One of the interesting things about perfectionists is that most of us don’t even realize our thinking is faulty. We assume that everyone else feels the same way about striving to be perfect.
A friend recently shared with me this story:
“When I was a college student, I met regularly with a campus counselor. On one of our visits, he read to me this narrative:
Patty Perfect hails from Salt Lake City, Utah. She’’s married and has ten children. Even though she’’s a stay at home mom, she manages to keep busy. Her typical day begins around 5:30am when she gets up and reads nine chapters from the scriptures. After jogging twelve miles, she’’s home in time to make a hearty, healthy breakfast and oversee the practicing of musical instruments by her children. Once breakfast is over, family scripture study completed, children and husband sent off to school and work, Patty takes the five younger children with her as she does her visiting teaching. Arriving home in time for lunch, she saves time by also preparing the week’’s dinners in advance while the smaller children teach each other the alphabet. Then the children go down for naps while Patty has a few moments to herself. She likes to spend her free time sewing clothes for the whole family and baking whole wheat bread. As the older children arrive home from school, she treats them to milk and freshly-baked cookies before helping them with their homework and science fair projects. Her favorite time of the day is when she’’s cleaning the house because “cleanliness is next to godliness.”
“The counselor then asked me, ‘What’s wrong with that story?” I answered, ‘Uh . . . I don’t see anything wrong with it. It sounds like she’s really got her life in order. That’s the kind of person I’d like to be!’ He responded, “Well . . . I can see we’ve got work to do.”
It wasn’t obvious to my friend how totally unreachable the bar was that she had set for herself.
When I was a bishop I had several ward members come to me with these same feelings and I would always give them the pep talk: “It sounds like you’re being really hard on yourself. I think you need to be a little more self-compassionate. You don’t have to be perfect to be worthy . . .” But it was difficult to apply those same ideas to myself. It seems that we often can see others as candidates for heaven, but not ourselves.
For most of my life, I didn’t see my own perfectionism. I didn’t see my self-expectations as overly high. The thing that finally helped me to identify perfectionism was the persistent and deep feelings of guilt, shame, and unworthiness.
Another thing that has helped me is to recognize black & white thinking. If I were to start to list the expectations I have of myself, I’d probably see words like “always,” never,” “all,” “every,” etc. It could look like this: Attend the temple every week. Visit all of my home teaching families during the first half of the month. Never engage in gossip or backbiting. These words show that I’m being extreme in my thinking.
As I’ve learned to more readily recognize when expectations are unrealistic, I’m able to effectively use “shame resilience” techniques. And I’m better able to hear the whisperings of the Spirit reconfirming my divine worth.
The Spirit can help us learn to see “things as they really are.” (Jacob 4:13)
To be continued . . . with Part 8.
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