Trueform Therapy

Tag: personal-development

  • Understanding Perfectionism: Breaking the Cycle

    You’ve been chasing that “better version” of yourself for a while.
    Scrolling past every post that promises a total life reset in 30 days and thinking, maybe this will be the one that works.
    You download the app, set your alarms, and colour-code the habit tracker.
    You tell yourself this time will be different, but within a week, the reminders feel like guilt trips.
    The free trial ends, you forget to cancel, and now you’re paying for something you’ve already stopped using.

    Meanwhile, you’re lying awake at 2 a.m. with a tense jaw and a racing heart.
    You snap at people you care about, then feel guilty for being irritable.
    You cancel plans because you’re “too tired”, even though the thought of resting makes you restless.
    Some nights you eat nothing at all; other nights it’s whatever’s easiest.

    And somewhere between the unopened morning routine emails and the untouched workout videos, that thought creeps in: everyone else seems to follow through, so what’s wrong with me?
    If you’ve ever felt that, this is for you.

    Photo by ThisIsEngineering on Pexels.com

    What Is Perfectionism and Why It Feels So Hard to Break

    I hear this feeling all the time. That quiet frustration of “Why can’t I just stick with it?” It’s a tricky one, especially when the world around us seems to celebrate quick wins and overnight change. Social media feeds full of 30-day challenges and total life resets can make it feel like everyone else is doing just fine. Except you.

    I’ve been there myself. Downloading Duolingo, signing up for yoga apps, joining 30-day workout plans… full of hope at first, then slowly watching those bright progress bars turn red as I kept missing my streak, week after week.

    Now I know that it had nothing to do with willpower or failure. I was trying to live up to standards that weren’t realistic, standards I’d absorbed without realising.

    There’s a reason this feels so familiar. When the person you are doesn’t match the person you think you ‘should’ be, feelings like shame and anxiety often show up quietly. And for people in their 20s and 30s, that gap often feels wider because of rising perfectionism and constant comparison online.

    So, it makes a lot of sense to feel stuck or disappointed. It’s the pressure of a culture that expects nonstop productivity but rarely talks about what it feels like underneath. You’re far from alone in this.

    “Perfectionism at its core isn’t about high standards. It’s about fear… the fear that one simple thing might be true: you’re just not good enough.”

    Marie Forleo

    The Hidden Roots of Perfectionism: Family, Culture, and Early Experiences

    Perfectionism rarely shows up out of nowhere. It usually grows from the messages we absorb over time from family, culture, and early experiences.

    Maybe you were the one everyone counted on to stay calm and hold things together. Maybe asking for help felt impossible because it seemed like admitting weakness. Or perhaps you grew up in a culture or family where success was not just expected but tied to your worth, and slipping up felt like failure. For many, cultural values around achievement or family honour add a pressure that is hard to shake.

    It is common to develop habits like pushing yourself when you’re drained, people-pleasing to avoid conflict, or hiding struggles because coping alone feels like the only option.

    Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

    Have you noticed how the pressure to perform never really goes away? We live in a world that celebrates hustle and effortless success but rarely shows the hard parts beneath. So it’s no wonder the gap between where you are and where you think you should be feels so wide.

    Sometimes, just noticing these roots can bring a flicker of relief or stir up old frustration. Either way, it is a necessary step.

    Once you begin to see where these feelings come from, the next step is learning how to respond to them with kindness instead of criticism.

    What feels like falling short might actually be your body and mind sending a message you’ve been missing. Perfectionism often tells us to push harder, to stick with the next app or plan no matter what. But maybe that tight jaw or restless night is your brain saying it’s time to slow down.

    Healthy Striving vs. Perfectionism: Knowing the Difference

    “Healthy striving is self-focused—How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused—What will they think?”

    Brené Brown

    For many, perfectionism can feel like the drive to do well, but beneath the surface, it often masks a fear of shame from making mistakes or disappointing others. Maybe you grew up thinking only flawless effort counts. So you kept going, even when your energy was drained or your motivation faded. Like when you keep chasing the “right” way to improve yourself, even if it means starting a new plan before finishing the last one.

    This drive can trap you in a cycle where resting feels like failure, but pushing harder only leads to more exhaustion. That urge to control every outcome or avoid mistakes is your mind’s way of protecting you from feeling vulnerable or judged.

    Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.com

    The surprising truth is, striving for perfection narrows your focus and stifles creativity. Stress shrinks your brain’s ability to adapt, so pushing through can actually slow you down.

