Anita,
I would like to add that I spent a significant amount of time chewing over your responses and also taking into consideration some of the other things you’ve posted (I am new to this forum). I was, with no exaggeration, blown away that I had such thoughtful and wise comments coming my way after just taking a chance posting online! After reading through your posts for a while I feel almost like I’ve come to know you a little bit and I think it’s wonderful that you see your comments as a helpful tool for yourself at the same time as they are helping other people enormously.

Whether or not astrological signs hold any weight, I have always been a stereotypical perfectionist Virgo and I think my perfectionist nature is kind of funny because it produces both very healthy and very unhealthy behaviors. On one hand, I hold myself to an impossible standard, build a sense of self-esteem based on goals I’ve achieved, and develop compulsive behaviors naturally. On the other hand, my strong interest in wellness combined with my perfectionism lets me cultivate these healthy behaviors and make them regular practice (thinking subconsciously, perhaps, that enough healthy behaviors will make me ‘perfect’). Of course, these healthy behaviors (meditations, yoga, etc.) are having a positive effect totally unrelated to this unattainable concept of ‘perfection’! I’m not sure if that made any sense but it makes me think of the distinction between the inner self and the ego, which we’ve talked about up-thread a bit. The outer, public self may express some less desirable, unhealthy behaviors, but becomes more reflective of the true self as the conception of the true self strengthens. This has been on my mind since coincidentally after our conversation in this thread, I had a yoga class focusing on this relationship and its manifestation as the front of the body (public persona) and the back of the body (inner self) (according to Ayurveda).

I hope you find this interesting and not too difficult to read (this was a little stream-of-consciousness).