Tag: Perfectionism

The situation on breathing

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It’s summer time, season of swimsuits and abs classes. As I was teaching yoga to five people in one room, the abs class next door was a sardine can of men and women, crunching away in pursuit of the elusive six pack. Even now, in the best physical shape of my life, the closest I’m going to get to a six pack is the supermarket beverage aisle. When I was in high school, seems that all the popular people–cheerleaders, athletes–had the taut bellies, firmly establishing the connection that powerful abs were something to seek.

In recent years, the imperative seems to have softened somewhat, at least if the flabby midsections of celebrities showing up on “tell-all” magazine covers in that same supermarket check out line are any clue. Still, we suck in our guts, ever mindful of tightening those muscles to look good. And why is this a problem?

When you’re ever-focused on flat abs, it’s quite likely you never breathe really deeply. We pull in those muscles, concerned about appearance, or toning, or trying to emulate ‘the situation.’ The air doesn’t really fill our lungs completely. With each breath of a healthy breath, we inhale 7 pints of oxygen. With an appearance conscious–or anxious–breath, we inhale only one pint. Not only are we depriving our brains and other organs of the life force of oxygen, when we breath only from the chest, rather than the belly, we are reinforcing the habit. Breathing from the chest restricts the muscles of the shoulders and neck, causing constant tension and constriction in those muscles. In turn, there’s a ripple effect for your abs–which weaken from lack of use in that most basic skill, breathing.

Who says sucking it in is the way to rock hard abs? Reverse this catch-22. Be mindful of bringing all 7 pints of healthy oxygen into your system. You’ll improve brain function and metabolize stress hormones. Breathe in deeply through your nose, filling your lungs and allowing your belly to rise. Then exhale deeply through your nose, pushing your shoulders back and down as you pull your belly button to your spine. It’s easier to restore this healthy habit of breathing if you practice it routinely: two minutes each hour, ten minutes each evening, at each stop light, as you are on hold with that help desk.

As we like to say in yoga practice, you always have your breath. It’s a great built-in tool–use it.

Kindness exercises

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As an addendum to the last post on being kinder to ourselves, here are two exercises to implement the goal of increased self-kindness.

1) Loving-kindness meditation is a classic strategy to open the heart and increase positive feelings toward self. While seemingly simple, this exercise can be incredibly powerful in releasing pent-up negativity toward self, allowing the love in your heart to rush in for YOU. And you only need three minutes.

Settle into a quiet, comfortable spot and close your eyes. Begin to focus on your breath, simply noticing the in and out process. Feel your lungs expand, feel your chest and abdomen rise and fall, notice the air moving past your nostrils. Once you feel the rhythm of your breath, repeat to yourself for several minutes:

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I feel love. May I live with ease.

On Thursday, when I posted the most recent post, I was upset about a decision I’d made, chastising myself for trusting someone else to do a job that I could’ve done. The perfectionist in me was running rampant with insults after the job was NOT done to my satisfaction: “How could you have been so stupid? You could’ve saved the money and done it yourself!” Suddenly, I remembered what I’d just posted about being kind to myself. I still seemed unable to turn it off. I closed my eyes, repeated the above phrases ten times, and was able to let the event go.

2) I’ve addressed bragging before, and how nice girls DON’T. So I thoroughly enjoyed this post over at Inviting Joy last week. Seems like a wonderful way to be nice to yourself, so take a few minutes to compose your own highlight reel today. This week, mine includes that ability to switch gears from perfection-driven harpy to calm self that I refer to above.

Redirect your kindness

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You pride yourself on being a really nice, kind person, right? You strive to treat others well–from your children to the overworked store clerk. You feel guilty if you snap at a loved one or overreact with the slightest harrumph after waiting unattended in the doctor’s office as the minutes tick to hours. Yet, in your own mind, you verbally assault yourself for perceived errors and experienced feelings, easily hurling aspersions of “stupid,” “weak,” “lazy.” Simply fill-in-the-blank with your favorite personal insults. Or maybe you deny your own needs, pushing yourself to the brink doing for others while neglecting your own sleep, exercise, nutrition, or fun.

