Series: Healing For Damaged Emotions
#7 The Cure For Perfectionism
Mar 22, 2009
Let me quote Dr. David Seamands, “Whenever you experience a response on your part that is way out of proportion to the stimulus, then look out. You have probably tapped into some deep emotional hurt.”
That is what we are talking about in this series on the damaged emotions that all of us have. Because of deep emotional hurts, we are all broken and need God’s healing of body, mind and spirit. Last week we looked at the “Curse of Perfectionism” and what that damaged emotion looks like. To recap: perfectionism is that all-pervasive feeling of never quite being or doing good enough, of never measuring up to your own high standards, to other people’s expectations, and never feeling accepted by God. The perfectionist is plagued by a constant sense of guilt matched only by a general super sensitivity. Perfectionism produces in the perfectionist a distorted view of God leading to doubt, anger and rebellion against this unbiblical view of God that he can never please.
Today we focus on perfectionism’s cure. The running for THIS cure will be to Jesus and His marvelous grace. There will be no cure until we recognize and admit that we are broken and come to understand that brokenness. As simple as that may seem, many people prefer to live in a state of denial, in a house of excuses, rather than being willing to admit there is a problem. The irony is that usually everyone else knows it, but you!
Along with this confession that we are damaged and broken is our need to acknowledge and realize that the cure is a long process. If you are looking for “The 10 instant and easy answers to cure perfectionism,” you won’t find it here or anywhere. In fact perfectionists are especially prone to look for easy and quick answers. We are not talking about magic here. We are talking about healing—God’s healing. While you may want an instant miracle, God is looking more to give you a lifelong miracle of peeling back and healing you one layer at a time. Your recognition of and admitting to and understanding of the nature of perfectionism is a major first step in your healing.
The next step in healing is to understand the causes of perfectionism. The most common source of perfectionism is your childhood home and upbringing and it is two-fold: unpleaseable parents and unpredictable home life.
The problem with unpleaseable parents is that they give only conditional love. This conditional love sets certain standards that must be lived up to, certain grades achieved, only the highest performance in sports, and/or the best Christian behavior. I am not saying that high standards in all of life are a bad thing, not at all. In fact in our world today generally we need higher standards especially in personal morality and ethical behavior. Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton make the job all that more difficult! The key here is how we motivate our kids to high standards and how we respond when they fail to live up to such high standards. Perfectionism develops when there is little or no encouragement and affirmation, but there is plenty of criticism and discouragement. Even approval can be conditional. When encouragement is given only in the context of doing better then that encouragement has conditions attached to it. Those 3 A’s on the report card aren’t even mentioned, but the B is highlighted followed by “I think you can bring that B up to an A if you only try harder.” The next marking period you work hard and get straight A’s. You can’t wait to get home and show your mom. She glances at the report card and says, “That’s great.” As she looks at you’re her smile turns to a frown and she scowls, “How did you tear your pants? You must have fallen at recess and went around all-day with torn pants.” All the while her demeanor and body language communicate displeasure and disappointment. The encouragement is superseded by her displeasure. Unpleasable parents with conditional love create unattainable standards and when those standards and expectations aren’t met, punishment is often meted out.
Besides, or in addition to, unpleaseable parents, unpredictable home situations produce perfectionist tendencies. Charles Dickens once wrote, “In the world of little children, the greatest hurt of all is injustice.” Unpredictable home situations produce injustice. One of my youth members in Sea Isle City was raised by his grandparents. Time and again they told him “On Saturday we will go to ________.” But most often it didn’t happen. As a child his hopes were built up only to be dashed on the rocks of disappointment. He never knew if he would be going or not. Unpredictable emotional responses are perhaps the worst. The same behavior might one day produce laughter, but the next day it produces a slap across the face. Many children coming home from school never quite know which mom or dad will be waiting for them. Will they be hugged, slugged or ignored? Will they be loved or scolded? Will home be a happy, secure place or will it be foreboding and sinister? If parents cannot control their own emotions, a child never knows what kind of response he will get from them. Chuck Swindoll wrote, “Each day in our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.” It isn’t very difficult to see how home situations are incubators for breeding perfectionists. Unpleaseable parents, unrealistic and unattainable standards, unclear signals, and unendurable conflicts—all create “the perfect storm” for the curse of perfectionism in adult life.
The cure for the curse of perfectionism is God’s grace, which includes recognizing and admitting the problem, realizing that healing will be a long process, as well as understanding the causes of perfectionism. God’s grace also carries His unconditional love to you and His grace that enables you to persevere and to face your brokenness head-on. When the Apostle Paul prayed that God would remove the “thorn” in his flesh, listen to God’s response, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9) Notice the personal pronoun preceding the word ‘grace.’ That word is ‘my.’ Grace is not a commodity that is dispensed by God; rather grace is God’s presence. When you get God’s grace, you get God Himself who is the grace. And He is right there with you, every step of the way, cheering you on to wholeness and healing.
The healing of our damaged emotions also occurs in the context of the body of Christ. In James 5:16 we read, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Our own healing happens when we are not only honest with God but also honest with each other in a loving and accepting atmosphere. In that atmosphere we are free to be upfront about our brokenness so that the body of Christ may pray for us so that we would be healed and made whole. You’re only as sick as your secrets. Is this realistic or is it a pipe dream? Dare you share your sins and brokenness with one another? Probably not. Because our own sin and brokenness, leads us to rejoice in another’s failures and failings. It makes us look better and salves our own conscience. That’s why gossip is so sinful and destructive. That’s why backbiters, spreaders of rumors and innuendo, those who bad-mouth, the disgruntled who complain and ‘disgrunt’ to everyone but to those to whom they should complain and ‘disgrunt,’ are all soundly condemned and rejected in God’s Word. All this does is to extend and deepen the brokenness of God’s people instead of leading to healing and wholeness. That is why God so soundly condemns it as sin.
The source of our healing is found in the cross of Jesus. The prophet Isaiah hundreds of years before Jesus lived, spoke about the suffering that the Messiah would experience for the salvation of the world. Notice the words: “He had no beauty or majesty…he was despised and rejected…a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering…”
Jesus experienced all of this and more. He had no rights. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. All his divine powers were stripped away, his friends forsook him, as he was mocked, ridiculed, humiliated, and beaten. “If you’re the Son of God, come down and prove it if you’re so great!” The cross of Jesus was the epitome of injustice. No one can ever say that God doesn’t know what’s it like to suffer. In this we can identify with Jesus even as He identifies with us. The cross of Jesus is the revolting, ugly truth about each one of us: the truth about our anger and hate, our envy and jealousy, our lust and desire, our selfishness and pride, and the rest of our putrid sin, disease, and brokenness.
And that is exactly why God sent Jesus into our world—to absorb into Himself our sin, our broken and damaged emotions. There is nothing about you that God does not already know. As rotten as you think you are, as hurtful and nasty as the things you are done and said, there is nothing that you are or have done or said that God won’t forgive and wash away by His grace and love. He wants to heal your brokenness, to repair your damaged emotions, and to make you a brand new person. Hear these words of Paul, “God was in Christ, reconciling ME to Himself, not counting my trespasses against me.” (2 Cor. 5:19)
Hear again these words of Isaiah and hear them not only with you ears but with your heart and mind as well: “He took MY infirmities and carried MY sorrows…He was pierced for MY transgressions…he was crushed for MY iniquities…by His wounds I am healed.”
Jesus is your Wounded Healer. Let Him heal you through His Holy Spirit.