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Spiritual Mistake #1 Perfectionism

“Let go of who you think you are supposed to be so that you can be who you truly are.”

—Brené Brown

I’ll bet you weren’t at all surprised to see this as my number one spiritual mistake. Chances are good that you’re a perfectionist (or like me, a recovering perfectionist!).

We often embark upon practices like yoga, prayer, or meditation because we’re hoping for a perfectly peaceful life. And then remember the last time you sat for meditation and it was crummy? All kinds of distracting, anxious, upsetting, annoying thoughts were going on. Did you say, “yippee”? Or did you get frustrated? Of course, like me, you were probably quite displeased.

Maybe you then tried harder to push those thoughts away, thinking, “This is not supposed to happen! I am supposed to be calm, relaxed, and serene. I’m supposed to look and feel like a Buddha in lotus pose: eyelids half-closed, body upright and aligned but oh so relaxed, and hands in a perfect mudra, completely still, looking as if I could float on a lotus leaf. Or at least I should feel that way.”

Um, no. Well, you certainly can have that experience. But if you’re attached to it—attached to outcome, expecting that it should, must, has to, and needs to be that way—then you’re holding on to some degree of perfection.

Spirituality Is Messy

The honest-to-goodness truth is that spirituality is a messy journey. You’ll have to get used to getting dirty, digging down deep, bumpy trails, picking up the trash, and sometimes even sitting in it because it just happens to be there.

The spiritual path is not about avoidance—avoidance of anything less than ideal—but about fully embracing who you are and whatever is. Yes, it involves taking appropriate action to continue on the path, but still, the path is what it is.

Your mind isn’t always going to be still. Neither will your body. In fact, they rarely will be. That’s OK. And your anxiety will arise from time to time, even after you’ve been practicing meditation, breathwork, or yoga for years. But as you continue on, you’ll develop the skill and courage to know how to journey through it rather than trying to push it away.

The “Saint Syndrome”

One of the attractive qualities of the spiritual path is the idea of becoming perfect. Sure, almost everyone has some ideal they seek to realize, even if they aren’t spiritual, like the pinnacle of their career, winning a marathon, or writing that bestselling book.

But spiritual seekers take that to the nth degree. This is what I call the Saint Syndrome. We have these spiritual teachers or gurus we look up to who seem to have it all together. They’re completely at ease all the time, sit in meditation for hours, seem content to continually do selfless service, and appear to have all the flawless answers to every deep question. Their love and devotion to the Divine are impeccable, as is their behavior. We look at the masters, like Jesus, Buddha, or Krishna, or modern-day saints like Mother Teresa or Gandhi, and think that we’re expected to become like that. We try to mold ourselves into that serene and elevated state. Those saints certainly don’t have anxiety, do they? There’s an expectation to become like a saint, and we think that’s the intended end result of our practice.

Do you have Saint Syndrome? Well, let me reassure you that you aren’t expected to become one. In fact, it would be completely inauthentic to force yourself to try to be some external idea of what perfection is. Forcing yourself to be anything, even if you think it is your Divine nature, is simply doing violence to yourself.

Expectations

We develop this Saint Syndrome by comparing ourselves to others and having expectations of how both we ourselves and the spiritual path should be. Whenever expectations and comparison rear their heads, you can bet that anxiety and stress will be arriving in short order.

When I was nineteen, I took my first personal growth workshop at the encouragement of my father, who was very much into the self-improvement movement. In that first course, I learned something that stuck with me the rest of my life: expectations lead to disappointment.

When we have an expectation that something will happen in a certain way, i.e., attachment to outcome, we’re setting ourselves up for feeling let down. This is not the same as having a goal or an intent. We can have a clear idea of what we want to achieve or how we want to feel, like more relaxed and at ease. But if we’re expecting that result all the time, or expecting that at some point we won’t have to deal with fear or worry anymore, and then they show up, we can fall into the downward spiral of self-recrimination, shame, despair, and doubt.

We do our spiritual work (or play!) in order to increase our capacity for love, peace, trust, clarity, resilience, and many other qualities, and to improve the state of our lives. But if we have expectations about how that ought to unfold or what that looks like, and it doesn’t turn out perfectly that way (hint: it probably won’t), we’re setting ourselves up for more anxiety.

Case Study: “Why Did I Lose My Calm?”

Marilee came to see me for difficulties with anxiety and depression. She struggled with being able to keep it all together: being a mom of three kids and a devoted wife, and at the same time, holding down a rewarding position as a social worker for a county clinic that served at-risk adolescents. She felt good about making a difference for these teens and loved her family, but often felt it was more than she could handle. She believed she was falling short of what she thought a mother, wife, and social worker should be.

I helped her return to her spiritual practices of meditation, self-compassion, and mindfulness, and, as we worked together for some time, she developed more ease and calm in dealing with her daily life. Her consistent practice was paying off.

Marilee planned to visit a spiritual center in Europe where there was a meditation teacher she admired, and that involved travel and flying. Fear of flying had been one of the issues for which she had sought help. She prepared, and she felt she was ready to travel, armed with the serene state she was developing.

