Perfection Detox: Learning to trust yourself

In 2018 Petra Kolber released her book, The Perfection Detox. I had pre-ordered the book and was very excited to start reading it. By that time in my life, I had come a long way and I had accepted that I was in fact a perfectionist with an insatiable need for perfection and control. So, I was looking forward to embarking on my own perfection detox. I had the book. I thought I was ready, and yet the detox never happened. Why? Well, it’s kind of a long story…

At the time I was in business with a fellow perfectionist who questioned my sudden interest in wanting to start a perfection detox. She convinced me that a desire for perfection was not a bad thing. In many ways my drive for perfection had served me. The Perfectionist in me agreed with her reasoning. I value excellence and I strive to under promise and over deliver. My desire for high quality meant that people trusted me, because they knew that I would bring results – and good ones at that. I told myself that it was my desire for perfection that helped me strive, helped me excel, helped me deliver excellence. It was my need for perfection that had me strive to be a good example to others; that helped me walk my talk and live with integrity; that served as inspiration for others.

So, I just closed the book, ignored the inner yearning for something different, and kept pressing forward, until my striving was no longer sustainable.

I’ve had burnout before. About ten years ago, I was working for one of the top 50 universities in the world. The working environment was intense and highly competitive. You had to bring your best and then some. There was always more to be done and every time you reached a certain milestone, they would move the bar just a little further out of reach. It created a situation where you were always chasing something and always feeling like you were falling short. I had set some unrealistic, possibly unattainable goals for myself, and I was literally killing myself trying to reach those goals. Until one day I no longer had the energy to get out of bed. I simply had no energy left to try.

Even though this process of losing my motivation was gradual, it felt to me like it had happened overnight. I had kept saying to myself just one more deadline, or more milestone, or publication, or award, or program and then I would be done. But I was never done. I just kept going. And then one day, I woke up and the want was no longer there. All I wanted was to check out of a life that had lost all meaning to me.

I took my long overdue leave and sat on the couch binge watching the Lost series. That’s all I did. That’s all I had energy for. I wanted to lose myself. I wanted the pain to stop. I felt like a failure. It took months for the realisation to set in that what I needed most in my life was balance. I was all work and no play. I had no life to speak of.

So, gradually I started delving into other interests. I discovered running and yoga, and loved how it made me feel. I loved that I suddenly had more energy. The yearning for balance, and to no longer simply say “yes” to things because I felt obligated to do so, led me to see that I was working in a very toxic work environment. Two years later, I quit. I had had enough. I had reached a point where what I had gained through my balance practice was more valuable to me than any specific career accomplishment. And I had started to see myself as separate from my work.

For the first part of my career, my identity was inextricably tied to my work. I only felt worthy or like I mattered when I was working. My work was my identity. So much so, that I took feedback and criticism personally as an attack on my character.

Now, I wish I could tell you that I quit my toxic job and found joy and balance and never looked back. But some journeys are longer trodden. As my coach would say, some of our lessons are part of a lifetime curriculum. They require a deep lifetime commitment to rewiring and rewriting the patterns we created early in our life.

Of course, now when I look back on it, I can see why I still continued to carry my Perfectionist self with me. It was simple, I had not really confronted that part of myself and become curious about what was driving my desire for perfection. It would take another four years, and a failed business, to really focus my attention on what I was doing to myself.

It was only through coaching that I was finally confronted with the false beliefs and assumptions I had been holding on to for many years. In working with my coach, she helped me see how I was buying into false beliefs about what it took to really grow and transform. I did not need to be perfect to create a life I didn’t want to escape from. In fact, I finally learned to love my imperfect and yet beautifully authentic life WITH all the things I used to consider flaws…

I learnt from Shirzad Chamine the many ways we sabotage ourselves and discovered that I had four really strong Saboteurs that were mostly directing my life. Firstly, I had a really strong Inner Judge or Inner Critic and I held myself and others to unreasonable standards of perfection. Not only that, but I was driving the people in my life crazy. I had made it impossible for anyone to be with me without feeling stressed, under pressure, or hurried, or like they were already behind, or falling short.  Of course, none of this was done with the intention to harm. This was all done in service of what I had called my desire for “excellence”.

By unpacking my beliefs about excellence, I discovered that my abusive and unpredictable childhood had cultivated a hypervigilance in me that needed to stay in control at all times; that strove for perfection so that I wouldn’t disappoint anyone, and so that I could keep pushing myself harder and harder.

