what's wrong with being messy?
When I was a child I had night terrors. Not when I was sleeping, but wakeful terrors. Fears of monsters coming from foreign places to hurt me, maim me, and kill me. I can’t tell you when these started, but they were definitely affected by the fact that I was a child living in N America, with the imminent threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads.
Most importantly I survived these terrors by coming up with a plan — I would be ok if my top sheet was covering my whole body. My head was ok sticking out, so I could breathe, but otherwise the rest of me was under covers. Then, and only then, I could relax. It didn’t matter how hot it was, these were the rules, and unless I did things perfectly, correctly, then I was exhausted with anxiety and overwhelmed with fear.
Fast forward to now, and I see the tendrils of this in my controlling thought patterns and perfectionism. Many of us can relate to these threads and we don’t need dragons from other countries threatening us to have bought into this notion that unless we do things perfectly, we are in trouble. Or that we won’t be loved or cared for; we won’t survive.
This perfectionism moved into my teenage years, became the eating disorder I have struggled with, and be in recovery from, my whole adult life. And it comes into my relationships with others, my environment, and with my own sense of self worth and ability to care for myself. At times of stress this can all get exacerbated.
perfect is as perfect does
Another way my need to be perfect manifested was I felt I had to be perfect at something before I even tried it -- this would mean that at times I just didn't start anything. In 2000, when I learned how to meditate I didn’t join a class, but learned on my own first before taking a class. I couldn’t stand looking vulnerable or stupid. That was like death.
And it’s only through working in meditation with thoughts, and in my ethical practice looking at deeply held views that I have been able to meet this part, learn what it needs, and soothe the pain that created it in the first place.
When I know my ground, through working somatically and energetically with my experience, I can feel the softening of the hardness of the need to be perfect, and the fear and panic that lives just below the surface of that pattern. And I can meet myself, know myself, love myself more deeply. Then I am more ok with the mess, and I want to hide less. And I am more content with being me.
How does this pattern show up in your life?
What strategies have you learned in order to cope with your experience of pain and suffering in your life?
What does healing from this need to be perfect look like for you right now?