65. Everything is Perfect. And There is Always Room for Improvement.

“Everything is perfect and there is always room for improvement.” This quote from Suzuki Roshi, who is the founder of the Zen Center of San Francisco and credited with bringing Buddhism to the East, starts us off today on this conversation about perfectionism. 

Thoughts are not the truth, they are just neurological phenomenon. Your heart beats. Your brain thinks. Thoughts are one neuron firing across the synapse to another neuron and then spreading out across a group of neurons to make a pattern. 

There is an easier way to relate to thoughts, especially the troubling ones that push us towards the limiting beliefs of perfectionism. 

Plus we talk about the universal shape of spirals, found in the shape of solar systems, plans and nature, our bodies...and in art!

Transcript

“Everything is perfect and there is always room for improvement.” This quote from Suzuki Roshi, who is the founder of the Zen Center of San Francisco and credited with bringing Buddhism to the East, starts us off today on this conversation about perfectionism. 

Welcome to the Modern Creative Woman podcast exploring the art and science of creativity. This is for women like you who want to elevate their creativity and really apply creative thinking in your everyday life. I'm your hostess and creativity expert, Doctor Amy Backos I'm a licensed psychologist and registered and board certified art therapist with almost three decades of helping women with their creativity and authenticity at the Modern Creative Woman. We are obsessed with helping you build your creativity through conversations and creative insights about the art and the science of becoming the woman you've always wanted to be. Let's get started. 

Welcome in! I'm so glad you're here and we are talking today all about perfectionism. Before we dive into some of these really powerful strategies for using our thinking to accomplish our goals. I want to let you know that September Inside the Modern Creative Woman is all about creative ambition, and I hope that you will join us. It's an incredible group of women, and we are taking a deep dive into concepts of ambition in women. The messages we receive from society about that, our hesitancy towards pursuing our ambitions and how to be creative about it. So you might have specific creative ambitions around a creative profession or making things, or you might be in business, or working at home and focusing on how you can generate new ways of engaging with your dreams. September is all about fresh starts and this class will be powerful. I will be heading off to Paris with a group of women in September as well, and I will keep you updated on how that goes and the things that we will be talking about. It is thrilling to be able to work with this amazing group of women. 

Let's dive in to perfectionism, perfection and how we think. How we think can influence what we're doing and how we relate to our thoughts. Let me explain. When we're talking about thoughts, thoughts are not the truth, they are just neurological phenomenon. Remember, your heart beats. Your brain thinks. Thoughts are one neuron firing across the synapse to another neuron and then spreading out across a group of neurons to make a pattern. Now, specifically, I want to give you a definition around thinking and believing our thoughts. And this comes from a researcher name, DJ Morgan. And it's using acceptance and commitment therapy. So thinking at our best is a non-literal context. And what I mean by that is what happens inside our brain is not the truth. It's a representation of how we are perceiving something outside of us. It's not literal, it's symbolic. It's neurons. It's not a polar bear. If we're thinking about a polar bear, it's just neurons. Thinking is also an internal language, and it's an active, ongoing process. It's not like we're thinking of something and then we're done thinking of it. Thinking is happening all the time. 

Something especially relevant to acceptance and commitment is that thoughts come from our history. They're contextualized in our history. And the more we focus on certain thoughts, the more we repeat those thoughts. And finally, thoughts happen in the present moment. Now, it may feel like we're time traveling when we go back to a memory and revisit it, however, thoughts are again, just neurons firing, happening in the present moment. The memory is no longer happening. It's just the residual, a non-literal representation that's active and ongoing based on history. But it's happening in the present moment. 

There's two components to thought that can kind of trip us up when we are thinking about doing things right or well, or wanting to do something at a high level. Automaticity and automatic thoughts. All thoughts just seem to pop into our head. It can really derail us. We might be spending quite a lot of time working on less judgment, or working on our own cultural humility, and yet old thoughts just seem to pop into her head. And it's true they do. Those are the socialized, conditioned ones, the habitual habits that we've learned from living in the world or from living in our families. A second component to thought is the sheer power of language. Our brains are primed to engage in the process of language. It feels completely natural, and we tend to believe our thoughts. We've got portions of the brain that are dedicated to the verbal, linguistic component of our experience. Vernie Keys and Broca's area are designed just to keep thoughts moving using the symbol of language. So now you see there's perhaps an old memory. We translate it into the symbol of a neuron firing using the symbol of language. So it's an experience that's a couple times removed by the time we're mulling over and all the experience. 

