Chapter 3:
Phantom-Captor Hostages
One of the tricks of the trade of perfectionism is to hold its victims captive to a false narrative, which dictates that there is no escaping its procedures and protocols. Like the worst kind of bureaucracy, perfectionism mandates unwavering adherence to its rules and regulations. But unlike bureaucratic domains, perfectionism thrives on indulging whims and fancies that are often quite arbitrary. Ironically, those in the grip of the perfectionist mindset tend to not even notice their captivity. For years, I thought it was something positive, a way to keep on task, to stay polished, be the best I could be. And while those can be some of its inadvertent and potential side effects, the truth of the matter is that they are superficial. The negative side effects far exceed any positive ones, because they are based on the false premise that one can actually “be enough” and “do enough” and yet, there is running parallel with this the belief that one can never be enough or do enough. It’s been said that to hold two opposing views at the same time is a sign of intelligence. So chalk that one up to the perfectionist. But lament the fact that any self-perceived achievement is usually greatly outweighed by a deep doubt about one’s true ability and consequently self-worth. I have never met a perfectionist who didn’t struggle to believe they were actually good enough to accomplish their own demands. Let’s say for the sake of the discussion that there was an element of truth in the belief that one is actually good enough to accomplish one’s goals and dreams. A picture of perfectionism however is like something standing by and devouring each and every element of food you put on the plate the moment you place it. The frustration and actual grief is enormous, and yet, the perfectionist never really sees it, and certainly never acknowledges that a great sadness is accompanying this devastation of something actually well done. But this is a perfect picture, like an animal that eats its own young. It is chaos and horror, organized into neat rows and passed off as acceptable when it is nothing more than a grim reminder of a broken, fallen humanity that groans at its own captivity.
And once again, ironies abound. The captivity is at once real and perceived as real. The mechanisms and machinations of perfectionism are not as greatly at fault as the mindset that drives them. But that is of course true of any way of thinking that is based on a lie. The captivity is effective as long as it is perceived as durable and impenetrable. But once the eyes are opened to the YES and AMEN of the Risen One who came and who comes bearing a sword of justice, hope and triumph, all lesser mindsets and abilities and strengths must fall down and worship the only one to whom is due all glory, all honor, and all power—not to paltry human ideas of right goodness.
When we come to recognize that the divine standard of perfection cannot be met in the flesh, we can respond in one of two ways, or perhaps most likely, one in succession of the other. The first is the stonewall of inability. We are not God, never will be. The penchant to stretch beyond our God-given capabilities was spawned in the Garden when God’s first children decided to abandon his words and instead listen to the voice of another telling them they could be ‘like God.’ That reach for such is the same reach of temptation and willingness to be autonomous apart from our Creator. There is nothing wrong with self-motivation, or the exercise of our talents and God-given abilities in order to take ourselves to our very created limits. When motivated by humility, this is a beautiful derivative to walking in our call as image-bearers of the Creator.
Another reaction is a sense of being a permanent failure, a complete loser. This is actually looking on the bright side, because it is a necessary part of realizing our inadequacy relative to God’s adequacy. The problem comes when we make the logical conclusion that because we are losers, we are therefore dejected, rejected and abandoned as irredeemable. It is a conclusion based on flesh alone, with no concession made for the interruption of the divine which calls us lay aside our limitations to accept His limitless being on our behalf. But why don’t more of us take the Creator up on such a lavish invitation? It is not unlike the children of Israel gathered at the base of the bronze serpent raised to impart healing by the mere fixing of a gaze on its presence. Some refused to do so, and died on the spot from their disease as a result. There was nothing to perform, no incantations to cite, dance to do, money to give. Just obeisance, and surrender to a plan that didn’t look any more like saving the world than just about any other illogical picture one could dream up. But that is what our God chose. Jesus, raised to life again, was placed high above for all to see, and all who were willing to look to his truth would be healed. And nothing about that has ever changed. It flies in the face of self-effort and self-reliance. It puts the dialogue back into the hands of God, not necessarily taking into account any of the myriad response of a fallen humanity,
Whether you decide to take one view or the other, it is important to know at the most basic of levels that you are loved beyond anything you can say or do, and this, not based upon what you’ve said, done or otherwise. We can be quick to judge ourselves when we actually just need to take a more balanced and honest inventory of our lives and remember we are coming from the place of belief when we are in Christ. “Behold, the old has gone, and the new has come.” (II Corinthians 5:17)
Perfectionism likes to make its recipients feel they are in charge when actually they are not. It is a kind of captivity in reverse, wherein the perfectionist is sitting in the driver’s seat and trying to maintain control and make things happen, when all the while the white-knuckled grip is coming at the expense of focus on other areas. So it is a kind of quiet captivity to one’s own arbitrary vision.
