0:00:00 – Speaker 1
nextTalk, sponsored by nextTalk.org, contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised.
0:00:10 – Speaker 2
Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim On AM630, the word. Mandy is the author of Talk and Kim is the director of nextTalk, a non-profit organization helping parents’ cyber parent through open communication. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Find our free video series and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
0:00:35 – Speaker 3
Today we have a special guest on the show joining Kim and I. Her name is Annie Vyers from the Vine Wellness Group. We’ve had you on before, Annie. She’s a regular yes. She did a cutting show that was so amazing. Self-harming really, yes, but we really focused in on that cutting. So if you haven’t heard that show, check it out. Annie, just tell us just a little bit about yourself.
0:00:56 – Speaker 4
Sure, for those who haven’t didn’t listen to that show so I’m co-owner of the Vine Wellness Group, which is a private practice here in San Antonio, and we work with a variety of individuals, couples and families. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist and a licensed professional counselor, and the majority of who I work with are ages 12 and up and marriages and individual adults.
0:01:20 – Speaker 3
Yeah, and I know I met with Annie and Celeste back when I was writing my book probably 2016, I guess and really sat down with them and they were just so spot on with being very relevant about what’s happening, but then also being able to communicate about those issues, and they’ve been such an asset to me and to nextTalk Absolutely. And so we love when we have you guys on.
0:01:42 – Speaker 4
Thanks for being here. Well, and we felt the same way about you guys and the messages that you’re sending. It’s right in line with what we’re doing as well Awesome.
0:01:49 – Speaker 3
Thank you.
0:01:51 – Speaker 1
It’s kind of like what we’re talking about today. It’s one of those things that I think a lot of us might be aware of out here, but we don’t like to shine the mirror on ourselves and think about the concept of perfectionism, and this, I think, is a relevant topic that we need to really talk about.
0:02:05 – Speaker 3
Well, it is. And sometimes when we talk to counselors and when we talked with Annie and Celeste, we said what are you seeing? What are you, what trends are you seeing? Because we want to make sure at nextTalk and on the radio show we’re covering the things that are happening. And you guys said perfectionism and we’re like, well, we got to do a show on this because I can relate, I’m a recovering perfectionist. Oh, yes, so I mean, Kim is like she’s the worst person to work with ever.
0:02:34 – Speaker 1
No, we struggle with it in different areas of life and we compliment each other. I know what’s running through your head right now yes, reframe, thank you.
0:02:40 – Speaker 3
I know what’s running through your head right now, that time that I sent you all those edits and I was really like one space, not two. Yes, yes, it’s like a perfectionist.
0:02:50 – Speaker 4
It’s ugly head, it does, it does. It’s something that I know, particularly as a clinician, is whether the age is a teenager or middle school, high school, college age or adult perfectionism, you can see it across the board with, no matter the age, and it definitely is something. It’s a way of thinking that just perpetuates depression and anxiety, and so sometimes, when we’re able to identify, okay, somebody’s struggling with depression or anxiety, let’s start looking for what’s underneath, what’s the underlying cause, and perfectionism is a huge portion of that.
0:03:28 – Speaker 3
So how do we know if we’re a perfectionist, like, how would we know that? So it’s like, how do we define it? How do we, you know?
0:03:38 – Speaker 4
Yeah, so what is it? So perfectionism is a way of thinking. It’s a way of living where achievement, performance and success is kind of the ideal, that’s what they’re trying to achieve. But it really is a more negative focus because they end up being more focused on failure rather than the success part. So there’s an avoidance of failure or there’s just a decompensation when a mistake is made. So it’s not just about what most people come in asking or thinking. When I say perfectionism, they’ll think that, oh, life has to be perfect, like, hmm, kind of I think that’s the normal definition of what people think it is. But it’s really more about the way of critical thinking, just such a negative, critical self-talk and then the fear of failure. What’s going to happen if I fail, how that impacts.
0:04:31 – Speaker 3
Well, and if you do mess up, like it’s hard to recover from it, right Cause you’re beating yourself up, it’s basically like you’re not giving yourself grace, Absolutely. See, I told you, I know You’re like I like to find it more.
0:04:42 – Speaker 1
You know that definition.
