Are you the ‘perfect’ empath?
The link between emotional sensitivity & perfectionism
Have you ever done that thing at a job interview when you’re asked to label a weakness, and you’ve replied that you’re ‘too much of a perfectionist’?
I have.
And you, as I did, probably knew full well what you were doing.
You were choosing the most ‘perfect’ weakness to have.
Yeah, this perfectionism is terrible for you as an employer, it will make me work long hours, be over-conscientious, go the extra mile, and have exacting standards that produce high quality work. And oh yes, it will make me care way more about this job, the company (and its reputation), its customers, the meeting of deadlines and the achievement of desired outcomes than you do. And don’t worry, I’ll let it all fall to me, I’ll pick up the slack, plug the holes and save the day…because…I’m a perfectionist.
Perfectionism got you the job. And helped you to get the job done.
And yet, it probably also gifted you with crippling anxiety, mental overload, muscular tension, digestive dysfunction, insomnia, high blood pressure, and adrenal stress to the point of exhaustion.
It's this ‘blessing’ and ‘curse’ nature of perfectionism that makes it so interesting.
And so hard to shift. Even when you want to.
Perfectionism and anxiety...a match made in hell.
Perhaps you haven’t made the connection between your anxiety and your perfectionism. I was so disconnected from myself that when I first saw my GP write the diagnosis of ‘Generalised Anxiety Disorder’ on one of my medical forms I wondered who she was talking about. Me? Anxious? That’s just how I roll! That’s my normal! When she gently suggested that my high-performing habits were underpinned by a limiting belief of ‘not good enough’ I was flummoxed. I’d never considered it. It seemed so natural for me to continue perfecting things to the point of perfection, to continue working on things until I was ‘happy’ with them, which was…err…never.
I had to do a lot of work to UNDERSTAND myself. My drive. My motivations. My intense need to get it right and do my best.
There’s A LOT of layers.
But if any of this resonates with you, I can offer you a short-cut to understanding the reason you need perfectionism in your life.
One of the biggest discoveries I made about what was at the heart of my perfectionism: Being emotionally sensitive and prone to emotional overwhelm.
The 'Oblivious Empath'
I had NO IDEA how energetically and emotionally sensitive I was. The degree to which I was a ‘psychic sponge.’ We’re talking OBLIVIOUS. And I sure as hell had no idea how to process all the energies and emotions I was sucking up.
Enter Mr Perfectionism.
When you’re oblivious to all the emotional energy you’re carrying. When you have no idea how to process it. When you don’t know how to give yourself the time and space to process it, Mr Perfectionism is your friend.
He’ll give you something to focus on. He’ll give you an outlet for your excess energy. He’ll allow you to get lost in the task at hand. He’ll allow you to give all your energy to the external world, offering you a convenient and practical escape from the overwhelming confusion and chaos of your inner emotional world.
God Bless you Mr Perfectionism.
Gary Zukav, in his excellent book The Heart of the Soul - Emotional Awareness, beautifully highlights the way in which our sabotages serve to help us escape, avoid or try and fix external circumstances.
While I had made the connection between my ‘not good enough’ belief and my perfectionistic habits, until I read his book, I hadn’t considered the way in which the act of perfecting is in itself a great coping mechanism to help you avoid emotions.
"Perfectionism is the opposite of emotional awareness…it is an intellectual exercise that draws attention away from emotions and prevents the exploration of your creative power"
- Gary Zukav, The Heart of the Soul
This understanding was further deepened by understanding the five elements in Taoism, and how the element of Metal, the phase of change that focuses on contraction and refinement, easily turns into anxiety and rigid perfectionism when out of balance.
Understanding the 'energy' of perfectionism.
Looking at perfectionism beyond the simplicity of your childhood wounds and limiting beliefs is mind-blowing. 🤯 To release the need to analyse, explain and over-think the reasons for a problem is freeing. To develop emotional awareness and truly understand the impact of your emotional sensitivity on your energy levels is true wisdom. And to practice the emotional alchemyrequired to unleash the energy you have tied up in emotional avoidance is in my mind, the very definition of empowerment.
Do you want to boost your energy and unleash your creative power?
Get ready to repair your relationship with perfectionism
Approach your sabotaging behaviour of perfectionism from an energy perspective. Understand why you secretly LOVE your perfectionism even though it DRAINS your energy, SLOWS you down and thwarts your PROGRESS. Learn how to transmute the energy of your perfectionism so you can claim your energy and power back.