Perfectionism

Last night I went to an emotional healing course. The topic was Perfectionism. The instructor explained about overt and covert perfectionism and their manifestations.

As she was explaining it, I was able to put some very important pieces together about how perfectionism has impact my life, but also our society around us. 

Overt perfectionists need to have control over everything -- their environment, how their outfit looks, how they present themselves to the public, having their dishes be spotless, having to present themselves as something acceptable and presentable to the world. Perfect in everything.  It is exhausting.  It is often because there is so much shame that the perfectionist is carrying from the family background that they need to feel in control of something, instead of feeling the pain and releasing it.

I could reflect and see how this was the case with my mother and stepfather, both coming from quite different backgrounds but also with an upper class aspect to it. 

My mother needs to be constantly busy, incessantly cleaning, shopping, making to do lists, worrying about other people's problems, decorating the house, painting. And it's never good enough. 

As a child, I took all of it personally. That I was somehow a slob, and why bother even trying. I would just crumble into a state of helplessness and lose touch with anything I would want to do for myself.  It was futile.  Until one day I decided that I indeed wanted to learn how to do art and painting.  I loved studying art, the conversations with my mom at the art gallery, and experiencing and seeing life through artistic eyes. So I signed up for an art class, thinking I wouldn't do that well in it. When it turned out to be the opposite. The teacher said I was a natural! I ended up taking classes in Mexico and then having an art exhibition in a cafe! If I listened to my mom's perfectionism, I never would have done it. What I realized was that I wanted to be an expressive artist and that required to let go of needing to do it perfectly.

I carried a lot of grudges against my mom, thinking that I could never live up to her standards.  I felt like her side of the family -- successful professionals with an enviable last name --had it all figured out and I was the poor cousin who could never do anything right. I was destined to be always the broken one, the one that everyone thought would amount to nothing. And according to their high standards and beliefs, they were right. But I didn't want to be like them anyways. The rigid rules, the amount of energy and money that went into maintaining the image, were all stifling. 

Now my stepfather, I somehow had more mercy on him. He was a Jamaican man who was lighter-skinned. He needed to keep the appearances up to become more white than black. Because being black was considered to be dangerous, low class and a life of being segregated.  In a country with extreme poverty, a person will do whatever takes to not have to experience the pain, violence, ostracization and fear of living close to the streets. So he had to keep up the appearances of being white-cultured, using proper manners and achieving excellence to the point of negating his own spirit.  He became OCD and suffered severe anxiety issues.  His perfectionism was very linked with the racism and oppression of his time. So I really couldn't fault him for it.


But it had huge implications as he would be terrified if I went outside of the box of thinking and feeling. Dating a black man was considered to be horrific in his eyes. It's exactly what he was running away from. Also, he wouldn't hug or touch my mom when she was sick, banishing her to the other room. As a child, it felt cold, cruel, and completely uncompassionate.  There was no soul in his neuroses and I suffered from not receiving healthy love and affection in the home.


So both my mother and stepfather were overt perfectionists and they would mock my father because he didn't amount to anything. But what I discovered last night was that my father is a covert perfectionist -- the underachiever, the one who overthinks and gives up before he tries, believing that if he can't make the million bucks, why bother. He also has the illness of feeling ashamed of his background and needs to put up facades in order to fit in.  He would look like a million bucks when he walked out the door, trying hard to become what I believed himself to be. Unfortunately, my dad never made it. He gravitated towards get-rich-quick schemes and gambling. Perhaps this was in his heart and soul, but what he loved the most were the horses and talking to people. He lost touch with his feelings and what his soul cherishes, and instead focused on trying to attain something out of approval.  My grandmother planted this in him, as she was money-hungry. It comes from a background of being poor and the shame that goes along with that.  Ironically, my father's brother, my Uncle Kent, became wildly successful and made it to being a millionaire. But he was an overt perfectionist -- someone who always needs to compete and achieve.

They needed to put on the mask of wealth, just like my stepfather and mother, in order to be accepted within the wealthy culture, even though it was killing their true selves. Now I'm not saying you can't attain wealth, but so long as it's not at the cost of personal happiness, decency towards self and others, or blocking the flow of life, love and creativity.  We need to know it's coming from the right place, rather than from the place of needing approval and acceptance externally.

Now, it's my work to look at how these perfectionists and the perfectionism in the world around us is blocking my truth. What would I do differently? Would I actually put my heart and soul into writing? Would I go to yoga more often? Would I go easy on myself even if I can't pay the bills? Would I continue to offer services to my clients in a way that truly supports them, rather than having to meet the need of perceived high standards?

All these things need to be considered in my life so I can truly free myself from perfectionism's grip....