On Perfection
I remember being taught to comb the tassels of the living room rug when I was about 3 years old. Now, I’m 41, and I’m still gradually shifting out of the habit!
I was on a ski trip with some friends many years ago, and one of the guys had done his PhD in obsessive compulsive behavior. He worked as a clinician, helping patients with true OCD. One evening, he and I were heading to our room to put on our bathing suits before going to the hot tub. We’d just split a joint, and now felt like the perfectly appropriate to blurt out — “Hey John! Can I pretty please with sugar on top ask you a 2-minute work question!?”
“Haha sure,” he chuckled as we walked into the room. Having lived with me for a few days I’m p sure he knew where this was going 🙃…
My rapid fire began with a smile — “Okay, so do I have OCPD?! Look at my side of the room! It’s hard for me to walk away from tasks unfinished, leave loose ends, when my car breaks down, when my body breaks down, when I lose or break something, when there’s a conflict in a relationship, when I'm shopping for the “right” thing…do I have it, do I have it?!”
Looking down at the perfectly folded clothes visible in my suitcase, he smiled compassionately. He took a breath. He reached and tugged the pair of shorts that was on top, jolting them to the right and leaving them out of alignment with the rest.
“Okay,” he began, “how do you feel right now?”
“Umm, a little uncomfortable...” I spoke with hesitation ← I can literally feel the feeling in my body as I write this.
“What do you want to do,” he asked.
“Put them back, duh!” I smiled ☺️
“Can we go to the hot tub now,” he went on...
“Um, sure?” I replied...
As John closed the door and we turned down the hallway to the hottub, he spoke clearly, in a casual tone, “you’re definitely on the spectrum...but you don’t have a clinical disorder...if you did, you wouldn’t have been able to leave the room with the shorts like that.”
“Cool” I said, with a sigh of relief, “so…what now?”
“Easy. Exposure therapy,” John prescribed.
Most valuable 2 minutes of talk therapy I’ve ever received!
Most “high performers”, “achievers”, type-As, founders, CEOs I’ve met learned the same lesson I did as kids — do it once, do it right, and all will be well. This is how we avoided the criticism, the sharpness. It’s how we got the positive attention, care, pats on the back, the “good boys”, and “good girls” that we so desperately needed. It’s how we kept ourselves safe, brought order to chaos. The link between achieving and desired love and safety is such an old and deep wound that most who still carry it do so with a badge of honor, completely oblivious to the harm they’re continuously inflicting upon themselves and deepening. Moreover, many will outright reject this upon hearing it (if this is you, definitely keep reading!).
So, what do we do with all this? We don’t want to abandon the doing all together, it’s what’s gotten us here afterall! Brings us all that “success”. And. It’s incessancy is making us sick, unhappy, exhausted, anxious. Not to mention unpopular and driving people around us crazy 🤪!
(1) First, we name it.
We do so boringly. We stop pathologizing — jokingly referring to our “OCD”…obsessive and compulsive are not nice words! Don’t kick a puppy, be nice to yourself! And plus, if we’re splitting hairs, OCD refers to flicking the lights like 17 times before leaving the room so your best friend doesn’t die; it’s not rooted in logic like the, I’ll call them, perfectionistic tendencies (the spectrum of “Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder” ← leave it to the Western doctors to name things in a way that’s least conducive to healing and keeps them employed). And don’t get me wrong, both OCD and OCPD are difficult — if you or someone you know is on either spectrum, deep sympathies. I see you. Truly.
(2) Then, we love it.
We don’t fight it. Fighting reality by trying to organize it perfectly and control it is what’s gotten us here. We practice allowing the tendencies (that’s right), seeing them happen real-time, breathing with them. Asking the little one inside, “what do you need right now?” ← hint, it’s typically safety, love. Pausing from this place, offering ourselves the hug we need, lying on our back, showing our bodies we’re not in danger anymore ← don’t skip this…no amount of thinking or talking about being safe is a substitute for feeling safe…in fact, oftentimes it has the exact opposite effect, ironically enough 🙃. Verbal processing is helpful…until it’s harmful and is actually re-triggering ← this is when the ego has taken over.
Or maybe we’re not resourced enough yet or in this moment for a pause and can simply notice the perfection without judgment. Including how we feel before, during, and after...noticing the thing and doing the thing. Mindfulness is enough. “Mindfulness is self-correcting,” as Gil Fronsdal says. If we’re aware when we hold onto the hot pan, we’ll eventually let go. We don’t need to berate ourselves anymore. Change motivated from a place of self-hate actually takes us backwards, prolongs the grip.
Or, or maybe we notice perfection and notice judgment of perfection ← most common starting point…in this case, no need to judge the judging! We can typically smile at ourselves with compassion (not sarcasm), here. Allow the judging, from a place of love. Meet yourself where you are. Start where you are.
At first, these exercises may take some time, or seem altogether impossible (please reach out if so), but with practice, we can offer ourselves this kind of compassionate awareness in minutes, seconds. And from this place, only from this place, we can try exposure therapy — in small increments…leave the shorts out of place, the task unfinished, the conversation open-ended. Say, “I don’t know,” and be curious. Learn to abide in uncertainty, which is the only certainty. And be mindful…before, during, after. Notice the discomfort at first, breathe with it, feel it, and let the body metabolize, digest.
This art of noticing is like that time as a kid when you ate way too much of your favorite cake and then had a belly ache after. Don’t fight it, just rest. This too shall pass.
And next time in present day you’ve finished the first piece of cake and are eying the second, you can kind of think about it like an inverted exposure therapy — notice wanting it, notice the pain of not having it, and practice refraining from indulging in the sense pleasure from a place of self-love. Remember the belly ache from last time. Then notice when the craving passes and how you feel no longer wanting ← most of the “enjoyment” of the second piece of cake is really only the cessation of the craving! Then notice how good you feel not feeling too full of cake!
With this practice, we eventually (mostly) stop eating way too much cake (without knowing, anyway)! Mindfulness isn’t just enough, it’s just right.
What is this not? This is no longer forcing ourselves to keep working through the pain of the body we’ve been suppressing, overriding, ignoring all these years. That’s literally taking years off the ends of our lives and degrading our quality of life. And for what? A better future? Maybe…if we make it that far, and if we’re in great health, with great relationships, in a safe and world, etc. Which I’ve literally never seen pan out for anyone playing this long con. Because it’s all a huge gamble with the given cost of losing the joy of the present moment. Which is the only moment. The past and future are but dreams of the mind.
Are we ready to finally prioritize our bodies, our health, our happiness, our wellbeing, our peace, our joy over...the future, work, others (and their opinions of us)? Let’s stop sacrificing the only thing that is real, the present moment, for this distorted, ego-invented future. Because when we’re not punishing ourselves and when we’re doing something we love, we don’t hate life so damn much and actually enjoy appropriate work!
The fixation on the future is destroying our culture, our world. Let’s stop trying to find a way to live on Mars happily ever after, and just be here, now. We have all we need to be happy, healthy, free. And the quest for longevity, that’s just another control move, another fight, a denial of the body. We won’t find what we’re looking for there. We’re looking for spirituality, love, even if we don’t know it yet. When I forget, I typically remember the next time I talk with an older, wiser person. When I next meditate. When I next wake up in the morning. Let’s wake up. The time is now.