Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 74: Perfectionism and Shame

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74: Perfectionism and Shame · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

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  Hey everybody, have you ever noticed how the harder you try
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  to be perfect, the more empty you fell inside?
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  And maybe perfect isn't even the right word to hear.
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  Maybe you spent your whole life trying to get it right.
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  Like there's this thing that you just got that's kicking your
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  butt that you're just like, I really need to get this right.
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  Whether it's you as a man or as a partner.
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  Maybe it's faith-based as a believer or as a provider,
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  somebody that takes care of other people, but you realize
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  that no matter how good you are, it never feels like it's enough,
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  Like it's a destination you just can't quite reach.
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  Today I wanted to talk about perfectionism, not as like
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  necessarily like a personality trait, but is a survival
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  strategy because perfection. We're not going to talk on the
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  form of excellence, but we're going to talk about how it we
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  use it as a weapon and it's about avoiding shame or not a
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  weapon that is a shield and we avoid shame.
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  So it's a mask that we wear when we're afraid that being real
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  will cost us certain things like love or acceptance or belonging.
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  So that's what we're going to talk about today.
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  Welcome to Beyond the Facade podcast.
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  I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and I'm thrilled to have you join me
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  in this space today. What we're going to be doing is
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  diving deep into the trials and triumphs and truths of seeking
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  authenticity. Becoming your true self isn't
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  about a single action or a moment.
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  It's a relentless pursuit, a commitment to self that reveals
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  the rich connection and meaning that our life.
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  Has to offer. So whether this is your first
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  time tuning in or you're a regular listener, know this What
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  you're building here goes beyond a.
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  Conversation. You're here to challenge, to
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  change, and to celebrate the incredible journey of becoming
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  your authentic self. Because when you dare to show
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  up. Fully, the rewards are
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  immeasurable. So welcome to Beyond the Facade.
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  Let's get started. Before I get started in this
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  subject, I just want to say this is a promise that I'm coming
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  through on. Finally had a couple men that
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  read Brené Brown stuff, specifically the book Atlas of
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  the Heart, and got to started learning about perfectionism and
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  the stuff that she talks about there.
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  And they're like, hey Luke, I want to talk about this in Group
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  and I'm also bringing this into a podcast.
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  So here we go. I know it's been a minute.
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  All right, so in my coaching and in my recovery work, I see
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  perfectionism showing up everywhere.
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  It looks like control, and it looks like over responsibility
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  and like a lot of endless criticism.
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  And for a lot of men, it's so deeply woven into their identity
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  that we don't even realize we're doing it.
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  OK, Perfectionism is just a thing.
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  And I want to give it a few different labels because Brene
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  Brown's book Atlas of the Heart does.
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  She does the most amazing job, by the way.
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  She's one of my heroes because I came into my journey going, what
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  is shame? Why does it exist?
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  Like, why did God allow it to be here?
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  And learning about it and technically some, its purpose
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  and its nature was really good. And she taught me a lot of that.
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  So if you don't get a chance to dig into her stuff, please do.
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  But yeah, she talks about perfectionism as a shield and a
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  way to protect ourselves from shame and judgement.
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  So let's talk about why shame exists.
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  Why is shame useful? It's because we are herd
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  animals. We are community based.
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  And shame tells us like, hey, you're going to get kicked out
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  of the herd, You're going to get kicked out of the community.
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  If you don't fall in line to these cultural rules and that
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  have been created, it signals to us, hey, you're not going to be
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  OK, so get back in line. That's a version of shame that's
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  supposed to be useful, that's supposed to keep us safe.
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  But let me frame the invitation today for you.
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  What if the thing that we think will make us worthy is actually
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  the thing that keeps us from being free?
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  That's what we're going to talk about.
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  I just want to say that one more time.
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  What if the very thing that we think makes us worthy actually
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  keeps us from being free? I don't know why, but I'm drawn
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  to think about money. I think that if I have enough
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  money, I'll be free, right? But it's not even close to true.
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  In fact, my pursuit of money is what holds me captive, which
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  holds me bound. So what if that exists in the
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  perfectionism that it's like it's a destination that you can
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  get to if you just try hard enough.
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  So let me share some of my personal story.
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  You probably heard this if you listen enough of these podcast
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  episodes. I came from a faith-based
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  background where there was a message that was to be perfect
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  as God's perfect. And somewhere along the way I
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  missed like the deeper meaning to that.
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  I learned to hear it as don't make mistakes, don't mess up.
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  And if you do once, don't do it again.
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  And you really got to learn pretty quickly.
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  And if you don't learn pretty quickly, that's not good.
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  I was the oldest of five kids. Early responsibility, I felt.
