In this empowering and thought-provoking episode, Dr. Amelia Kelley sits down with bestselling author and podcast host Mary Marantz to unravel the myths of perfectionism and explore the truth behind our inner critics. Mary shares her deeply personal story—from growing up in a trailer in rural West Virginia to becoming a Yale Law graduate and accomplished writer—highlighting how perfectionism, fear, and self-doubt often mask themselves as ambition. Together, they explore how fear shows up as overthinking, imposter syndrome, and people-pleasing—and how these patterns are especially common in sensitive, neurodiverse, and high-achieving individuals. The episode dives into the neuroscience of creativity, the emotional toll of being “the one no one has to worry about,” and how sustainable growth starts with self-compassion. If you’ve ever felt like your inner critic was in charge, or believed that your perfectionism was a virtue, this conversation will offer a powerful and loving wake-up call.
Amelia: [00:00:00] welcome back everyone. To the Sensitivity Doctor. I had a fabulous conversation with an author that I have Fangirled Forever. Mary Moranz wrote an amazing book called Dirt, if any of you have ever read it. She also wrote Slow Growth and then a new book Underestimated, which we talk about.
Amelia: My favorite part of this conversation is we unpack everything from perfectionism to overachieving to emotional intelligence and sensitivity, and how all of these things can collide to keep us stuck in perfectionism and how understanding that perfectionism is really just a big, fat, boring liar, Learning about how perfection is boring was probably my favorite takeaway from this episode, and her [00:01:00] energy and excitement and enthusiasm for the topic is so infectious. I just cannot wait for you to listen to this episode and how fun and engaging she is because I truly believe you're gonna walk away.
Amelia: Feeling like letting go of your perfection is an amazing way to step forward in your life. Enjoy I'm really excited to talk to you because you have, like your book that came out I feel like aligns so well with things that a lot of people that listen to this podcast struggle with.
Mary: Yeah.
Amelia: And also I read your first book and so I'm fangirling a little bit
Mary: nice.
Mary: So.
Mary: Dirt you read.
Amelia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably not your first. You've probably written more than that. I don't
Mary: No, dirt is my first. Yeah,
Mary: there is dirt and then there's slow growth equals strong roots. And then this one.
Amelia: Oh, okay. Well, gosh, I don't even know where to get started 'cause I wanna ask you so many questions. But I guess a good place to start would be how did you get to here? Like how did you even get into this field of, of writing and sharing stories and [00:02:00] trying to help people?
Mary: Yeah, I mean, I have known since I was five Amelia, that I wanted to be an author. I don't know that I even knew the word author at
Mary: that time, but truly that I, where we lived in between where we lived and where some of our family lived,
Mary: one county over, we would drive past the birthplace of Pearl S Buck.
Mary: And,
Mary: you know, there's a little plaque outside and she's author of 85 books,
Mary: Pulitzer Prize winner, Nobel Prize winner.
Amelia: That.
Mary: Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I don't know, there was something about driving past that, that I felt like I kind of got this feeling very young that I was going to write books and I
Mary: was gonna do it in a way that would bring honor to my home state
Mary: of West Virginia. And so I, it, it's sort of always been the dream and the. The place where I knew I was ultimately headed, but I took, like most people do. I think a
Mary: very long way to get there. You know,
Mary: I, I grew up in the single eye trailer in West Virginia, ended up at Yale for law school.
Mary: Met my husband Justin while I was in law school.
Mary: He had gone to RIT, which is the number one photography school. We started a photography business together. When I went full [00:03:00] time, when I, when I graduated. Law school and I had the option to go full-time at two law firms, one
Mary: in London and one in New York, or go full-time with our photography business.
Mary: We chose the photography business you know, as you do with a really, really expensive law degree. And we, we built that from the ground up for 15 plus years
Mary: and started from the very bottom and hit every dream we ever had for that business. And sort of at the height of that, then it was, it felt like it was time to pivot and get serious.
Mary: Pivot again, you know, Ross Kel style and get
Mary: yeah, exactly. Get serious about the, the author dream that I'd had. And, and so I was five when I knew I wanted to write a book, and I was 40 the year that Dirk came out.
Amelia: Wow. That's so awesome. I love the knowingness at five because someone once asked me when I knew I wanted to be a writer, and I had this really large closet growing up that was next to my bedroom, and I don't even know why I acquired this typewriter, but I created this little typewriter [00:04:00] desk situation and created.
Amelia: Just volumes of terrible books,
Mary: Nice.
Amelia: so, yeah. No, I do think sometimes there's a, a pull, I think especially if, did I catch this right in our exchanges, that you are also a highly sensitive person?
Mary: You know, I, I'm not like officially diagnosed in any way, but I feel like I
Mary: am um, you know, loud restaurants, loud noises, you know, people being loud in movie theaters. I mean, I think probably these are things I'm describing that everybody would be like, yeah, that's annoying. But it, it's sort of like, an irrational
Amelia: Like
Mary: level. Yeah, distressing level. And you know, I, I feel very much like a very, I think I'm an empath.
Mary: And so being around people and sort of absorbing their emotions is very exhausting. And yeah, I, I, I mean, I don't know, you know, obviously a lot more about it than I do. What are some other symptoms that you might be an HSP?
Amelia: Well, everything you're saying, first of all, and also this really amazing [00:05:00] draw to things like the arts and being really moved by them. And because of that, a lot of people who are highly sensitive tend to be very creative. Very tuned into their creative energy, and so that's what was making me think.
Amelia: Maybe just maybe especially having that like passion at five
Mary: Right. Yes, I was, I was a, I say in this book, I was a decidedly different sort of kid. You know, I walked through the yard thinking in narrative. She picked up the toy and, you know, it's worn for only proof. It had been fiercely loved. And I I'm also an Enneagram four,
Mary: so like that, you know, being, you know, this deep. Appreciation for beauty and pain and the melancholy side and originality and innovation and authenticity and individualism. I feel like a lot of that stuff probably also, you know, has parallels to highly sensitive.
Amelia: It is funny because I don't know all the Enneagram numbers, but I have a client who speaks in Enneagram, like when she talks about herself, and so finally [00:06:00] I said, okay, I'll, I'll do the test. Send me the test. I did whatever she wanted, this test she wanted me to do. She said, this is the one to do also a four.
Mary: Oh, okay.
Mary: All right.
Amelia: I think like a wing of seven or I don't know, something. But it was so funny because when I went into the appointment with her the next time I said, okay, I finally did the test. I know I kept saying I would do it, and she looks at me and she goes, you better not be a four. And I'm like, are you gonna fire me if I tell you I am?
