Transcription
Hello my brothers and my sisters. This is your brother from another mother, Mark DeJesus, bringing you insights for your healing and freedom journey. As I passionately share insights that are related to mental, emotional, and relationship health.
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I have been doing a number of broadcasts on the subject of perfectionism, especially because I do a lot of work in mental health when it comes to areas of anxiety, depression, but especially OCD as of late, in anticipation for an upcoming book I'm going to have on the subject. And wired into the obsessive-compulsive battle is this issue of perfectionism. And perfectionism has an underlying belief system of "just right, but never enough."
And so many of us in Christianity can be very prone to this because we can see and view the lens of following God, living our life out, and how we deal with our struggles and our battles through a lens that's distorted, through a lens that's under pressure. And so I like to help illuminate this perfectionistic mindset because so many of us struggle with it, and it comes up in our pain.
I previously did a video about perfectionists in trials. I have done some videos on just discerning the patterns of how perfectionism works. And so there's many manifestations that come out of it. Many people struggling with depression, you lead back in the trail, and there is some underlying perfectionism that drives their depression. Perfectionism drives anger, very, very deep-seated anger, anger that lashes out externally, the anger that is internal. Why? Because a person who is under the influence of perfectionism manifests a life under pressure. It's an emotional life that is not at rest, not able to land in peace. Why? Because there's a driving force of "just right, but never enough." So they stay in that cycle over and over again regarding their thoughts, regarding their relationships, regarding how they see God.
So today, I want to talk a little bit about the influence of all-or-nothing thinking that influences this. We can also call it black-and-white thinking. Being when we look at perspectives, we only see A and B. We don't see C. And option C is usually the more, some people would say balanced. I would use the term more grounded, more mature. I could also say it, there's more nuance within it. Because many times perfectionists, they have this, "it's got to be all this or all this." So they use terms like never and always. And perfectionists tend to, in their emotional life, make sweeping blanket statements. And so they, they get hurt in an area, they make a sweeping blanket statement about people, about churches, about Christians, about whatever, about life. "I will, they always," or "I will never." And so they become limitations.
All-or-nothing thinking also limits you from seeing the, like I said, it's not A, it's not B, it's probably C. We get stuck in A or B. So many times we go, "Well, I've got perfectionism, and it's causing problems in my life. Well, I don't want to be a lazy bum and do nothing." Because to the perfectionist, that's all they see in their option. It's either this all intensity, over the top, or it's nothing at all. And it shows the need for nurture. It shows the need for a more loving, gracious perspective. Many times in my journey, I can't see the grounded option because I'm stuck in two ditches as my option. We have two extremes that seem to be our options. So we don't know how to walk the more grounded, mature, or as I would say, mature journey that's available for us.
And so I pray that today, what I'll share with you, I'm going to actually respond to some three questions that were sent in in response to, um, oh, this was my, my podcast question page. And it gets into this a bit. But I kind of wanted to set up this all-or-nothing thing because then it influences how we see God. We see God. Perfectionists see God through a certain lens, and they're often very resentful at God because he hasn't shown up for them in the way that they needed. Because they live in this pressurized expectation. "God, you need to show up in this way and this time." We don't like to admit it, but we're very demanding of him. We're demanding in our expect, we're demanding in the way we want it, we want it in the timing that it happens. If it doesn't happen, we crash. We crash. We get disappointed and depressed. We go into despair. And there's this churning of contempt and just unrest that's going on because of how perfectionist, perfectionism has trained us to think. It's like, we see God showing up in this way. "Well, God never does that. God never does that. We need him to show up in this way, or else he doesn't show up at all." You know, "Does God do this?" "No, because he, in this area, didn't happen the way it happened." So he doesn't. We create blanket statements in this all-or-nothing kind of mentality. And I found the all-or-nothing mentality kept me from being open to new ideas, being open to new possibilities, being open to areas of growth in my life. You develop limiting mindsets.
So anyways, I'm just going to respond to some of these questions because I think it'll give me some avenues to bring out our perceptions of God, this all-or-nothing thinking, and how perfectionism works. A little bit goes into the trustworthiness of God. I'm, here's a question. Um, I met, well, it's kind of more of a statement. "I mentally believe God is trustworthy. However, I see I'm hindered by the thought that God asks us to come to him with our needs. He knows our needs and cares. He promises he will heal and he will deliver in the Psalms and elsewhere. He performs miracles at times. But this is where perfectionists and OCD ears, we have our 'yeah, buts,' right? Yeah, but." And I'm not saying we got to ignore all the "yeah, buts." But what I am saying is the "yeah, but" drives our thinking. So, "He cares, he promises he'll deliver, and the Psalms and elsewhere, he performs miracles at times. But he sometimes delivers and sometimes not, allowing suffering, death, maiming, abuse, persecution, etc."
