Shame, Perfectionism, and the Barriers They Create to Connection
Where I’m at
I began writing this post after week 5 of getting Life Coaching (hi Lindsay if you’re reading this – you will see much of what you taught me here!) and it continues to be SO relevant as I’m noting more recently how much shame has been part of my life. It’s such a difficult feeling, and one I can really struggle to accept (I can feel ashamed about feeling shame), but I know it has to be honestly looked at and embraced to heal. And since that is my greatest intention, it’s normal that opportunities will arise for me to see it clearly.
Of course, the ego can be tricky as it tries to protect us and our inner children from feeling certain pain. But any part of us that doesn’t believe we can handle our shame is an illusion. I hope everyone (myself included) can set themselves free from these feelings and heal the parts of themselves that they want to hide by choosing to embrace them and love themselves totally.
Being ‘White Lies Me’
In Atlas of the Heart, Brown writes:
Authenticity is a requirement for belonging, and fitting in is a threat.
Authenticity is a requirement for connection, and perfectionism (a type of fitting in) is a threat. (172)
Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of messages about authenticity and honesty. I’ve been shown how I hide myself from others, close myself off, and push opportunities for connection away. I also use humor as a way to conceal my genuine emotions. Recently, I took a message from my inner child, who said:
‘You are white-lies-you sometimes with those around you’.
That struck me, as I remember learning as a little kid (desperate to be ‘good’) that white lies are still lies. I remember the horror sinking in even then as I realized my many failures to be honest. With time, however, I seemed to let go of my judgment against white lies and unconsciously integrate them as a way of being. I was ‘white lies me’ often to keep myself safe, to keep others from behaving a certain way, to get others to like me or accept me. And I still catch myself doing this all the time – not just to others but myself as well: I’ll undermine how I’m feeling to myself, hide my true desires from myself, and/or use fear to create confusion and obfuscate what I really need or want. Of course, this is not unlike what I can do in relationship with others, where I may hide my feelings by withdrawing or using humor, silence my voice if I need help or hold a difference in opinion, and, often, keep my interests and beliefs private.
Ultimately (and perhaps, of course) these patterns of hiding and engaging in behavioral ‘white lies’ have hurt me the most. I’ve deprived myself of connection and a sense of belonging to a community, and I’ve often felt alone and not understood why. It’s like some part of me felt that I deserved to be rewarded for concealing my uncomfortable feelings from others, and I felt cheated when others, who did not do this, seemed to have a greater sense of self-worth and belonging in the world. Wasn’t I being good by never inconveniencing any one with my needs and emotions?
I think this is a normal feeling and question – especially for those whose feelings were not supported by others when they were young. Especially especially if you were yelled at or punished for your uncomfortable feelings. It makes sense: you probably wererewarded for performing insincere emotions at many points in your life (I know I was). Having learned this approach to my emotions, I continued the work of punishing myself and my inner child by bypassing my negative feelings or treating them as an inconvenience – dealing with them just so that they would go away quicker. It’s an unkind message with the implication that you see their (your) emotions as a nuisance: ‘let’s fix this ASAP so I can carry on with my life’. This is both ungenerous and untrue, as our emotions carry so much wisdom and insight as to where we are and what we need to understand. They are our teachers; they are not good or bad, but messengers of and for our healing.
Inspired by Mary Oliver,
Like many, I always thought I had to be ‘good’ to be worthy of love. ‘Good’ quickly became synonymous with ‘happy’ and ‘helpful’. Anything that wasn’t this I was subtly rejecting in myself. If I was sad, I was bad. If I was angry, I was bad. If I needed help or comfort, I was bad and certainly not worthy of it. As I inevitably would feel the whole color-wheel of emotions, I’d feel ashamed or guilty for anything less than happy, kind, and helpful. All of this painful judging of myself and my experiences, even subtly, reinforced a common core wound held by many of us: ‘You are not good enough’.
No wonder Mary Oliver’s line ‘You do not have to be good’ hit so hard when I first read it! There was something so liberating about those words, as I had crafted a whole personality from an intense desire to be just that (and more).
It wasn’t easy for my ego to accept that I had perfectionist tendencies. I think I was even too perfectionist to confess it. I had a judgement against perfectionism as ‘wrong’, too. My perfectionism is based around behaving perfectly: being always kind, balanced, fair, good – and most importantly – being perceived as kind, balanced, fair, good, etc., as perfectionism tends to prioritize our (perceived) perception by others.