Mary: Wow. Because
Mary: she, she's also a four
Amelia: No, no. I think she's what's the one that's like a. Super deep questioner. Is it like nine or something like
Mary: maybe the challenger, the eight.
Amelia: Maybe? No, no, no. Six.
Amelia: What's six?
Mary: Six is like, I see all the possible ways that there could be disaster and calamity all around me,
Mary: and, and I'm very loyal, but I, I also am just like, I see all the worst case scenarios.
Amelia: Right. That's her. [00:07:00] And so, so maybe she was, worst case, narrowing the number four Enneagram. I need to get an Enneagram like specialist on here sometime
Mary: Yes. I can recommend a couple of them actually.
Mary: There's some really good ones. Yeah. So Ian Morgan Kran is a great general
Mary: Enneagram specialist, and then Krista Harden has a podcast called Enneagram and Marriage,
Mary: and she's phenomenal. I was just on her show and she was just on my show and you would love her.
Amelia: Please. Yeah, I would love the hookup with her because that is something that I'm not as knowledgeable about and I
Mary: Mm-hmm.
Amelia: learning from people that I'm not as knowledgeable about the things that they love, so, so you had, as I said, you know, an amazing book that I fangirled and now I have been able to check out your new book.
Amelia: So what motivated this, and if you wanted to give people kind of a. Not the quick and dirty of it, but you know, what is the main essence of it, because it is what I would love to talk to you about today.
Mary: Yeah, so underestimated. Originally when I sat down to [00:08:00] write it, Amelia, honestly, I thought it was gonna be a book a hundred percent about when other people underestimate us.
Mary: That is something I have experienced most of my
Mary: life. As somebody who's not the loudest person in the room
Mary: or the super extrovert or the one who sort of sucks all the oxygen out of the room. Most rooms I've found myself in, people didn't have that. Like, oh, you're somebody I need to know moment
Mary: until I ended up taking the stage, you
Mary: know, or they read a book or
Mary: whatever the case may be. So I felt underestimated most of my life, I felt like. Most people. In fact, I had a teacher mostly, I had amazing teachers in high school, but I had one teacher in high school who had a daughter also in my grade.
Mary: So that might've been part of it. But she said to me during like a, you know, it was one of my like off periods where I was like a teacher's aid, sort of a floating teacher's aid. And I ended up in her classroom, just the two of us, and she said to me, if anybody's gonna make it out of Richwood, West Virginia, it will not be you.
Mary: And so, you know, just sort of that kind of energy where I think either. She really said it and I took it and put it in my back pocket as jet fuel, [00:09:00] you know, which is kind of a, a
Mary: big
Mary: part of what this book
Mary: is
Amelia: you were able to do that and not what all kids could do. That's terrible.
Mary: You know, it's, well in the book I sort of get into how it's effective jet
Mary: fuel, but it's not a way to live.
Mary: Proving people wrong is actually a powder keg.
Mary: And so I thought it was gonna be a hundred percent about when other people count us out.
Mary: And when I sat down to write it, the book, a book, a book has opinions
Mary: and the book said to me, it's gonna be about 20% that. 'cause that's a real thing.
Mary: And we need to address it, but it's gonna be 80% about when we do it to ourselves and all the
Mary: different ways we do it to ourselves. And then really the book gets into this, you know, force that I call fear. You
Mary: know, fear being this boring liar and all the different masks. That fear will try to shapeshift into, 'cause it's not
Mary: very creative in what it's saying to you.
Mary: So all it can do is be a slippery enemy. And so it's gonna slip into perfectionism, imposter syndrome, overthinking you know, even a fear of success. I go through 14 of them
Mary: in total throughout the chapters, but the whole thing really kicks off with just sort of like this running [00:10:00] script of the things fear says to us as proof of how boring it is. It's all been done. It's all been done better. It's
Mary: all been done by somebody the world actually wants to pay attention to.
Mary: I can't start until it's perfect. I can't start until I'm perfect. What if I start and the critics come? What if they say, who does she think she is? What if I fail and I approve all the people who said I'd never make it?
Mary: They were right all along.
Mary: What if I start and I can't stay consistent with it? What if I don't have the bandwidth right now? What if my voice doesn't really matter? What if I don't really
Mary: matter? What if it's already too
Mary: late? And chances are people listening, especially this group of people you, if we were playing bingo, you could have gotten it up, down, sideways, in diagonally, right?
Mary: You know, and so that is just kind of proof that, and it's sort of the running backbone of the book that fears actually really boring when you
Mary: boil it right down to it. And this, as soon as you can see it,
Mary: like as soon as sort of the scales can be lifted from your eyes and you can really see it. It loses all its power
Mary: because it's kind of like watching a show that used to be really impactful and really, you know, engaging and you couldn't stop listening to it or watching it. [00:11:00] And then you realize the writers have stopped trying.
Mary: They're really phoning it in. Every season is the
Mary: same. The script is really boring. That's what fear is.
Amelia: I love, fear is boring.
Amelia: I love that so much for so many reasons. First of all, I. I feel like I've, I've explored this with clients in a different, probably more clinical, more boring way now that I think about it where, you know, we say things like fear can be limiting and it prevents you from trying things.
Amelia: And it's like, we've gotten this message, right? But it sounds so similar, I think, to a lot of other self helpy type messages. Whereas when you identify something that no one wants, like boring is not an appealing thing, bored is not an appealing thing to be.
Mary: Yeah.
Amelia: It, it really hits differently. I am putting that in my pocket.
Mary: Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean
Mary: it's a hundred percent true. And I say like, if I can get you to be as fed up and exhausted and bored with fear as you are with the sound of those same excuses you've been saying [00:12:00] for the last 2,
Mary: 3, 4, or five years of why you haven't started on that thing, you can't go a day without thinking about,
Mary: if I can get you as tired and bored with fear as you are with your own excuses, then it will no longer have any power over you,
Mary: and it's gonna kind of, it'll still be in the room.
Mary: It's not gonna just disappear,
Mary: but all of its power will whoosh out.
Amelia: It makes me think too, it's funny to compare it to insomnia, but there's this little trick you can do when you're trying to fall asleep, where if you're struggling to fall asleep and you know how we get this linear idea, count sheep or you know, count back from a hundred, that's actually not very effective because it's linear thinking, which is what we do when we're problem solving.
Mary: Interesting.
