Quote · On Purpose with Jay Shetty
CAMILA MENDES: "Perfectionism Was Ruining My Life"
Where this was said
Revisiting an Old Wound
At 16:50 · chapter starts 15:08
Two days after deciding to book Hoffman, Camila had a huge blowout with her mother — an uncharacteristically reactive, burnt-out explosion that horrified her. That fight became the thing she brought to a Hoffman exercise designed to help participants revisit a triggering memory and imagine reacting differently. Camila could not do it. She was totally stuck, insisting there was only one way to react in that moment. Her teacher pulled her aside and heard her saying, in essence, 'why do I always have to be the bigger person?' [1] — Camila Mendes "At the Hoffman Institute, a teacher told Camila she was still a little girl screaming for her mommy — and then delivered the gut-punch: mom…" 16:00 And then the teacher said it: 'I hear a little girl in a woman's body screaming, I want my mommy. And mommy ain't coming. You are your mommy now.' Camila fell apart. It wasn't a condemnation of her mother — who she describes as loving and present — but a realisation that at 29 she was still waiting to be taken care of, still grieving what a 15-year-old girl had needed. The insight: she could now be the mother to that little girl herself. That reframe changed everything.
The Hoffman Institute program requires participants to disconnect entirely for a week — no phone, no reading, no music — to stay fully present to the emotional experience.
At the Hoffman Institute, a teacher told Camila she was still a little girl screaming for her mommy — and then delivered the gut-punch: mommy isn't coming. You are your own mother now. The realisation that she had to parent herself, at 29, was both devastating and deeply liberating.
