Perfectionism

I know I've posted on this before, but I need to again. It doesn't seem to matter what mood I'm in, high or low, I either get anxious at the thought of meditation or I get anxious when I sit. I can't seem to let go of my perfectionism. I know meditation is simply following the breath and labeling my thoughts as "thinking," that it's OK if my mind wanders, just to bring it back. THAT's it. 20 minutes a day of just that. But when I catch my mind wandering there's a sense of distress and disappointment that I "failed" and that my session is not "perfect." My perfectionism, I've found, is causing many problems in my life and in my spiritual practice, but I can't seem to let it go or incorporate it. I think I'm also afraid of dealing with my neurotic mind because I find it a deterrent in my spiritual practice. I just want to make friends with these parts of my mind, but I don't know how. Being an "intellectual," I'm finding, can really be a hindrance in meditation. Any suggestions?

I know I've posted on this before, but I need to again. It doesn't seem to matter what mood I'm in, high or low, I either get anxious at the thought of meditation or I get anxious when I sit. I can't seem to let go of my perfectionism. I know meditation is simply following the breath and labeling my thoughts as "thinking," that it's OK if my mind wanders, just to bring it back. THAT's it. 20 minutes a day of just that. But when I catch my mind wandering there's a sense of distress and disappointment that I "failed" and that my session is not "perfect." My perfectionism, I've found, is causing many problems in my life and in my spiritual practice, but I can't seem to let it go or incorporate it. I think I'm also afraid of dealing with my neurotic mind because I find it a deterrent in my spiritual practice. I just want to make friends with these parts of my mind, but I don't know how. Being an "intellectual," I'm finding, can really be a hindrance in meditation. Any suggestions?

Try some type of love or compassion meditation. Metta, tonglen, or any number of others.

Here's the thing.
If you don't want to meditate - then don't.
it's that simple.
when you prepare to sit, you are opening yourself up to fear.
you are self-sabotaging, because you EXPECT a negative result.
so if you expect a negative result, you already set yourself up for failure.

so?
don't meditate.

Sorted.

You have helped me realize maybe where I am going wrong with meditation, it is the notion you have before you go into it that matters quite a lot I assume. Considering how powerful the mind is, you should really have no expectations before formally sitting. I myself often think "this is going to be a waste of time" or "I am going to try really hard and find some inner peace", neither of these ideas I know realize will help what so ever. Thank you OP and thank federica.

You may benefit from being with a formal group - it may be that in placing faith and trust in a teacher, you can replace your attachment to perfection with an attachment to trust your teacher... then you can eventually work on the teacher attachment!

Or maybe, meditate until you feel that you have failed - accept that you failed and stop meditating and move on with your life - then try again... if meditation doesnt fit with you then stop... try other ways of examining why it is that you seek a 'state of something' (perfect or otherwise) - then try again.

Or maybe seek that perfection more and see where that leads you... keep telling yourself that you failed and see that in that state eventually you fail at everything - then so what? what is failure if it is the state of everything!!

You'll have to reprogram your mind - there is no easy solution and ultimately the answer is with you already - perhaps you just cant face it yet - but thats ok too - everyone is in the same boat with you! If it helps, your post and your thoughts will have much more of a positive effect on others than the negative effect on you... maybe thats just where you need to be right now.

Seems to me that your meditation is going well (if it is insight meditation). You're learning about reality: how you want to control things and how it's this wanting to control that is causing great stress...

Maybe this might help:

Remember that this is simply the state your mind is in. It's so because of the way you have been living your life. Now you are learning about yourself, about the state of mind you are in, the stress you have, the cause of this stress etc. This is what you try to do in meditation: learning about reality. Not trying to change it. But this is what happens when we start to meditate: we want to change things, we think we can control it all. Seeing this, and seeing the stress this brings (and really, all it brings is stress) is part of the learning...

That's just the think @Federica, I do want to meditate. I need to meditate. This spiritual path is nothing without meditation, that message is loud and clear. The problem is I have expectations about meditation and I'm not sure how to get rid of or dissolve those expectations. That causes my frustration. In essence, I'm having trouble letting go. Thanks @Sofa, that viewpoint will help me a lot. Perhaps I am making more progress than I think. My therapist identified my perfectionism in this aspect as my spiritual superego that always wants me to go faster in my spiritual practice to be more perfect about it and I just have to recognize it and tell it to "fuck off."