Amelia: Instead, there's these tricks where one is like a word scramble, whereas a writer, you'd probably love this, where you pick a word, you could say Yale, you know, from your hat
Amelia: and every word imaginable that pops up the letter Y you think of that and you just go through the whole, you know, alphabet essentially of words.
Amelia: Now what it's [00:13:00] doing is it's creating a scrambled, non-linear way of thinking. The reason this connects to what you're saying, you're like, where are you going? Is is that our linear, critical brain is the part of the brain that is not connected to creativity.
Mary: Mm-hmm.
Amelia: Our non-linear creative brain is not only connected to the part of our brain that fires more when we're sleeping, but it's also connected to creativity.
Mary: Yeah. Right.
Amelia: And so fear, if we think about what it does based on how you're saying it, is that it keeps us kind of like in line
Amelia: with this linear way of being. You know, you just follow the steps of all the things you think could go terribly
Amelia: versus choosing to be more non-linear and, and that really lends to imperfection if you think about it.
Mary: Gosh, I love that so much. And it actually relates to two [00:14:00] different places in underestimated where I talk about this. So in chapter seven, the overthinking chapter when it's talking about rumination and getting stuck in sort of rut like thinking and being in like a cycle loop where you're just thinking and thinking and thinking about the problem you're trying to.
Mary: Think your way through a thinking
Mary: problem. If you've ever had writer's block and it feels like you could sneeze through your forehead, you're so pent up with
Mary: existential angst right there. That's actually science. That's your prefrontal
Mary: cortex that that problem solving center of your brain overacting. And at the more that it fires, the more that you're overworking it. It starts to build up a toxic level of a product called glutamate,
Mary: which if left unchecked, will actually harm brain functioning.
Mary: And so your brain will amygdala hijack into that more limbic. Place where conceptual blending and novelty seeking and innovation happen.
Mary: Not just as like a instant gratification, distraction, but to preserve what's happening in the prefrontal cortex. So
Mary: that's one thing that's happening there with, in terms of you know, you cannot. Think your way through a thinking problem. You cannot [00:15:00] linear your way to sleep. Very similar parallels there. You cannot linear your way to innovation. You know, the, the, the,
Mary: dots connecting in ways you've never seen them connected before. That's happening in the conceptual the novelty seeking and conceptual blending part of your limbic brain. And that brings me to the second one, which is I quote Stanislau Brock, which is quite a mouthful.
Mary: Stanislau Brock. Thank you. We practiced that for the audio book quite a bit. He wrote The Agile Mind and he compares this. He says, when we're kids, our thoughts are like water free flowing and blending seamlessly, you
Mary: know, without restriction.
Mary: But then we go to school and they tell us to put our bags in the cubbies and to organize things.
Mary: Color coded and learn the rules and stay in line. And we begin to become more like ice trays where
Mary: our thoughts are compartmentalized and frozen and no longer blending. And so part of the goal is to get back to a place where our thoughts can just interact, you know, the way that paint would if it were just blending into one another and creating new colors.
Amelia: When I think about your book, [00:16:00] and I love all the analogies you just used, do you feel like it aligns? I'll ask the question and then I'll kind of tell you the reason I'm asking because I really would love to know your thoughts on this. Do you feel like it aligns well for people with a DHD and neurodiversity?
Amelia: And the reason I'm asking is because when you were describing what can happen to the frontal cortex, we know it's connected to executive functioning and you know, the, the linear logical thinking and, and I don't even wanna say logical, more like planning, planning,
Amelia: thinking. I ha the word logical is very triggering to me when I think about we like pedestal, logical, like I'm being logical.
Amelia: But people with a DHD research has shown are. More outside the box thinkers than neuron normative
Amelia: individuals. They, there's this really cool study where they had neurotypicals and ADHDers try to create new auth, like completely new innovative animals,
Mary: Mm.
Amelia: and [00:17:00] those who were neuron normative. Brought in history, they brought in historical context in order to create their animals.
Amelia: You know, they would use a beak or they would use feathers or things that they have seen. They would be creative, but it was all history. Whereas the ADHDers were able to conceptualize so far outside the box that they created much more original animals. And so it makes me think of with A DHD, the issues around rejection, sensitivity.
Mary: hmm.
Amelia: And with shame tolerance. And also I just recently learned justice sensitivity can be very connected to the A DHD brain, not only because of the way that the emotion regulation around it presents, but because of that rejection sensitivity from constantly being overcorrected into an ice cube tray.
Amelia: Love that analogy. That was beautiful. How do you think, and I don't know if you meant it for a ADHDers, but I feel like what you're talking about could [00:18:00] help unfreeze ADHDers to feel less hard on themselves so that they can tap into their ability to make really cool original animals,
Mary: Yeah, I love that. And I, that really resonates. I don't, I don't know that I have A-D-H-D-I don't, I don't, I, again,
Mary: similar to
Mary: HSP, I've never, no, no, no. no. no. I know. I do think that my husband has
Mary: it. And I for sure think that I'm neuro divergent in some
Mary: way.
Amelia: HSP is a neurodiversity,
Mary: Yeah.
Mary: Yeah. So maybe it's just, maybe it's that one.
Mary: But I, I, one of the things that this book is really characterized and, and I am really characterized is in all the different personality types that I've taken. You know, INFJ on the Myers-Brigg scale,
Mary: for example, is a really interesting fluid balance of EQ and iq. I seamlessly kind of weave between those two, and so I, I, my gut.
Mary: Instinct is probably about half the book,
Mary: you know, or half of each chapter probably really applies to the, the what you're describing with what's thinking outside the box. And it's [00:19:00] that innovation and the, you know, the novelty seeking and all that stuff we just talked about, connecting dots and then. My logical went to law school, did really well on the LSAT part of my
Mary: brain is like, and now here's all the science that backs that up
Mary: and now here's all the logical reasons why we do that.
Mary: Or here's the like thing behind the thing. We think we're procrastinating because we're avoiding pain and we are,
Mary: but what's the thing behind the thing? Well, we, the real pain, the real thing we might be afraid of is, what if it's never as good as I want it to be? What if I don't actually have what it takes?
Mary: And so I need these things like really, really tight deadlines
Mary: as my excuse. For why I didn't give my fullest best effort.
Mary: So I think it's probably, ha it's probably, you'll see a really fluid blend of
Mary: that where it's like, let's go really deep into the EQ and like, you know, let's think of things differently and let's not follow the ordered rules.
Mary: And then also I'll swing back into that IQ of like, and here's what we, what we know from a brain level,
Mary: here's what we know from a psychology level. So that's a very interesting question.
