This post is part of a series celebrating the release of Building Balance in Your Body & Life, my new 30-lesson audio course on Insight Timer. Find the previous posts in the series (starting Mar 2, 2022) here. If the ideas here interest you, please join the course! Go to the Insight Timer web site to listen to the first lesson for free and to join us. Just $20/US for 30 Lessons! Thank you for supporting your body, your life and my work.
“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.” ~ Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
It dawns on me slowly. Painfully slowly. Like ice melting in 33 degree weather.
Perfectionism is my protection.
If I follow all the directions and do what I’m told and adhere to what’s expected, I’ll be safe. No one can criticize me if I do everything exactly right.
But that protection is baloney. Hog wash. Bull hockey. A paper shield against the flames of shame, judgment and blame. It protects me from exactly nothing … but in a familiar, seductive way.
The very unattainable nature of perfectionism promises to save me – if I would only do it right it would work. Perfection endlessly dangles the lure of unassailability and it never, ever delivers.
After years of chasing the false protection of perfection, it occurred to me: What is perfection, anyway? I certainly thought I knew but defining perfection was like nailing Jell-o to a wall.
“Perfect” is so completely subjective, so malleable, so fickle that it doesn’t. mean. anything. What’s perfect to you is a mess to me. What is a failure today, works perfectly tomorrow.
Our culture portends mountains of gravity and import on “perfect” and “failure” but given their indefinability and meaninglessness, all they are are tools for control. If we are constantly striving for perfection and terrified of failure, we won’t make discoveries, we won’t stand up for justice, we won’t do much of anything.
The protection of perfection is an illusion. Failure unfailingly offers both instruction and freedom. Abandon perfection. Flirt with failure.
Perfect by Ellen HopkinsHOW
do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so
WHY
push to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree is
WHERE
you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway,
WHEN
did creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the person
WHO
lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you -
WHAT
is perfect.
The Flirting with Failure section of the Building Balance in Your Body & Life course offers exercises and inquiry into awareness of and choice around our willingness to “fail.” This week, notice when you are striving for “perfect” out of fear or desire for protection from criticism. Remember that “perfection”’s promise of unassailability is false and that within “failure” is freedom. Please join the Building Balance course. for $20/US and receive more ways to feel balance in your body and your life.