BTW, I tried tonglen last night and I think it helped quite a bit to get me to sleep faster. I find the meditations where I'm having to do something help for now.

ClayTheScribe said:

I can't seem to let go of my perfectionism.

I think you maybe misunderstanding what letting go means in this context.

ClayTheScribe said:

But when I catch my mind wandering there's a sense of distress and disappointment that I "failed"

just let that feeling of "I failed" go.

when you recognize it and label it inside (the feeling itself, not the thought), spend a few seconds with it.

Let this feeling go. This means stop trying to control that feeling.
Let it take over your whole body if it want to.
I even talk to my feelings sometimes like: "hey dude, nice to see you. Here, make yourself at home. You are free to do whatever you want! you can take over the whole body or stay right where you are, doesn't matter. Welcome!"

Do body focused meditation.

good - bad ... it's all relative. What you appear to label bad is good in someone else's opinion, e.g just sitting quietly sounds like an achievement to those who can't do it for as long as you do, or not at all.

Monkey mind .... so what? Everyone has it and apparently it takes a lot of patient practice to get past that. Who's judging?

RELAX -- and allow yourself to have BAD meditations, whatever that may be. It's OK. You do what you do - depending on where you are, and that is NATURALLY all you can hope for. You cannot LEARN to be good at meditation, it comes to you, eventually.
You are trying to engage your brain in assessing your progress. THAT won't work. Your brain doesn't know squat :-) -- in this case.

It's not a contest and it will take however long it will take. So, give up your goal DRIVEN practice and things will fall into place. No-Stress-Meditation. Just go with the flow.

===================================
MEDITATION

Pema Chodron: What is True Mindfulness?
"Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.

The thoughts are fine if they are seen as transparent, but we get so caught up judging thoughts as right or wrong, for and against, yes and no, needing it to be this way and not that way. And even that might be okay except that is accompanied by strong, strong emotions. So we just start ballooning out more and more. With this grasping onto thoughts we just get more caught, more and more hooked. All of us. Every single one of us."
more at http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/meditation1.php

and

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/shenpa3b.php# :

"Say, for instance, you meditated and you felt a sort of settling and a sort of calmness, a sense of well-being. And maybe thoughts came and went, but they didn't hook you, and you were able to come back, and there wasn't a sense of struggle. Afterwards, to that actually very pleasant experience: shenpa. "I did it right, I got it right, that's how it should always be, that's the model." It either builds arrogance or conversely it builds poverty mind because next session is nothing like that.

Next session, the bad one, which is even worse now that you had the good one —and you had the shenpa to the "good" one. Do you see what I'm saying about the shenpa? In other words, is there something wrong with that meditation experience? Nothing wrong with it, but the shenpa. This is what, as practitioners, we have to get at.

Then you have the "bad" one, which is not bad. It's just that you sat there and you were very discursive and you were obsessing about someone at home, at work, something you have to do— you worried and you fretted, or you got into a fear or anger. Anyway, you were wildly discursive, and you were trying to rope in this wild horse who refused to be tamed, and you just felt like it was a horrible meditation session. At the end of it you feel discouraged, and it was bad and you're bad for the bad meditation. And you could feel hopeless.

That's why I told the story about my meditation last night, because really, someone like me, I'd say, would have taken my own life long ago based on if I had been trained in good and bad —that it's supposed to be like this and not this. But from the beginning, even though it took ten years to even start to penetrate, I was always told not to judge yourself. Don't get caught in good or bad, it's just what it is."

The first rule in meditation...ok, the 2nd rule, after the first: bring attention back to the breath, is : don't beat yourself up if your mind wanders! Typical newby mistake, and very counterproductive, as you've found. Just bring it back to the breath. No guillotine will fall :eek: if your mind has wandered too many times in a sitting. There are no meditation cops hiding around the corner :hrm: waiting to jump out and give you a ticket for lack of minfulness.
It's the mind's nature to wander, so why would you beat yourself up about the mind just doing its thing? Forgive the mind. Be sure to do the slow breathing, what I call "yoga breathing" in the beginning. See if that helps.

Dakini said:

No guillotine will fall :eek: if your mind has wandered too many times in a sitting. There are no meditation cops hiding around the corner :hrm: waiting to jump out and give you a ticket for lack of minfulness.