Amelia: I like that idea of balancing that EQ iq, [00:20:00] and I see that a lot with it's. It's almost rare, I feel like, to see someone who can just equally be functioning at all times. Like there's this, when you were talking about kids being sent to school.
Mary: Yeah.
Amelia: just obsessed with the ice cube tray thing.
Amelia: I'm gonna keep going back to it.
Amelia: Is I, I actually think about my, my daughter, who is one of the most creative people I've ever encountered.
Amelia: Like she just really is her, the way she creates stories and would sit and make up stories in the books that she was reading for hours, and then she gets to school.
Amelia: And when they, it was time to create this ordered version to learn how to read her brain really like, was like, no, it really did not want, I think, to be frozen in time.
Mary: Right.
Amelia: And I mean, she's getting it. She's in elementary school, but I'm definitely seeing a [00:21:00] bit of a. You know, a pushback. Whereas I have a younger son who's about to start kindergarten and he's already getting it, like he's already getting the reading concepts and,
Amelia: but he's much more ordered in the way that his brain functions.
Amelia: Like he, he doesn't want to create, he's, he's less of a magical thinker.
Mary: Okay.
Amelia: Right. And so it's making me think when you, if we were gonna take these different types of brains, not necessarily my kids, but how do you think. Someone who feels comforted by more ordered type of things versus someone who is more of a magical thinker.
Amelia: How do they show up when it comes to per perfectionism, do you think one is more likely?
Mary: Hmm.
Amelia: What is your thought on that?
Mary: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. It, it is kind of going along with where my brain was going anyway, which is you know, something that comes into play in my life and maybe is a part of why you start to see this balance of eq iq and, and, and I'm, I'm oversimplifying using that, but like, magical [00:22:00] thinking.
Mary: Logical thinking or
Mary: magical thinking, ordered thinking, if we wanna call it that. Now we get into things like people pleasing and achieving for our worth. You know, I'm a self preserving Enneagram four, which means that I often look like an Enneagram three. Who's the achiever? I thought I was a three forever
Mary: because I am an a plus plus, plus plus.
Mary: Overachiever have been my whole life.
Mary: And it was only when Ian Morgan Kran said to me, Hey, you should really look up self preserving fours. Where we, we achieved to get to safety. But when that. Safety element is we feel secure in that or we're, it's not actively fight or flight. Survival modes switch has been flipped, are more true Enneagram type.
Mary: They're all masks, but are are more true Enneagram type. Is that deep thinking, originalist, individualist, all of that stuff. So I'm thinking about like, are you, does survival mode come into play? Does the shame aspect of let me do what society finds more acceptable? You know, I've learned how to fawn instead of.
Mary: Flee, for example. And so that [00:23:00] kind of comes into play, but I think, as I'm sort of thinking, somebody who's very much a recovering perfectionist and has both sides of that
Mary: brain really accessed. I don't feel like either side of it has been immune to the perfectionism. I just think they show up in different ways.
Mary: You know, when I'm in the creative side, I wanna, I don't wanna just create the be the best at what I do. I wanna be the only at what I do.
Mary: And when I'm in that really logical side, if there, I don't wanna get an a if an a plus is possible, you know? So I, I think it just shows up. Fear is. Fear. The only kind of like slippery side of fear is one of the things I talk about in chapter two is it's going to attack you at the cross air intersection where your gifts meet your story.
Mary: You know that if I were to just use my gift of words and put together pretty sentences, they would not be nearly as impactful as they are when they're informed by the empathy derived from a hard story. And so I think fear is not creative in the sense of coming up with new material, but it is creative or at least slippery enough to know how to. Personalize it just enough based on our [00:24:00] stories, our gifts,
Mary: the brain that we're operating with.
Mary: But ultimately when you boil it down, it's telling you, unless you're perfect, you'll be abandoned. You'll be
Amelia: mm mm So do you think that when it comes to perfection, why it seems like it almost seems appealing to some people?
Mary: a hundred percent.
Mary: A hundred percent. So I had a lot of fun with the chapter titles. Amelia, I'll tell you that. And you know, so I'll give you just like a little smattering. Chapter one is Starting Over is a rolling Boulder.
Mary: Chapter two is Fear is a Broken Script. Chapter 11 is Failure Is a Bankrupt Identity, chapter
Amelia: Hmm.
Mary: And then chapter 10 is my favorite and
Amelia: I get that. It, it took me a second.
Mary: Yeah.
Amelia: Thank you. Thank you. for saying it twice
Mary: yep, yep. Mm. Little arrows
Mary: pointing.
Mary: Yep.
Amelia: now we're here. We're here.
Mary: That's that lawyer
Mary: brain coming out there. And then chapter 10 is my favorite, which is perfectionism is hiding with better pr.
Mary: And I make this joke where I say, not since the got milk [00:25:00] people, has there been an ad campaign that has tried to make something so plain Jane vanilla seems so sexy and sought after as when, you know, hiding hired the same marketing team that tried to convince this cauliflower is pizza and did a, a, you know, a glow up in the form of a rebrand of it's not hiding in plain sight.
Mary: It's not shrinking away from where the work you're being called. It's not contorting because it's easier to be criticized.
Mary: You're just a perfectionist. Oh, of course. I haven't launched that website yet. I'm just such a perfectionist. I
Mary: need to go through it one more time. Oh, of course. I haven't written that book yet.
Mary: I have to think about my whole life first. I'm just such a perfectionist and we say it like it's a noble place, like
Mary: it's a, it's actually a good thing. And so I actually believe most people, if they were to take like a little assessment
Mary: of the chapters, they would probably self-identify that perfectionism is the biggest way fear attacks them. But what I would wonder and wanna ask. Back is Or is it just the one that's easiest to admit?
Mary: It's a lot easier to say perfectionism shows up in my life than it is self-sabotage, for example.[00:26:00]
Amelia: I love that because I do hear a lot of my clients call themselves perfectionists,
Amelia: and it's funny, I'm almost like thinking in my little therapist brain, why didn't I think to ask, okay, but what is underneath it?
Amelia: Like what else do you mean?
Mary: That's right.
Mary: Yeah. But.
Amelia: someone just saying, I'm bored. Okay, do you actually mean depressed?
Amelia: You know, that kind of
Amelia: energy, like what's
Mary: right.
Amelia: underneath? That's really interesting.
Mary: Mm. Yeah.