Where’s your self-compassion? Your ability to treat yourself as well as you hope to treat others? Self-compassion is the new hot topic in wellness and happiness. Psychological research is building the case that self-compassion is the most important life skill. Children who learn to treat themselves kindly, withholding harsh judgments of self, become more resilient, brave, creative, and energetic than kids who learn to chastise themselves. If you’re a parent, chances are you agree that you want to teach your child(ren) to talk kindly towards self–even while you continue your internal self-bashing.

Kristen Neff, professor at University of Texas at Austin, is leading the charge against this current trend of beating ourselves up as a form of motivation, in our relentless pursuit to achieve. She found that being self-critical was perceived as a way to keep one’s self in line, supposedly protecting ourselves from sloth or failure. It backfires, leaving us depressed, discouraged, or anxious. Why wouldn’t this be true? We avoid chastising children in this negative way that we adopt so lightly in our own heads for just this reason. We accept that if we verbally berate others, they will feel badly.

But we can’t seem to adopt the same grace toward our own human failings. We have tempers. We make mistakes. We hate. We open our mouths at times when we’re tired, hungry, cranky, and $%*#!! escapes that we’d rather censor. Purposely and mindfully cutting yourself some slack is one place to start. Forgive yourself for being a regular imperfect person with powerful feelings. Talk as nicely to yourself as you would to a loved one or friend. You know how to do it–just aim it at yourself, rather than reserving the kindness for others. Accept your emotions, insecurities, and overreactions, withholding judgment.

Self-compassion is not all about words, though. It’s also about self-care: resting when you are tired, knowing when you need a break, asking for help, having a good cry, or scheduling in some fun. Grace toward yourself can be in the form of a massage or a night off, too.

To quote Judith Orloff, MD, on self-compassion: “we make progress when we beat ourselves up a little bit less each day.” It’s just baby steps: being honest about and accepting our human feelings and mistakes while avoiding the leap into overreaction and self-judgment.

Like quizzes? Here’s one on self-compassion developed by Kristin Neff. And the New York Times offers some of Neff’s tips for implementing self-compassion here.

Regroup on life’s winding path

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There’s an old story about the young bride and the ham. Cooking a ham for the first time, she lopped off both ends of the ham, threw them away, and put the ham in the pan to bake. Her husband questioned her–what was wrong with those pieces? They looked perfectly fine to him. The young woman answered “my mother always did it that way.” Humoring her husband, she called up her mom to ask the reason. Dear old mom gave the same reply–her mom had always cut and tossed the ends as well. Working up the chain of grandmothers in pursuit of the origin of this supposed necessary step in ham preparation, great-grandmother finally had the answer: to make the ham fit in her pan.

Even if you’ve never baked a ham, you may be a locked-in creature of habit. Two examples have jumped out lately. In infancy, parents strive to meet the baby’s needs ASAP, jumping at the least cry or whimper. It’s true that babies who are fed on demand and picked up promptly when they cry become securely attached to their caregivers and even cry less. And of course we don’t want our children to be unhappy–ever. As kids grow, however, this strategy needs to evolve. If parents don’t teach children that a) others have needs too and b) waiting is sometimes necessary, we risk raising self-centered brats with no capacity to soothe themselves or delay gratification.

An achievement-oriented, perfectionistic drive toward life is another strategy to revise over time. Working toward 120% throughout school, even into graduate/professional training and establishment of a career, is rewarded because it leads to accomplishments. At some point, however, the value of this over-the-top drive reaches the tipping point. Continually working for 120%–or even 100%—is exhausting. We feel never good enough; we’ve never “arrived.” We don’t allow ourselves to savor accomplishments, in favor of life balance. And when we try to back off, because of the human tendency toward all or nothing thinking, we feel like failures. Either it’s 120%, or nada. We don’t know how to find that middle ground of perfectly good–or even excellent–versus perfection.

When we forget to question the path, the tradition, the long-held strategy, misery and frustration can result. Needs and goals change; steps to achieve those shift. Who says the old way is still the best way? More of the same is counterproductive.

