#1 Everyone limps a little and few have a simply sweet life. It is okay to have struggles, problems and face-plant failures–this is the common human experience.
#2 Healing takes time, and some things take a long, long time to heal. Some people get over deep trauma and bad failures quickly; some take years to overcomes wounds and breaks.
#3 It is okay to walk with a limp, and not try to fake it. If we accept ourselves as we are and not as we should be, then we are where we are, we are what we are and we live inside our own skin the way it is.
#4 Hang on to those around you, warts and all. Accept them as they are, not as they should be. There is grace by association and healing among accepting friends.
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Some comments on the 4 Antidotes above:
#1 Being a recovering perfectionist is way freer and way more fun that being a compulsive perfectionist who has to have it all together. Life is easier, we learn a lot more and we’re more likeable when we like ourselves as we are. Maybe related is this factoid: children learn language(s) way quicker than adults because they are not afraid to make mistakes trying. Adults have much slower new language acquisition because they are self-conscious about making mistakes.
#2 “Get over it quickly” (Dysfunctional Rule #2) is for people whose solution is submersion of their true selves, denial of what has really happened, pretending everything is okay when it is not. They expend a LOT of psychic energy suppressing things instead of letting them come to the surface. Some people do just quit smoking the day they decide to do so, yes, but almost everyone else has to quit an average of seven times to actually, finally quit smoking (maybe). Alcoholics and other addicts who have learned to overcome do so by acknowledging the problem is not yet solved no matter how long they have been at it: they are “recovering addicts” not “recovered addicts.” Ask any of them–the distinction is important to their ongoing healing. Some things take a long time to heal. Often scars will remain.
#3 “Fake it if you can’t get over it” (Dysfunctional Rule #3). What a dark place to live, in dishonesty and shame.
#4 Much power of a “Twelve Step Group” like AA or Gamblers Anonymous is finding a group of others who not only accept you as you are, but really understand the struggles and failures you face because they face them also. Group honesty is powerful, when combined with tenacious and relentless acceptance and tender and gracious care and commitment to stay walking together with one another, no matter how rough the road gets, no matter how hard a bump in that road one of you may hit.
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