Inner Work Part 7: The Perfection Trap
Following lack of application, Perfectionism may be the second biggest obstacle to Inner Work.
Your biggest block to Waking Up will directly relate to unconscious defense strategies you use to cope with deep fears. If you work hard to avoid blame, to compete for love, or to feel adequate, Perfectionism may be a key survival strategy that you employ. If you instead refuse to try your best in order to protect yourself from feeling the defeat of failure, lack of application may be your key challenge. There are other survival strategies, and these two can alternate in the same person.
Most of us are fairly clear about the ways that lack of application limits results. Perfectionism is subtler self sabotage.
Hmmm. Perfectionism as sabotage? Yes. Over-effort and under-effort spring from the same fears. Over-effort has obvious advantages over under-effort. But it is a compulsion. In Inner Work, compulsions and other automatic or mechanical behavior are seen for what they are: a form of sleep.
Why sleep? Because they are automatic, not intentional. This does not make these behaviors wrong; it just shows that we are not Awake and Aware while we enact them. And this is also true of so much that we do! The more we Wake Up the more we realize how asleep we are, how automatic. None of us likes to believe this about ourselves, so discovering it in ourselves can be shocking: a real Awakening. 
Let’s look more at perfectionism. This issue masks itself as an advantage. Perfectionism makes self-observation extremely difficult because criticism tends to masquerade as observation.
Perfectionism is driven by the fantasy that you can MAKE yourself all right. The hidden lie—that hides the cruelty of this stance–is that you not all right in the first place.
Effort driven by Perfectionism is characterized by a particular type or quality of attention. How does it operate? When we try really really hard to get everything right we are quite possibly:
- out of touch with the fear driving us
- in our heads; thinking too much and feeling too little
- lacking perspective on the relative importance of details
- overlooking our impact on others
- critical
- controlling
- about to get frustrated or angry because we did not master this yesterday
- shaming ourselves subconsciously
- less than ideally open to exploration, wonder, and creativity
The quality of attention we bring to Inner Work—the energy frequencies we are running as we do it—bias exactly what we are able to discover. Don’t pin the butterflies on a board. Just get close and watch what their antennae do when they sense a change in the breeze.
Perfectionists may be drawn to Inner Work to try and make ourselves perfect. Our efforts pay bigger dividends when the perfectionism itself is examined as a symptom of sleep.
In the nature of Waking Up is the sleepy circumstance of forgetting to wake up NOW and NOW and in the now that happens later on when we’re not paying attention. REMEMBERING to practice is the biggest key to Inner Work.
As with all habit patterns, USE your Perfectionism to Wake Up by carefully observing exactly how it functions within you.
What have you noticed about Perfectionism?
Thanks for this article. I am SO familiar with the beast called Perfectionism. This really helps me to see the whole picture, especially the list of qualities of attention. I love your image of observing the butterfly- and not nailing it down. That will stay with me a long time.
I lived most of my life trying to be perfect. Not knowing it was a cover for the real me and being asleep. Not wanting to deal with the fear and feelings that are just under the surface, a reality that I had little experience with.
Living in the NOW, the present moment really removes my fears and anxieties. The now makes life much easier to deal with fear and anxieties that may arise through trying to be perfect. Life is such a great adventure!! Worth living authenticly more and more everyday. It can be a big job some days.
Greg
Thank you Greg and Jennie for your comments. They make a huge difference and motivate me to write!
Your insights and feelings can be a tremendous support to others.
Looking at the stuff of humanity that is not the good and great stuff really gets us in touch with being complete and that acceptance brings us into our true being. Accepting that we are all humans and that we are all experiencing what everyone else is experiencing, creates the connection. With out the connection we are not in touch with who we really are and tend to be on a self detructive path, including the earth in that path.
Absolutely, Greg! Embracing our humanity is one of the MOST POSITIVE things we can do. It leads to ever more loving states so much more quickly than trying to escape from who we are.
Thank you again Teresa for a great post.
Personally I feel perfectionism is a form of self terrorism. The need to always be a certain (enlightened) way leads, invariably, to a disappointment with who I am. Funny thing – the “disappointed me” is the ego.
I actually love this because every time I feel I need to be better, or perfect I sense a strong discord and am brought back to a closer proximation of rwho I am
I love your comment Shannon! A visceral description of the way it works, demonstrating clear comprehension of the post, good self-observation skills, and a laudable willingness to share for the benefit of others. Thank you.