This could make a funny comedy sketch for those in the know. :)

Yeah, I kinda liked the mental imagery. :) Maybe we should do a video for youtube.

I think everyone here is telling you - don't 'try' so hard.
Your lute strings are too tight....

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.055.than.html


Too much strain. Too much effort - is not Right Effort.
You need to relax, and not be so hard on yourself....
Right awareness, Right Concentration, is Attentive Relaxation, and Relaxed Attention....

What's the difference between right and perfection? This is suggesting I need to find the perfect balance no?

That may well be so; but if what you're doing isn't working, then you need to amend your method, don't you?

ClayTheScribe said:

What's the difference between right and perfection? This is suggesting I need to find the perfect balance no?

No difference. 'Perfect' is as relative a term as 'right' when it comes to practical matters for which there is no unified set of measurements. When you're doing it right, it's perfect.

Don't concern yourself with the result: perfection, failure, right, wrong. When you worry about the result, you're projecting into the future. There is no future if you're in the moment every moment. Experience the process. Meditation is being in the present, not the future.
I hope this helps.

Hmm maybe you could just accept your perfectionism. Actually I can be that way and sometimes it frustrates me but when I don't take it too seriously then it cracks me up. Really silly, did I think I was going to be that perfect? Ha,

But I don't think the problem is having a perfectionistic thought as then holding onto it dearly and the making perfection part of you and your fixed personality, which, by the way, is not fixed or separate. So the thought of being perfectionistic is the one that 'sticks', letting it go is okay. There is something about the thoughts that 'stick' and we feel bad about letting them go.

So see the perfectionistic thought and let it go, then feel the feeling of not wanting to let it go and then let that go,

It may help

ClayTheScribe said:

I know I've posted on this before, but I need to again. It doesn't seem to matter what mood I'm in, high or low, I either get anxious at the thought of meditation or I get anxious when I sit. I can't seem to let go of my perfectionism. I know meditation is simply following the breath and labeling my thoughts as "thinking," that it's OK if my mind wanders, just to bring it back. THAT's it. 20 minutes a day of just that. But when I catch my mind wandering there's a sense of distress and disappointment that I "failed" and that my session is not "perfect." My perfectionism, I've found, is causing many problems in my life and in my spiritual practice, but I can't seem to let it go or incorporate it. I think I'm also afraid of dealing with my neurotic mind because I find it a deterrent in my spiritual practice. I just want to make friends with these parts of my mind, but I don't know how. Being an "intellectual," I'm finding, can really be a hindrance in meditation. Any suggestions?

Because meditation seems so simple--"Just sit and don't think"--I think we have an unreasonable expectation that our feeling of success should be quicker.

Imagine practicing riding a unicycle--you would allow yourself many weeks or even months of wobbling off, getting going again, wobbling off. You might not consider falling off to be unnatural; you might expect to fall off many, many times.

Every step is necessary; if you fall off and correct yourself to get back on, that is one more necessary step you needed to get to the point of being a "unicycle rider." It's not a failure at all, it's just practice.

Meditation isn't simply the skill of being in meditation; it's the skill of falling off and returning to meditation. That's a muscle that needs to be strong. So every time you feel like you're falling off, tell yourself "now's my chance to strengthen my returning-to-meditation" muscle. It really will get stronger and stronger, and you'll eventually find it's no longer a worry!

I have to add one more thing - I too suffered from this perfectionist thing, in the sense that I didn't feel I could meditate until everything was "perfect" (I don't know if that's the same thing that plagues you). Not too hungry, not to full, comfy pants on, a day with nothing on the calendar, on and on and on until I realized I had such a long list of prerequisites that I couldn't possibly ever find a "perfect" meditation day or time.

I finally just said "to hell with it" and started trying to still my mind "whenever." At a stoplight, in the elevator, random times and places, because I couldn't stand the pressure of having to make everything "perfect" in order to meditate. That kind of overcorrection really helped--and it's also nice to find that there really are times throughout our busy days where instead of letting our minds go 90 mph, we can instead just rest in stillness. It's not a replacement for longer sitting meditation, but I found it a nice exercise to do a way with my obsessive need for a "perfect time."

