In one of my posts last year, I discussed the pitfalls of perfectionism. At the time, I was suffering the results of my perfectionism with a whopping case of adrenal burnout and hormonal fluctuations. Since then, I’ve heeded that wake-up call and delved quite deeply into my own thinking to do a little house-cleaning. What I’ve learned has been amazing, and I can’t wait to share it with you all.
It’s really astonishing to discover the power of perfection-based thinking and how deeply it insinuates itself into your life. It’s equally astonishing to discover what it’s like to no longer act on the perfection-based thinking. I want to share my self-discovery process with you, because it will definitely be relevant if you’re wanting to use a mind-body approach to healing, and it will be the clearest, easiest way to present what I’ve learned.
So – here we go! It will take many posts and many months, but I’m inviting you into my inner world, stripping away all of the “social self” fronts and covers, and telling it like it is. I used to feel afraid to show the world my “real self,” or “essential self” as we say in coaching. I didn’t want people to know I wasn’t always on top of things or that sometimes I didn’t have it all together. I was afraid to be truly authentic and open – because I really did believe I had to be perfect. Not believing that anymore is like unzipping my tight perfection-suit, stepping free, and gulping in deliciously fresh air. It feels like I can breathe. It feels like freedom. My body also seems to really, really love it.
When I first read Dr. John Sarno’s The Mindbody Prescription, I immediately recognized myself as the perfect personality type for a mind-body syndrome. Only now, however, do I really see just how deep that runs, and just how complicated it can be to step out of those mental habits and see them clearly. I am ready to share my complete, imperfect self with all of you, because I know it will be a relief. If you see what I experience, in my mind, in my emotions, as I continue to live the mind-body lifestyle, you will see that you, too, do not need to be perfect. You will see where you are creating problems for yourself without even realizing it. You will get a taste of freedom.
In Martha Beck coaching, our basic philosophy is to be transparent, authentic, and open. I want to bring this to my blog this year in every way possible. If I share my lessons, you get to learn. If I share my imperfections, you get to open your mind to self-acceptance. If I share my process, you get to see how to integrate mind-body healing into your life for as long as you live.
My clients often see my life as “perfect,” or they think I do “have it all together,” always. Nope. So I think if you see me (someone who is passionately devoted to inner work and in fact does it for a living) fall flat on my face, get back up, and keep on going without the world ending, you’ll be able to breathe a big sigh of relief. If you’re anything like my clients, you are putting pressure on yourself to “get this right” to “stop failing” and “heal already, dammit.” You are the slave-driver, whipping yourself to a bloody pulp. I know this, because I do it, too.
You see, I am seriously passionate about mind-body healing and the powerful inner work that brings the results I desire. I implement this work into my life with enthusiasm and joy. I do the work! I walk the talk!
Except when I don’t.
Except when I don’t do a damn thing I know to do, and then sit in a confused heap, angry at myself and not able to see where I’m lost. I have so many past examples of this to choose from I don’t even know where to start. I’ll share as many of them as I can, but I have a sneaking suspicion new examples will also pop up frequently. You see, this is how it works. We really aren’t perfect. Really. For real. As in, just normal old humans, doing our best, even when it seems like we can’t get anything right. Even when we’re in the midst of beating ourselves up for being whatever it is we don’t want to be anymore, we are doing our best. And the moment will come when we sit up and notice what we’re doing and decide not to anymore. And the moment will come when we turn around and do it again. It’s always like that.
Moving into a place of self-acceptance means knowing we’ll fail. Knowing we’ll make mistakes. Counting on it, in fact. That’s reality. But these failures and mistakes really need to be seen as “failures” and “mistakes.” They are simply our learning ground, and will be, forever. Perhaps we’ll make new ones. Perhaps we’ll repeat old ones. We’ll sure as heck learn a LOT.
So here’s this week’s story. Let’s call it The Plant.
Last week, it was Friday afternoon, and I had a massive headache. I felt exhausted. I felt irritable. I wanted to escape from my body somehow and just – feel better. I felt completely out of sorts. I called my coach friend and asked for some help. She asked me what was wrong, and I said, “Oh, I’m at it again. We both know how I like to overdo things.”
She replied, “We do? You LIKE to overdo things?”
I answered, “I didn’t say I LIKE to overdo things. I just do it. I’ve always been like that.”
She said, “Oh, no, you said I LIKE to overdo things. That was what came out of your mouth.”
We are brutally honest with each other, because that’s how we get fast results. I sat for a minute and thought about it. Yep. She was right. That was what I said.
“I LIKE to overdo things.” There I was, believing that, in the back of my mind. When you pull thoughts like this out of your unconscious mind and shine a bright flashlight on them, it’s always astonishing. And revealing!
It is quite true. Though I think I don’t like to overdo things, I actually do. Because if I’m over-booked, busy, and crunched for time, I simply “don’t have time” to feel uncomfortable emotions. Last week, I was “too busy” to meditate, to self-coach, to sleep enough, and to feel the sadness hiding under my busy-ness. I spent all week running from my emotions, and they caught up with me. My body gave me the signal that I was out of balance, and it was, of course, right.
When I turned in the direction of the sadness and simply felt it, it wasn’t even that bad after all. I cried. I sat with it. I noticed some fear underneath there. I felt that fear. I noticed the thoughts in my head creating these feelings. I forced myself to be skillfully coached right when I wanted to run and hide some more. I accepted that I’d spent the entire week forgetting to feel and living in avoidance. I hung up the phone after my session and breathed a sigh of relief.
I went upstairs, and decided to clean up my house a bit. Next to my bed is a plant I’ve had for about a month. I got this plant on the advice of a very wise friend. She noticed my inability to keep plants alive, and told me, “You need to get a plant and practice keeping it alive. There’s a lesson in it, and you’ll see it when you see it.” (Did I mention she’s also annoyingly cryptic?)
So I went into my bedroom to make the bed and stopped dead in my tracks. There was the plant, leaves drooping and yellowed, blossoms dying and dropping onto the floor, as it gasped for sunlight and water. All week long, I had forgotten to water the plant. I had even forgotten to open the shades before I left for work. I gasped in shock. It was SO CLEAR. The plant was a metaphor for ME. The plant looked just like I felt! This isn’t the only time this month, either, that the plant looked near death. And the other time it looked like this, I felt the same way.
(Let me just stop here to reassure you that I don’t have children. I do have a dog, whom I have managed to keep alive for 9 years. He seems to actually be thriving. Here’s a picture to prove it. Just didn’t want to worry you too much.)
Jackson, Alive and Well!
Clearly, I often care for myself just like I care for the plant. Poor thing. I felt compassion for the plant, and I felt compassion for my body. It always bears the brunt of my over-doing and emotion-avoiding. I stop nurturing myself and run from my inner work (which is my definition of self-care) when I forget to just feel my feelings. I forget because I just don’t want to face the fear or the sadness or the whatever it may be. This is why Pema Chodron, one of my favorite authors, calls emotions “the places that scare us.”
This emotional avoidance is an ingrained habit for most of us, because we learn it as children, for numerous reasons. I will be writing much about this in future posts, because though many of us have read Sarno and know about emotion suppression, many of us still don’t know how to change this pattern. It’s really a matter of doing slightly more feeling and slightly less suppressing and just continuing in that direction for the rest of our lives. There’s much to be said about this, because Sarno really only scratches the surface.
This week has been much better. Hey, what do you know – when I do the work, it works! It only ever feels like work, though, when I’m avoiding something that needs to be faced. Sometimes I face it, and sometimes I need a little smack from pain to wake me up. And that’s what it’s like, being imperfect.
