Learning to Embrace Imperfection

By Jennifer Arias, Psy.D. (she, her, ella)

The demand for perfect is the greatest enemy of the good. 

-Richard Rohr “Falling Upward”

How do you feel when you make a mistake? 

What do you experience in your body? 

For me making a mistake often feels like the end of the world.

Everything stops.

My heart clenches. 

I find its even hard to take my next breath.

And then the thoughts flood in:

This is it. This is what I was waiting for. This is what I knew would happen. 

The internal critic pronounces judgment: you see- you always do this; you’re terrible. 

And in this moment these thoughts feel true (even when I know I actually do things fairly well a lot of the time). 

One mistake can change a really wonderful day into a “bad day.“

Does this sound familiar? 

This is one common way people experience shame. Brené Brown, well known sociologist and shame researcher, defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” 

When discussing shame I am often asked: Why does this happen? Why do I feel such intense shame when I know I am actually doing really well overall? The answer is usually in our history and relational experiences.

WHERE did we learn this internal pattern and why? 

When we start asking these kind of questions we understand how our behavior, thoughts, and emotions are a natural response to our environment. The way we question ourselves now is what we learned in our past important relationships. If our caregivers were strict and hard to please we internalize their standards and learn to work REALLY hard to avoid losing their love. We learn that “mistakes” are a threat to our very core sense of acceptance. As adults we KNOW everyone makes mistakes, but when our past experiences did not allow for this mistakes FEEL intolerable. We believe what shame says: that we are somehow flawed and will never be loved, rather than the truth that making mistakes and feeling pain is the most human experience. 

This is where the work lies. In LEARNING to respond to ourselves and mistakes in a more gentle way. Embracing them even.

Slowing down to notice the response WHEN you make a mistake. What happens in your body? What are the thoughts? 

We learn new truths the more we notice and practice responding in a new way. These different experiences of more gentle responses from ourselves and others help our emotions and bodies to heal and mistakes might sting a little less.

We know practice helps us get better at holding our feelings and reactions but, like all feelings, shame will come to visit again. This is why self-compassion is a practice. As long as we are on this life adventure we will have those moments: where your heart clenches and you recognize anxiety rising. In these moments we must practice slow down to breathe deeply, so deep, and use the kind, gentle voice of the adult that you are now to speak to part of you that is reacting to shame: Yes. You made a mistake, this is “insert word here that describes the situation as you would for a friend“ (rough, annoying, disappointing, frustrating, terrible) and then say aloud or to yourself, “and it’s going to be OK, why? Because we’re gonna deal with it.”

Don’t just read this to yourself, but actually take a minute and take a deep breath and practice telling yourself that about some thing that has happened recently. 

Notice how it feels to tell yourself that.

What emotions did you feel? 

How much were you able believe those words? 

Was it hard to receive that reassurance, if so, what made it hard to accept? 

There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake and getting mad at yourself, but what does that actually accomplish? 

When we let go of what “should be” we make room to receive what is. Sometimes the hardest things we can do is accept what is, accept ourselves. But only when we accept ourselves as we are can we begin the really change. Healing comes from honesty and care for ourselves. This can be very hard to learn and practice and requires unlearning the self-criticism many of us were raised with. Still, you deserve to be human, and make mistakes, and be met with compassion. So why not start with offering this to yourself. And if the inner critic speaks up about how you can’t even be kind “right” you can give them a gentle reminder too, for both of you: It’s ok. We’ll keep trying.

 If you would like more support in this process, we would love to help support you. Reach out for information on our warm and insightful therapists who offer both individual or family therapy, and join the waitlist for our DBT relationship skills group to help you learn more skills for your important relationships.

Brown Brené. (2018). Dare to lead : brave work tough conversations whole hearts. Random House.

Rohr R. (2011). Falling upward : a spirituality for the two halves of life (1st ed.). Jossey-Bass.

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