Ep47 Jolanthe de Koning—How to Let Go of Perfect When Achievement Is Your Whole Identity

In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Jolanthe de Koning, PhD researcher, yoga teacher, and founder of Amid the Mess, for a conversation that cuts well beneath the surface of wellness culture and gets honest about what it actually takes to feel well when real life keeps getting in the way. Jolanthe spent nearly nine years inside academia studying how physical activity and loneliness intersect in older adults. What she found surprised even her. The wealthiest people in her research, the ones with the beautiful homes and the impressive children scattered across continents, were often the loneliest. The ones with less, whose families never traveled far, were quietly thriving. She calls it the curse of the privileged, and it has everything to do with why achieving more doesn't always translate to living better. Diana, drawing on her background as a Mayo Clinic-trained coach and her own lived experience navigating the hidden costs of a privileged life, walks with Jolanthe through the research, the personal burnout, and the unexpected practice that brought her back to herself. By the end of this episode, you will know... → How to spot the early warning signs of burnout before your body forces the issue, and what Jolanthe actually did when sitting injuries and sleepless nights became her daily reality during her PhD. → How to build a consistent yoga or movement practice even when your home is in chaos, your schedule has collapsed, and the perfect conditions are never, ever coming. → Why the wealthiest older adults in Jolanthe's research were the most isolated, and what that reveals about the real cost of building a life everyone else admires. → How identity shapes physical activity far more than motivation does, and why the older adults who stayed most active all said the same thing about who they were, not just what they did. → Why perfectionism is academically linked to depression and poor psychological outcomes, and how to stop treating it like a personality trait to be proud of. → How to prune your commitments with intention rather than guilt, especially when you are a yes-person stretched across too many plates that all feel equally important. → What the eight limbs of Ashtanga yoga actually are, why the physical poses are only one step in a much larger journey, and how this ancient framework maps surprisingly well onto modern mental health. This episode is for anyone who has quietly wondered why having more... more credentials, more resources, more by every measurable standard... still somehow feels like not quite enough.