In the last few months, it feels like there are so few calm, stable and selfless people in the world. As a lawyer, I see examples every day of the havoc this lack of stability can create. So as the world seemed to spiral, what did the perfectionist me do? She hatched a plan to be “the good one.” Everyone else might go crazy, perfectionist Claire told herself, but not me.

By Claire Parsons

 

“Maintain your ethical integrity.”

This was a line I heard at the end of a seven-day vipassana retreat with Rebecca Bradshaw last month. The big insight from that retreat was that I was doing the same thing wrong that I had done my entire life: I was trying too hard.

This was honestly no great surprise to me. Though over a decade of meditation practice has helped me chill out on this a bit, it has also given me countless opportunities to realize this tendency is unlikely to go away. The pattern goes like this. I want to achieve some worthy goal, so I go about it by giving it my all and doing everything on my own. I run into a roadblock, beat my head against the wall, agonize, and venture towards self-loathing. Then I finally realize that I should relax a bit, maybe ask for help, and things get a lot easier.

The Perfectionist Urge to Be a “Good” Person

This is the story of my life. I hope I am not alone. In fact, I decided to write this article on the theory that I am not. The specific way that I realized I was trying too hard on the retreat is a classic one. I was trying too hard to be a “good person.” Ugh.

In the last few months, it feels like there are so few calm, stable and selfless people in the world. As a lawyer, I see examples every day of the havoc this lack of stability can create. So as the world seemed to spiral, what did the perfectionist me do? She hatched a plan to be “the good one.”

Everyone else might go crazy, perfectionist Claire told herself, but not me.

Now, of course, I knew that perfectionist Claire is a vestige from childhood. I’m well-aware of exactly how my family history helped this trait emerge and how my life choices fostered it. The thing about personal patterns like these, though, is that they don’t go away easily. They might trick us into thinking they left us, but really they just hide out. When things are stable and good, they bide their time and rest up, so they are fresh and ready to pounce at the next opportunity.

How I Confused Being Calm with Being Good

As someone who cares about my community and the rule of law, these last few months have been a perfect opportunity for my perfectionist side to come out swinging. Things in the world went nuts and perfectionist me decided she’d fix it by being the best person she could be.

And what did perfectionist me decide was the “best” kind of person to be?

Well, that’s easy. If everything seems crazy, the best kind of person is a calm person. Right? What self-respecting person into Buddhism would argue with that? Almost immediately I was astonished at how calm I was. I kept reflecting to myself that it was odd how not fazed by events I was. I told myself that maybe it was a sign that my meditation practice was helping me. I told myself that it was a sign of my own personal growth.

But then I went on retreat.

It wasn’t the worst experience in the world and in fact about half the days were very nice. In the first few days, though, all kinds of emotion started to pour out. It wasn’t despair or sadness most of the time. Instead, I got weepy at nearly anything pleasant or nice. I was a mess during loving-kindness practice. A memory of my dad caused me to almost lose it during mealtime. It was honestly kind of annoying. I was crying left and right.

Learning to Let Myself Feel Again

More confused than anything, I wisely signed up for an interview with one of the teachers. He reminded me that emotions do what they want to do. But he also gently asked me an important question: is there any reason you haven’t been able to access your feelings lately? Of course there was. As soon as he asked, I realized that I had unconsciously gotten the wrong message. I told myself to be good and stay calm. The message my psyche got, though, was that I should try to not feel.

For the rest of the week after this interview, I tried to open up. I got explicit about checking in with my emotions.

Every sit, I would check in with my body. I even asked myself direct internal questions, like “how are you doing?” Nobody will be surprised by this but the answer was often “confused,” “concerned,” “afraid,” or “sad.”

Even so, this exercise seemed to help. Over time, I steadied. By the end of the retreat, I felt more like myself than I had in a long time. It was like I repaired the relationship with myself and rebuilt a trust that had been violated.

What Being Good Really Means

In the closing session, the teachers offered some advice about returning to the world. They were trying to prepare us to bring some of the peace and goodness we created out into the world which so badly needed it. One teacher shared a reminder she’d gotten from another teacher months before.

The reminder was that the most important thing to remember in a volatile time is to “maintain your ethical integrity.” She explained that holding fast to the precepts and our values is what will keep us steady in an unpredictable and sometimes heartbreaking world.

And when she said that I immediately saw the error of my ways. When I decided that I wanted to try to be good a few months ago, that’s what I had really meant. I was trying to commit to my values. I was trying to hold fast to ethical integrity. I was trying, albeit in a misguided way, to be the person I saw myself to be and one of the people the world needed.

The problem was that I got a little confused about the message.

Conclusion: Let Yourself Feel and Maybe Don’t Try So Hard

In case you have been struggling lately or sometimes get confused about things like these, I am going to just say it outright. Maintaining your ethical integrity and avoiding your feelings are not the same thing. Staying calm is not something you have to do at all costs, especially not when there is so much reason to be angry or sad or scared.

You are allowed to feel your feelings.

When we can skillfully hold them, they won’t keep us from living our values. Instead, when we can listen carefully enough to understand their message, they help us remember what our values are and how essential ethical behavior is.

So this is my big insight for you (or maybe it’s yet another needed reminder for me). Let yourself feel how you feel. Check in regularly to see if you are blocking your feelings or trying too hard. It’s your ethical integrity that you should protect. If you are like me and have a perfectionist urge to try too hard to be good, you can maybe try to ease up on that.

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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