0:04:45 – Speaker 3
I struggle with this so this is I used to, but it does. It rears its ugly head. When I do fail and I find myself, the negative self-talk comes back right away and I have to really notice it.
0:04:59 – Speaker 4
Yeah, if we’re not self-aware of what’s happening in our heads, of what we’re saying to ourself, it can just continually gain strength over the years and it can really cause a lot of destruction.
0:05:09 – Speaker 1
You know it’s interesting. I was thinking, trying to think of an example with myself Is this something? And I certainly struggle with it also? I do. I do Mandy Meachers, just not in my writing and I think if I’m really honest and transparent. When parenting came about, you know before that, yes, it was a struggle, but when I became a mom and started being in mom groups and then social media became a part of my life, my goodness, did that just ramp everything up, because I’m around all these women who are going through a similar life stage and if I felt like I wasn’t doing as well as they were or my kids weren’t succeeding, it was a personal, personal failure and I would beat myself up like I’m not a good enough mom, I’m not doing enough, and then it would be amplified by social media, correct, and that just kind of threw things over the top. That’s right, and I think that’s a big issue with this.
0:06:00 – Speaker 4
I’m assuming you probably yes, it’s setting unattainable expectations for yourself. They’re so high that they’re virtually unattainable or rarely able to attain. And when you’re unable to attain them, then you have a sense of failure and you beat yourself up. And then the lack of critical self-talk comes in.
0:06:17 – Speaker 1
Yes, and if you’re comparing yourself to something that’s not a whole truth, like on social media, where you’re seeing a snippet of only the best moment, then, yeah, you never live up to what’s amazing and perfect.
0:06:28 – Speaker 3
I kind of, when you were talking, I kind of went to this Pinterest mom type. That’s where I went, you know, because I do feel that with the baseball goodies, oh my word, and I’m like handing out juice boxes and an orange, and you’ve got somebody over here that has monogrammed towels for everybody or something and I am not shaming any moms who do that. I mean, god bless you. I love the gifts that we’re getting from you guys, but that’s not my gift. My gift is not the craftiness and the putting all the things together. But then you feel like it should be yes, and that you’re a failure if it’s not.
0:07:03 – Speaker 4
Yes.
0:07:04 – Speaker 1
You remember when my son did T-Ball at five? Our team member, stacy, who is amazing and crafty, she has that gift.
0:07:10 – Speaker 4
She does.
0:07:11 – Speaker 1
I called her from the first game because I looked around and there were the moms with the shirts, all in the bedazzled their kids’ names and the hats. Even the babies had matching jerseys on.
0:07:21 – Speaker 3
And what?
0:07:21 – Speaker 1
did you have on Kim?
I had pretty much like a T-shirt and paint all over it. I was probably coming from paint. I looked like a hot mess, like I just showed up five minutes late as usual and just ran in there and I’m cheering my head off and I look around and I realized they’re all matchy matchy and doing all these cool things that I never even thought about and I literally picked up the phone and called Stacy because she’s good at that. I said I have failed. I am sitting here with all these moms.
0:07:46 – Speaker 2
Yes, I have compared.
0:07:48 – Speaker 4
It’s a self-talk.
0:07:49 – Speaker 1
It was the negative self-talk. And then I told her I need you to fix this and she helped me. But then she also said, kim, it’s just most important that you’re there.
0:07:56 – Speaker 4
That’s all that matters. It’s where we end up putting more value on the performance.
0:08:00 – Speaker 1
Yes.
0:08:01 – Speaker 2
That’s so good.
0:08:02 – Speaker 4
Than anything else. Yes, the more time if it becomes a chronic issue, and the longer you do this, the more it’s just destructive. And yeah, just the higher. Just very critical.
0:08:15 – Speaker 3
That’s a really, really great point.
0:08:17 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it sure is. And so the social media thing. My mind went there right away when you said it’s more about the performance.
0:08:23 – Speaker 4
Yeah, the social media thing. Well, that’s where people find their identity through their performance. So society has this high value on success and achievement, and that’s where we are in the good old US of A and so if we’re not living up to some sort of something that we have in our heads, then our identity can be broken if we have this type of critical thinking.
