Many of us are born into, and grow up in, environments that provide insecure support at best. While rewarded for behaviors that meet arbitrary social standards, we are ignored or punished for the times our authentic self-expression doesn't 'fit in' with normative expectations. For example, boys are rewarded for acting 'like boys,' and 'girls like girls,' but transgressing gender expectations often leads to shaming, exclusion and worse. And so we develop performative behaviors to attain support and acceptance from an ungenerous, withholding world: we do as others do to receive acceptance. We drive ourselves to fit in with relentless self-criticism and perfectionism. Such techniques transform the mind into place where thoughts of grandiosity and punishment are the rewards for normal successes and mistakes. Unfortunately, many have to hit bottom, reaching periods of despair, addiction, panic, insomnia and other unwholesome states, before s...
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