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  And even though I wasn't maybe directly told me, maybe, maybe
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  not, pressure to be an example. I believe that my worst came
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  from my behaviour. So if I was good, I mattered.
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  If I failed, I was ashamed. I didn't want to be seen in
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  anything less than doing a good job, doing it the right way.
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  All of that came through that. So perfectionism, if I could
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  show up the way that people wanted me to show up, that would
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  be the love, that would be the acceptance.
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  And that really brought me into isolation that kept me over
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  there by myself. It was my armor that protected
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  me from shame, but it was also keeping me disconnected from
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  others and familiar the grace that they needed to give myself.
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  So just, I don't know what version of that looks like for
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  you. We can tie this to addiction,
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  compulsive behavior. We can just tie this to being a
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  human. But let's understand
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  perfectionism. And again, a lot of this
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  temperature Renee stuff. So perfectionism isn't about
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  striving for excellence. It's not about the destination.
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  It's managing perception. So it's a belief that if I look
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  perfect, perform perfect, or believe perfectly, I won't
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  experience judgement or shame. Crazy, right?
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  That's what the perfectionism about.
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  It's not necessarily because I want to become good at
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  something. It's because I want to not
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  experience that judgement or that shame.
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  So Bernie is in the book Atlas of the Heart.
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  She talks about healthy striving is growth based and it's about
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  learning. So perfectionism is fear based.
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  It's about proving. So we just highlight the
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  difference there. Healthy striving is growth
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  based, it's about learning. Perfection is fear based is
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  about proving. We call it being disciplined,
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  but really we're terrified of failure.
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  What is the reason I show up? Stay late at work what is the
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  reason I do what I say I'm going to do is a value based is a
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  really just terrified of the failure piece of it right?
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  We call it trying to do our best, but often we're trying to
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  control how other people see us right?
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  So let's break down this into 3 protective layers 1 control.
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  So if I control everything, I won't get hurt right?
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  Criticism. If I beat myself up first, no
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  one else can. If I can get to me first, then
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  nobody else can beat me up. So image, if I look strong, I'll
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  stay safe. But here's the paradox.
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  Perfectionism promises safety but delivers the shame.
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  Peace all day long. It tells us the being flawless
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  is going to make us worthy. And we see this all the time.
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  And recovery. I see this all the time.
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  Recovery, my own recovery and other men's recovery is that
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  this is a destination I get to me too.
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  If I'm perfect, if I deliver the Full disclosure, get all the
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  truth out, I won't make mistakes anymore.
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  I won't. I'm not going to do this again.
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  But that just brings us back to a place of shame because we find
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  at a place where we're trying to reinforce this belief that I can
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  be perfect. And I don't know, part of me is
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  like, I want to say, can we like just do.
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  I wish I wouldn't have said the word perfect so much because I
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  don't think people walk around. I know I don't going.
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  I never would have said, Oh yeah, Luke, you can be perfect,
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  but I can say I can never make that mistake again.
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  Don't do that instead of how I respond to making mistakes.
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  So it's just going to reinforce the that belief that we're not
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  enough because perfectionism can be achieved.
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  Now. This isn't a pass to like settle
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  or not not try to obtain something that is a miracle to
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  obtain, which is recovery, which is sobriety.
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  But it's to look at how we perceive the reason why we are
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  all right. So let's let's talk more about
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  the roots certain perfectionism. So perfectionism doesn't just
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  start in childhood because we do that a lot.
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  We refer back to childhood as where do things come from?
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  But it's built from these stories we tell ourselves, from
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  the systems we're surrounded by, the culture was surrounded by
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  and experienced the shaped how we survive.
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  We can look at it from the family in early conditioning
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  where we learned love was conditional.
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  And I don't know, like it drives me crazy to hear somebody say,
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  oh, that's a good kid. Or we define good in types of
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  behavior. That's what makes us good,
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  intrinsically good. I don't believe that.
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  I think our worth comes from not necessarily behavior, but our
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  innate ability to do things. Maybe our family, we had
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  conditioning around praise came from performance, not from
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  authenticity. Maybe it came from conditioning
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  of being the good one or the responsible 1 and it became our
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  identity or a way of belonging. I know it did for me.
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  In fact, I used to get that often when I was a little kid
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  and I was so proud of it, so proud of it.
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  Somebody would in the neighborhood, a teacher, a
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  neighbor and come up to my parents and they say Luke is
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  such a good kid. I'm a ride be felt so proud.
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  I'd be like I am and then I'd be like, and then I do something
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  that I knew would at least I believe would change that
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  perception. So I was like, not going to
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  share that. I'll hide that.
