Popping Perfectionism

So much of perfectionism hinges on the belief that life is a series of events, not experiences. And relationships are no exception - in fact, they may be the poster child for this mindset.  This episode talks about how having an event-based mentality can sabotage relationships and how adjusting to focus on experiences rather than events and outcomes, you can improve your romantic relationships and interactions. Tune in!! 

Do you find yourself people-pleasing, blending in, or only showing specific versions of yourself in order to maintain others' opinion of you? Do you do this especially in dating? Well then, this episode is for you. We lose a lot of connections in dating because we don't allow others to see who we really are - because of perfectionism. Should we show our whole selves to everyone all the time? Of course not. But knowing when to be vulnerable and how to be okay if people's opinions of you change when that happens, can be a game-changer. 

Are you READY for this next series?? We talk about ALL things relationships and perfectionism. Relationships are the BREEDING GROUND for perfectionism. They put our insecurities in the limelight and make our egos absolutely squirm. From dating to divorce to marriage to singlehood, this series will cover it all.  Be sure to tune in and let us know what you think!! And as always, follow us at @poppingperfectionism. 

We've made it people! The last episode of this series. After everything we've covered with perfectionism within the LDS culture, this episode contains our final, juiciest, most emphasized thoughts. Everything we want you to remember how perfectionism and God, yourself, and your relationship with the church and others in it, is in this episode. Be sure to tune in and be on the lookout for our next series! 

If you're a member of the church, you already know about the plethora of "gray areas" within the church that each member chooses to approach differently. These gray areas range from R-rated movies to modesty to Sunday activities and more.  Perfectionism plays a large part in how we view ourselves and other people when it comes to these "gray areas". We often talk about outward facing benchmarks and these topics/areas are often what we use to establish those harmful benchmarks for others.  We don't hold back in this episode! Give it a listen and let us know what you think! 

One of the most magnified environments for perfectionism to fester is missions. If we're talking about people-pleasing, image maintaining, unrealistic expectations, and self-criticism, missions are the perfect storm.  And it's a storm we don't talk about enough.  Tune in to hear how perfectionism affects current missionaries, return missionaries, people who didn't serve missions, and the stigma behind the whole concept of missions. 

We keep teasing you with these surprise off-weeks, but we are back now with another episode - and one of our best yet! We just got done hashing out repentance and perfectionism and now we are talking about one of the most beautiful concepts in the church: Grace.  Grace is a gift from God. We don't do anything to earn it or deserve it. No one is more deserving or less deserving of grace than anyone else. Perfectionism loves to make us believe that our worth and value is hinged on what we can do by ourselves and this directly affects our relationship with God, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and how we utilize (or more often don't utilize) grace in our lives.  As this series comes to a soon close, we hope this topic helps dispel some of the myths about grace and God! 

WE'RE BACK! Did you miss us?? Thought we'd give everyone a week off to catch up on this season - but now we're back with (as always) one of our favorite episodes: Repentance and Perfectionism.  Perfectionism is one of the leading culprits in why repentance has gained such a negative connotation within all religions, but specifically within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Repentance is good news. Repentance is joyful. Repentance is a relief. But perfectionism has us convinced that repentance is shameful and should only be viewed as a last resort.  Tune in to hear how perfectionism might be disrupting your repentance process and how you can combat it! 

We've had tons of people dm-ing us questions about our episodes and perfectionism in general and we wanted to take an entire episode to address them! We didn't get to all of them, but we will do more of these in the future. Tune in to hear how we answer questions such as the following: Where did perfectionism begin within church culture? How does perfectionism manifest itself in dating? What's the difference between toxic and productive perfectionism? How can you accept yourself but strive to be better at the same time?

Perfectionism can be used as a weapon - sometimes we use it against ourselves, sometimes we use it against others, but it is very often used by Satan to isolate and sever us from our true selves, others, and God.  Some of our best outside resources and analogies are used in this episode to paint the picture of how Satan has used perfectionism to tear down Zion, destroy relationships, and ultimately damage our personal relationships with God. Tune in to hear more! 

Perfectionism bleeds onto everything, including God's character! And once God's character has been colored in a perfectionist light, it warps everything else about the church, its culture, and how its members view themselves and others.  In this episode, we talk about WHY God is not a perfectionist, how He never could be, and how us thinking He is has negatively impacted the church, church culture, and our identities. Tune in to learn more!  *DISCLAIMER* We say this is Episode 4 in the beginning of this episode, it's Episode 3. :) 

Perfectionism seems to find its way into everything, and Zion is no exception. Zion is a place where everyone has a place, unconditionally. Perfectionism convinces us that others need to meet certain benchmarks before they can be accepted and loved. Zion is about keeping baptismal covenants and lifting others. Perfectionism says that we don't need help and we're supposed to do it on our own. Zion is about love. Perfectionism is about unrighteous judgment.  Tune in to hear more about how to identify the dangers of perfectionism and how we can build Zion instead! 

We're BACK with a brand new series and loads of new content!  In this series, we talk about something no one really seems to address: Perfectionism and the LDS culture. LDS is short for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known around the world as Mormons or Latter Day Saints).  In this first episode, we talk about how we got here as a church and community. In a religion so focused on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and embracing flaws within ourselves and others, how did its culture become one of the most perfectionist environments out there? How do the symptoms of perfectionism manifest themselves within the culture and how do those symptoms clash with the doctrine? How and why has perfectionism taken the front seat while vulnerability, Connectionism, and acceptance shudder in the shadows? Tune in and follow along this series to hear how we can change this perfectionist culture to one of Connectionism. 

We made it!! We are at the final episode of this series. We decided to use this episode to share our full personal stories with perfectionism and some final thoughts that we weren't able to touch on in the previous episodes. Some of our best nuggets of wisdom are packed into these 45 minutes, so be sure to tune in!  Thank you to our listeners for sticking with us and relating to our content. We are so excited for our next series to come out! 

In this episode, we cover our last form of perfectionism. Socially-Prescribed perfectionism derives itself from pressures set by a culture, society, or other external groups. A lot of elements play into this from of perfectionism including social media and social circles.  Tune in to hear ways to recognize, identify, and combat this form of perfectionism!