0:08:52 – Speaker 1
So if we’re thinking about that from me bringing up the topic of being a mom and being a struggle and social media was just becoming a thing then I’m thinking about you’re seeing people age 12 and up. You probably see young men and women you know high school, maybe younger who are struggling in a huge way because of expectation in schools now and education and extracurricular and all these things. You got to be a dancer, you got to be serve the community Everything.
0:09:18 – Speaker 4
So you’re not going to get into college.
0:09:19 – Speaker 1
Yes, you’re going to be a failure.
0:09:22 – Speaker 4
And I just don’t drink that Kool-Aid. So it really is, you know, stepping back and really looking at what truly is important and how can you go about life and not fail. Like, failure is a part of life and allowing our kids to fail is a huge part of life. And if we don’t allow them to fail because we fear what’s going to happen if they, you know, don’t achieve X, y and Z, we’re setting our kids up for failure.
0:09:51 – Speaker 3
Well, you know act firing.
You know, I’m looking at myself and I know that I’ve struggled with this and I know that it rears its ugly head in my life. How do I know if I’ve passed this on to my kids? You know, like because I want to be the kind of parent that can step out of my shoes and look at my kids and say, okay, I’ve passed this on to them and I didn’t mean to. How can I fix it now? So you know, for people out there that are like, do our kids struggle with this? What do we look for in our kids?
0:10:18 – Speaker 4
Sure so, when a lot of it is just observing what your child does in certain situations. So if they’re a natural overachiever, it’s not that that’s a bad thing, it’s how do they handle when they don’t do well.
0:10:33 – Speaker 1
The opposite side, it’s the opposite side.
0:10:35 – Speaker 4
How do they talk themselves through it? And you can hear the way that they talk. If they talk out loud, or they’re just, or they’re behaving in a certain way, or they have higher standards for themselves than other people. Yes, like other people, can get a B, but that is not okay with me.
0:10:51 – Speaker 1
Yes.
0:10:52 – Speaker 4
Or just hearing them talk through a scenario at school, and just you can pick up on how they talk about themselves. That you know. It’s the critical nature of like beating themselves up. You know I just heard that perfectionism referred to as the highest form of self abuse. Oh yeah, Because of the intense nature of that critical self talk and unattainable expectations, You’re never going to, you’re never gonna hit it, so you’re just always striving and feeling like a failure.
0:11:26 – Speaker 3
So when our kids say something like you know, say they’ve messed up, or maybe they got a C on a test when we thought we were gonna get an A or whatever, and they will say I’m such a dummy or I’m such a failure. That could be a okay, anything like that. That negative self talk, that’s the kind of thing. They don’t get in trouble for it. But we say to them oh no, you just didn’t do great on that test, but that doesn’t define who you are.
0:11:51 – Speaker 4
Well, let’s keep it in perspective.
0:11:52 – Speaker 3
Yeah.
0:11:52 – Speaker 4
This is one test out of many, right? So you know what do we do Now that you’ve learned that you didn’t do so well on this content. What do you do to grow from this? Yeah, how do we grow from a mistake? How do we grow from a failure? I mean, how many of the best CEOs had how many failures behind them before they had a success?
0:12:11 – Speaker 3
Yes, that’s a great.
0:12:12 – Speaker 1
those are great stories, relevant stories that say look at all this failure before they became this person, yeah, so true, would you agree that probably most kids, or most people, have a moment with this negative self talk, and it doesn’t mean run and get help, sure, but start with the conversations that lead them down a different path?
0:12:31 – Speaker 4
That’s right. It’s if you see a persistent pattern of it and you start catching onto, hmm, they’re really going into a panic or tantrum or a teenage freak out session or and this is a constant thing they’re constantly erasing and starting over and then they crumble up the paper and throw it away. If those aren’t common things you see in your household, from that child you may be seeing this pattern developing. So, but every kid who may talk here and there negative about themselves not a reason to panic and not necessarily it’s just being able to talk them through it so that it doesn’t become a persistent way that they’ve adopted in terms of their thinking.