    But healing doesn’t mean you are required to give up your standards or stop trying completely. Think of it as shifting your focus toward noticing when you’re caught in these patterns and choosing to pause, even if just for a moment. Rest is part of progress, not its opposite.

    What to do:

    • When you feel the pull to jump into a new plan, pause and ask, “What is my body telling me right now?”
    • Notice the difference between motivation and pressure.
    • Give yourself permission to rest, even if just for a moment.

    Which of these feels doable for you? What might change if you listened more closely to your needs instead of pushing harder?

    This isn’t an easy cycle to break, but you don’t have to figure it out alone. When you’re ready, I’m here. https://trueformtherapy.co.uk/book-a-session/

  • Why Am I Feeling This? Learning to Decode Your Emotions

    You’re not crazy for crying at a yoghurt commercial.

    Or snapping at your partner over a dishwasher situation that was really about… everything else.

    Maybe you’ve felt totally overwhelmed lately. But when someone asks how you are, all you can say is “I’m just tired.” Except it’s not just tired. It’s something messier. Sadness? Anger? Guilt with a splash of existential dread?

    Most of us were never taught what emotions really are, let alone how to understand emotions when they show up. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or stuck in a loop of “What is wrong with me?”, you’re not alone.

    This post is for you if:

    • You’ve ever said, “I don’t even know what I’m feeling.”
    • You grew up in a “We don’t do feelings” kind of home.
    • You’re trying to function, but something inside feels… off.

    The truth is: emotions aren’t random. And they’re definitely not a sign you’re broken.
    They’re messages. From you, to you.

    In this post, we’ll explore:

    • What emotions are actually for
    • Why you might struggle to name or express them
    • How to gently start decoding your emotional world
    • Why therapy can help. Even if you don’t feel “bad enough” for it

    Let’s begin with the basics: what are emotions, really?

    What Are Emotions, Really? (And Why Should You Care?)

    Let’s clear something up: emotions are not the enemy.

    They’re not weaknesses to conquer or distractions to suppress. They’re not even “good” or “bad.”
    They’re data.

    Your emotions are your nervous system’s way of saying, “Hey, something’s happening. Pay attention.”

    Think of them as the body’s internal notification system:

    • Anxiety might mean “something feels unsafe or unpredictable.”
    • Sadness could be saying, “I’ve lost something that mattered.”
    • Anger? Often, it’s “a boundary’s been crossed.”

    But here’s the problem: if you were never taught how to decode your emotional notifications, they start piling up. Like 47 unopened emails from your inner self.

    And when those feelings don’t get heard, they don’t just disappear. They often turn into:

    • Chronic stress or burnout
    • Disconnection from yourself and others
    • Physical symptoms (hello, headaches and tight shoulders)
    • Patterns of behaviour that don’t make sense — until you look underneath

    This is why learning emotional awareness isn’t fluff. It’s survival. It helps you:

    • Make decisions that are actually right for you
    • Build relationships that feel safe
    • Stop living on autopilot or constantly second-guessing yourself

    Knowing what you feel is the first step to knowing what you need.
    And when you start listening, everything else starts to shift.

    Why Is It So Hard to Know What I’m Feeling?

    If you’ve ever sat in a therapy session and thought, “I don’t know what I feel. I just feel… off,” you’re not alone.

    Many people struggle to name their emotions. In fact, there’s a word for that: alexithymia. It literally means “no words for emotions.” And while it’s sometimes linked to neurodivergence or trauma, it can also show up in anyone who didn’t grow up in a home where feelings were named, welcomed, or made sense of.

    If your childhood version of “talking about feelings” looked more like:

    • “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”
    • “You’re too sensitive”
    • Or silence so loud you could hear it ringing in your chest

    …then emotional awareness isn’t something you’re bad at.
    It’s something you were never taught.

    Sometimes people with alexithymia or emotional disconnect aren’t cold or unfeeling. They’re overwhelmed, shut down, or have had to over-rely on logic to feel safe. That’s a nervous system strategy, not a personality flaw.

    The good news? Emotional awareness can be learnt.
    And no, it doesn’t involve staring in a mirror and repeating affirmations (unless that’s your thing; you do you).

    It starts with small things, like:

    • Expanding your emotional vocabulary beyond “fine” and “stressed”
    • Noticing how different emotions feel in your body
    • Asking yourself, “What happened right before I started feeling like this?”

    So if you’re someone who often says “I don’t know” when asked how you feel, that’s not a dead end.
    It’s just a starting point.

