Can kindness cure perfectionism?

As I stared over the top of the laptop to what I like to call the big PC, I saw the list of personal emails just sitting there but continually calling for my attention.  And there, right in the middle was a huge booboo.  The weekly email from Just Breathe. 

Obsessed with testing, I am on my own mailing list and like to preview the emails before I send them out.  There’s something about typos that seem to magically appear just as a document is sent out.  I sort of assume I'll get the heading right - that curiosity driving thread that has you simply dying to open the email.... 

Last week's mail was all about the festival of Inbolg, also known as Inbolc, but never, as I referred to it, Inblob!  As I stared at my little typo, the only thing I could think about was Blobby, Blobby, Blobby.  It really was up there with my last misdemeanor which involved missing the "tit" out of competition.

Now I know that making a mistake is not the end of the world but to a recovering perfectionist it feels quite close.  It comes with an entire back story of losing face, looking unprofessional and not being accepted if people know who we really are. 

As I said, I'm recovering and these days laughing at mistakes comes a little easier.  I find that I can stand back and get things into perspective.   However, I realise that we can’t be told about these internal shifts, it’s something we have to experience in our own time. My breakthrough came to me  last year on retreat in Scotland. 

I signed up to a retreat on Holy Isle because I absolutely love the surroundings.  After signing up I thought it might be a good idea to check the timetable.  When I saw the amount of yoga involved I started to get cold feet.  I imagined myself beached on a yoga mat whilst the size 8 yoga goddesses gathered in the corners to judge.   I did have a sort of laughing and snorting outburst at a yoga class once and I haven't been back to Manchester since.

However, when I met up with the lovely group of people who attended the retreat; when we all followed the practices to the best of our individual ability; when no-one was actually bothered about my size, my outfit, my ability etc. etc. etc. I had an epiphany. 

Everything I expected to come at me from the outside world, was only coming at me from within. I was projecting all of my inner criticisms out into the world and then feeling rejected by those around me based on these imaginary stories.

‘My life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened.", Montaigne, French Philospher.

It can take a while to work through this as we often get trapped in the content of the inner critic's story, or lost in a particular drama about a situation.  It's really the process we need to look at, the wizard behind the curtain.  Are we being unkind to ourselves and projecting that inner criticism to those around?  Do we imagine someone has particular thoughts about us because deep down, we’re worried that there’s a vulnerability that we can’t face into? 

The only way to work with our inner critic is to meet it with kindness because it's only through accepting our infallibility, with this wise kindness, that we really create the space to be ourselves and truly thrive as who we are.  Not who we think we’re expected to be. 

So as we approach “Random Acts of Kindness Day”, on Saturday 17^th February, I wonder if we can spend a week focusing on random acts of kindness and begin cultivating that inner landscape.  It can be easier to start with unconditional kindness for others and it's beneficial to tune into the sensations as science is now beginning to uncover how kindness impacts our hormones and our sense of well being.  More on that next time. .