Therapy for Creative Professionals in NYC:
A ceramics class was split into two groups — one graded on quantity, one on perfection. At the end of the semester, the quantity group had made more work and better work. The quality group? Many didn't finish. Some turned nothing in at all.
Perfectionism doesn't just diminish creative work. It stops it entirely. And after 20 years as a therapist working with creative professionals, I can tell you: that paralysis isn't a discipline problem or a thinking problem. It's a nervous system problem. And that distinction changes everything about how to address it.
March Newsletter
When I was 14, a friend read my writing and told me it wasn't particularly interesting, entertaining, or well written. That was the end of my editorial career — for nearly 30 years.
The thing is, I didn't remember where the belief came from. I just stated it as fact: I'm not a good writer. It wasn't a thought I was having. It was a route my body already knew.
This is why insight alone so rarely creates change. We can know something is a limiting belief and still feel it as truth. The body needs to experience a new possibility — to sense that it's safe — before it will let us act differently. Cognition follows sensation, not the other way around.
So: think of something you've told yourself you can't do. Don't just think it — locate it. Where do you feel that certainty in your body?
Now ask yourself: is that a fact, or is it a very old feeling?