that safe connection in attention and praise from teachers. I also learned at a young age how to make others smile and laugh. Sometimes that was with goofy antics, sometimes by turning on my own bright smile. It’s like I was perfectly set up to become a people-pleasing perfectionist. I slowly became fully addicted to positive attention from others, even after it got to the point of me sacrificing so much that I was altogether depleted and resentful of the pattern.
It is also my experience that U.S. society loves an overachieving perfectionist. We lift up people who work excessively and smile through their pain, even when they’re depleting themselves and maybe also abusing others to achieve higher status. We rarely look beyond that facade to see the twisted up psyche and worn out body that’s no doubt using some substance or behavior to soothe the pain they won’t admit to. Typically, the second someone drops their people-pleasing mask and starts to be authentic about what they need and value, our culture has a hard time with it. We mock boys and men who are struggling emotionally or actively express their warmth and creativity (“Don’t be a p*ssy! Man up!”). We label middle-aged women who are done with constant caretaking as “crazy.” Heck, we label any girl or woman speaking inconvenient truths as a bitch or PMS’ing. We gossip about others’ imperfections (“Can you believe they said/did/wore that?!”). We nitpick at each other on social media, tone policing and demanding performance over substance. That’s just one reason I’ve been loving Substack. It’s slower here. More thoughtful. Less reactionary. Please Universe, help us keep it that way.
Whatever your drug of choice is, recovery is possible! Human brains are quite adaptable and malleable. Those of us who have learned to use substances or behaviors to cope with overwhelming circumstances, can indeed learn new skills and build connections that offer much more lasting warm fuzzies than any drug or compulsive behavior can.
📌How have you struggled with (and perhaps even overcome) addictions rooted in emotional wounding? Let me know in the comments or shoot me an email: info@amberkeating.net. Until next time, wishing you soft places to land and all the safe connection you can find, because connection matters most!
If you saw yourself or someone else in this essay, please share it. Send it to your favorite overachiever. Talk it over with your therapist, counselor, or coach. Use it to help a loved one understand you better.
Are you tired of pleasing, performing, or pretending to be perfect? Are you considering making a change? I provide psychotherapy for residents of California and Washington states, as well as coaching services in the U.S. and beyond. Click here to book a free consultation.
Here for the slow in order to grow