0:13:09 – Speaker 3
Well, in mom and dad we can’t be negative on ourself. You know, I know we all have the negative self talk, but we can’t, when we mess up, we can’t say I’m the worst mom ever, like, don’t you know? You know, we’ve all had to go to our kids and apologize because we’ve lost it. We’ve gone into crazy mom mode or crazy dad mode. We’ve yelled, you know, done something stupid, whatever, and we can’t constantly. I mean they, they have to see us forgiving ourselves and being like I made a mistake, I’m going to move on, I’m not going to do that again.
0:13:38 – Speaker 4
That’s right. Self-compassion is the antidote to this way of thinking.
That’s really good, and oftentimes when I’m bringing up self-compassion and say you know what you know, tell me about the self-compassion you may or may not have, and a lot of times those that struggle with perfectionism as an adult will say I don’t deserve it. Ah, interesting, and because that’s been such a long, chronic thing, they can remember thinking and being this way since they were young. And so it’s. It’s something that to be able to teach our child how to talk through something with grace and give ourselves grace and compassion. If we don’t do that for themselves, why should they do it so? Oftentimes when we mess up and we’re ah, we have our issues at home, or they see us go through something, if they’re not seeing us practice that, then it can be hard to understand why or how to practice it themselves.
0:14:29 – Speaker 1
So true, so true.
0:14:31 – Speaker 3
If you’re just now tuning in, this is nextTalk Radio at 2pm on AM 630, the Word nextTalk Radio is listener supported. Everything we do at our nonprofit to keep kids safe online is accomplished through your donations To support our organization. Go to nextTalk.org and click on give. We have any buyers here today from the Vine Wellness Group? And when we sat down with her and said tell us the trends you’re seeing, she said perfectionism and I think we all kind of can relate to that a little bit in different ways. And so we said we got to do a show on this. If you’re really seeing this. Um, I liked what you said at the beginning of the show. You said it’s kind of an underlying issue that sometimes leads to anxiety and depression. So like somebody will come in presented with anxiety, depression, but at the you know, at the end of the day, when we’ve worked through all the stuff, it comes back to this perfectionism.
0:15:21 – Speaker 4
That’s right, it can absolutely. It’s a way of thinking that perpetuates anxiety and depression symptoms and eventually, if not dealt with and modified um can lead into those self-harming behaviors we have a show on already um eating disorders and those more intensive things if if not caught and gone longterm into adulthood. So we do. We can recognize it when the kids are underneath our roof and and be able to to ward it off and help modify their how they respond to um, how they respond to life.
0:15:54 – Speaker 1
We could maybe prevent them from spiraling into a deeper issue, the other thing is I love that one because I spiral a lot Me too. Well, you know I do too.
0:16:05 – Speaker 3
I’ll send one text. This is happening. The next test Everybody’s dying, you know, like the spiral is faster than me.
0:16:10 – Speaker 1
It happens quick, yeah, but you know it’s, it’s great that you said that about why they’re under your roof, because it’s so true.
We, I think sometimes we think these are huge conversations and that’s something with nextTalk that we’re always going back to is this is the everyday on the go conversation. Trying to think of an example, just the other day I put on an old T shirt that said muddy buddy. It was a race my husband and I did together when our son was one years old and you had to like bike, run like tag team and that the it’s like seven years old.
0:16:38 – Speaker 3
It’s old Sure, yeah, old Sure, oh it’s vintage.
0:16:42 – Speaker 1
Thank you, I like her. It’s vintage and, as my husband says, oh, you’re putting on your homeless, so I have a lot of that. But anyway I put it on cause we were doing stuff around the house and my son, for the first time, was asking me what it was. So I told him about the race and how exciting it was and fun, you know. And daddy and I finished like crawling through this mud pit and it was amazing. And he’s like and you won. And I was. I laughed. I was like are you kidding? Like we were near the last, like look at us. Like we are not athletes, we were just there to have fun. He’s like why would you do something if you knew you weren’t gonna win?
0:17:18 – Speaker 2
And it was this great moment.
0:17:19 – Speaker 4
What a great teachable moment, you know, segue. But in his mind he was like what’s the point? What’s the point of going?
0:17:23 – Speaker 1
there, and then I remembered he had said something similar about something he did recently athletic and he didn’t win. He’s like why would I do that again? And so I know it’s my job at that point to like ramp it up a little with the conversations, like ongoing conversations. I need to model and make sure he understands that we do things for different reasons not to win or be the best, that’s right.
