Gordon Flett

So it's not the same as belonging.

It's not the same as social support.

It's that core sense of worth in terms of how you feel you're regarded or disregarded or unregarded by other people.

The bottom line is, there's many thousands, millions of people who have this notion of, well, if I am perfect, I will matter to those people.

But it's a very conditional sense of mattering.

It's like, I have to be perfect to

in order to get the love the respect the attention the interest and unfortunately my colleague has told me that he's had some famous people that he's spoken to as his private practice and he says these are people with remarkable achievements and then they learn wait a minute i've done this remarkable achievement but it didn't matter like i'm still being treated this way and i

I remember the story of Marvin Gaye, and he, of course, was a famous singer with all kinds of hits, sexual healing, heard it through the grapevine, and an icon to many.

And unfortunately, what happened with him was he eventually got into a dispute and was shot by his father.

And Marvin had a situation, I remember a story whereby he had one of his hit singles, it

And he came to his dad, and he had something like $50,000 in cash.

And he put the cash on the bed, and he said to his dad, okay, now are you impressed with me?

Now did I do something right?

And his father's response was something along the lines of, all that matters is how you're viewed by the Lord.

Know that money well.

doesn't do it for me.

It's how you're regarded in terms of the impossible standards of some higher being that's judging you, which is the essence of what we call socially prescribed perfectionism.

So there you have a case of, you know, now do I matter?

I've done this.

Nobody else has done this.