On Mindfulness, Balance and Being Deliberate.

2014 was one of the busiest years on record.  I spent almost three months total outside the country.  I learned tons about my job and the company I work for.  I laid on a few different beaches, and visited the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. I went through a shitty breakup.  I went to Disneyland.  I acted in three productions, one of which was a super top secret non-rehearsed full-length musical.  I put a painful professional chapter behind me once and for all with respect to a bad business arrangement.   I staged Evita in my living room with my friends for my birthday (of course I played Eva, don't be silly).  I sat on three boards, helped organize a shoe-themed fundraiser, and met my first nephew, the darling Charles Alexander, known as Cal.  I saw a dead body (really).  I climbed a giant mountain in Wales.  I dyed my hair green, and then purple.  I sang karaoke in front of my work colleagues.  And then, in the last days of the year, I moved house.  

As crazy/fun/wondrous as my year was, it was also draining, and kind of disorienting.  I was tired all the time, and things that had been fun, suddenly weren't.  Due to structural issues and neighbourhood noise, my home no longer felt like a safe place to be.  I felt like I didn't sleep - all year.  By the time this autumn came around, my workload felt unsurmountable, my free time felt chore-ridden, and I wondered if I would ever not feel exhausted again.  I never read anymore - ME! The English major with walls and walls of books lining her home!  I felt like being busy was keeping me from - something, I didn't know what - but it wasn't making me happy.

There are a couple of things that I have learned over the past year.  The first was that I can't do it all.  I really can't - and (surprisingly) I don't want to.  My approach over the past few years has been to throw myself into everything I'm asked, head first, and it has not served me well. That's what makes me tired.  And tired leads to sick.  And sick leads to sad.  I have learned that I can have a very little bit of everything, but not the whole lot - and maybe that's OK, to only have a little bit.  The second was, it doesn't have to be perfect.  I'm still working on that one.  The "it" is every aspect of my life really - from the roots of my dyed hair to the Curriecat fur that occasionally sweeps across the floor, to my really really really slow running and my sloppily cooked dinners.  It doesn't have to be perfect, but for the things that matter: my work, my art, my health, my friendships - it does have to be the best I can possibly do.   And sometimes it has to be the best I can do right at that moment.   

And so, the things I am focusing on this year reflect these lessons.  The goal is to help me put these ideas into practice every day.  Just because I understand what I just said above - that I can't do it all, that "it" doesn't have to be perfect - doesn't mean that I'm comfortable with those truths, or that, when I am lonely, or tired, or insecure, I don't revert to the manic business and accomplishment-collecting that have characterized many years of my life.  While some people may say, "This year, I'm going to get out of my comfort zone,"  my promise is that this year, I will stay IN it.   I will not take on everything.  I will say no.  I will build in time for nothing.   I will take the time to think through what I'm doing (there's the mindfulness for you), and make deliberate choices about what I can do, what I'd like to do, and what I'd NOT like to do.  I will reflect on the people I surround myself with, and how I'd like to treat them and be treated in return.   

In December I made a scary but so-far-wonderful decision about where "home" is, and am having fun creating an environment for myself that is comfortable, relaxing, somewhere I can bring my friends, somewhere I can be  be still, and quiet, when I need to be.  Somewhere I can sleep.   It's not trendy, it's not hip, but it is filled with sunlight, fresh air, calm, and Curriecat, which is all I need, really.  

It's not going to be easy, this being easy on myself.  It's very very disorienting and uncomfortable at times.  To say, "Today I think I will go to work, come home, make dinner, read a book, and go to bed.  And that will be enough.  That will be OK."  To say, "I think I've done everything I can on this work assignment, time to put it away for now.  And that's OK."  To say, "It's OK to just go for a walk."  It's scary, to think that at the end of this year I might not have a laundry list of things to say on Facebook, or Twitter, or this blog, that I've done and been and seen.  But I keep telling myself that's OK.  I'm OK.  And OK is just fine.  

Letting Go of Perfect.

My name is Danielle, and I'm a perfectionist.

I feel like for those who know me well, this statement is not a surprise.   It is a surprise to me.  I dislike enough things about myself to believe that everyone reading this will scoff, "You're clearly not a perfectionist - look at you!"  

Well - yes.  Look at me.  I am looking at me.  And that voice that criticizes myself, that dark corner of my heart that despises so many things about myself? That's the perfectionist.   It's the perfectionist who loudly declares how RIDICULOUS I am, that everyone can SEE that, what a JOKE.  The perfectionist does not see the lawyer, scholar, singer, writer, actress, world traveller, volunteer, devoted kitty-mama and friend.  The perfectionist sees a loud, ugly, fat, obnoxious loner who doesn't own a house, doesn't have a husband, doesn't have kids, is too old to continue auditioning for musical theatre, and isn't as good a lawyer as she pretends to be.  That perfectionist voice is the last one I hear before I go to bed.  It's the first one I hear when I wake up in the morning.    