Mary: Yeah. And, and that one take took a while. And I, we go really deep in that chapter and it ends with me talking about, you know, my mom left when I was nine, as you know, from reading
Mary: Dirt. And that was the first time I really learned to use perfection as a weapon. I'm gonna build a life so beautiful and extraordinary and perfect looking on the outside, that it will make her sad that she missed it. And it, of course, belies my deepest. Held belief. What if without all this more, I was never someone worth staying for. And so there's perfectionism in the sense of, oh, it's just keeping me stuck 'cause I wanna wait till it's perfect before I can even [00:27:00] start. And then there's perfectionism in the sense of who, who hurt you, you know
Mary: who left you who, who made you believe that unless you were perfect they were gonna leave.
Amelia: You know, a, a different version of, maybe you can, here, I'll let you try to diagnose me. I don't, I don't think I've, I would describe myself as a perfectionist really much. However, I am, as you were saying. I don't even wanna say it's an overachiever. I'm, I'm just really, really excited about doing things like
Amelia: accomplishing things, checking things off the box,
Amelia: trying new things.
Amelia: The bucket list is never empty, so there's this like energetic drive happening.
Amelia: But I think back to my, between my brother and I, just in a lot of ways I was academically and neurodiversity wise, a little easier to parent. Although I was, I still put, put them through the ringer. But I remember one day my dad [00:28:00] sang, I think it was like we got a report card home and it was, you know, good enough, like B'S and A minus whatever, and he said, Ugh, well we never have to worry about you.
Amelia: I.
Mary: Wow.
Amelia: And he
Amelia: meant it as a compliment,
Mary: Yeah.
Amelia: but it made such an impact that to this day, I still remember the look on his face. I still remember where I was standing in the kitchen, and I remember it was like all my neurons and my brain went and just kind of fused
Amelia: together like this is my mission.
Amelia: I need to be the one that people don't have to worry about.
Mary: Yes. Oof. Okay. Okay. Actually, I'm just gonna, you know what, I was gonna describe it to you, but I'm just gonna read it to
Mary: you. It's a small small part. This is the opening of Chapter 10, which is that perfectionism chapter, but it begins talking about, not, not wanting people to have to worry about you.
Mary: So
Mary: I'm just gonna I'll kick it off and then I might skip a little bit
Mary: ahead, but I'll keep it.
Mary: pretty tight. A self preserving Enneagram four with a strong wing three and a child of the eighties. A proud Appalachian walk [00:29:00] into a room. No, this isn't the start of some hilarious joke I'm telling. And no, those are not.
Mary: Three separate people I'm talking about. The truth is, I'm all three of these people. All three of these people are me, and together they form a lot of opinions about how I walk around in the world. From the first moment I heard about the Enneagram on some podcast somewhere, I was convinced without ever taking the test that I was a clear Enneagram type three.
Mary: If you're new to the types threes or the achievers, the gold star accumulators, the a plus plus students, the most likely to succeed at. Having a nervous breakdown or as the popular meme so aptly puts it. Shout out to all the gifted kids from grade school who are now the grownups walking around with high functioning anxiety. I grew up in a single Y trailer and ended up at Yale for law school. I got all straight A's in undergrad except for one b plus that I'm still mad. About 20 years later, I was in the gifted program. Every AP program I was class president, student council, head cheerleader, prom committee chairperson, and was voted most likely to succeed.
Mary: Twice. I have anxiety. My anxiety has anxiety. That anxiety in turn has a little pet miniature OCD, anxiety that it buys tiny oral sweaters for and carries around in an oversized [00:30:00] purse. Type three seemed like a pretty safe bet. And then it goes on to talk about how I talked to Ian Morgan Kron and he changed it up. And then coming, coming back full circle to that, add into that, that I'm a hashtag child of the eighties, where we were all basically feral cats left to fend for ourselves
Mary: growing up. And then I'm also the hyper independent byproduct of this strong, proud, truly Appalachian tradition in my family of never, ever wanting to ask anyone else for help.
Mary: What you are left with is the perfect storm trifecta. This three in one three strikes your out character combination. That means I am now a person who never, ever wants you to see her struggle. This makes me walk into the world in some very specific, self-sufficient, turned self-sabotaging ways. First, I don't want your pity. I don't want you averting your eyes from me in some sort of sympathy, shame on my behalf. I don't need you feeling sorry for me while we're at it, unless I specifically ask for it. I don't need your advice, guidance, good input, best practices, suggestions, or generally good ideas. Either they burn in my ears, run down my throat, and taste like condescension. I also don't need you asking me a bunch of anane questions about what I'm gonna do next. Trust me. I've already [00:31:00] thought of all of them. I spent my whole life questioning myself. I don't need you doing it too. I never ever want you to know that something isn't working, not even just for pride's sake, but because I don't need you worrying about me, then I'll just have to worry about you worrying about me, and finally don't even think about telling me that it's good enough, better than what most people would do, or that I should just be proud of myself for trying. Trying. I don't even know what that means. Maybe you know this particular brand of hypervigilant self-sufficiency too. Regardless of your Enneagram type, what decade you were born in, or your socioeconomic background, we all know what it is to walk around the world and not wanna show any kind of weakness whatsoever.
Mary: We put on the bespoke stoic armor of shiny achievements. We wear these accomplishments like a bright blinking, neon camouflage, seamlessly blending into the background by paradoxically forever standing out. If all they can see is our latest win, then we'll never have to worry about them getting close enough to see our many flaws. As you can imagine, this leads to a very lonely existence. Indeed. It turns out priding yourself on not needing people is a great way not to have any.
Mary: So that I super understand.
Mary: I super understand that feeling [00:32:00] of, I earn love by not being a bother. I
Mary: earn love by not needing extra attention. I
Mary: earn love by not needing help and I never, ever, ever want my family to know anything isn't working.
Amelia: Wow. So what do you do with it?
Mary: yeah. That's a big unraveling of perfectionism. It's a big unraveling of this realization that we chase perfectionism because we don't wanna be abandoned or rejected. We don't, we wanna finally be, we think if we're perfect enough, we'll finally be accepted, chosen, find belonging, be loved. Let's just call it what it is.
Mary: We think if we're perfect enough, no one will ever leave us again.
Mary: But then we finally start to take notice that perfect this most put together person in the room persona we're putting on, which I think you'd really love. My second book, slow Growth Equals Strong Roots is all about achieving for your worth
Mary: and the next shiny star.
Mary: And how to stop doing that basically. And so
Amelia: Oh, it's so funny. I have to tell you the second you said how to stop doing that. This inner part of me was like, well, what if I don't want to?
Mary: Mm.
