11/11/2025
For many people, perfectionism began as protection.
If you could just anticipate what others wanted, meet every expectation, or never make a mistake, maybe you’d feel secure. But over time, that vigilance starts to replace curiosity. You stop experimenting, not because you don’t want to, but because your body equates “unknown” with
“unsafe.”
Creativity reintroduces flexibility to the nervous system, engaging with the world through exploration instead of evaluation. When you create, you allow for uncertainty, mistake-making, and expression, all of which teach the body that looseness can coexist with safety.
Both perfectionism and creativity are ways of regulating anxiety, but where one tightens, the other softens.