Perfect Me vs. Perfectly Me
My whole life, I've prided myself on always being enough - always having what it takes to accomplish the task, and accomplish it well. In a lot of ways, it has defined me. I can carry the world on my shoulders, no problem. Friends in high school will remember my dismay over a grade on a test that really wasn't bad at all. In fact, when I started taking a few classes for my undergraduate degree, I ran into an impossible professor during my very first semester. It didn't matter if you took notes during all the lectures and read the textbook, you weren't getting above a C on those tests. Well, this perfectionist was not going to stand for anything other than perfection... so I almost dropped the class. I ended the class with an 89%. It nearly killed 17-year-old me. Looking back, I'm really glad I didn't drop the class, because I would have been devastated a year later when I also got a B+ from another challenging professor. Had I given way to perfectionism in those moments, I would have had at least one more class to take which would have meant more money, time, and stress. Those seem like minor issues, but they were major for me. My intensity for perfection was only fueled by things like what my old boss said to me when I worked at Chick-fil-A many years ago. He said that we aim for perfection, so we can arrive at excellence, because if we aim for excellence, we'll only be good, not great. So, perfection it was... is.
Fast forward six or so years... and here we are. Nothing has made me realize what a terrible person I am more than being a parent. After all, how could someone get so upset with such little people? How could I be so impatient? How could I not know exactly all the right things to say and do every single time? How could I so royally mess up every day?! Anyone else? I know it can't just be me. Anyway, finally, I got to a place where I felt like things were leveling out. I successfully potty-trained my most stubborn child, and was starting a new job I could do part-time, all from home. Win. Win. Win. Win. Win.
Then the call came. You foster parents know what call I'm talking about. "I have *insert name here*, and she's ready to join her siblings." Say, what?! My youngest had just turned one, only two weeks prior. I wasn't ready for a newborn again. We had just started to really get in the swing of things, and my new job started in a week. But, we had talked about it for the 8 months leading up to this moment, and we had decided we could do it. After all, I can carry the world on my shoulders, no problem. So we jumped. At the time we got my kids' little sister, I had a 3-year-old, 2-year-old, 1-year-old, and then 1-week-old. In only a year and three days, we went from having no children, to having four. What. A. Whirlwind.
Well, ya know what? Adding a newborn to the mix really threw off my groove. It caused a lot of jealousy (which led to mom-guilt), and patience for all four children greatly decreased. Mommy simply cannot hold tantrum-ing 1-year-old, while feeding 1-week-old, while watching 3-year-old twirl around the room to a dance she 'made up herself', while helping 2-year-old wipe her bottom because she hasn't quite figured out how to do that by herself after she poops. Thankfully, I have a husband who is level-headed and was ready to brainstorm a way to make all of this madness work. So, we made the decision to put our littlest baby in daycare full-time.
And I felt like a complete and utter failure. After all, I'm a stay-at-home mom, who apparently can't handle being a stay-at-home mom, right? In addition to being a mom of four spunky, young children, I do the regular mom chauffeuring (to daycare, doctor appointments, etc.), keep up with foster care responsibilities (monthly paperwork, weekly and monthly visits, etc.), work 15+ hours a week, and am in graduate school (graduating this year!!!). I suddenly found myself acknowledging, for maybe the first time in my life, that I just couldn't do it. I could not manage myself and my children with the way life was. Thankfully, I have had so many mom friends from my alma mater encourage me in beautiful ways with words of affirmation I could never give to myself because........ I'm a recovering perfectionist. I have always been my worst critic, and no one is harder on me than I am on myself. If you're reading this, I'm guessing you can relate.
Needless to say, I have had to do a lot of reflection the past few months - figuring out what really matters and why it matters. And you know what I've found? Much of my difficulty stems back to the belief that I have to be good-enough for God to love me too. I've always been good at following rules. I've always been pretty black-and-white about things, following my head more than my heart, and doing the right thing simply because it ought to be done, not because I felt some intense desire to do it. But that's just not what God's about. Ellie Holcomb has written many beautiful songs that have become somewhat of an anthem for me lately. In her song, Wonderfully Made, she sings, "What if I saw me the way that You see me? What if I believed it was true? What if I traded the shame and self-hatred for a chance at believing you?" Recently we purchased a piano, and I've rediscovered the joy of playing and singing. Once again, I found myself moved by the lyrics of Ellie Holcomb, but this time in her song, You Are Loved: "But you are loved, oh, not because of what you've done, no. Even when your heart has run the other way, nothing's gonna change His love. And you are wanted, not because you are perfect. I know that you don't think you're worth that kind of grace. Look into His face you'll know that you are love." Wow. What words, and what a message they spoke to my heart. God's words to me are not the discouraging, belittling phrases that I say to myself. What would change in my life and my spirit if I truly grasped how deeply He cared for me, flaws and all?