Again, it makes sense that trying to be perceived as ‘perfect’ emerges from a wound of not feeling good enough. If we felt ashamed of/ shamed for parts of ourselves, it makes sense that we would try to avoid rejection and criticism by never showing the parts of ourselves that we’ve struggled to accept. Likewise, we might have developed hyper-awareness about how other people feel and what they think as a way to keep ourselves safe. By being so invested in other people’s perspectives, we could modify ourselves to accommodate whatever we thought we needed to be safe, liked, or accepted. Our ego wants to keep us and our inner child safe from pain like rejection. So, we might even hide certain things from ourselves if they wouldn’t fit our ego’s model of acceptable (“good”) feelings and desires.
The perfectionist dilemma and self-improvement
But in my experience, attempting to live a happy life while also attempting to be perceived as ‘perfect’ by others is a losing game – even in a purely logistical way. Again from Brown:
Papers...provide evidence that people with high levels of perfectionist traits:
Are doomed to fail at meeting their own expectations and the expectations they assume are held by others
Perceive themselves as consistently falling short of others’ expectations
Behave in ways that result in perceived and actual exclusion and rejection by others
Feel socially disconnected and have fewer social connections (144)
These outcomes really resonated me – in such a way that I really could no longer deny I was letting shame drive me further and further down the addictive and self-destructive road of perfectionism. Projecting other peoples’ expectations and assuming their disappointment in or upset with me (often over very little) has been a huge source of worry, self-criticism, and social anxiety. It shows just how perfectionism doesn’t even work to keep us safe from feelings of rejection or shame. In fact, it ‘actually increases the odds that we’ll experience...painful emotions and often leads to self blame: It’s my fault. I’m feeling this way because I’m not good enough’ (146).
I think this speaks to the need to use self-improvement tools responsibly. For a long time, a hidden motivation of mine in this work was to become ‘better’, and this can still crop up for me. I have to remind myself all the time who and what I’m doing this for! In addition, I’d often blame myself even more for my ‘shortcomings’, as I felt more viscerally that I should know better than to be feeling whatever I was feeling.
In addition, if you come into the practice of ‘self-improvement’ with the mindset to fix up all your flaws (i.e. to be perfect) so that you are finally lovable to others, it’s not really coming from a place of/motivation for greater self-love and acceptance. Then, we might feel even more self-critical, self-blaming, or ego frustrated when/if we still don’t feel that sense of worthiness or belonging. We’re not bad for trying to improve ourselves, but true healing has to come from loving and accepting ourselves just as we are. If not, self-improvement tools might wrongly be used as a tool for perfectionist tendencies and self-rejection.
This relates to what Brown refers to as the “perfectionism social disconnection model”: if we don’t love and accept ourselves as we are, we may push others away, feelpushed away, or even behave in a way that ultimately pushes people away. Personally, I’ve come to hiding out, being hyper-independent, concealing my feelings, and showing my vulnerabilities only when it is helpful to other people (because, if want to help heal others, we should never need anyone else, right?). In the past, I’ve also used affirmations to bypass my emotional discomfort and allowed a fear of negative thinking to keep me from being honest with myself and others about how I’m truly feeling. It makes sense that we might feel or fear being rejected by others when we are so often rejecting aspects of ourselves that need our love.
Where I’m trying to be
So, I’m doing my best to change that now. My inner child included in her message that the ‘reward’ for this work is ‘beautiful and exciting friendship’, but I’m starting by trying to be the best friend to myself that I can be. This means being honest with myself about my feelings and my needs, and refusing any impulse to ignore uncomfortable emotions. It’s meant that I’ve spent a lot of time reminding myself that I’m allowed to feel what I feel, and, most importantly, allowing myself to feel it.
What I’ve found so far is that, although it may seem like these wounds of shame and not being good enough are insurmountable at times, they are here to teach us something. And as always, these feelings are not bigger than us – nor are they us. It’s safe to feel everything that is here for us to feel, and as is so often said, we need to feel it to heal it. As I continue to grow my trust in Life and the lessons that are given to us, I increasingly realize that even these wounds are perfect – as they lead us to the truth of who we really are at a soul level: a being of unconditional love who totally loves and accepts us just the way we are and who knows, without a doubt, that we ‘belong’ by virtue of who we are – an expression of the Divine who is connected to all life. That’s where I’m trying to be, but I’m committed to loving myself as I am every step along the way.