The Curative Power of 'This Is Not About You' |
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Superstar Lainey Wilson learned to deal with burnout and anxiety by focusing on making others happy.
Perfectionism is the never-ending pursuit of self-love and self-respect, with no solid theoretical foundation.
One can learn to experience moments of joy by helping to elicit them in others.
In the Netflix documentary Lainey Wilson: Keepin’ Country Cool, its talented, eponymous star describes her chronic mental health struggles, relating how burnout and anxiety frequently sap her. In battling chronic fatigue and demotivation, Lainey tells the audience that focusing on others helps her perform. She said, “I reached out to Reba, probably about a year ago. I said, ‘This is a loaded question, but what do you do when you feel like you can’t go any further?’ She said, ‘I do it for somebody else.’ And that right there has put so much in perspective for me. I get on that stage, and I do it for other people. This is not about you.”
While her perspective shift applies broadly to emotional struggles specifically, and meaningfully to me, it’s highly applicable to perfectionism. By its nature, perfectionism is the pursuit of self-respect and, less intellectually, self-love. Lainey’s realization implies a potential antidote if we choose to accept it. Perfectionism is the relentless pursuit of mastery, status,........