0:17:43 – Speaker 4
And persistence, persistence-filled character right, you know you keep trying.
My son was doing a Lego set. Yesterday he got for his birthday and he got all the way through it and realized he had done two pieces in the same way, but they were supposed to be mirrored. And he was like I’m done, you do it, you do it, and then I’ll finish it. And I’m like, oh, no opportunity, yes, and it is still sitting there waiting for me to do it. But that’s one of those opportunities to be able to sit down, because he gave up right and so it’s going to sit there until we can come back and work through it, because it’s about being persistent and trying again.
0:18:21 – Speaker 2
Yeah, how do you try again?
0:18:23 – Speaker 4
And if you see, like you were asking earlier about how do you see this in your kids, if you see kids try sports or activities and very quickly want to say I’m out, I’m done, I’m not doing, you know it’s. That’s another sign and then it’d be a pattern.
0:18:36 – Speaker 3
It’s a pattern. It’s a pattern not just one time, not just one because they may go.
0:18:39 – Speaker 4
This is not for me.
0:18:39 – Speaker 3
Yeah, and you may go yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:18:41 – Speaker 2
It’s not for you, yeah.
0:18:43 – Speaker 4
But there might be. You see a pattern over time of them engaging in an activity and very quickly identifying they don’t want to do it Because they can’t be perfect at it. Because they tried it a couple days and didn’t like it? Yeah, well, and I would not, being the best at it.
0:18:57 – Speaker 3
So they’re going to pull that I would just caution parents, you know, with everything we say and do here at nextTalk is don’t freak out. You know, if your kid is, if you hear the negative self talk, I think it’s normal for a little bit of negative self talk.
Everybody, you know, beats them say everybody, and so what we’re saying is, if it’s just a pattern, like you constantly see it, just start trying to have some conversation and see if you can talk them through it so that they see it’s okay that you didn’t do well on this. You know, maybe this isn’t your gift, or and that’s okay too, you know, just talking them through and not to brush to oh my gosh, something’s wrong, that’s right, we don’t want to cause that right.
0:19:36 – Speaker 4
Yeah, we don’t want to inflict fear on just bringing some of these things to the surface. It’s meant to be educational to be like oh, oh. That can be a source of anxiety and depression that people deal with throughout life, but we want to see what. How do the kids talk to themselves? You know, if we want, we hope that they have and show grace to themselves, and if you see that that’s not happening persistently, then we can guide them in that. That’s something we can learn to do.
0:20:01 – Speaker 3
So when do we know when it’s time for counseling? You know like say, say, my son is, you know, I see this come out in him, son, we talk it through. I’m continuing to see it. You know when do I know when? Okay, maybe we need to go see somebody just to make sure he’s hearing this from someone else.
0:20:17 – Speaker 4
And that needs to be that’s. That’s I’m glad you said when you hear it from somebody else, cause sometimes my own kiddos need to hear it from somebody.
0:20:24 – Speaker 2
Yes, so true.
0:20:25 – Speaker 4
I will be doing my thing, doing what I know how to do, but they’re not hearing it from me. Yes, but they’ll hear it from Grandma they’ll hear it from.
Miss Celeste, they’ll hear it from somebody else other than me and I think it’s when, when you feel like you’ve you’ve run your course of being able to, to use your tools and what you know how to do, but you still see a consistent, persistent pattern, or you start seeing those, the intensity or the quantity of times of those frustrations start to intense, or you see self-harming behaviors.
You see more of the withdrawing from things. You’re seeing more intense symptoms. Yeah, of course we want to come in and evaluate and we’re looking for patterns too. Yes, we’re not just looking for a one-timer right. Yeah, we’re looking for the things that are a chronic issue, that’s that’s causing heartache. Yeah, for not only the child, but the parent may not have the direction. So we can work with parents as well.
0:21:22 – Speaker 1
Well, and speaking of that, I bet, as you see, these families come in, it’s not uncommon to notice a culture within their family that struggles. Yeah, I mean, I’m thinking about how, anytime I see something in my kid, I try to look at myself first, and most of the time I’m like oh wait, a minute, I’m mirroring or I’m. You know, I’m the one setting this example.