Mary: [00:33:00] Okay. Okay. So, so, okay. So let me finish this thought and
Mary: then just remind me. The thing is, the thing is say the wolf. I don't know what that
Mary: means. Okay. So, you know, we, we start to pay attention to the fact that the shiny persona, shiny is actually a stiff arm. It's a Heisman pose. It's holding people at arm's length.
Mary: So para, you know, paradoxically, we're trying to. Bring people close enough to us by being perfect, but we realize we are actually holding them away
Mary: from us. And that it's vulnerability. It's these small but important commitments of vulnerability and seeing that people don't turn away from us or feel sympathy, shame on our behalf where they averted their eyes 'cause they're embarrassed on our
Mary: behalf. And that it actually draws people closer to us. The wolf thing is in slow growth. So in dirt. I talk about, as you remember, the girl in the red cape
Mary: being chased by the wolf and. We then we realize we are the girl in the red cake, but we're also the
Amelia: I just have to say that is one of my things about your writing that I love so much is the way that you can tell stories with incredible visuals. And [00:34:00] not overdone visuals. You know, you sometimes you'll read it and you're like, and then the stars were at the northeast and the, and it's just like, okay, I get it.
Amelia: But yours are, it's very tight and succinct and beautiful, but I just, I, I love it. So I just, I just had to say that
Mary: Thank you.
Amelia: a gold growth right here speaks right to my heart. In, in slow growth, I revisit that scene. But this time from the perspective of the wolf,
Mary: you know, I've yet again chased away this version of me I was born to
Mary: protect. And there's this part where I say, you know, for every hard story person I've talked to, the fear that we have is what if I do all this healing and I end up losing all my drive in the process?
Mary: Right? So in that
Mary: section. I,
Mary: talk about like, you know, at a certain point the big bad wolf becomes afraid of us.
Mary: Like we learn how to twist that thorn in his paw. Because if we don't wanna stop running towards success, then it can't stop
Mary: chasing us. So what if we get healed and then we lose our drive, we lose our ambition? Do we have to become ordinary, average? Will we just disappear altogether? So I feel like that, I think it would be really [00:35:00] interesting, just based on some things you said about the Enneagram, based on that knee jerk reaction of like, what if I don't want
Mary: to I would be really curious to see if there's some self preserving in, in whatever Enneagram type you are.
Amelia: Yeah. Now I really wanna dig
Amelia: into this more,
Mary: Yeah. In the four, especially in a four. I
Mary: think those, those of us who are fours are particularly prone
Mary: to self preserving.
Amelia: What do you think about that fear, about losing drive? Because I don't know if you know who I, I think you know who Bri Frank is. She
Amelia: wrote a line Your Mind. Um, I love her and she's come on here a couple times and we were talking about in, in her book, she was talking about the difference between like the coach critic versus the
Mary: yes.
Amelia: So there's this part of us that can actually still. Push us, but it's in a constructive way versus the part that really, you know, cuts us down and, and makes us feel terrible in the motivating. I'm curious, [00:36:00] based on a little, and luckily because you know what I'm talking about, and you know her, how does what you're saying work with or work against what she was saying?
Mary: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it super lines up. And I quote Brit in the, I actually quote her in the procrastination
Mary: chapter, but I had her on my show and we talked a lot about align your mind 'cause it was just about to come
Mary: out. And so in the, in the inner critic chapter, it's actually. Both kinds of criticism.
Mary: So chapter 12 is criticism as an inside
Mary: job, and it's talking about when we're being criticized by other people. I get into inherited limiting belief leaks from our families of origin, and then I start to talk about, you know, the inner critic and I. There's this really fun part, one of my favorite parts in the whole book where I name my inner critic.
Mary: Dear John
Mary: and I talk about, you know, like, dear John has wears khaki pants or jeans, crisp and creas from the iron. He wears, like, you know, these bay shirts in, in a crisscross pattern, but nothing too bright or bold or vibrant. And that vineyard vines nonsense for him. Only colors like, [00:37:00] you know, top and
Mary: ecro. These things that remind me never to color too brightly out of side of his boring beige lines. And I go on and on and on to describe Dear John and I, I get to the point of basically true to his name, he wants to get me to break up with my biggest dreams before they become a bother
Mary: to anyone else. And so I think the first wave of confronting your inner critic is the version you've always known it as, as this bully.
Mary: And there being a certain grief to how you have allowed this part inside you to speak
Mary: to you. But then we kind of go the thing behind the thing and we get into, I quote some material from Dr. Martha Sweezy, who's an IFS internal family systems therapist expert, and she has a script that she walks people through, part of which is to ask your inner critic how old it thinks you currently are,
Amelia: Oh, how old are things? You are not how
Amelia: old it is.
Mary: Well, so interestingly, when I've talked to Bri about this in her episode, that was her question is like, we should also ask the inner critic how old it actually
Amelia: an if FS therapist. I think that's why my brain went there. Yeah.
Mary: Yeah. [00:38:00] Yeah. So, you know, for, for Dr. Martha's part, it was like, you might be surprised to find out, it still thinks you're five years old or however old you were when it was born to protect you.
Mary: And to Britt's point, she said,
Mary: we might be surprised to find that the inner critic is two or three years old, just a toddler having a meltdown.
Mary: And it's screaming, I hate you, but really it just needs a cookie and a hug. And so I think it's like that.
Mary: It's like, when we, first grieve and confront the bully and then it allows us to go a layer deeper into that place of empathy where we say we see more of that coach personality
Mary: that's saying, listen, we were really hurt once.
Mary: Because of
Mary: this and I'm gonna do everything I can to keep you safe. And I think there's you, there's just a lot more gentleness. And the science sort of tells us that the more gently we confront that inner critic, the more it relaxes and make some
Mary: room for us to show up as the grownup who can be trusted.
Amelia: So do you think it's a myth that allowing the inner critic to relax a little will make us lazy?
Mary: I [00:39:00] do. I, I'm, I'm, that's growth on my part
Mary: because in that chapter.
Mary: Yeah. In that chapter I talk about you know, it's sort of referencing back to the imposter syndrome chapter, which is chapter six. And, and part of that is magical ritual thinking.
Mary: Which clean soames identify as you have to walk into.
Mary: It's the belief you have to walk into any situation and tell yourself you're going to fail in order to
Mary: succeed. That if you ever walked in with the hubris to believe you might do okay at something that is the moment that would be your downfall. And so. In a sort of full circle moment to the inner critic, I talk about how most of us are under the belief that how hard we are in ourselves is the most interesting thing about us.