Now, just want to say, suffering, death, maiming, abuse, persecution, those are all individual categories that have their own nuance. Wait, we can't just blanketly put abuse and suffering and persecution just in the same category as synonymous in every way. They have their own nuances of what they mean. This is the sweeping statement that I say. Now, at the heart of this is disappointment. We have certain stages in our journey. We're disappointed with what we expected God to do. We had a certain expectation coming out of scriptures that we, that we think need to be the way that he needs to operate with us. And when it doesn't happen, we create sweeping statements. "He, he performs miracles at times, but he's sometimes delivered, sometimes not, allowing suffering." And so now this word "allowing" comes in. I find that in Christianity, this is just my perspective and take on this, that we use, we like to use the word "allow." That God allows. And so it creates this picture of somebody who watches evil happening, has the ability to do something, has the responsibility to do something, and should do something in a certain way. And so we portray that upon God, and we place it on him because we, there's a demand that he needs to act. That God, being a father, being our heavenly father, needs to act in a certain way, in a certain demand, a certain context. Well, we often need to take a step back and recognize, first of all, our pain, what we're grieving through, the disappointment that we're happening. And perfectionists want to create black-and-white rules about things. So if we take this mindset, now we're moving into where we have the answers of what happens. We know why everyone dies. We know why everyone has abuse. We start to create these reasons. And each of these words have complexity. Suffering, uh, even I'll add, you know, sickness and disease, um, they all have their their nuances and there's complications to what's going on in our life, in our world, that aren't just these, just these single silver bullet answers that say why all these things happen to people. But we create this allowance as though God is sitting there and he's very passive and he's not active.
What we lose in our God perspective is God set up this world where he has put mankind with great responsibility. Because I can right now with my words add life to you. I can also crush you to the core. And God will not come down here and stop my vocal cords from being a crushing presence in your life. Which reveals to us how much he's not a puppet master working in our lives. Now, by faith, as a loving father, he's walking us through a journey of healing, maturing, overcoming. And by faith, we're learning who he is, and we're developing our inner belief system and our thoughts, and we're learning to practice the fruit of the Spirit. The invisible God seeks to make his visible nature made manifest. But we also see when we talk about God and what he does and what we think he doesn't do, we often don't bring out the father of lies. We don't bring out the deadbeat dad that's coming into the scenario to steal, kill, and destroy. And how is he doing that? By the promotion and spreading of thoughts and mindsets that go against the knowledge of God. And this provides an inner road of so many patterns that seek to steal, kill, and destroy.
Now, I don't want to get too much on this tangent because, because I could, but I'm more focusing on what perfectionism does. Um, because here, what we're seeing is a cry from a heart of going, "God, where are you in the midst of this?" Because suffering has context scripturally that we need to learn. There are times we suffer because there is a clear, uh, bad decision that was made. And so there's suffering that comes out of it. But there's actually a divine suffering within our journey where we become, we actually do what's right, and the opposite happens. And there's actually a refining journey there for us. And Paul, in his writings in Romans 8, talked a lot, a lot of what Romans 8 is doing is talking about the heart of the father, sonship, but then the journey of the struggle that do not compare with the glory that shall be revealed. And, and there's so much that we learn in those seasons where wrong has happened. And there, there is no, "I did something wrong." And perfectionists want to find the reason. I want to find the reason why this has happened. Or even death in our life. Why this person died? Why'd that person die? Prayed for this person to be healed, didn't seem to happen. So what we do is we create an all-or-nothing. And then we create a story on this. "God didn't heal. He should have healed. He could have, but he didn't. He chose not to." And I've learned not to create those blanket statements of what I think God is or is not doing in a painful situation because I'm not God. I don't know. My ways are not his ways. My thoughts are not his thoughts. I'm learning to have his heart in all things.