0:21:42 – Speaker 4
Sure, it’s, it’s important to be self-aware for what we do, why we do the things we do, how we do it, to be able to kind of look in a proverbial mirror and see, see how we interact with life. Yeah, so it’s important to to to have that knowledge.
0:22:00 – Speaker 3
Well, and I would say caution, be cautious about social media. Yes, you know, if you have a child that you know struggles with perfectionism, or you, mom or dad, struggle with perfectionism, you know spending hours on social media is not going to help it. No, that you’re making and so you need to be really cautious. You know I’m thinking of, like younger kids. If you notice this in them and you, like you said, you’ve tried to talk it through, but it’s still a pattern that you’re noticing, that you’re worried about. You know it may not be the best thing to give them social media in sixth grade, but they may need to wait a little bit to get this worked out because that is going to make them feel worse about themselves.
I mean social media kind of makes us all feel worse about themselves. Yeah, so does yeah, notice yourself.
0:22:40 – Speaker 4
It does, and oftentimes I’ll recommend, as we’re trying to work on changing that self-talk social media just helps us dive in so much that we can’t. It’s hard to get perspective on how we talk to ourselves because we’re so inundated with messages. Yes, so we take so a tech break. So sometimes if a teenager is trying to gain perspective and learn new tools, sometimes a few weeks off of social media, even though they don’t want to, sometimes they see the value in it too and they’ll go with it.
And adults again, tell you how many times I did my own tech break and I still haven’t been back on Facebook personally, so, and it’s something that I found is more harmful for me than helpful, and others have to have that evaluation tool as well. So, adults, I say, is that a comparison tool for you? Is that perpetuating these thoughts? Yes, then maybe we should consider taking a little bit of break.
0:23:35 – Speaker 1
Well and, if you like, you’re saying when you’re thinking about introducing social media with your young kid maybe sixth grade or whatever that needs to be a purposeful part of the conversation.
0:23:45 – Speaker 3
It’s walking them through that, even if they don’t struggle with it. Even if they see no signs, you need to say this is a part of social media that may creep in. You don’t struggle with this, but you may start to because of you’re being exposed to everything and everybody’s on a filter. So, everybody looks perfect. As you scroll through your Instagram feed and you’re gonna feel less than, and that’s not okay.
0:24:05 – Speaker 4
You need to recognize that that’s perpetuating all the things. We’re just saying that perfectionism is, so we need to be aware of it. And the nature nurture issue too heredity versus experiencing and learning through behaviors in the family. This perfectionism can pop up in both. You see it in families. You were saying that earlier. Yes, yes, so we do have to be aware of how we interact with each other.
0:24:27 – Speaker 3
We’ve gotta be the model. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re passing these traits down to our kids and we are, so we really, like you said, we have to step out of our shoes and really see this from another perspective and ask your friends, you know, ask a close friend. Am I teaching my kid this? You’re gonna get me like, oh my gosh, yes, I have her conversation.
0:24:47 – Speaker 4
You’re like I need to tell you something. No, I was thinking.
0:24:49 – Speaker 1
I was thinking I also your spouse. If you have that kind of relationship with your spouse too, oh no, girl, you know, I tell you, you may take a better for friends.
0:24:56 – Speaker 2
Annie Byers, you’re incredible, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you always enjoyed it.
0:25:02 – Speaker 1
Now getting in touch with you phone number if people are saying you know what? I’m seeing these things. It’s a pattern. I’m at my wits end. We need some help. It’s 210-490-4419.
0:25:12 – Speaker 4
And they leave a message on our confidential voicemail and we call them back to assess the situation and see who would be the best fit to work with them and their family.
0:25:22 – Speaker 3
Okay, and your website.
0:25:23 – Speaker 4
Thevinewellnesscom.
0:25:26 – Speaker 3
Okay, and we will also post them on social media and tag you guys so they can follow you on social media as well. That’s great. Thanks for your time. Thank you.
0:25:34 – Speaker 2
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim on AM630, the Word. You are not alone trying to figure out how to parent in this digital world. We are here with practical solutions to help you. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Find our free video series and podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk? Here’s ot’s造진 and.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
