Concepts

There’s a reason therapists spend so much time naming things.

When you can name what’s happening to you - “this is impostor syndrome,” “this is sunk cost thinking,” “I’m comparing my insides to someone else’s outsides” - it loses some of its power. The feeling doesn’t disappear, but it shifts from an invisible force controlling you to a pattern you can see and work with.

These pages are shorter than the guides in other sections. They’re meant to be reference points - something you can come back to when you recognize a pattern but need help articulating it.

The concepts

Anxiety - Your threat-detection system firing without a clear threat. The most common uninvited guest.

Comparison - Measuring yourself against others. A game with no winners and reliable losers.

Perfectionism - When high standards become a cage. The pursuit that defeats itself.

Impostor Syndrome - Feeling like a fraud despite evidence you’re not. Almost everyone has it. The ones who don’t are usually the problem.

Sunk Cost - Staying in something because of what you’ve already invested, not because of where it’s going.

How they connect

These concepts rarely show up alone. Anxiety fuels comparison. Comparison feeds perfectionism. Perfectionism creates impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome generates more anxiety. They travel in packs.

Recognizing one often helps you spot the others. And they all connect back to the deeper questions in Foundations - particularly Identity and Values, which are usually where the real work happens.

More concepts will be added over time.