I also know that God can use me to be someone who stands in the gap. In the Old Testament, the Bible talks about how God searched the earth for people who would stand in the gap. The gap being where people are and what they need. And he's like, "I've set mankind to be redemptive voices of my heart." And he said, "I found no one." So many times, what we do is we throw at God what is actually a reflection of mankind not stepping up to the plate. I'm not saying go around and blame everyone and yell at everyone and condemn them, but that's the reality we live in. However, he's called you and I to be those who will walk in those breaches, walk in those places. So, um, one never knows which area it will be rescue or no rescue. And here's another area too, where we get in a situation and we call out upon God, say, "Rescue me, get me out of this." Which, which is fine. But over time, that continual kind of mindset, we develop "rescue me" prayers versus, so it's like the "God up there, help, show up, come down here to me" versus "the greater is He that is in me. I can step out now because He's with me and practice who I am in learning to be an overcomer." The Book of Revelation talks about to him who overcomes. Well, if, how do I overcome unless I learn and have some things I've got to overcome that sometimes challenge me to the core? The areas that hit up against you.
So, the backdrop of all this is very, very difficult if we don't know the love of the Father and sonship. Because if we are disconnected to the love of the Father in these moments, we go, "God, where are you? Didn't show up." Abandonment kicks up too. Instead of living out of sonship, we're living out of spiritual slavery. God is distant. He's far away. I do things for him, and he doesn't show up in the way that I want him to. That's, that's a part of spiritual slavery. And many of us are coming out of that orphanage mentality, which has permeated so much of the church culture, rather than living in sonship. And so you say, "There'll be rescue or no rescue, no matter how much faith and trust and hope is there." So the perspective goes back to, "I've put all this stuff on the table. I pray, I fast, I do. And God, you're not showing." And this is the mindset of a perfectionist that's it, that gets very, very angry. Because we show up at certain things, we do at a certain level, and then we look, and we don't see the results. And it's revealing. We live a performance-driven lifestyle. We live a where the weight and the pressure is on us. And what we need to do is make a transition into learning to be grace recipients of the beauty of who God is, and learn to let go of this animosity, this contempt, this pressure that we live under because it's distorting our lens, and we're making a demand on God, and then it doesn't let us see what God is doing in our journey. My encouragement to all of you is that pay attention to what you're seeing God is doing and working on. Because when we're fussing over what we think he's not doing, or these other areas in our life that we're irritated about, it's often because those areas, they're not for the season right now. Here's the focus. Here's what's happening. Here's what he's working. Because God works layer by layer in our journey.
So go to the second part of this statement. "I believe God is good. We are asked to quote unquote compare him with a good earthly father who does not give a stone when his child requests bread." But here we go, here we go. "Yeah, but though God is omnipotent, which means with unlimited power, he often does not give even a legitimate, unselfish request." Here again, is the all-or-nothing blanket statement. "He often does not give even a legitimate, unselfish request." And so, um, that statement, like, we have to look at nuance of the journey. Life is very, very complicated. We sometimes look and go, um, we pray and something doesn't seem to happen. We don't realize that prayer may have had an echo in a way we didn't realize. We don't always, we don't know where our prayers go. We don't know what our prayers do. In fact, Paul writes in Romans, "says we don't even know how to pray." That's prayer 101. You don't know how to pray. Like that's, that's how you should start a prayer series off, right? "He often, if a human father, for purpose, is learning deliberately let his child get seriously hurt or did not stop injury or neglect when it was in his power to do so, that's prosecutor abuse."