ClayTheScribe said:

I know I've posted on this before, but I need to again. It doesn't seem to matter what mood I'm in, high or low, I either get anxious at the thought of meditation or I get anxious when I sit. I can't seem to let go of my perfectionism. I know meditation is simply following the breath and labeling my thoughts as "thinking," that it's OK if my mind wanders, just to bring it back. THAT's it. 20 minutes a day of just that. But when I catch my mind wandering there's a sense of distress and disappointment that I "failed" and that my session is not "perfect." My perfectionism, I've found, is causing many problems in my life and in my spiritual practice, but I can't seem to let it go or incorporate it. I think I'm also afraid of dealing with my neurotic mind because I find it a deterrent in my spiritual practice. I just want to make friends with these parts of my mind, but I don't know how. Being an "intellectual," I'm finding, can really be a hindrance in meditation. Any suggestions?

This recognition of non-attachment is something you know through
your awareness rather than through a description. All
one can say about it is things like: “don’t attach to
anything,” and “let go of everything.” But then people
attach and say, “we shouldn’t be attached to anything”
— and so they attach to the idea of non-attachment!
We are so committed to thinking and trying to figure
everything out in terms of ideas, theory, technique,
party line, the Theravàda approach … and so it goes
on and on like this, and we bind ourselves to the
conditions, even though the teaching is about letting
go or non-attachment. This why I really encourage you
to observe attachment.
Trust yourself in this awareness. And, rather than
holding to the views that one shouldn’t be attached,
recognize that attachment is like this….

Ajahn Sumedho

You are thinking you have failed because you have the wrong idea of meditation to begin with. The "success" is in the returning from the wandering, not to stop the wandering from happening, that is not possible. In other words, you're doing it wrong.

I was doing tonglen meditation last night and it was going OK, but then I caught myself wandering, really attaching to a thought and an emotion and I brought myself back and I had this deep sense of satisfaction as a smile came across my face, the opposite of dukkha. I believe doing that meditation helped get me to sleep easier. I did meditation today and didn't try as hard and it was pretty nice. I didn't get so upset about drifting or accomplishing anything. I don't know what benefit, if any will be presented to me from doing my meditation in the morning, but I tried, I sat for 20 minutes and that's accomplishment enough. Thanks for all your advice and words of wisdom, it helped.

Oh Snap! @federica just laid a smack-down on ur ass! j/k :P

But she's right.

I would like to add that perfectionism sucks cuz it can prevent us from doing stuff that end up being fun or interesting, and learning from mistakes. I catch myself acting like that sometimes. I try my best to shake it off and not let it prevent me from doing stuff.

Maybe you don't HAVE to meditate for now. Maybe some self-reflection would be helpful. Like reflect on why you're being a perfectionist when it comes to meditation. Just a suggestion.

I think meditation is the ultimate self-reflection, so I will keep pursuing it. My therapist described what's going on as my spiritual superego is acting out, demanding I follow this path at a faster pace and that I not dare mess up or meditate wrong. And I just have to tell that part of my mind to "Shut the heck up and be quiet. I'll go as slow as I want." The fact is I've made A LOT more progress spiritually than I would have imagined a year ago at this time, so it's likely I will make a lot more progress by this time next year as well. It's all going how it's supposed to and I will just trust in that. I just let my ego, particularly my shadow, take over for a bit.

you talk about it as if it were a 3rd person...
You ego is you......
separating your 'ego' from 'you' kind of gives you an excuse.... a cop-out....
almost as if there is a part of your psyche that has a mind of its own and therefore independent and out of your control....
I would trust and assume that's not your intention....

That is not my intention, but thanks for pointing that out. How I communicate these things is important. Honestly, sometimes I feel like the shadow, the dark part of my ego is separate from me and then I fight it, without realizing it's a part of me, so I have to remind myself of that. It is indeed in my control and I realize that. I suppose that's still part of my work of self-acceptance on the path to realizing non-self. Thanks.

you may find, on that note, that many Buddhists prefer to refer to that as NOT-self.
Non-self seems to annihilate the right and proper existence you experience, whereas NOT self is more... 'the other side of the coin'.....
you are your Self, but broken down to a gadgillion ever-changing parts, you are not-self.
but a bit like yin and yang, there is still an element of self, within not-self, and not-self within the self.
non-self is a negation..... not-self is an alternative......

Not-self is what I meant. Thanks for the clarification.