My life experience made me a control freak. Since everything else in my world was spinning wildly like a dervish, I took extra care to control my life. I micromanaged every detail, and in my journals wrote thousands of lists perfectly detailing my perfect life. The problem with this is when reality smacks you in the face and it doesn’t live up to your perfect view, it can be devastating. I spent many years micromanaging my life, and to a certain extent, attempting to micromanage the lives of those around me. I had a very detailed plan of how my life was going to unfold, and when it didn’t work out that way, I was at a loss.
I have always been an overachiever, juggling multiple priorities. I was involved in tons of activities in high school, worked, played sports and was an honors student. In college, I worked full time and carried 22-23 credits a semester, being a newspaper editor and DJ and in a sorority. Even into adulthood, I did volunteer work and worked multiple jobs as well as a crazy social life. Living at warp speed was the norm for me, with a perfect façade.
When reality catches up to you, it bites.
This lifestyle was carefully constructed so folks would not know the real me, because if I wasn’t perfect, they wouldn’t like me (or so I thought). Even when I first met the Big Man, I was afraid to let down my guard. I was so terrified that if he knew I wasn’t perfect, he would leave. It was such a very real fear, that it almost ended our relationship. The ugly truth about perfectionism is that it generally leaves its victims in the opposite state. It goes back to the old saying if you can’t do it right (in this case, perfect) than don’t do it at all. Everything from cleaning your house to working out to a school project becomes this battle over the “right way” to do something.
Reality is-there isn’t a right or wrong way. The only person who is perfect is God, and He’s not about to elevate us to His level. Most recovering perfectionists use it as a way to numb ourselves from feelings. I kept such tight control on my life, I didn’t have time for the pain (to quote Carly Simon). I would work myself up into such a frenzy if something didn’t go according to plan, and my long suffering boys bore the brunt of it. There would be times I would explode in a rage, not quite sure consciously why I was so angry, only to later discover that my plan had been deviated from.
As I watched my son grow and start school, I found myself wanting to break the cycle of perfectionism. I know first hand how hurtful it is to do your best, to have tried your hardest to have a loved one tell you it wasn’t good enough because you didn’t get an A. I did not want my son to feel that level of pain nor did I want to undercut his self esteem. I wanted him to learn to enjoy the process as much as the end-result.
It was time for a change.
I no longer plan to the nth degree. I have a general outline-who is doing what, where will we all be and what’s for dinner. Outside of that, I have surrendered control and let things happen.
When I first started this process, I was terrified.
Then magic started to happen. When I stopped micromanaging our lives, we started living. There were spontaneous music concerts in the living room. I sat and listened to my son tell me about cave spiders in Minecraft. We laughed a lot more. No body was hiding in separate rooms, to get away from the screaming banshee. Everyone started to pitch in around the house.
I began to live in the moment. I stopped worrying about 15 minutes or a half hour or next week from now. It was the immediate moment. That’s all we got, and in this moment-this now, its perfect.
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