So what we're looking at is, we're looking at in the context, we're taking human relationship where a human father who has his child right in front of him is not only a father, but as a human representation to be protector over that. What we're actually seeing in so many of our lives is where a human has not taken their response. So let's play this out. What would it look like for God to then take over the planet in that way? He would now have to become a puppet master. He would now have to actually intervene, step in as God. Which if he did, in his glory, it would obliterate all of us. Because no man can see him in that glory. He's put in place people, and hurt comes about through people listening to the father of lies. So I want to put the focus back to where it really is. Because God has put mankind in charge over creation to carry out his ways. And so, um, yet I know God does no wrong. So God is not the author of sin. He's not authoring this. He is putting mankind to be honorable in the ways of God. And when sin manifests, this is why I don't believe in the statement, "Well, do what you need to do as long as it doesn't hurt anybody." Hmm. The ways of sin replicate all over culture and all over people's lives. And it is the job of you and I to become voices of redemption. But perfectionists hold God to a, a such an intense standard. Because see, like I said, if I follow this out, then God will appear out of the sky, come down, manifest, everyone gets obliterated, and we're, we're shifting and changing, and he's, and he's doing things for mankind. It just, it's not how he operates out of it. He's not forcing any of his ways. He's relational. We choose from the beginning. We choose. God did not step in to Adam and Eve and go, "Stop!" even though what they were gonna do was going to systematically change the entire planet and the whole future of what mankind would look like. And we go, "Well, why? Why? Why?" We go into the "why" and then we start to try to like travel into the into the depths of of having the mind of God, although we're going to figure everything perfectly out. Underlying all of this, though, is pain. Areas of pain, of areas that are of hurt. And perfectionists, they struggle deeply with underlying disappointment and pain. And it's going to take a journey. It's going to take therapy, counseling, coaching, mentoring. It's going to take rewiring. Because their perfectionism, in some way, seems to work for them. Because they're, they're high achievers, or they do things seeming just right, they have a high standard, they seem to produce good things, they're very clean, or maybe they're very orderly, or maybe there's certain things that can get rewards for, until they find themselves burning out or becoming very angry or becoming very depressed. And so in that, they're mad at God, they're mad at the world. And it's, it's really going back to the pain of the heart.
Let me go to the third section here. It says, um, "And I know these statements are are genuine, so I pray, you know, my, my feedback helps get more to the root system." So the third part is, "Perfectionism. Okay, where is the line we're striving for excellence and doing our best crosses over to the disorder?" I did just recently do a video on "What's the opposite of perfectionism?" So you want to check that out. But the words, uh, "striving." I, I don't find striving to be a way of life for the believer. There is one area in the Hebrew writing where it's like, you know, "be diligent." It's, it's a hurry up and get into rest. Which is interesting. Like, wake up, hurry up and get into the rest, right? Because that's the mindset for us as believers. Perfectionists are not at rest. And so the key is not what are you doing? It's what's the driving force behind it? Are you at rest while you are still going about things that might take hard work or might take, you know, a great deal of energy or strength? But is there a relational, were you, are you at peace with yourself? Let's, let's, let's talk even deeper. Peace. At peace with God? Are you at peace with yourself? And perfectionists are at war within themselves. They make enemies within themselves. They don't know how to see themselves through grace and embrace weakness, embrace flaws, and embrace the humanity of pain, suffering that exists. And we serve a God who wants to be redemptive through us. So in my neighborhood, in my area, he wants to use me. And but that's not going to be done in striving. It's not going to be done in constant force and pressure. It's going to be out of rest. And so, um, you said, "I sure hope that my surgeon is a perfectionist." I would push back and I would say, "I don't think you would." Because a perfectionist is disturbed. They have a disturbance inside. You can be precise as a surgeon and be at peace. A perfectionist is going to have an underlying irritability, and at times gets in the way of their work because they're going to double, triple, quadruple check where now they're over-checking, over-checking, over-checking. They can get easily disturbed by people around them. So now nurses and things like that, you could be more, he or she could be more agitated, not at peace. What you actually need is a surgeon who has some experience and some practice, has some knowledge, but is at peace. In fact, I'll take it even further. What makes a great experience with a doctor is not only the expertise in whatever is being addressed, but the bedside manner. Ever been around a doctor who was knew a lot but was a jerk, or was just, you know, didn't know how to interact? Like you're talking to a robot? Like, "Hey, you know, they call it bedside manner." I've heard story after story of people having terrible experiences because the bedside manner added to the problem of what they were experiencing. So I would argue, no, I would not want a perfectionist as a surgeon. And this is how it's understanding how we're defining it. You said also, "In drivers on the highway? Nope." All the perfectionists on the highway are the ones who are many of them honking and getting on road rage and getting angry because they're disturbed. And anyone handling my money? No. Again, I wouldn't want someone's handling my money being a perfectionist either. Now, they're out there, they're everywhere, and I'm in my recovery, right? So it's not a black-and-white thing. But we tend to go, "Well, I want a perfectionist if they're