I myself am guilty of perfectionism. There is always an unrealistic standard that I’ve set for myself that I somehow fail to meet. In my mind, it’s realistic because I’ve been exposed to this standard before, it’s not born of nowhere.

I won’t go into the mechanics of how perfectionism is created through upbringing, since many of you already know what goes into this and how it’s modeled.

What this creates in someone who lives with this is a deep fear of “not good enough” and secondly, a developing well of self directed frustration as well as feelings of failure that are semi-repressed. It’s semi-repressed as long as there’s some metric of success that you must score high on. Perfectionism is fear based, and for those of us who’ve lived with it, we’ve turned that fear (and anxiety) into something that motivates.

It was always very conscious for me as a teen and young adult that if I let go of this, and just suddenly realized I was “good enough” that I’d stop trying. I felt that the alternative was apathy, which I have experienced before. I didn’t know what to substitute the fear motivation for, or that there was another form of motivation.

As I’ve grown, I’ve come to face that fragile ego that’s underneath all of this. The one that took in the programming of deep unworthiness. I remember being very young and in situations where I felt failure, how much I couldn’t handle it because it brought out deep shame. In classes that I wasn’t the best, the stakes felt so high and so intolerable. I somehow couldn’t take it in stride like all the other people who were not the best, who were not good. People who could fail at something or not be good at something and not have it affect their sense of self seemed to have a healthy self-esteem that made them know that just because they weren’t good at this thing, they could keep trying and get better. They also knew that just because they weren’t good at this one thing, it didn’t mean that they were flawed as a person. These were thought processes that I didn’t have even if I identified them consciously.

As I’ve gotten older and done a lot of healing and integration, I’ve specifically challenged myself to do all the things that I’m not particularly gifted at. Sure, other people might argue that I’m not that bad, in fact, that maybe I am better than I think (because in my mind I think I am just awful which is a particular trait associated with perfectionism as well- that my assessment of myself always tends to be worse than what’s “real”). What this challenge does is it forces me to grow- it forces me to confront those shadow elements and fear. It shows me that there’s nothing to fear, and to be more lighthearted in my approach- that just because I can’t do a particular jump or my brain isn’t as quick with a quippy response in improv doesn’t mean that the world is ending, which it often felt like it was when there is a perfectionism that is expected of you, and performance is everything. Most importantly, it shows me to have fun which is something I had long been lacking in childhood.

I remember when the darkness of perfectionism hit me the worst, it wasn’t that long ago. My ego was still in control then and it needed above all else to bolster itself from its feelings of inferiority and frailty. So, I chose to only do things that I was the shining star in. And then my world became so limited, my ego was satisfied but my soul wanted more.

Overall, we’re here for the experience. That means, the totality of life that we get to experience in this human form, with this human intelligence. It’s not about good or bad, it’s about how we meet those experiences and what we take away from them. In the end, I’m. not going to care that I was the best in this one class or one thing, because I care more about growth and process, truly. Success of course is important, and I plan to succeed at the things that I’ve chosen, but I’m also learning to re-assess the bar that I set for myself. I want to do my best, not be the best.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what emerges with deep intimacy. A lot of our deepest fears and feelings come out in romantic relationships, especially, since our partners take over the position that our parents once held. They become our primary support, someone we’re bonded to, and often times, as humans, someone we need. This realization of the popular ethos of love and bonding became even more apparent as I was singing Stevie' Wonder’s “For Once in my Life” on a shoot recently- the lyrics go, “as long as I know I have love I can make it. For once in my life I have someone who needs me,” there seemed to be a consensus that this is our model of relationships. We want to be needed. We want to need.

I’ve always felt that evolved, conscious love is less about needing someone or trauma bonding, but more about wanting them. We are complete, as human beings, and we can take care of ourselves- our basic requirements become less about what another person can take responsibility for and fulfill, but more about them being an additive. As my friend says, people like me are difficult to date because we’re so good on our own. If you’re curious, the reason is, since I was young I was my own primary support in a fear-fraught, unstable environment- I had no one else, and even when I lacked the capabilities to self-soothe or self-regulate (often times, this becomes the first seeds of dissociation), I had to figure it out (this now, leads to friends pointing out- “if there’s one person who I trust can heal themselves, it’s you”) This type of behavior makes partners feel uncomfortable, as it seems like I don’t need them at all, and as one told me, “it’s like you’re just as happy if I leave”.

It used to be a bit of avoidant attachment because my needs weren’t met, mixed in with some anxious ambivalent attachment, but as I’ve grown, I’ve come to settle into the idea that, I’m great on my own. I love it.

I started to wonder though, aside from attachment patterns, was there something else I was avoiding? If my partners all mentioned that the evidence was in my body language, why was I subconsciously pushing them away? I knew that there were shades of fearing vulnerability, and intimacy, and it wasn’t until recently that I really saw it during a three week vacation with a romantic partner- little fragments of pain, triggers, volatility, the signs of the wounded child. Sometimes I regressed, sometimes I felt weak, sometimes I felt exactly how I felt in the moments of my childhood that scarred me the most. I thought I’d grown past this, I thought I’d evolved after so much self-work, but there are always deeper layers worth investigating. This is further elucidated by our love-maps, which are imprinted with different types of personalities that we’re programmed to fall in love with. It’s an amalgamation of our primary caregivers as well as models of love- it’s so deeply wired in us and that’s why our partners will often have similar traits to our parents, or drive us to react in similar ways they did.

I recognize that one of my biggest life challenges is learning how to respond, rather than to react. Most of the time, I respond. But some of the time, in intimacy, I react. We’ve all had that friend that gets so emotional and detaches from all rationality and it gets so difficult to deal with— that friend is a part of us. We get triggered because the pain of abandonment is at the forefront and the part of us that gets activated is the part that says, “I won’t survive without you here. I need you,” But, the reality is, we don’t… we’re adults.

This incongruence is also found in sometimes wondering whether to stay or go, in a relationship. Part of us may want to stay, part of us may want to go. Even more specifically, our minds might tell us one thing, our hearts another, our energy, and our lives, yet another. It’s rare to find love, to find a strong connection, and isn’t it a human trait to want to hold on to attachment, to enjoy it while it lasts? But what if it becomes a set back and you can feel it impinging on different parts of YOU- as in, you need to sacrifice something of yourself, or your life, to stay. And finally, where, and what, are you willing to compromise, if your needs aren’t fully met and your values are encroached upon? So many books about relationships advocate for staying, committing, connecting to a partner, because we’re so often moving on and restarting this same pattern with another partner, even though the “issues” are within us, not the dynamic. Yet, what if we know that something’s not right for us- it doesn’t resonate, and everyone around us knows too? When do we know that we’ve learned all that we need to learn, and that it’s the best thing for both parties to end?

When I’m on my own, there’s no room for regression, or doubt. I’m in touch with myself and I live my life according to my own needs. When I’m with someone, my decisions impact them too, and our energies intermingle. They can, and do, affect me. I believe firmly that we don’t “need” that, yet, we can want that, and make an active choice to commit day to day. There are no guarantees with any relationship- we can defer to senses of security like promises or vows, but even still people are subject to changing their minds. The only security we can have is within ourselves and in our renewed choice and desire. Sometimes, we choose to move on.