"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." – E. E. Cummings

The journey to self-growth and personal development is the greatest challenge that an individual has to encounter. It’s a long road towards discovering in the core of his mind and heart the things that define him and set him apart from his peers. Self-development is an essential part of our human nature, an urge that drives us towards perfection and motivates us to mature.

Embarking on the lengthy and obstacle-ridden path towards self-discovery, requires you to be brave enough to confront not just the voices outside, but especially the one inside. Finding your real self is a rarely easy and sometimes confusing task, but it is always rewarding, because of the invaluable amount of insight over your character that it will provide.

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Perfectionism may be the ultimate self-defeating behavior. It turns people into slaves of success—but keeps them focused on failure, dooming them to a lifetime of doubt and depression. It also winds up undermining achievement in the modern world.

By Hara Estroff Marano, published on March 01, 2008 – last reviewed on June 22, 2011

You could say that perfectionism is a crime against humanity. Adaptability is the characteristic that enables the species to survive—and if there’s one thing perfectionism does, it rigidifies behavior. It constricts people just when the fast-moving world requires more flexibility and comfort with ambiguity than ever. It turns people into success slaves.

Perfectionists, experts now know, are made and not born, commonly at an early age. They also know that perfectionism is increasing. One reason: Pressure on children to achieve is rampant, because parents now seek much of their status from the performance of their kids. And, by itself, pressure to achieve is perceived by kids as criticism for mistakes; criticism turns out to be implicit in it. Perfectionism, too, is a form of parental control, and parental control of offspring is greater than ever in the new economy and global marketplace, realities that are deeply unsettling to today’s adults.

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Why Our Current Healthcare System is Woefully Inadequate

Published on May 1, 2011 by Melanie A. Greenberg, Ph.D. in The Mindful Self-Express

The Integrative Medicine Model of Healthcare

Many mental health disorders carry risks for physical disease.

• Depression is a risk factor for many serious and life-threatening diseases, including heart disease, addictions, chronic pain, diabetes and obesity.
• Illness diagnosis can result in an anxiety disorder
• Chronic mental stress can cause muscle pain, fatigue, inflammation, and impaired immunity
• Stress can result in impaired self-care, such as not eating, exercising, or sleeping properly, increasing risks of disease.
• Depressed mood can interfere with heart rate variability or the ability of the individual to put the brakes on and stop anxiety-related physiological arousal from spiraling out of control.
• PTSD has been linked to addictions, smoking, heart disease and autoimmune diseases.

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There’s a reason why we say we’re “dying of embarrassment” — because while we’re in the midst of an embarrassing episode, dying really does seems like the better option.

No human being I know is immune from these moments; however, I seem to have a knack at collecting a large variety. After a recent incident that made me want to hide in a corner of the world without wi-fi, my writing and spiritual mentor gave me great advice. “It’s okay to be embarrassed,” he said. “It’s cleansing. This one has already passed, and passed nicely, like a kidney stone after the first day. You may relax.”

Of course that didn’t stop me from feeling embarrassed some more. So after collecting some nuggets from friends and professionals, I compiled these tips below to really deal with embarrassment in real life. I hope they help you feel better the next time your client, colleague, or date tells you that you’re wearing toilet paper on the sole of your shoe.

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The Hawaii State Hospital once had a special department for the criminally insane – “a prison within the hospital.” This ward, occupied by severely mentally ill patients, murderers, and rapists, had a disastrous reputation for many years. Although many patients were handcuffed, violent assaults still occurred on almost a daily basis. Because of the extremely stressful and unpleasant conditions, many doctors and nurses did not report for work or simply quit their job, causing severe staff shortages.

In 1983, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, a student of Morrnah Simeona, accepted the position of psychologist in this hospital. Soon after, the staff became curious about this odd psychologist who kept reading the patients’ files without ever talking to the patients. Dr. Hew Len explained that he was treating the patients by treating himself with the incessant practice of Ho’oponopono. He believed that everything that was wrong in the outside world – including the ward’s patients – only proved that there was something wrong within himself. So he repeatedly used the four key sentences (I am sorry; please forgive me; thank you; I love you) to remedy what appeared to be wrong within himself. The staff, of course, was skeptical, but three years later, all of the ward’s patients who were still present had been cured. This borders on the miraculous! From an allopathic point of view, most of these patients were afflicted with virtually incurable mental diseases.

Overcoming the Obstacles

To practice this kind of love is a challenge; our rational minds tell us that such customs are esoteric, nonscientific, and therefore useless. We are vulnerable to doubt. Indeed, in my general practice, I often encounter the widespread human problem of the “weaker self.” The weaker self usually manifests in the guise of excuses and dogmas:

• I don’t believe in (any) method
• I’ve tried everything, and nothing seems to work
• I’m too lazy
• I’m too tired
• Life is already complicated enough
• It is my fate to suffer
• Somebody’s got to heal me

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