There's two ideas I want you to focus on, and you can make art about them. You can write about them. You can just meditate on them. One is fusion and the other one is diffusion. So think about fusing two pieces of metal together. That's fusion of thoughts where we think a thought and we think that it's true. We've fused together a neurological phenomenon with the truth and what we think isn't truth, it's just neurological phenomenon. Now, diffusion is how we feel better, how we gain perspective, how we get out of a habitual automatic thinking. Loop diffusion helps us really undermine this unhelpful language process in our brain. Diffusion helps us change how we relate to the content of the stuff we're thinking. We could be thinking about my dog together. We can think about my dog. But that doesn't bring the dog to you. The dog is not in front of you. You might be thinking, I like dogs or I don't like dogs or whatever you think about dogs, but believing something strongly about the dog that's not there can be distressing. If we think about something more serious and upsetting memory from our past, it's not there, and the way we think about it can cause more distress. The content is sort of less important in this process. What's more important in what I'm describing is how you relate to the content of your thoughts, how you're relating to the process of your thoughts. 

I was thinking of some examples. There's this universal experience that we humans have that involves social comparison, and for women, it shows up a lot as I'm not good enough. You've heard it called imposter syndrome. It's not a syndrome. It's not a diagnosis. It's just a neurological phenomenon that happens where we compare ourselves to others. And there's increased pressure for women because of sexism, racism, Discrimination of other kinds shows up in the content of the I'm not good enough. We have outside validation as well as an internal thought about it. So people experience something, but then they'll internalize it and repeat it. And here's where we can do a little interrupting is relating to the thoughts differently, seeing what's happening on the outside clearly, and then relating to the thoughts that show up in a easier, diffused kind of way. 

These thoughts usually start with I am or why am I always? You can fill in the blanks. I am some kind of negative thought related to your intelligence, your body, your worth as a person, your ability to be loved. All of these things show up in this category of I'm not good enough, and we have to be very careful and we can help each other out by recognizing when there is discrimination on the outside and being very careful about internalizing that experience, it's natural to internalize it as a child, as adults, we can begin to see more clearly and diffuse from those thoughts, and we can recognize that those external messages don't have to become internal. 

Thoughts can take one of two directions a downward spiral or an upward spiral. And when we focus on negative thoughts and we fuse them a negative thought with the belief that it is true that the thought is a fact. We generate lots of uncomfortable feelings, and when that happens, our brain is trying to be helpful. It gives us access to more similar feelings and thoughts. So if you get angry at yourself or someone else, your brain is trying to be helpful and gives you this access to other angry thoughts. If you get upset with a partner, you probably have many memories of disagreements with your partner. We all have disagreements. If you get upset with yourself, you have a lifetime of thoughts and memories that your brain can call from and give you more of those. And the longer this goes on, we can become more and more fused with the idea that something's wrong with us. We can shift neutral memories into negative ones, and we can see and create more negativity around our thoughts. 

Fortunately, there is also an upward spiral when we cultivate positive thoughts or we attend to them. We stay in the present moment. Our brain responds in kind. Again, trying to be helpful or brain gives us more access to other positive thoughts or memories or associations. And the more we're focused on an upward spiral of our thinking and our mood, we begin to notice and create more positive situations. This is cognitive and behavioral. It's behavioral psychology as well. It's not just an accident that what we think about, we think more about. This is how our brain works. When thinking about an upward spiral with our partner, we can have more memories of love and gratitude. You'll remember why you're together when you're in an upward spiral thinking about your work or yourself, you can notice that you've had a lifetime of survival and perseverance. Our very helpful brain gives us more and more of these positive things, and the longer that goes on, we can start to learn from negative experiences and see those as ways that we've grown in our life. We can see more opportunities to create meaning. 

I want to encourage you to focus on upward spiral thoughts and drawing spirals. Looking for spirals in nature and in architecture or design is a really fun way to remember the upward spiral process, really focusing on positive constructive thinking patterns and relating to your thoughts in neutral, lighthearted, accepting ways helps us feel resilient. It's good for our overall mental health, so it's about the content of the thought that we can. Move towards helpful thoughts and the process of relating to all our thoughts, the wanted ones and the unwanted ones. And what we see then is a cycle where positive, easygoing attitudes towards our thoughts increases over time. I want to share some examples of upward spiral thoughts that you can use, and I'll give you a couple categories. The first one is around resilience. If you're looking to increase your feelings of resilience, you might want to hold these thoughts. I faced challenges before and emerged even stronger. I trust I can handle whatever comes my way. These are thoughts that are metacognition. They're really thinking about thinking and how you want to think about your thoughts. You might be experiencing some negative memories, ruminating about a mistake you made or a disagreement you had with someone. But then you can remember I faced these challenges before and I trust I can handle it. 

Another area where I think women can make a big difference in how they think is through self-compassion. So you might want to try on thoughts such as, I am kind to myself and I know it's okay to make mistakes. You could remind yourself that I give myself the same compassion that I offer my friends and loved ones. If you're struggling with purpose and feeling like what you're doing is important, try on this way of thinking. My actions have purpose and contribute to a greater good. I make a positive impact in my life and the lives of others. If you find you are very serious or feel like you have a heavy heart, you might want to focus on this thought. I find joy in the process, not just in the destination. 