Mary: And that if we didn't, you know, punch ourselves in the face first, that would be the moment when we would fail. There's this really funny part about we simply don't have this level of unwarranted confidence. Like, what are we, like C minus frat boys turned the C-Suite corner office. You know, every mediocre boss you've ever had, that one dude who dominates every Zoom conversation, [00:40:00] we just don't have that level of unmourned confidence, right?
Mary: So we feel like we have to. Be that hard on ourselves in order to produce our best efforts, you know, to, to push ourselves to that level.
Mary: And I've spent most of my life that
Mary: way. Amelia, but in that chapter I talk about the science behind kindness is actually resilience and kindness, being compassion turned inward, that the science actually backs up.
Mary: That people who are, who have developed that skill are able to. Go much longer distances in the work that they're doing because it turns out that that's another, you know, ripping yourself to shreds is not a very sustainable form of jet fuel. It will get the job
Mary: done temporarily. But what It does not make a life.
Amelia: Yeah, I mean that, that really resonates with what I've seen with everyone I've worked with and really just my own reflection that. The people who are ripping themselves apart are much less likely to do the thing,
Mary: Mm-hmm.
Mary: Yeah. Right.
Mary: Yeah. Yeah. I was hiking once this was like [00:41:00] two years ago. There, there was a group of authors that they brought us together in Arizona as sort of like a mastermind type retreat. And we went on this really intense
Mary: hike one of the days and it was. Arizona. So it was like a hundred degrees
Mary: out.
Mary: It was boiling and inevitably we sort of, kind of, you know, the really intense competitive people fit ones. were super at the top or whatever, and we sort of, you know, ended up kind of dividing into smaller groups. And there was a woman in my group and the whole way up the mountain. And then the whole way down the mountain, she was just verbally talking to herself like, oh, I'm so strong.
Mary: I feel so good. Look at me. Ooh, I skipped that rock. I didn't stumble over it. Like, good job. Me. Like, ooh, my legs are carrying. She, it was, I've never seen anybody do this before in my life.
Mary: And the whole time I'm beating myself up, you know, why are you sweating so much? Why is your face so red? Like, why didn't you get in better shape?
Mary: Why didn't you bring better shoes for this, you know? And I, we got to the top and we were started back down the bottom, and I just like the. The rocks were really gravelly and slippery at one point, and I, they just slipped right out from under me, and I'm like laying on my
Mary: back, [00:42:00] looking up at the sky.
Mary: I was fine. Just my, my pride.
Mary: And I'm just like laying there, you know? Of course now I've got all sorts of material and, you know, fodder for my inner critic and to come all the way back down the mountain. I'm like, ugh. Like. You know, why? Why do you have to be the one to fall down?
Mary: Whatever. And the whole way down, she's just like, look at you like we're doing so great.
Mary: And it was such a, it really truly was like one of those times when learning by example
Mary: leaves a very lasting impact. And we
Mary: get back, we're in the same car together to go home, and she's not tired at all, you know? And I'm exhausted. We've done the same climb. We're around the same level of fitness, I would say. I think it was just all of that mental exhaustion of
Mary: what I was saying to myself versus what she was saying to herself.
Mary: And I swear right then to be better to me,
Mary: my friend Mary, it, it, makes sense when I think about the science of compassion, actually, I. And that compassion reduces inflammation and increases our immune response. And so if you're in a self-compassion [00:43:00] language, if that's where you are making the choice to be on a terrible hike or a situation, whatever it is, then even your body will very, very, quite obviously respond to that.
Amelia: So that's so interesting that you were saying her and you were both, you know, similar fitness levels. You did the same hike and yet. The mental exhaustion of being hard on yourself
Amelia: made it perceive it was so, such a different experience than she had. It sounds like people, you know, anyone listening or people who are reading your book, really at the end of the day can make a decision, like, what kind of experience do you wanna be having?
Mary: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I mean, even if you are not yet in a place, and I, and I hope that you are but just to speak it to this from how my brain works as well, even if you're not in a place to do this for yourself
Mary: yet, do it to be able to go the long haul in your work.
Mary: You know, when I really burnt out, I burn out hard.
Mary: After my second book, slow Growth came out,
Mary: I burn out hard in law school. I burn out hard at [00:44:00] various times in my photography business and. You know, I, I used to joke that people think burning out is like coasting to the side of the road. 'cause you run outta gas, it is much more like hitting a brick wall at 90 miles an
Mary: hour and then the transmission falls out.
Mary: You know? And so it is a, it's a very brutal experience to be truly burned
Mary: out. And I just, I became very aware of you know, this is getting me. These quick jolts forward
Mary: like an internal combustion, you know, using, proving other people wrong as jet fuel, for example. But I am not gonna be able to go to the distance on the things that I feel like I was put here to do if I don't find a more sustainable way of doing this.
Mary: And that in turn turned to Oh, right. And I can also do it because I actually like, love me and I wanna be kind to
Mary: me and I wanna take care of the houseplant that is Mary, you know? And it shouldn't have to have been that
Mary: way. I shouldn't have had to. You know, justify it as the work first, but it was a really
Mary: good, like gateway
Mary: to caring for myself more.
Mary: So for those super overachievers who are [00:45:00] listening, maybe just put it in terms of your purpose first.
Mary: But ultimately get to that place where you are worthy of that kindness.
Amelia: I mean, it makes sense when you consider that if, for example, something like trauma Mm-hmm. the catalyst for why someone has these perfection patterns.
Mary: Yeah.
Amelia: Those individuals are usually not taught to think of themselves first. You know, the the parts of the brain meant to be creative and self-motivating. They, they're pruning off when they are not the things that are keeping you.
Amelia: You know, helping you survive. And so I think there's nothing wrong, and I see this so often with starting externally and whether it be for, like you said, your work or maybe someone says, you know what? I'm gonna do this as an example for my kids, or I'm going to do this because it's better for my marriage, or whatever the external force is.
Amelia: To lay down that neural groundwork to hopefully then allow you to feel [00:46:00] that second layer and level of it where it's for you
Mary: Right. I
Mary: love that. I love that.
Amelia: You know, it makes me think of this really cute moment. Full circle, beginning of episode. End of episode. I'm bringing my five year-old up, but have you ever heard, I don't, I, I, I don't know if you're around kids or if you have kids, but there's something called Cosmic kids Yoga.
Amelia: Have you ever heard of it? It's so adorable, and it's this, this, I, I think she's Australian. I don't know. She does yoga for kids and she has these really fun backgrounds and she teaches them things like resilience and compassion and being imperfect. And one day my 5-year-old says to me. You know, mommy, there is a chemical.