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  Let's talk about the other conditioning, the faith in the
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  spiritual messaging. So this is something I referred
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  to earlier, the misinterpretation of the
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  spiritual ideals. So be perfect becomes don't
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  fail. So we just want to recognize the
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  difference between surrendering versus performing, right?
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  OK, so here's others messaging, other cultural conditioning that
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  existed, which is the social influence.
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  If I do more, if I achieve more, if I be more, social media
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  magnifies this comparison so much.
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  And we can find other areas of our life that it happens in
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  recovery. Like how many days of sobriety
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  do I have that constant curating of how we appear and the cost.
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  We're going to trade our authenticity for approval.
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  There's other ways that we're conditioned through trauma and
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  emotional safety. So perfectionism like is a
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  trauma response. So if I can anticipate every
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  problem, I can prevent pain. Let me think about that.
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  If I can anticipate every problem that will happen, if I
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  can see it, I can prevent from myself from feeling pain.
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  Now that's that form of hyper vigilance of staying one step
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  ahead of rejection. But we can't put, it's not
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  arrogance, it's like fear disguised as control.
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  So just notice that we're trying to get emotional safety and it
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  stems from trauma, trying to prevent pain, that pain that we
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  experienced before of that disconnection that we
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  disconnected from, from our community or the fear of it that
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  says I can't do pain, I can't do that emotional pain.
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  Here's another part of it. Internalize shame.
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  So is its core. Something's wrong with me.
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  So perfectionism becomes this fix it.
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  If I can just fix it, if I can get it right, then maybe I'll be
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  enough. All right, so I know some of
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  these repeat each other, some of them are overlaying each other.
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  So we just want to recognize in recovery, doing recovery right
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  is one of the most common traps. It's wanting to do it for all
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  the wrong reasons, doing it for somebody else, for a partner,
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  for a therapist, for our community, And then we start
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  comparing our progress to other people and then we start hiding.
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  So true recovery, it's not a we let go of the control and we
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  surrender. All right, so there's other
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  pieces and aspects to go into this.
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  So my invitation is, is you start to look at perfectionism,
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  you start to just notice how it comes up for you.
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  Just what's the role of shame? What's the, what does shame say?
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  What does it say about perfectionism?
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  How does it I detect our how does it attack our identity?
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  And then perfectionism and recovery?
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  What does it start to look like? It's there's column patterns
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  that start to be unfolded. When we start to uncover things
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  with perfectionism, what do we do?
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  We start analyzing what our behavior looks like and we're
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  willing to look at it. So there's some of the details
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  around perfectionism, but let's talk about what we can do to
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  move forward, how we can make some shifts.
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  I like questions that I can ask myself because what they do is
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  they create some kind of clarity and they trade some awareness I
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  didn't have before. So here's questions you can ask
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  yourself, if I'm going to shift from performance to being more
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  present and coming into having more awareness, the question I
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  can ask myself is what am I trying to prove?
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  What am I trying to learn? Or you can ask yourself, what
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  would grace look like right now? So a lot of the perfectionism
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  comes from a place of self compassion and self love.
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  So we, it's easy to do for somebody else, right?
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  But it's harder to do for ourselves.
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  So just thinking about perfectionism as a shield, the
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  ones protected you and it made sense to have that shield.
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  Maybe I needed it earlier in life.
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  I don't need it anymore. I get a chance to put the
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  showdown. I don't need that protection
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  that way anymore. And ultimately, there's going to
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  be a lot more intimacy, there's healing.
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  Let me give you some reflection prompts, maybe for some
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  journaling if you want to tackle some more perfectionism pieces,
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  some things for you to reflect on.
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  So first one is, let me give you 3 of them.
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  So where do I feel pressure to be perfect?
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  Second one is, is what emotion am I trying to avoid when I
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  strive for perfectionism? And the third is, is what
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  message about worth or love still shapes how I see myself?
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  OK, so just grab one of them, process it, and then take it and
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  integrate it, reflect with somebody else about it.
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  But perfection, I'm just going to give you a maybe a recap of
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  what we've talked about, what we've gone through together
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  today. But perfectionism, it's not a
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  character flaw, but it is a strategy.
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  It helps protect us and at one point it might have been
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  appropriate and it did help us survive, but now it keeps us
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  from what we love and what we want to accomplish.
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  So anyway, it's good to spend time with you.
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  And thank you for those who said I'd like to talk more about
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  this. Really value that request.
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  All right, take care. Hey, thanks for joining.
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  Us today if this. Is something that you connected
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  with. I'd love.
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  To meet with you more and talk about it.
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  So what you can do is go to chooserecoveryservices.com or
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  check the. Show.
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  Notes and there what we can do is set up a quick.
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  Conversation Meet. Thanks so much for listening to
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  Beyond the Facade where we unmask the authentic.
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  Itself.