I've been chasing perfect for a long time.  For every A I got, there was an A+ to be had.  For every degree I got, there was another one I had to reach for (I'd still be going if the money hadn't run out).  For every law firm I got a job at, there was another, BIGGER law firm to get a job at.  For every show I got to perform in, there was another one that I really needed to be in.   When I've got a night to myself at home, I beat myself up about not going out.  If the house isn't perfectly tidy and doesn't look like a magazine, no one can come over, and I can't relax and read a book.  If people come for dinner, that better be the most perfect, Martha Stewart-inspired party you've ever seen.   I've falsely confused perfection with being loved, and being loveable, even to myself. 

My perfectionism doesn't come out of some extreme self-love, a desire to strive for the best because I'm worth it.  I know this because the flip side of my perfectionism is shame. I strive for perfection to outrun the shame, but because I can never achieve that perfection, I spend much more time mired in the quicksand of shame than celebrating my successes.   For everything that I  have "failed" at, whether that was true failure or just failing to meet my own ridiculous standards, I feel a deep, deep shame and dislike for myself.  My weight yo-yo's are the perfect example of that.  Gained a pound?  Well, I'd better give up then, because I failed.  Pass the cookies, it's all over.  I'll punish myself by eating another one.  And maybe another.   The vicious cycle continues.  I hate myself for not being perfect, so I eat another metaphorical cookie, I become further away from perfect, I hate myself some more.  Dating, too.  I've put up with horrible treatment from horrible people that I would never introduce to my worst enemy, because I think that's what I deserve, because I'm so horribly flawed.  I have not dared to let myself love people who I think I do not measure up to.

Criticism, even from people who have no business being critical, or whose opinions we should not care about, becomes deeply wounding to perfectionists like me, because we attach a sense of shame and blame to having "failed" to measure up to some real or imagined standard.  

I don't know where this idea that I had to be perfect came from. I do not blame my parents for some deep dark wrong they did to me as a child.  I was a difficult kid - I hear those stories a lot - but they also loved me so hard it hurt.  And yet somewhere along the way, I heard and internalized the message that to be loved by myself and others, I need to be perfect.  I love other people whole-heartedly, flaws and all, but myself, no.  

Perfectionism is an insidious thing.  It means that when I accomplish, I must accomplish more.  It means when I fail, I feel a shame so deep I feel embarrassed to be around others, and would gladly avoid myself if possibly could (that's not a suicidal thought, mind you, just a desire to not be me).    

But lately, I have started to ask myself, what is the end goal of my being perfect?  What's at the end of the rainbow, that unattainable goal that I keep striving for?   Where am I killing myself to get to?  What is it that is so worth being so terribly hard on myself every step along the way to obtain?

It's love.  Being loved.

I'm not talking just romantic love (although that's always nice).  I feel loved by my friends, and my family.  I have felt loved by romantic partners.  But the key ingredient that's missing is loving myself.  Not only do I keep thinking I need to be perfect so someone else will love me - I need to be perfect so I can love myself.   

And that's the tragedy of it.  I will never be perfect.  And unless I seriously start thinking about how I think and feel, and changing some of these damaging thoughts and behaviours, I'll never love myself.  And that's a really, really sad place to be.  

So I'm letting go of perfect.  I have to.

I have zero idea how to do this. Honestly, I don't.  I have no idea how you put aside something that you feel in the very core of your being and choose to feel something else.  We as a society cannot explain what makes us fall in love with other people, how the hell can we explain or teach how to fall in love with ourselves?  So I know this is going to be a long, long, difficult, sad, frustrating process full of demons and discomfort and roadblocks. I don't know where the road even starts, but I know that much.  I also know that I am so very very tired of aiming for perfect, and failing miserably, and feeling such shame at my own existence.  There is so much beauty in the world, and it is so, so sad that I don't let myself be part of it.  

It's a big thing for me to be this honest on my blog.  I have always limited myself to humorous, witty posts about "perfect" moments in my life - world travel, cooking adventures, theatrical endeavours, and other accomplishments that make me appear very together, a real whole person living a fabulous life.  I have a lot of fear around putting these words out into the world, admitting that Oz the Magnificent is nothing but a facade.  But I also feel like I have to give voice to some of the things I'm struggling with, so that I can benefit from the wisdom and understanding of the people in my life who have maybe been in the same place.  Or the people who are already able to be their own best friends, who can teach me the tricks of the trade.   I'm committed to living with the discomfort.  There's really no other choice.

I'm letting go of perfect, and settling for loved.  Let the journey commence.