Perfection
I’ve been struggling all week to write this essay.
For the first time in a month, I’ve had the space, energy, and desire to write.
But, the words have not flowed. Not like they do some weeks.
Partly it’s because of the time that’s passed since I last posted. I feel like I’m starting over. Will they still want to hear from me? What if I’m not as elegant this week with my writing? What if it doesn’t feel good to write?
Underlying all of these emotions is a feeling that I have to be perfect. That I have to be at the top of my game whenever I write publicly.
I don’t feel this way when I write in the morning, just for myself. But because others will read this, I feel the pressure to perform to perfection.
Let me repeat: Pressure to perform to perfection. Ugh.
I’ve always felt like this. When I was young, I always had this sense I needed to be perfect. My parents didn’t help with that, although it’s not their fault entirely. I wasn’t really allowed to get dirty (not that I remember anyway) and my mom always picked very feminine, girly things for me to wear. (I’ve been going through old photos this week and yep, I was a well-kept young girl.)
Doing well in school was just a given for me. I had to get straight As, and the first time I didn’t, I remember being absolutely devastated. It happened in English class freshman year of high school. I worked my ass off for that B+, but I still was very hard on myself for “failing” to achieve perfection. By the time I got my second B+, this time in Calculus senior year, I was a little kinder to myself but still was disappointed that “I wasn’t enough.”
In my professional life, I always tried to go above and beyond. I always tried to be perfect.
That led to a lot of stress, although I’m not sure I recognized it at the time. Not until the position that led to my burnout, anyway.
Since then, I’ve grabbled with my need for perfection in myself. I don’t ask anyone else to be perfect. Why am I expecting myself to be?
This reckoning is why I feel connected to Pooja Lakshmin’s Real Self-Care. Especially the chapter about self-compassion. I didn’t realize until recently that this is what I’m trying to do for myself. Treat me the way that I treat or hope to treat others. For Dr. Lakshmin, self-compassion is something that “focuses on your relationship with your mind and is grounded in psychological flexibility…[w]hen you’re struggling with cruel self-talk, this psychological self-compassion is exactly the salve you need.”*
Through Real Self-Care, I’ve also learned about how self-compassion is divided into three components, according to Kristin Neff, Ph.D.:
- Replacing self-judgment with self-kindness
- Recognizing your shared humanity
- Being curious about negative thoughts instead of believing them as the immediate truth
I didn’t realize I was attempting all of these for myself over the last year or so. The second one in particular stood out to me as something I’ve been practicing for a lot longer, but the first and third felt so good to read in print and have words to go with the feelings I’ve had for a while. It was validating.
This is why I’m okay with the fact that this is the third topic I’ve attempted to write about this week and that it is more rushed and less thought-through than I planned on it being.
That’s okay.
For me, I’m practicing being kind to myself and reminding myself that I am not perfect and nothing I do will ever be perfect.
Because I am human and humans are not perfect.
And I’m letting those negative thoughts I’ve had all week exist, but rather than let them stop me from writing, I’m being curious about them.
It’s not easy.
Even now I want to go back through this essay and pick it apart, finding all the things that I could write more clearly.
Instead, I’m going to check for grammar and spelling mistakes and let it exist as I’ve written it.
It’s not perfect. It never will be.
I’m good with that.
*“Psychological flexibility is a clinical term that describes the capacity to develop a curious and open-ended relationship with your thoughts and feelings.” Pooja Lakshmin, MD, Real Self-Care.