    What Happens When You Suppress Emotions for Too Long?

    You don’t stop feeling just because you stop noticing your feelings. Emotions are sneaky like that. When we suppress them, either consciously or because we were never taught how to process them, they don’t just disappear. They go underground. And eventually, they come out sideways.

    Sometimes that looks like:

    • Snapping at someone for breathing too loudly
    • Crying over a burnt piece of toast
    • Getting physically ill with stress-related symptoms
    • Feeling constantly “on edge” but having no clue why

    Suppressing emotions over time doesn’t make you stronger. It just makes you tired. And often? Burnt out, shut down, or stuck in a loop of overthinking.

    It’s also worth knowing: long-term emotional suppression can have a real impact on your mental health. Research links it to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and even physical health issues. Your nervous system wasn’t designed to carry all your feelings in a locked box forever, especially without a key.

    This doesn’t mean you need to start “feeling your feelings” 24/7 or become an emotional detective overnight. But recognising that your emotions have a job and that job is to signal what matters can shift how you respond to them.

    Think of emotions like internal emails. You might not want to open them, but ignoring them usually leads to a messy inbox and a few “URGENT” subject lines showing up eventually.

    What Does It Actually Mean to “Feel Your Feelings”?

    We hear this advice all the time. “You need to feel your feelings.” Okay… but what does that actually mean? Do we sit in a dark room and cry for hours? Do we punch pillows? Journal furiously until the pen runs out?

    Not necessarily.

    Feeling your feelings means making space to notice what’s going on inside you, instead of pushing it away, distracting yourself, or pretending everything’s fine.

    It means:

    • Noticing the tightness in your chest and wondering if it’s sadness or stress
    • Naming the hot flush in your cheeks as anger, not just “being dramatic”
    • Letting yourself admit “I’m hurt” without trying to justify why you shouldn’t be

    It’s the opposite of bottling things up or gaslighting yourself. And it’s not just for “emotional people.” In fact, people who’ve gone numb or shut down often need this the most, especially if you relate to alexithymia, which is when identifying or describing your emotions feels like trying to read a book in a language you never learnt.

    Feeling your feelings isn’t indulgent. It’s intelligence. Your emotions carry information about what you care about, what you need, and what might need to change. If you can learn to decode them, they become less overwhelming and more like internal signposts.

    Next, we’ll get into the how. Gently. No complicated journaling prompts or dramatic soul-searching required.

    How Do You Start Feeling Your Feelings?

    So, how do you actually get better at identifying your emotions, especially if they feel like a murky soup instead of anything nameable?

    The first step is: don’t aim for perfection. Aim for curiosity. You don’t need to become a walking feelings encyclopaedia overnight. But you can learn to tune in and get closer to what’s going on inside.

    1. Start by tracking energy and pleasantness

    If naming emotions feels impossible, try this:
    Ask yourself two things: Do I feel high or low energy? And is this sensation pleasant or unpleasant?

    This helps to narrow things down without needing an exact label. From there, you might get closer to something like tired but content, agitated, or flat. These aren’t just labels; they’re doorways.

    This simple approach is used in the free How We Feel app (https://howwefeel.org/), which was created by therapists, scientists, and people who’ve struggled with emotional awareness themselves. It helps you check in using a visual grid and, based on your answers, offers emotion words you might not have considered.

    2. Use a feelings wheel

    You’ve probably seen one floating around online: a colourful chart with basic emotions in the centre (sad, happy, angry) and more specific ones branching out. The feelings wheel helps you move from vague to precise.

    Try starting with something general: “I feel bad.”
    Then use the wheel to go deeper: is it frustrated? Lonely? Overwhelmed?

    You’re not aiming for the “right” answer. You’re aiming to get closer.

    3. Talk out loud (or write it down)

    If your inner world is a mystery, sometimes saying it out loud, even to yourself, helps. Try this:
    “I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I know I’m…” And then fill in the blank with whatever comes. Stuck? Add context. “I just got home, and my chest feels heavy. I think I wanted today to go differently.”

    You can also voice memo yourself or jot notes in your phone. Think of it as gathering clues.

    4. Therapy (yes, obviously)

    Sometimes, the most powerful way to learn how to feel is by being asked gentle questions in a safe space. Not everyone had that growing up. Therapy can offer it now, especially if your go-to response has always been to numb, shut down, or perform instead of feeling.

    Why This Matters (And Isn’t Just Navel-Gazing)

    It’s easy to think emotional awareness is a luxury. Something for people with too much time or too many feelings. But here’s the truth: when you can name what you feel, you’re better able to meet your needs.

