Take Out Your Own Trash

You wouldn't throw all your trash in your living room. It would make your home look messy and smell awful. You would walk it outside to the trash can or recycling bin.

As I counsel individuals, couples, and families through making their lives and relationships more meaningful and more satisfying, I want each person to take out their own trash in their life and relationships, too.

This means everyone needs to be able to identify when they are stressed, and find a way to release that stress safely and productively. Children are included here, and I like their parents to help them find some possible alternative ways to reduce their own stress. As grown-ups, we need to be good role models in the stress management of our daily life. Do we salsa dance, run, meditate, pray, go to the gym, read, clean, garden, push the baby for a walk in the stroller, go for a bike ride, or see a friend? We each need to do something that helps us cope with our own stress.

It is NOT okay to take out your frustrations or stress on the people closest to you. This is what I mean about taking out your own trash. In relationships, we are each responsible for making ourselves happy, fulfilled, and managing our own stress well, and sharing our happiness with those closest to us. It's not a fair expectation of others who are close to you that they manage your stress, provide your life with meaning and purpose, or supply you with happiness. Some of these things are an inside job.

Stress is a regular part of our daily life; both good and bad stress. It's a part of our human experience. Learning some good coping strategies that work for you and are healthy and fun is a smart idea. Stress can be transmitted from one person to another, in a family, a relationship, and a workplace. Doing your part to stop the flow of stress means being aware of what situations and people stress you, setting healthy boundaries when you can, knowing how your body reacts to stress, and actively releasing that stress yourself so that you aren't a part of the stress dance.

So, the bad news is: you can expect stress as long as you are alive here on Earth. The good news: you can get really good at identifying signs that you are stressed, actively releasing it, and being a beneficial presence to others, rather than a part of transferring stress on to others. Load up that trash, and let's take it outside where it belongs.

Impossible to Please, or Life with a Perfectionist

You might know someone like this. Nothing is ever right for them. There is no pleasing this person. It could be your partner, or it might be your boss. They pick at you, point out every mistake, and are never satisfied. Get skilled, because you're in a relationship with a perfectionist. Taking care of yourself and knowing how and when to set limits is going to be key to your survival and mental well-being. They are not likely to change, so you need extreme self-care so you don't get angry and bitter, depressed, or overwhelmed.

In Impossible to Please: How to Deal With Perfectionist Coworkers, Controlling Spouses, and Other Incredibly Critical People (New Harbinger Publications, 2012), psychologists and writers Neil Lavender and Alan Cavaiola do a great job of writing a guide for staying sane. Here are some of their tips:

1. Don't expect the controlling person to change.

2. Set your own expectations and benchmarks. (You will never meet theirs.)

3. State your own boundaries, clearly and without attitude or defensiveness.

4. Give yourself a little time to respond to unreasonable requests. You can say that you'll get back to them, and buy yourself a little time to consider how you want to respond.

5. Speak up. If the controlling person is at work, let them know how their behavior impacts your work, and what you would like them to do in the future. If you are in a personal relationship with the controller, let them know how their specific comments or behavior makes you feel, and what you would rather they do next time.

6. Agree to disagree.

7. Don't expect the other person to validate your feelings. Know that your feelings are important even if the controller can't acknowledge them.

8. Stay in your adult role. Just because they may behaving like a critical parent, don't become a child.

9. It can help to create distance for a while.

10. With criticism, assert your right to want something else or be different. Critical controllers tend to operate like there is only one right way to do everything, and its theirs.

11. Don't show your frustration; it won't help.

12. Don't let them undermine your self-esteem and self-confidence.

13. If you're at work, consider speaking up to HR or someone with the authority to change things.

14. If it's in your personal life, get a little counseling to identify some coping strategies or help you make other plans.

Why do people become perfectionists? It can't be fun. While it's good to have high standards, controlling perfectionists push away others with their perfectionism. They may have deep-seated anxiety and their rigidity is how they cope. Often they are not happy, and more likely to be stingy with others and fear-based. Perfectionists are often unhappy and critical with themselves underneath that idealized view of themselves. People who are generally at peace with themselves don't invest in criticizing others with this intensity and mission. In close relationships we have to be vulnerable, and it has to be okay to be imperfect. People don't love you because you're perfect.

Impossible to Please has some useful strategies for getting perspective and getting up above the controlling perfectionist in your life with your self-esteem intact. This is a helpful book in the effort to not take their criticism personally, because the need to belittle you is really about them.