The perfectionist casts woeful desires around and bemoans the lost success when things don’t work out as they should. The truth is that the stakes are usually raised so high, it is very difficult to actually meet them. So, in essence, the perfectionist stays in this perpetual state of anxiety, fetish, and self-imposed drama. It is a poverty mindset that does not understand the end from the middle from the beginning. Now, hindsight is always 20/20, but the perfectionist isn’t really as fixated on learning from past mistakes: it is the ultimate mistake that keeps being made, ironically, all in the guise of being something good.
Most perfectionists haven’t even identified that they have an issue that has likely held them back from many good things. There is a drive to be complete all the time that just isn’t workable, useful or realistic. One of the most unfortunate aspects of this is the fact that perfectionists sometimes try to project their value system on others, who may feel overly put upon and in general aren’t interested in keeping up with some set of rules that is largely based upon another time and another place.
There is a tremendous freedom in the recognition that we are not bound by any job, any situation, any relationship: we are free to move in the grace and the glory that has been apportioned to each of us. Many of us live in ignorance of this fact, and instead deal with a sense of heavy chains binding us away from the life we were intended to lead. We look at relationships that seem less than satisfactory and try to find a way outside, but what we actually need is a freedom from within. Until that happens, we are consigned to relationships that seem to hobble us. We may leave one for another, and in the rush that accompanies a major life change, we can feel a momentary release. It is like cutting a plant down to the ground without actually removing the root system. There is a sense of completion and the issue seems dealt with. But it is only a matter of time before the plant will begin to send up shoots again, and even more prolifically as the root system is strengthened by the former growth’s removal. It results in an increase of the previous issue, not a lessening of it.
In the Victorian era romantic comedy “A Room With A View,” the protagonist and her chaperone on vacation in Italy are complaining at a common breakfast table about their lack of a view from their hotel room. The remarks are overheard by a father and son who offer to trade their room with a grand view for the women’s lesser appointed one. When the prim and proper chaperone declines the gracious offer, the poetic father replies in impassioned tones: “I don’t need a view! My vision is from within! Here is where the birds sing, here is where the sky is blue!” When our vision is from within, there is no external circumstance that can sway or bend us.
In Pilates, the goal is to create a strong muscular core. We are not made to be without restraint. If that restraint does not come from within, it will necessarily come from without. The logical extreme of lack of needful restraint is imprisonment. The irony is that we can rail against our circumstances and look around us to blame externals for what we are going through. The reality however is that we need only to look within for the answer. It is usually as simple as the biblical concept of repentance: we change what we are thinking so that our actions may follow through. If we try to change our actions without our mindset changing first, we find ourselves back in the muck and mire we extracted ourselves from. Admitting to our part in a problem is that muck and mire. No one likes to see themselves in a less than positive light. That is why taking time out each day to simply bask in the love and joy God has for us makes our faults, shortcomings, weakness and foibles so much lesser in the light of His mercy and desire to come alongside to strengthen us. The wonderful thing is that it isn’t only for us to enjoy, but we are given an overflow which we can spill off into other lives in need of the glimpses of hope that we’ve been allowed to see and experience.
Like a rhino running off of a cliff to its own demise, our feelings can get the better of us. They seem to sneak up from behind at times, our emotions that is, and take us over the edge. The result at that point is to pick up shattered fragments and to then move on.
There can be a sense of the ageless clutter that collects at the base of the cliff and overwhelms the ‘thrower’ with the mess that remains. What is needed is the equivalent of a light and encouragement, from a perspective that things can change, and will change, when we put our mind to it. All we need to do is ask. As scripture reminds us: “You have not because you ask not.”