    This isn’t about turning yourself into a walking mood board. It’s about understanding why you’re snapping at your partner, why you’re exhausted by 10am, or why you keep saying yes to things that drain you.

    For many of us emotional fluency wasn’t taught. In fact, emotional expression may have been shamed, ignored, or simply… lost in translation. Add to that a culture that rewards pushing through over slowing down, and no wonder so many of us live from the neck up.

    Learning to name your emotions doesn’t fix everything. But it does give you a map and maybe even a way home to yourself.

    And if you’ve tried every journal prompt and mood tracker out there and still feel stuck? That’s okay too. That’s where therapy can help.

    Not because you’re broken but because you were never taught the language of your inner world. And we can learn it together.

    Want support figuring out your emotional landscape?
    I work with people who feel like they’re “too much” or “not enough,” sometimes at the same time. Whether you’re emotionally fluent or still stuck at “I feel meh,” I’d love to help.
    Visit www.trueformtherapy.co.uk to find out more or book a consultation.

  • How Language Shapes Who You Are

    You move to a new country, learn a new language, and suddenly you’re the shy one at parties. Back home, you could talk the ears off a donkey. Here, you’re nodding politely while someone explains the bus timetable for the third time. Or maybe it’s the other way round. You were always quiet in your mother tongue, but now in another language, you’ve developed a sudden flair for dramatic storytelling and ordering coffee with flair. A lot of people who speak more than one language say they feel like different people depending on which language they’re using. But is that just in our heads, or does language really reshape our personalities?

    What the research says (yes, actual science)

    It turns out it’s not just in your head. Studies have shown that people really do behave differently depending on the language they’re speaking. In one experiment, bilingual participants described themselves differently in English than in their native language. They were more assertive, individualistic and achievement-focused in English and more community-minded and humble in their first language. Same person, same day, different vibes. Psychologists think this might be because each language activates different cultural frameworks, like switching between mental apps. You load up English and suddenly you’re talking about your personal goals. Switch to Spanish, and now it’s all about the family WhatsApp group.

    What this means when you move countries

    So, you’ve packed your bags, moved to a new country, and suddenly you’re a slightly different person. Not in a dramatic soap opera way (no evil twin involved), but maybe you’re quieter than you used to be. Or more polite. Or more apologetic, especially if you’ve moved to Britain and have absorbed the national pastime of saying “sorry” to lampposts.

    This shift isn’t just about language skills. It’s about context. The version of you that existed in your home country had a history, inside jokes, and unspoken rules. You knew how to order your coffee and complain about the weather properly. Now, you’re in a different culture, with different expectations, and sometimes you’re just trying to figure out if “How are you?” is a real question or not.

    All of this can quietly shake your sense of identity. It’s easy to start wondering: if I can’t express myself in the way I used to, am I still me?

    Why it matters in therapy

    When people come to therapy, they often bring the version of themselves they know how to explain. But what happens if that version is shaped by a second language? Or if the really raw stuff, the stuff that shaped you, only lives in your mother tongue?

    Therapy in a second language can feel like trying to cry underwater. The emotion is there, but it doesn’t always come out right. Maybe you can’t find the word for a feeling. Maybe you do, but it doesn’t hit the same. Maybe your therapist is kind and warm, but they don’t laugh at your jokes because humour doesn’t travel well.

    On top of that, cultural norms around emotions can be wildly different. In some cultures, naming your feelings is normal. In others, it’s like saying Voldemort out loud. So when therapy invites you to “explore your inner world”, you might find you need a translator. Not just for the words, but for the whole emotional landscape.

    This is not a reason to avoid therapy. It’s a reason to find one that gets this. Because feeling like yourself, all of your selves, matters. Even the version of you that mispronounces “anxiety” or accidentally says something rude when trying to be deep.

    Reclaiming all your selves

    Here’s the beautiful part: living between languages doesn’t make you fragmented. It makes you layered.

    You don’t have to choose between the version of you who laughs too loud in your native language and the quieter, more careful one who speaks English. They’re both real. Both you. And neither of them is a failure just because the right words don’t always come quickly.

    Therapy can be a space to explore all your selves. Not to fix them, but to understand them. To notice who shows up in different contexts. To grieve the parts that feel left behind. And maybe, to gently reintegrate the voices that haven’t had space in a while.

    Whether you’re fluent or fumbling, accented or code-switching, your story matters. And it deserves to be told in whatever language feels most like home.