Knowing something in my head is different than knowing it in my heart, and this is my life as a recovering perfectionist. I still struggle with the intense drive to be perfect. But I am in recovery, because I recognize my problem. Years ago, my pastor recommended a book, that I finally started reading a few months ago, and it has also opened my eyes to this world of perfectionism that I have attempted to live in. If you consider yourself to be a perfectionist, then you need to get this book by Brené Brown- The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. In this book, Brené states that, "Where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking," and I've found this to be terribly true. So, to all the recovering perfectionists out there... You don't need to be ashamed. You are enough. You are loved.
Fast forward six or so years... and here we are. Nothing has made me realize what a terrible person I am more than being a parent. After all, how could someone get so upset with such little people? How could I be so impatient? How could I not know exactly all the right things to say and do every single time? How could I so royally mess up every day?! Anyone else? I know it can't just be me. Anyway, finally, I got to a place where I felt like things were leveling out. I successfully potty-trained my most stubborn child, and was starting a new job I could do part-time, all from home. Win. Win. Win. Win. Win.
Then the call came. You foster parents know what call I'm talking about. "I have *insert name here*, and she's ready to join her siblings." Say, what?! My youngest had just turned one, only two weeks prior. I wasn't ready for a newborn again. We had just started to really get in the swing of things, and my new job started in a week. But, we had talked about it for the 8 months leading up to this moment, and we had decided we could do it. After all, I can carry the world on my shoulders, no problem. So we jumped. At the time we got my kids' little sister, I had a 3-year-old, 2-year-old, 1-year-old, and then 1-week-old. In only a year and three days, we went from having no children, to having four. What. A. Whirlwind.
Well, ya know what? Adding a newborn to the mix really threw off my groove. It caused a lot of jealousy (which led to mom-guilt), and patience for all four children greatly decreased. Mommy simply cannot hold tantrum-ing 1-year-old, while feeding 1-week-old, while watching 3-year-old twirl around the room to a dance she 'made up herself', while helping 2-year-old wipe her bottom because she hasn't quite figured out how to do that by herself after she poops. Thankfully, I have a husband who is level-headed and was ready to brainstorm a way to make all of this madness work. So, we made the decision to put our littlest baby in daycare full-time.
And I felt like a complete and utter failure. After all, I'm a stay-at-home mom, who apparently can't handle being a stay-at-home mom, right? In addition to being a mom of four spunky, young children, I do the regular mom chauffeuring (to daycare, doctor appointments, etc.), keep up with foster care responsibilities (monthly paperwork, weekly and monthly visits, etc.), work 15+ hours a week, and am in graduate school (graduating this year!!!). I suddenly found myself acknowledging, for maybe the first time in my life, that I just couldn't do it. I could not manage myself and my children with the way life was. Thankfully, I have had so many mom friends from my alma mater encourage me in beautiful ways with words of affirmation I could never give to myself because........ I'm a recovering perfectionist. I have always been my worst critic, and no one is harder on me than I am on myself. If you're reading this, I'm guessing you can relate.
Needless to say, I have had to do a lot of reflection the past few months - figuring out what really matters and why it matters. And you know what I've found? Much of my difficulty stems back to the belief that I have to be good-enough for God to love me too. I've always been good at following rules. I've always been pretty black-and-white about things, following my head more than my heart, and doing the right thing simply because it ought to be done, not because I felt some intense desire to do it. But that's just not what God's about. Ellie Holcomb has written many beautiful songs that have become somewhat of an anthem for me lately. In her song, Wonderfully Made, she sings, "What if I saw me the way that You see me? What if I believed it was true? What if I traded the shame and self-hatred for a chance at believing you?" Recently we purchased a piano, and I've rediscovered the joy of playing and singing. Once again, I found myself moved by the lyrics of Ellie Holcomb, but this time in her song, You Are Loved: "But you are loved, oh, not because of what you've done, no. Even when your heart has run the other way, nothing's gonna change His love. And you are wanted, not because you are perfect. I know that you don't think you're worth that kind of grace. Look into His face you'll know that you are love." Wow. What words, and what a message they spoke to my heart. God's words to me are not the discouraging, belittling phrases that I say to myself. What would change in my life and my spirit if I truly grasped how deeply He cared for me, flaws and all?
Knowing something in my head is different than knowing it in my heart, and this is my life as a recovering perfectionist. I still struggle with the intense drive to be perfect. But I am in recovery, because I recognize my problem. Years ago, my pastor recommended a book, that I finally started reading a few months ago, and it has also opened my eyes to this world of perfectionism that I have attempted to live in. If you consider yourself to be a perfectionist, then you need to get this book by Brené Brown- The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. In this book, Brené states that, "Where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking," and I've found this to be terribly true. So, to all the recovering perfectionists out there... You don't need to be ashamed. You are enough. You are loved.
"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." - Anna Quindlen, Being Perfect.Here's to a new year of embracing who I am, and letting go of the shame of imperfection.
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