doing this." No, you don't. Because they're disturbed inside. They're not at peace. Can you create great technology and be at peace? Can you invent something wonderful but live a life out of peace and not just constant disturbance and constant compulsion of trying to fix things, having this irritability? Nothing's ever good enough, right? One of the great examples is the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs. And many credit him with great innovation. But as you look across his, his journey and his story, he was an awful friend, in person to be around. And you would not want to make any mistake around his presence, even to the point where he'd be in an elevator and just be irritated about something and fire you right on the spot. So a lot of this too has to do with what we as culture value. We often value the end result, product, more than we do healthy relationships. So we want big churches to grow, but we then get upset when people are abused in the process of the church growing big. And it's like, "Which do we want? Do we want to be healthy, or do we want to sacrifice health at the mercy of growth?" Or could we be healthy and let the growth organically happen out of the beauty of being healthy and letting God's timing work in his beautiful order and way? Because that's a part of perfectionism too, is just submitting to God's journey for us versus the demands that we put on him. And put with great intensity. You know, we put a value for a business to be so big and powerful and innovative and brings its convenience. And then we get upset when we hear about abuses. Well, it's like, well, what do we want in society? What do we want to value? And when you value relationship, it begins to start to shift and change your focus, your methodology, your rhythm in life, and even what you go about in your day. You said, "And the repairman and the contractors." Again, I would respond the same way too. You, you wouldn't necessarily want to be around their disturbance. What you would want is someone who is relational and gives you a pleasant experience. You don't want an angry, irritated perfectionist working in your house. What do people report when you put your five-star review for a contractor? It's a job well done, and also the relational components. They arrive on time, they communicate well, they explain things to you, they don't take advantage of you, they're not just trying to sell you something. All the things that we give five-star reviews for for people and professions are out of how they made us feel. They could do, they could do good work, but be a jerk, be irritable, be impatient, and it's not as great of an experience. Like, "Well, the bathroom looks great, but man, can't even be around him. You had to tiptoe." You know, and that's an extreme version of her perfectionist too. But I want someone who works in, who's at peace, and that relational component. And perfectionists don't know how to live in the beauty of relational flow. They're preoccupied with getting something done. They're so focused in on it, they can't pause and just, you know, have a moment saying, "How you doing?" and and have that relational aspect to them. Because that's really what makes the difference. Uh, you mentioned, "An ordered, flourishing society thrives on integrity and excellence." Yes, there's truth to that, but not out of disturbance. You can have a, I have a, I have a clean room. This office, I try to keep, you know, in order. I mean, it's just, it's a studio. It's got lights and things like that, so it's a little bit different than a typical office room. It's more of a studio space. But I appreciate order where I like things. Um, my wife and I are very, we want our house clean, we keep it up, we try to work together in in keeping cleanliness in order. But we have to be aware of disturbance. Am I doing it because it's disturbance? Because I want to feel better? And that disturbance is now driving me, and it's keeping me from being relational, and it's flourishing this anger within. So, um, I believe that these things can be done, but what's the driving force behind it? You said, "Please help us to know the difference." You said, "Okay, I'm sorry, the sentence before that, you certainly cannot be suggesting that carelessness or mediocrity is commendable or desirable!" Exclamation mark. Right. Here's the all-or-nothing. So if I stop perfectionism, means I'm going to be a messy slob and my house is going to be all over the place? Nope. That's not the metrics that I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the driving force. Because the person who doesn't clean anything, it leaves their house a mess, has underlying issues as well too. And some of it can actually be perfectionism. They don't bother because it's never good enough, so they procrastinate and they never get started with projects. How many people never get started with something in their yard or something in things that, you know, everything's a mess, but they never get to it because they're overwhelmed with the perfectionistic standards? They never take a step. It's all about what's driving us. It's all about what's behind it. And my encouragement to you is to develop a more nurturing, more loving relationship with yourself. And a big part of what's helped me is in my book, "God Loves Me and I Love Myself." It helped me to develop a new relationship with myself. And for all perfectionists, you will need a new way of learning how to relate to yourself. In the middle of my book, "The Heart Healing Journey," I also talk about a three-step approach of how do we look at ourselves and what we're struggling with and what we're battling with that could tune us more into a godly perspective built on his love and his grace towards us.
If this was a broadcast that was a blessing to your life and your journey, again, be sure to subscribe. Also, go to our donate page and go to MarkDeJesus.com. Click on the donate page. You can give a one-time donation or become a regular supporter. Appreciate that. Take advantage of our books, materials. And I pray above all things that you sense the presence of God's love and the grace of Jesus Christ. So Lord willing, and the creek don't rise, this is your brother from another mother saying, I'll be back with some more resources and more stuff for your journey. But in the meantime, I'm out.
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Thank you.