Thomas Curran: The Dark Side of Perfectionism

11/21/23 • 43 min

'That's the root of perfectionism: that chronic deficit thinking, the belief that we're not good enough. That we're not attractive enough, smart enough, fit enough, whatever it might be. In order to compensate for those feelings, we project on to the world a perfect persona that we feel like everybody wants to see – that we should be, essentially. And it's exhausting if you have to keep that up in every single interaction.'

Welcome back to another season of Alonement. My first guest on this season is Dr Thomas Curran, a world leading expert on perfectionism and the author of The Perfection Trap: The Power Of Good Enough In A World That Always Wants More. Endorsed by the likes of Adam Grant and, more recently, Gwyneth Paltrow, The Perfection Trap is the culmination of years of academic research, interwoven with other expert voices, and as well as being rooted in academia it’s also chatty, engaging and honest, which was not something I expected from an academic text. In this conversation, we chat about the relationship between alone time and perfectionism. This includes how solitude can sometimes be used as a space to recover from perfectionism, for practising a hobby that you’re not, technically, very good at – purely for the joy of it. But also the danger of bringing your own perfectionist tendencies along, like trying to get a PB every time you go for a solo run. We also touch on the potential loneliness of relocating you have to do as an academic professor – or any lifestyle, like digital nomadism, that involves rootlessness and moving around a lot. Finally, we discuss how time outside – specifically cycling in nature – is Thom’s favourite kind of alonement, and how sometimes finding joy in solitude can come to our rescue in our lowest moments.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Vex King: How To Practise Self-Love Through Your Actions

You can’t really love anyone until you love yourself. While we see this a lot on Instagram, it’s something that actually requires a lot of exploration – and it’s my guest this week, the bestselling author and mind coach Vex King, that many of us have turned to over the past few years to teach us the true power of self-love, through his books, first in 2018’s Good Vibes, Good Life and later in 2021’s Healing is the New High. Now, Vex is back with his new title – Closer To Love – an essential guide to bringing those lessons into dating and romantic relationships. In this episode, he shares a little sample platter of that wisdom. We discuss everything from how Vex’s difficult upbringing made him the person he is today - how he’s navigated what he calls the verb, or action, that is love, in his own relationship with his wife. Finally, a fresh approach to self-love: how to demonstrate it to yourself through actions, and how to self-love if you’re looking for a relationship but haven’t found one yet.

We discuss, among other things:

Vex’s understanding of love as something that exists ‘within you’ [5:31]
How self-love can help us identify healthy relationship dynamics [7:58]
‘Healing’ in a relationship versus outside of a relationship [15:25]
The distinction between ‘mature’ and ‘immature’ love [25:32]
How to show yourself love through your actions [30:30]
Vex’s journey towards self-acceptance after being bullied for his voice [40:23]
Why daily meditation is Vex’s alonement [48:02]

Cultural references from our conversation:

The concept of immature versus mature love, originating in Eric Fromm’s book The Art of Loving
‘Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving’, a quote from bell hooks’ All About Love
‘You can’t heal what you don’t reveal’, from the song ‘Kill Jay-Z’ by Jay-Z

You can purchase all of Vex King’s books from Vexking.com

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You can also order my book, Alonement: How To Be Alone and Absolutely Own It, which is based on this very podcast, now from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

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Next Episode

Poppy Jay: From Arranged Marriage to Falling in Love with Singlehood

My guest on this week’s episode is Poppy Jay, best known as the co-host of Brown Girls Do It Too, which won Podcast of the Year at the British Podcast Awards 2020. She’s also a BAFTA-nominated documentary maker, devoted to chronicling difficult, real-life stories for BBC Three and Channel 4. But she’s also been honest about her own: after entering an arranged marriage at the age of 19, Poppy got divorced at 25 – and has spent the past decade exploring her identity. In a Times interview earlier this year, she said – ’I’m 37 and and my whole life has been riddled with shame. Now I try to live by confronting it and owning it.’ And that’s exactly what she does in this episode – we talk about everything from the self-knowledge that comes from being alone, doing nothing, to why Poppy’s trying to be more honest for her need to be by herself after casual sex – and the unexpected beauty of a mutual, respectful break-up in your 30s.

Thank you to our season sponsor Sensate, a palm-sized infrasonic stress and anti-anxiety device. Visit getsensate.com/alonement for 10% off your first device.

With a one-off payment of £5, you can listen to the Alonement podcast ad-free. https://plus.acast.com/s/alonement.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.