Amelia: This is all just coming out of his mouth. There is a chemical that gets released in your brain when you encounter something that's hard and when you say something positive like, I can do this. Another chemical comes and washes the other chemical away so you can do it. I know. [00:47:00] And I just was like, what an amazing thing to start.
Amelia: Like laying the groundwork for so, so in the beginning stages of life. So I love everything that not only your book says, but really even just the way that you put the message out there, I feel like you're giving people, you know that that good chemical.
Mary: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. Do you know what the chemicals are? Maybe we'll have to Google it.
Amelia: Well, I, what I would imagine would be if we think about when we're encountering something difficult, we're going to have more stress hormone. So cortisol would probably be more of the driver. But when we think of something that's motivating, even just having self-compassion increases dopamine.
Mary: Okay.
Amelia: So, because compassion is driven by action, whereas empathy is driven by deep feeling and it's actually
Amelia: inflammatory and it reduces immune response.
Amelia: But compassion is [00:48:00] driven by action. So
Amelia: we, right, so we can look at the world, the world is stressful. There's a lot going on. It's very easy, especially if you're highly sensitive or if you're just human to have an empathic response. And it, it can feel really constricting. We also can't go out and necessarily change everything happening in the world.
Amelia: So some people will do something, whether it's donating money, whether it's, you know, going out and marching, whatever it is. But the simple act of well wishing also gives you the same neurochemical response.
Mary: Wow.
Amelia: And so, in a way, what he was saying, my, my very wise five-year-old is
Amelia: that well, wishing for yourself.
Amelia: Is that little baby hit of dopamine that helps to neutralize the cortisol when you're
Mary: Wow.
Amelia: difficult.
Mary: Interesting. Wow. That's so, gosh. The brain is so fascinating
Amelia: it. It really is.
Amelia: Agreed. Well, Mary, I loved [00:49:00] meeting you. I'm so, so thrilled that we gotta have this conversation. It was so, it was so many more layers than I could have even anticipated, which I
Mary: Yeah.
Amelia: And I'd love to stay connected. I just love your message and how you're putting it out there. So anyone listening who wants to read your books or continue learning from you and trying to work on being imperfect with you where can they find you and follow
Amelia: you?
Mary: Yeah. Yeah, I think a great place to start is name the fear.com. That's from the subtitle, the
Mary: book, so it's underestimated the surprisingly simple shift to quit playing small name the fear, and move forward. Anyway, so@namethefear.com, we actually have the whole first chapter
Mary: that starting over is a rolling boulder up there for free.
Mary: They can download it. Start reading today, get a. Feel for my writing voice that is very poetic and pop culture,
Mary: very empathetic and also intellectual at the same time. And so, you know, grab that free chapter, get a feel for it. You can order the book anywhere books are sold. We also have it linked up on the site.
Mary: And then about midway down on name the fear.com, or you can go directly to achiever quiz.com. [00:50:00] We actually have and a quiz that talks about the five different achiever types
Mary: I've
Mary: identified. And yes. It's good. It's really good. So, so based on your achiever type, you are going to play small in different ways and you're gonna need different things to get you unstuck.
Mary: And so we have our performer who is always on their toes, needs to show themselves, but for sure other people, how far they've come. We have our tight rope walker who could care less, who else is
Mary: clapping, but they need higher and higher death defying feats to feel the same amount of
Mary: good, same amount of dopamine.
Amelia: I'm just guessing.
Mary: We have the masquerader who hides in plain sight because they don't wanna let anybody down. We have our contortionist, the classic people pleaser. We contort because it's easier than to be criticized. And our illusionist in the distance believes that all the conditions to begin and they themselves must be perfect before they can even start. And so@achieverquiz.com or halfway down on name the fear.com it's like. Two minutes to take the
Mary: quiz. 10 minutes if you overthink it. 10 super light and easy questions. And then in True Mary form, we go very deep with the results [00:51:00] and I'll tell you what your type is, how you get stuck playing small, and how we get you moving forward.
Amelia: cool.
Mary: at Mary Maris on Instagram, come tell me what your achiever type is, what type you get.
Amelia: Okay. I'm definitely
Amelia: gonna take the quiz. I intuitively believe I'm the tightrope walker because like I said, I love the tick, tick, tick, tick. But once I do it, I don't necessarily need someone else to say good job. It's weird.
Amelia: Yeah.
Amelia: I,
Amelia: well, I'm, I'm a, I'm a geo in the forest, but so I'll definitely let you know and I'll make sure to link those in the notes so that anyone listening can go straight to those quizzes.
Amelia: And I'm definitely sharing, I love sharing those little quizzes with my clients all the time. Like, what's your, this type and that type. It's fun. 📍 welcome back everyone. To the Sensitivity Doctor. I had a fabulous conversation with an author that I have Fangirled Forever. Mary Moranz wrote an amazing book called Dirt, if any of you have ever read it. She also wrote Slow Growth and then a new book Underestimated, which we talk about.
Amelia: My favorite part of this conversation is we unpack everything from perfectionism to overachieving to emotional intelligence and sensitivity, and how all of how understanding that perfectionism is really just a big, fat, boring liar, Learning about how perfection is boring was probably my favorite takeaway from this episode, and her energy and excitement and enthusiasm for the topic is so infectious. I just cannot wait for you to listen to this episode and how fun and engaging she is because I truly believe you're gonna walk away.
Amelia: Feeling like letting go of your perfection is an amazing way to step forward in your life. Enjoy
Amelia: I mean, we know, we know not to over ascribe, but it's just a fun
Mary: Right.
Amelia: and learn about yourself. So.
Mary: Yeah. I get a lot of emails from people who said, why did I cry when I got my
Mary: results? Like, what? Like how are you reading my diary? Like,
Mary: get outta my email.
Mary: So they, the, the results are very surprisingly illuminating.
Amelia: Well, and the funny thing, the first job I ever [00:52:00] wanted was to be an acrobat in the barn and Bailey Circus.
Mary: No way.
Amelia: I was obsessed with seeing the tightrope walkers, so
Amelia: I am dying to tell you what mine was. Actually, I'll tell everyone in, in the, in the notes what mine was. So, oh, Mary, thank you so much for joining me and just supporting and everyone listening and putting yourself out there and. You'll wanna go do the HSP scale now I'm very curious
Amelia: what your number is.
Mary: Yeah, I do. You'll send me a link for
Amelia: I will, for sure. Okay, awesome. All right, well I hope everyone enjoyed and please be well everyone.