But a wrench was thrown into the plan. She had to take a couple flights to get to her destination in France. The first one was the most turbulent flight she had ever experienced. She white-knuckled through it in a state of sheer terror. Then, on her connecting flight, she encountered a long delay, during which the passengers had to sit inside the airplane on the tarmac for hours—on a blazing hot day. She felt claustrophobic and panicky. This was not turning out how she had planned! And try as she might, she just couldn’t implement her mindfulness practice—it was just too scary. When she finally arrived at the retreat center, she felt traumatized. Although she enjoyed being there, it didn’t pan out to be the experience she had hoped it would be.

Coming home still feeling shook up from her ordeal, she despaired, thinking, “Why did I lose my calm state I had worked so hard to create?” She felt dejected and resistant to meditating again, with “Why bother? What did I do wrong?” going through her mind.

What I helped Marilee see is that no matter how much we prepare, sometimes life happens. Our spiritual path isn’t about meditating for a while and becoming perfectly serene, and then everything else is cake. The practice is to let go of our expectations and perfectionism and to know we have the resilience and skills to endure the challenges and return to our center again. She didn’t do anything wrong, other than the mistake of believing she wouldn’t have to feel fear again. After some work with self-compassion, feeling and listening to her anxiety, and embracing the now by letting go of how it was before (all of which is coming in Part III), the tension and despair released. She returned not only to feeling ease within, but also to her meditation practice—with nonattachment to outcome!

The Trap of Comparison

Comparison is related to expectations. I’ve often told my clients, “Comparison is the root of all depression.” When we compare ourselves to someone else—whether to a saint or that gorgeous woman in the sexy yoga clothes perfectly balanced in Crane pose on the mat next to us—we’re bound to feel less-than, as well as more anxious.

Comparison is a trap both ways. If we think, “Hey, look at me—I can sit still longer than those two guys over there who keep fidgeting…aren’t I a great meditator,” then we’re setting ourselves up again. Because we can be sure that comparison is a pendulum. If we’re feeling up and better-than one minute, then the next minute or the next week we’ll swing back into the doldrums. It’s the tricky ploy of the ego to try to keep us engaged in perfectionism by comparing, so that we’ll need that ego constantly telling us how great we are. If we fear not measuring up to others, we’ll get attached to feeling superior in order to compensate, and then we’re stuck in that comparison trap.

The last thing we want is to feel crappy about ourselves, isn’t it? But that is where the pendulum eventually swings if we buy into feeling that we’re better than others. The way out of the comparison trap is to let go of both ends of the spectrum: neither indulging in superiority nor allowing ourselves to believe that we’re less-than. The truth is that we are worthy, good-enough people and have been since the day we were born (and even before that, if that fits your beliefs). The simple fact that you came to this planet means you’re valuable and have something to offer. Let go of comparing yourself to others and trying to be perfect, focus on what you have to offer and who you truly are, and you’ll find your worries and fears diminishing.

Intolerance

Perfectionism causes anxiety because we become intolerant. OK, this is not a commentary on social justice. This is a commentary on how intolerant we become of ourselves and our lives when we buy into the idea that there’s some perfect way to be.

Spirituality ups the ante on our idea of perfection, because now we not only have to do something perfectly, we expect ourselves to be a perfect soul. Saint Syndrome tells us that we must not feel, think, or act in any way other than that of a blissful, transcendent yogini.

This attitude is terribly intolerant of, uh, human beings. All emotions are part of the experience, and worked with consciously, even the so-called “negative” emotions, like anger or fear, have gifts for us (as you’ll see in the section “Empowering Action”). Human beings make mis-takes , spill the milk, fart, and leave their desks messy. We also may react at times when we wish we would have responded.

The spiritual path is intended for imperfect people, because it’s those foibles and challenges that help us grow. We develop more compassion and open our hearts by our willingness to be vulnerable and embrace the pain and suffering of life. This takes us much deeper in our awakening than acting perfect all the time. So please, my friend, be more tolerant of yourself.

Perfection Is a Human Invention

The bottom line is that there’s really no such thing as perfection. Perfection is a human invention. It’s an idea conceived of and defined by human beings with limited human minds.

We have this idea that perfection means that everything is completely right and unmarred. Someone who is perfect has no flaws. We believe that it’s possible to be that perfect person. And we project this idea on our concept of the Divine, too—that It is perfect…according to our ideas of what perfect means.

But my understanding of Spirit is that it is Infinite, Unlimited, everywhere Present, and All That Is. How can anything that has no limits or bounds be limited by our idea of a word called perfection? And if that is true—that perfection doesn’t exist, not in the way we conceive of it, in the realm of the Infinite—then why are we as spiritual seekers holding on to the idea? Why hold onto an idea that causes us anxiety from continual self-comparison and, naturally, falling short?

Furthermore, if perfection doesn’t really exist except as a ridiculous idea in our minds, then neither does imperfection. Step out of the duality of perfect/imperfect and simply allow yourself to be, right here as you are. Take a deep breath of appreciation for simply being. You might find just by doing that, your body and mind relax a bit—one step made on your journey to more ease and resilience.