This works great if you're parenting. There's a lot of repeated processes parenting, laundry, dishes, school runs. The joy is in the process, not the destination. You're not done with the laundry, but you can focus on something that you enjoy while you're doing laundry. Get the kids involved, that kind of thing. But that the process of parenting can be oriented towards joy. You might add, every step I take is part of my meaningful journey. If you want to let go of perfection thinking around you, your your self-image, you might try on thoughts of I'm proud of who I am. I appreciate my mind and body, I value my strengths, and I work on my growing edges. 

I've given you some of the science here. I want to shift to the art of this, and the art of relating to our thoughts differently is about holding them a little more lightly. So here's a metaphor. If you want to pick up a lot of sand, you don't just grab a handful and squeeze it tight in your fist because most of the sand will fall out. What's required is that you keep your hands open and loose and create like a little bowl with your hands held together. And that's a metaphor that really works for holding your thoughts lightly. Those automatic thoughts that I mentioned before when we were talking about the brain science, they will show up. It's not about getting rid of automatic thoughts because it's pretty much impossible. To force them away. And the more we try and force them away, the longer they stick in, the worse they feel they can paradoxically ease up and dissipate. When we focus on the other things that matter, I relaxed attitude towards our thoughts. Non-judgmental approach to relating to whatever pops into our mind. Not believing everything that pops up in our mind. So if you can imagine scooping up a big handful of sand with both hands that will let you hold a little more lightly those unwanted thoughts. 

Now to strategies what you might do when you're faced with thoughts that are giving you anxiety around perfection. Like I am not doing this right, I can't put this down. And till I'm done, I can't take a break. I am unable to hand this in because it's not ever going to be good enough. I'm not even going to apply to graduate school because I don't think I'm smart enough or anything like that. Imagine just holding those thoughts lightly. Oh, there's my brain having some thoughts about doing some things. Brain's doing its thing. Thinking thoughts. But I'm not giving it direction. My brain will think old habitual thoughts. Let me orient towards what's important to me. Let me orient towards how I want to behave in this situation. I want to be loving to myself even when I have negative thoughts. I want to do a little bit more on the art of the upward spiral. And if you happen to be listening in your art studio or your kitchen table, start drawing some spirals. You can doodle them on the desk in front of you with your finger, and if you've got pen and art supplies, you can do spirals. Double helix. Start imagining the universe looks like spirals, how the universe is laid out in our solar system and all of the solar systems. It gives the impression of a spiral. You can google some space images and you'll see a lot of spirals bringing it down to a smaller level. There's a lot of spiral shapes in nature Nautilus shells. Many plants like imagine a fern. It starts off tightly coiled as a spiral and then unfolds. Many plants curve into a spiral shape, a lizard's tail. And if you go even deeper, your DNA, the stuff that makes you that you've inherited from all the generations before you is in a spiral. It's in a double helix shape. If you Google that, you'll have a pretty good inspiration for making some art. So it goes all the way from the universe, all the way down to ourselves and our biology. And from there we take the symbol of the spiral back out into the world. In architecture, I love a spiral staircase. Spirals are considered quite pleasing in architecture. Rounded shapes give the eye some movement. There is, of course in geometry, the golden spiral of the Fibonacci spiral. Mathematicians have used this spiral shape as a way to understand how shapes exist in the world. 

And of course, artists have used spirals over and over again to express feelings of going inward self-exploration, moving outward into exploring others to really powerful symbol that we use in art therapy as well. Next time you're at the beach, you can draw a little spiral in the sand. You can start to see where a spiral can give you information. When you make a little art about it, you can reflect on going inward or moving outward. I want to leave you with a reframe that you can use in your thinking. When it starts to feel this perfectionist judgmental. If you're judging yourself around something not being good enough. Your body, your mind. Your relationships. Your progress. Your relationship status. Your grades. Your work review. When we look in a downward spiral, remember there's always room for improvement, but it can feel pretty bad. It's not good enough. When we look up the spiral, we can see gratitude for what we have, what exists, the things that got us to where we are today. So anything that starts with I am and is followed by a negative judgement needs to be examined and defused from. Those thoughts are just thoughts not true. 

So I want to give you a reframe, a substitution for some of those negative IAM statements. And it's I am grateful for who I am and what I have. I am grateful for who I am and what I have. Do you like how that sounds? It's a much more kind and loving way to respond to your thoughts. So you might have a negative, judgmental thought and then you heap more judgment on top of it. That's maybe your old way of relating to thoughts. Judge yourself. Criticize yourself for what you're thinking, and believe it to be true. Here I'm offering a lighter, easier way to respond to those thoughts. Remember, just like holding that sand easily. This is. I am grateful for who I am and what I have, grateful for, who I am and what I have. Let me know if that resonates with you and how you are responding to this concept of easing up your thoughts and your judgments around perfection. Have a wonderful rest of your week. 

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