This morning, as part of my mindfulness routine, I was doing my morning yoga and every time I tried to do a balance pose I wobbled like my cousin’s 12 month old who is learning to walk. Having done yoga for quite a few years I know that some days I will have good balance and other days I will not.
As I was attempting to hold my pose (and falling a few times), I realized my thoughts went to criticism – which is often what our minds do. We criticize ourselves about how we should be doing things different, better.
Many of my counselling clients first come to see me for anxiety – either generalized anxiety or because they experience panic attacks. Read my story here about my own history of panic attacks.
Often when working with people who experience anxiety, I learn that they have a tendency to be a bit of a perfectionist. They like to do things better than right, they want them perfect.
People who strive for perfection are usually very competent people who learned early on that they will be rewarded for great work – often in the form of emotional appraisal (early on in life) or financial appraisal (later on in life). This belief that you need to be perfect then becomes internalized and a driver for all future work. If something isn’t perfect, this becomes a bit of a threat to your ego and sense of worth.
Unfortunately, achieving perfection is rare, but even worse; perfectionism is time and energy consuming and often leaves people feeling highly stressed or anxious. When working with my counselling clients I often help them learn how to embrace imperfection, which is scary at first, but they soon learn it is a beautiful place to be.
Now getting back to my morning yoga, six years ago I participated in the eight-week mindfulness based stress reduction program. This program changed the way I related to my own criticism and judgments.
Six years ago I would have criticized myself for not being able to hold the pose. I would have gotten angry and my body would have felt tense. I may have even given up and quit my yoga practice early.
Because of the skills I’ve learned from mindfulness, I was able to recognize my inner critic’s thoughts, recognize that they are just thoughts and that I can be perfectly happy embracing my imperfection this morning.
In fact, I began to smile at each wobble and focused on my gratitude for the fact that I have an able body that can do yoga. I know that tomorrow morning I will likely have better balance, but even if I don’t, that will be okay.
Your mindful mission today is to bring awareness to any self-criticism or self-judgment that comes up and see if you can take a moment to look at it in a different way – what would it be like to be okay with 80% and not 100% perfection.
In the comments below, let me know how you deal with perfectionism and if you have other ways to tame your inner critic.