When feeling stressed or stuck, challenge your strategy. Do something different for a change. At the Chopra retreat that I attended recently, leader Davidji, challenged us to write down an expectation we had for the outcome to a usual interpersonal encounter. We then flipped the paper over and had to write five other possible scenarios–mind-bending, in a challenging and good way. The next time your strategic habit is not working, push yourself to generate five new alternatives. And then apply a new solution, for a possibly pleasant surprise–relief!

Unexpected gifts

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You know those frustrating moments you have, where you are intending action A, and get result B, which you could have never accomplished in a million years if you’d been trying for that result? Let me explain. We’ve had a run on them around here lately that made me pay attention.

1) I was driving, and lowered the window on the passenger side to throw out a plum pit. (It was a half-inch in diameter and organic material that would decompose, but go ahead and scold me for littering if you want. That’s a post for another day.) Even though the window was open 4 inches, the pit hit the glass, bounced back into the car, and disappeared between the driver’s side seat and the center console.

2) My husband was walking through the work area that is our former (and future–we’re remodeling) bedroom, tripped on the rake (he’d been using to clean up broken mortar from tile removal). Regained his balance and saw that the lace on his shoe was entwined in the rake, looped up and over the tines completely as if he’d sat down and threaded it over.

3) The TV remote was on the bed one moment, and completely missing the next. Looking under covers, under bed, under newspapers–not to be found. Finally found it two feet away nestled inside a shoe.

Now, if you’d been AIMING to accomplish any of these tasks, you’d never think them possible, right? These impossible outcomes always leave me aghast, too–and completely frustrated. I could’ve sat for hours trying to bank shot that plum pit at the window and back between the seat and console. Etc.

So I took a deep breath, looking at these crazy quirks of accomplishment, and asked: what is the meaning here? Gremlins? Instead of feeling frustrated at these events, I’ve decided from now on to view them as signs of our miraculous potential. Instead of sighing, I’m going to embrace the inherent wonder. If I can accomplish these tricks without trying, I can do anything I set my mind to. Who says that’s not true?

Any examples of your own? Start tuning in, because I’d love to hear them.

P.S. on Perfection

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I stumbled upon this quote from James Ishmail Ford, which shares one more thought about perfection as an achievable concept that already exists in reality:

“The world is perfect as it is. That’s the insight of the spiritual eye. Everything just as it is, is. No judgment, no second thought. Just this. And, and, and, at the very same time, it needs work. Lord, it needs work. That’s the other eye. Starving children, oppressions and exploitations of every sort, greed, hatred, and endless certainties all leading to small and great hurts, the suffering world crying out for justice, for mercy, for some action.”

Sums it up much more eloquently than I could. This clarifies how these two extremes really can and do coexist within us and our world, and we have responsibility to work for improvements therein.

Perfect is a given–Perfectionism, part 2

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Perfectionism. The state of being perfect. In part one of this series on perfectionism, I referred to two definitions of perfectionism: 1) that perfection involves being disappointed in any aspect of our lives that is not exactly as we’d wish, vs. 2) a religious belief that moral or spiritual perfection exists within this human life. So which is it? Are we imperfect beings living imperfect lives, with the quest for perfection a crazy-making path? Or are we and our lives perfect already, just as we are? Makes my brain fuzzy, so I’m infusing a little philosophy into this blog today as I briefly explore the concepts underneath definition #2.

Not having much schooling in philosophy and/or Eastern religion, the idea that perfection already exists in the universe has been slow to dawn on me. Eons of writers, from Buddhists to Christians to atheist scientists, have expounded upon the idea that the universe represents perfection already, especially the perfection of nature. American author Alice Walker asserted “in nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” Likewise, Walt Whitman exclaimed about the perfection of the universe, saying “All the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.” German mathemetician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote that God (substitute higher power or source, if you wish) created the universe from infinite choices, saying “the actual world, as the result of all these claims, must be the most perfect possible.” Even fellow psychologist Wayne Dyer, Ph.D., much later to the table but inspired by the Tao Te Ching, writes “Everything is perfect in the universe – even your desire to improve it.”

Courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory on Flickr

These collective views suggest that the universe– and by definition, this includes it’s inhabitants and the progression of their lives– is already perfect. We can embrace this perfection, trusting that the overall plan of the universe is much bigger than our individual minds can comprehend. Who says our meager human brains have a handle on how things should be? In the words of Caroline Myss, “human logic is not divine logic.” At times, believing that “everything happens for a reason” and that all in our world is working out perfectly, the way it is meant to be, can open us up to feeling the boundless possibilities within ourselves. We are already perfect, even in human-scale imperfections.

Perhaps the distinction is big picture, world-view perfection, versus concrete Martha Stewartesque, perfectly-folded-napkins-on-the-exquisitely-dressed-holiday-table perfection. This philosophy says that we can take comfort and affirm our value in our implicit rightness of being and doing. The belief that, at any one moment, we are all doing the best that we can–flaws and all– has infused my entire practice of psychology. Even while it’s hard to apply sometimes in my own life. Remembering this in your daily life can be life-affirming: we’re all perfect, just as is.

Perfectionism is a bad thing? Fuzzy dichotomy #2

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Fuzzy or prickly?

Perfectionism. According to the Free Dictionary, perfectionism is 1) a propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards; and 2) a belief in certain religions that moral or spiritual perfection can be achieved before the soul has passed into the afterlife. So we want to be perfect, and can’t–or we already are? Sounds like a fuzzy dichotomy to me.

As a psychologist, I’ve tended to subscribe to the view that perfectionism is a) a bad thing, and b) unobtainable and unrealistic. With b) explaining a). In my book, Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box: Cut Yourself Some Slack (and Still Raise Great Kids) in the Age of Extreme Parenting, I challenged moms to let go of that drive to be perfect parents producing perfect kids living perfect lives. “Perfectly good mothering” is the healthy alternative I propose in the book, i.e., defining the best mom you can be, given your personal mix of strengths and weaknesses.

Research has shown that there are, in fact, different types of perfectionism. Self-oriented perfectionists (SOPs) have strict standards for themselves and are keenly motivated to attain perfection and avoid failure. SOPs critically evaluate their successes and failures, not letting themselves off the hook. Other-oriented perfectionists (OOPs) set unrealistic standards for others (e.g., partners, children, co-workers), and are likely to stringently evaluate how others measure up against those standards. This pattern of expecting others to perform doesn’t make relationships with OOPs very easy, and so would be considered maladaptive. Socially-prescribed perfectionists (SPPs) think others expect unrealistic performance from them. Certain that they can’t live up to the high standards they believe others hold, i.e., what a friend of mine dubbed “the magazine life.” SPPs worry that others evaluate them critically.

Whether perfectionism is maladaptive or adaptive in our lives may come down to two broad research dimensions of perfectionism:: positive strivings and maladaptive evaluation concerns. SOPs may not worry about how they are evaluated, but instead focus on the positive striving angle. This, in turn, leads them to great achievements. That the demands of OOPs foster tension in relationships is self-evident, and could fill a whole post. SPPs are definitely driven by worries that they will be evaluated poorly, and likely miss positive feedback, feeling never good enough.

Research backs up the idea that the drive to perfectionism in our daily lives is counter to mental health. Recently, new moms most at risk of developing postpartum depression and anxiety were those who suffered from socially-prescribed perfectionism. In other words, these women believed others expected them to be perfect: house clean, children and selves well-groomed and well-dressed. Sucked up into showing this perfect image to the world, and certain that they would fail, these women exhausted themselves given the realities of life with an infant.

As for one aspect of this fuzzy dichotomy, perfectionism seems to be adaptive only when it leads us to strive in positive ways, so that we set achievable standards for ourselves. If others expect–or we think others expect–too much from us, disappointment, negative evaluation, and even depression and anxiety can result. In the next post, I’ll explore more about the fuzz implied by part 2 of the definition in the first paragraph. Maybe this whole discussion is moot, because we are–and everything about the world in which we live is-already perfect.