The one thing I had been unwilling to give myself, was self-love and self-forgiveness. I had not met my own expectations, and therefore I withheld love from myself. When I started to slow down and really pay attention to how I was showing up in my life, I started seeing how I had always held on to the belief that others expected too much of me or were making demands of me. I had held on to the belief that I would disappoint and that I had to stay vigilant to maintain my connection to others. I was working so hard for love and acceptance from others, when what I really needed, was to accept myself. And I was simply unwilling to do that.

Somehow, I had bought into the childhood belief that I was unworthy of love, undeserving somehow, and that I needed to earn love. Years of therapy helped me process a lot of my childhood trauma, but did not help me learn how to love myself. That I got from working with my coach.

For the first time in my life someone held me as naturally resourceful, creative, and whole. Someone cared about my opinion on things and about what I felt would be the right course of action to take. For the first time, someone held space for me in a way that did not say that I was broken or deficient, but that was fully trusting of my own worth and competence.

I signed up for Shirzad Chamine’s course to learn how to build my Sage capacity and serve my clients more powerfully, and I found myself resisting. I could not access my capacity for empathy. Through my work as a coach, I had learnt how to increase my capacity for empathy for others, but I was having a hard time accessing that same empathy for myself. It was so hard to go there, and of course my Stickler (Perfectionist Self) was having a field day. I saw how everyone else in the course could access their inner child (their inner wisdom), claim their innate capacity for love, joy, and wisdom, and own their unique strengths, and I was unable to go there. I would break down and cry. I would feel the inner resistance tugging at me.

So, I brought it to my coach. What I discovered was that I was telling myself that if I gave up my need for perfection, I would stop striving and achieving. I would basically become lazy, and I would stop creating my life on purpose. She helped me see how it all starts with empathy, with loving yourself as the wiser inner being, the observer you are and always have been. I learnt how to hold space for my inner child and for what she needed.

I spent time looking at a photo of my childhood self – when I was younger than 13. At first it was hard to look at this photo of myself and believe that I was once that young child. Even at the age of seven, I could see the weariness, the vigilance, the fear, the hesitance. I could see how I had already started taking myself too seriously, and how I had started holding back, playing safe, towing the line, and yet, when I looked deeper, I noticed something else. I saw awareness, wisdom, courage, a natural curiosity, a deep love of learning, compassion, openness, and presence.

And I cried for this little person. I cried for how she had felt so alone in the world. So unsafe. And how she found the courage to rise, to fight, to keep moving forward. Something else that was incredible about this little person, is her endless capacity for love and compassion. She had so much love to give, and she cared deeply about the world and about the people around her who she could see were in pain.

How had I forgotten about this little person? How had I forgotten the pure joy she felt in learning and connecting? How had I forgotten that she deserved love and care as much as anyone else?

This journey with my inner child is ongoing. There are days where I don’t necessarily give her the love she deserves. Yet, something incredible happened when my children were born. Suddenly I knew what unconditional love felt like. My coach invited me to use my love for my children as a pathway to finding love for myself.

See, when I look into the eyes of my children, I feel nothing but love and joy for them. My heart soars and I feel unburdened. When I hold them and they put their little arms around me; when I listen to the stories my daughter tells, I feel like I’m in the presence of deep wisdom. I believe they are here to teach me and show me the way back to my own self.

I read something the other day about our children being our closest link to our unlived future. Our children will walk this earth long after we are gone. They will experience a life we could never dream of and they will be the carriers of our legacy. So, when they come into our lives, they call us to become our best future selves, so that we leave a legacy that will guide them when we are no longer there.

I started noticing how my Perfectionism was impacting my children and I did not want them to ever feel like they were undeserving of love, or like they had to earn love and acceptance. I have made it my life’s mission to show my children that they are always loved, no matter what they do. They are worthy as they are. Nothing is required. I want them to hold on to their own sense of worth and efficacy, because that will serve them as they navigate the complexities of life. If their sense of self-worth and self-efficacy remain intact, they can face any challenge and rise above it, even when I’m long gone.