What if we got intentional about the kinds of things we want to ask from God? After all, don’t we let our families know when we need some sort of help? Help from Above works much in the same way.
We can get as specific as we want to in our requests. Someone is always waiting, listening, watching: our Helper from on High. If we don’t get a specific answer we are anticipating in response, we need to remember that we don’t always ask for what is best, and when we are engaging the Most High, the only one perfect Being that exists, we may not always ask for what is in our best interests. Our desires mature with time. The specific things we long for as children are going to be the same things we will want as adults.
It is important to address to ourselves when we feel we are captivated by the wrong things. Perfectionism for sure has a kind of seduction attached to it, in that it lures us to want something that is out of reach. Perhaps the pleasure we experience when we seem to get something right, or do something well. It is within the spirit of excellence when we succeed and we are happy not only for ourselves, but for the ways those around us benefit. We can be assured it is the spirit of perfectionism when we feel like we are failures as human beings when we do not succeed or pull something off that could have gone better. We can become extremely critical of ourselves and of others when we are caught in this trap, and it is a pathway to imprisonment that we willingly walk, all the way until we are behind bars.
Exercise of free will is something each of us have been given. It requires however a responsible spirit to be able to make the right choices. By right choices it is simply that which honors God, honors us, and honors others. When one of those is missing, the action is incomplete. Surely, we are not always going to be on our game enough to reach this. That said, how do we respond when we do not reach it? Are we harsh with ourselves, or with others? Do we blame ourselves or make blanket statements like ‘I always fail’ or “I will never succeed’ or ‘I don’t have what it takes’ or ‘I will always be brushed aside and overlooked’ or ‘I am a doormat and people just walk all over me.’ How many times we complain to ourselves and to others and but never go about the business of fixing what is awry? The thing that is off is our self-perception. It is the source of our mood swings and is the very element that alienates us from those who actually like us and want to befriend us and even help us. We need to see ourselves within the beloved’s gaze, ever fixed upon us, wanting us to recognize our belovedness. Our help comes from within, but it is filled form on High! The degree to which we choose to connect ourselves there and let the dictates of heaven upon our lives fill our brain and therefore our primary functions, then we are free to pursue dreams and visions and God-given dreams as if there were no impediments in the way.
Surrounding ourselves with others who are walking the same kind of straight and narrow we are is essential. We need to look to those who are farther along the path, as much as we need to encourage those who are starting theirs out with regard to calling. It isn’t always a neat and streamlined process, and even in the relative chaos that can occur at the outset of a project coming into being, we need to have times of sitting back and letting go and occasionally, even having someone else put a piece of the puzzle in place for us! This does not take away from the holy unction we’ve been given, set apart for a certain task.
What we say also matters. We can want to move in a positive direction, but if what we say typically results in conclusive statements such as: ‘I am (fill in the blank)’ in such a way as to severely limit the truth of who we are in terms of who we are becoming, we are the ones holding ourselves in captivity. The keys are on the table, they are ours to take, no one else’s and it is important to understand that the reins-keeping of our own lives is a responsibility given to us and there are no intruders allowed, no intrusions on the outside that can pull it away. We can willingly give our authority away, but it is to our own detriment and to the detriment of others if we do. Some will pressure us into taking away the ground we’ve been given to hold, others will apply subtle force, others, not so subtle. Our place is to stand. “Having done everything, to stand.”
Sometimes we need those around us that love us and are likewise jealous for our success in the areas we’ve been called to, to pray or even at times to speak on our behalf. We need strong shoulders to lean on, to cry on at times, and to not be concerned with what lesser voices are saying. Sometimes they rattle on and on like tin cans pulled along on a string. Why do we want to keep them dragging along inside of our minds , which are meant to house glorious things? We can cut them loose when we so choose. We may not always choose how often they come to plague us, but God’s grace is sufficient for us, He promises us that He is strong in our weakness, and we do not need to conclude we are done for when our lives are actually just beginning. We can say with confidence: “God is my helper, what can man to do me?” we may not always feel that, but we can declare it and trust that we are teaching our inner self to come into alignment.