The Gentle Art of Self-Compassion: Liberating Women from Perfectionism
Day after day and week after week, I see beautiful, strong, capable, and intelligent women coming into my office for help. On the surface, they are leaders in their community, amazing mothers, high-achieving students, hard-working employees, diligent family members, and loving friends. Yet, they are often asking themselves: Why do I still feel so negatively about myself? Why do I treat myself poorly? Why won’t I prioritize my own happiness, and how did I end up in this position? Although it might not seem like it, at the root of these concerns many women, like my clients, have a deeply held belief that they are not deserving of the same good treatment that they give to so many others. Many women believe that they must earn treatment that is simply their right as a human being. I hear it all the time and have been there myself with the negative thoughts: “I didn’t work hard enough today to deserve to lay down and relax now.” “I will catch up on my favorite hobby once I clean that closet. I cannot keep putting that off!” “I really should show up to that event I am not interested in, but I might hurt their feelings if I don’t go. I can waste another weekend on this. It’s fine.” “He does love me; he just has an interesting way of showing it. I am not being as giving as I could be with him. Maybe he needs to see me try harder first?”
The thought process is tiresome, never-ending, and circular in nature.
We will never be able to find satisfying answers when our primary solution to problems is to twist ourselves into knots trying to find a reason why we haven’t done/been/said enough to deserve whatever it is we really want.
Why is it so hard to see that things are not always within our control? There is no amount of self-loathing that will fix that man, fix your family, or fix the world. When we engage in the self-destructive process of perfectionism and self-criticism, we find ourselves trying to control everything we do until we are perfect enough to earn a good outcome and then we will be happy, loved, respected, or whatever it is we are looking for. Yet, what we often feel when we are trying to do things perfectly is stress, desperation, shame, loneliness, resentment, and diminishing self-worth. We forget what is simple and obvious: we cannot control our surroundings by trying to be perfect.
The world will not love us more for being perfect, our family and friends will not love us more either.
This is because perfection is an illusion and it is socially constructed. Everyone has a different idea of perfect and most women come to experience the elusiveness of meeting the standards set by society. Most women have at least tried to meet standards for our sex, many are caught in a desperate cycle trying to keep up. We might not even agree with what we are doing, but feel we have to in order to be respected by others. Perhaps we tried to have the perfect house, the perfect body, the perfect job, or the perfect relationship. Yet, within 5 years those definitions have changed completely. It’s never-ending! Perfection is a moving goal-post. We may have temporarily earned some respect or admiration from others, but what about our own regard? We must get in tune with our own self-respect and self-admiration. My hope for all my clients as a therapist and fellow woman is to replace the thought process of perfectionism with a practice of self-compassion.
Self-compassion is the antidote to perfectionism. Where perfectionism would ask, “Why haven’t you done this yet? You are falling behind so much, as always! You have to finish it! Now!” Self-compassion asks instead, “What has made it difficult for you to complete this? How can we get help with this task? What do you need in order to do it? Is it actually important to you or is there something else you value more and want to focus on?”
Self-compassion is shifting from an attitude of judgment, criticism, and shame to an attitude of curiosity, acceptance, and nurturing.
While perfectionism is destructive and always looking to eliminate things, solve things forever, avoid, and control; self-compassion is constructive, uplifting, collaborative, and promotes a feeling of loving connection to oneself. Many women make the mistake of believing that their perfectionism is a gift, a superpower that helps them stay above the rip tide. You might be thinking: “without my drive, I would let everything go and slip up completely!” As someone who also used to believe that, I am here to tell you that perfectionism tricks you into giving IT credit. It is a mean coach that shames you into action, but the real hero is always you. Your perfectionism did not help you achieve your goals; it was you and the work you put in. The perfectionism is just a thought process that accompanies you, adding stress, shame, and loneliness to the process of achievement. Applying self-compassion to your life will empower you to continue being the awesome woman that you are while providing a new way to treat yourself as you move through your goals.
While perfectionism works as a good motivator in the short term, in the long term it gets greedy and ends up cannibalizing your self-esteem. What do I mean by that? Well, think about a time that you achieved something great. Are you feeling so low you cannot even give yourself credit for anything? (Might be perfectionism that stole your pride from you!) If something came to mind, did that feel like enough when you achieved it? Chances are if you are caught in the grips of perfectionism, achievements feel meaningless, bare minimum, and the high from them is short-lived. Why is that? Well, perfectionism has you convinced that it achieved the goal for you. You are just skirting by doing “not enough” as always, and if it wasn’t for perfectionism, you wouldn’t have ever come close to that. This thought process leads to long-term burnout. Tasks evolve to become meaningless as each new accomplishment feels empty, stressful, inadequate, and increasingly not worth the effort. Most perfectionists actually oscillate between phases of “productivity” and total collapse of motivation as they realize they feel bad and feel afraid to start tasks in order to avoid the self-criticism and shame spiral. They are avoiding their perfectionistic self-criticism that will begin once they start the task, but the shame grows as they avoid it longer.
Perfectionism is like a bad boyfriend or partner.
You keep on hustling to make him happy but he only ever treats you somewhat kindly when you’ve done everything right by him and God forbid you have needs in the process because those should be ignored and de-prioritized in order to complete his goals. Too real? My point is that maybe those bouts of perfectionism-fueled effort feel special, but as time wears on, do they feel good? Is it sustainable? Most perfectionists fear they are spiraling towards a collapse. They deeply fear a loss of control and lapses in discipline. The solution perfectionism provides is always to “try harder” and ignore your concerns. Maybe this is not an answer, but it could be the problem.
An attitude of self-compassion might in the short term result in lowered expectations for yourself, less productivity, changing relationships with others, fluctuating self-esteem, and what feels like an overwhelming desire to rest constantly. However, think of this as a detox. You are recovering from a toxic mindset that kept you unhappy for however many years. Like any bad breakup, there is going to be some rebounding, some confusion, and hopelessness at times. However, with time you will find your self-esteem stabilizing in a more permanent way. Your achievements will feel truly yours and you will feel pride when remembering them. The self-doubt and criticism will be replaced with self-acceptance, self-love, and awareness of your strengths. Not only will this improve your relationship with yourself, but it can also help you feel less negatively about others. The little things feel less personal, the people who can’t meet your needs become extras and not main characters, and you will find yourself feeling calm at times and certain in your decisions. This feeling is alien to a recovering perfectionist.
What I mean by calm is that it feels as if you don’t need to change anything or do anything for the moment to be okay.
This mental state is where the magic begins to happen, and it is my hope as a therapist to help women find their way through that while accepting and holding space for all the versions of themselves along the way. After all, we are always trying to survive the best way we know how. My hope is that I have been able to help you recognize the need for self-compassion in your life. Please take what is helpful from what I have said and feel free to let go of anything that did not work for you.
My next blog post will provide concrete strategies for implementing self-compassion in day-to-day life. While working on ourselves alone is powerful, reaching out to a therapist that works from a strengths-based and feminist perspective can be helpful as well as you begin your journey with self-compassion and breaking up with perfectionism. Keep reading my blog to learn more, and if you are in Florida and looking for a therapist to help you on your path toward self-compassion, please feel free to fill out an inquiry on my contact page and I will be happy to assist!