So, I needed to be honest about my desire for “excellence” and acknowledge to myself that it was a desire for perfection and control, because I feel unsafe. I feel unprotected. I feel out of control. Learning to trust myself; learning that I could hold my own and handle anything life could present to me, helped me realise that perfection and control were not only unrealistic, but they were also robbing me of joy and fulfilment. So, I replaced my need for perfection and control with a need for joy and harmony. When I catch my Stickler rearing her judgmental head, I remind myself to look for joy and that harmony is more important than control.

This has been life changing to say the least. Suddenly, I can enjoy the moment for what it is. I’m also more person and relationship-focused than task-focused. I read somewhere – or perhaps this is a culmination of many ideas and theories about parenting and childhood that I had digested over the last five years – our children don’t belong to us. They are simply gifted to us. They come into our care and we both learn from each other. In any moment you want to ask yourself, will my next action help me build a relationship with my child that is sustainable? Will their future self want to spend time with my future self? We spend a lifetime building a connection with our children that we hope will sustain us for as long as we live, because we learn along the way that we actually need them more than they need us. Or at least that’s been my experience.

What does this all have to do with perfectionism and control? I’ve discovered that in many cases an overdeveloped desire for perfectionism and control is often linked to a distrust of self and others.

The inability to receive support from others or an overdeveloped sense of responsibility is a trauma response. Your “I don’t need anyone, I’ll just do it all myself” or “no-one can do it the way I do it” or “if I don’t do it, who will?” conditioning is a survival tactic. You needed it to shield your heart from abuse, neglect, betrayal, and disappointment from those who could not or would not be there for you.

From the parent who was absent and abandoned you by choice or the parent who was never home from working three jobs to feed and house you. From the lovers who offered sexual intimacy, but never offered a safe haven that honoured your heart. From the friendships and family who always took more than they ever gave. From all the situations when someone made a promise to you and then let you down or abandoned you in your time of need, leaving you to pick up the pieces. From the lies and betrayals of people who themselves didn’t know any better. You learned along the way that you just couldn’t really trust people. Or that you could trust people, but only up to a certain point.

Your desire for independence or control is actually a deep-seated trust issue. When you trusted in the past, you were let down. So, now you refuse to trust anyone, even yourself. You see, when you insist on perfectionism and control, you are setting yourself up to fail. You create a self-fulfilling prophecy that says, I’m untrustworthy and so is everyone else.

All you are really doing through these strategies, is you are staying wounded, scarred, incomplete. You are seeing your humanness as imperfection. Not allowing yourself the healing you deserve, means that you also saying that you don’t trust that you have the inner wisdom and efficacy to navigate this life. You think you are keeping yourself safe, but in actual fact, you are keeping yourself from living. You are letting yourself down so much more than anyone else is.

The good news is trauma that is acknowledged is trauma that can be healed. When you are willing to be with the discomfort of your own pain and sense of unworthiness. When you are willing to examine with curiosity, the deep-seated beliefs and assumptions about life and humanity you acquired as a child, you can start the process of healing. You can give yourself permission for self-love and self-compassion and you will discover that…

You are worthy of having support.

You are worthy of having true partnership.

You are worthy of love.

You are worthy of having your heart held.

You are worthy to be adored.

You are worthy to be cherished.

You are worthy to have someone say, “You rest. I got this.” And actually deliver on that promise.

You are worthy to receive.

You are worthy.

You don’t have to earn it.

You don’t have to prove it.

You don’t have to bargain for it.

You don’t have to beg for it.

You are worthy.

Simply because you exist.

And it starts with you. It starts with you putting that trust in yourself and giving yourself the love, care, compassion, attention you long for. When you value the experience of that inner child and their innate strengths; when you honour that child and allow them to share their gifts with the world, you discover that other’s approval no longer matters that much to you, because you’ve got this!

And gradually, your need to control everything starts to feel trivial. You no longer need to guard your heart against the unintentional harm that others could inflict, because you trust yourself that you can give yourself the respect and healing you need.

References:

1. Breytenbach, C. (2020). Getting to Know your Inner Critic. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/getting_to_know_your_inner_critic/
2. Chamine, S. (2012). Positive Intelligence: Why only 20% of teams and individuals achieve their true potential and you can achieve yours. Austin, Texas: Greenleaf Book Group.
3. Kolber, P. (2018). The Perfection Detox: Tame Your Inner Critic, Live Bravely, and Unleash Your Joy. New York: Da Capo Press, Hachette Book Group.