Most of My Subs Are on Strike

[Perfectionist]

Have you ever worked for a boss who demands perfection and no matter how well you perform, it just isn't good enough? That's what it's like to live with a dominant perfectionist subpersonality. The Perfectionist requires that everything be done perfectly, that I never make mistakes, that I never rock the boat, and that I never do anything that might make someone else angry or uncomfortable. As you can see, there is also a bit of the Pleaser wrapped up in this subpersonality.

I spent much of the last year working to understand and control another subpersonality (my Inner Critic) -- another kind of manager, which is the role the Perfectionist plays. I've had some success with the other sub, but now the Perfectionist has been trying to run the show for the past few months, especially since a minor meltdown back in early July.

The result is that I have to be perfect at work with my clients; I have to be perfect in my relationship with Kira; I have to be perfect in how I post here on my blog; and I have to perfect in how I interact in the pods at Zaadz. The topper of all the toppers is that many of my clients work with me as an integral coach, so I feel even more pressure to be perfect with them.

The downside is that my other subs are fed up with the pressure, and they have gone on strike. My posts here have been shallow and very impersonal, which goes against my intent. I avoid other people as much as possible. I procrastinate everything (I recently bought more clothes to avoid doing laundry -- it was easier). And I have avoided picking up new clients at the gym even though I have openings.

All the other subs seem to have said, "Yo, Perfecto, you want perfect? Do it yourself." Since that sub only has the power to push me toward perfection and not to actually follow through (it's a manager, remember), I'm stuck with all my other subs walking the picket line and no one wanting to do any work.

I didn't realize this was what was happening until this afternoon when Kira initiated "a talk" about why there was a lack of emotional continuity in our relationship lately. After I got past being defensive and quieted the Perfectionist a**hole that insisted it couldn't be him, I was able to see what was happening. Gotta love having an observer self.

One of the great and awful things about relationship is that there is nowhere to hide. Kira sees me in ways I sometimes don't want to be seen. She may not know what is going on, but she knows that something is amiss.

Anyway, for the year that I was in therapy, my therapist kept pushing at my Perfectionist, asking me if it was exhausting to always have to be perfect. I was very intellectual about the whole thing, and thought, "Yeah, I guess it is kind of tiring. But that's the price I pay to be good at what I do -- no matter what it is." All ego and no emotion. That's the manager that got fired and made room for the Perfectionist to take over.

Today, for the first time, the emotion kicked in and I FELT how exhausting it is to live with that voice inside my head. How exhausting it has been to live with that voice ever since I was a small child and learned that my father would love me more if I didn't make mistakes, if I always got good grades, or if I was always the best athlete. But then he began to expect all that and stopped acknowledging it, so I had to work even harder to deserve his love. Like a dog chasing its tail.

I'm sure many other kids had similar parents and aren't whining about it on a blog. That's great. But this is one of the things blocking my path to being a more integrated and healthy person, so I am determined to fix it. Now that I know what is happening, maybe the Perfectionist will sit down at the bargaining table with the other subs and hammer out a deal that works for everyone.

I know the Perfectionist is just trying to ensure that I don't embarrass myself and that other people will see me as competent, which keeps my ego happy. That behavior doesn't serve me well anymore, however, so I need to find other ways for the Perfectionist to get its needs met -- and to remove him from his manager role. I'm not sure which sub is best qualified to run the show, but we need new blood at the top to get the others back on the job.

Tags: subpersonalities, manager, subs, perfectionist, pleaser, selves

Elegant Thorn Review Is Live with New Content

I'm pleased to announce that Elegant Thorn Review has new content: a photo by John Craig and a poem by Tiel Aisha Ansari.

I am in desperate need of submissions, especially photography. But I also need some good poetry. Guidelines are posted at the site. I know there are a lot of good poets in the Buddhist and integral worlds. Please pass this on to anyone you know who might be interested.

Thanks!

Tags: Elegant Thorn Review, John Craig, Tiel Aisha Ansari, poetry, photography, call for submissions

Poem: Eamon Grennan

[Winter Morning Run #4]

Cold Morning

Through an accidental crack in the curtain
I can see the eight o'clock light change from
charcoal to a faint gassy blue, inventing things

in the morning that has a thick skin of ice on it
as the water tank has, so nothing flows, all is bone,
telling its tale of how hard the night had to be

for any heart caught out in it, just flesh and blood
no match for the mindless chill that's settled in,
a great stone bird, its wings stretched stiff

from the tip of Letter Hill to the cobbled bay, its gaze
glacial, its hook-and-scrabble claws fast clamped
on every window, its petrifying breath a cage

in which all the warmth we were is shivering.

Tags: Eamon Grennan, Cold Morning, poem, poetry

Speedlinking 8/19/06

Welcome to the weekend!

Let us commence to linking . . . .

~ The Zero Boss reports on the demise of abstinence-only sex ed in Canton, OH. Jay is a funny man.

~ Brian at Zaadz posted a link to another Zaadz member, Nick Krasnic, who has created a movie called Alex Grey: The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Here is the trailer:

New Poem

[image source]

This is a first draft without any edits (which may be obvious). Just wanted to get it out, now, as it is, and post it before I can get self-conscious about it.

comfort

black asphalt parking lot shimmers
in the afternoon heat, empty
except for a few cars scattered
in the far corners

Elliott Smith plays in my earphones,
his sad acoustic guitar
accenting the life-weariness
in his heroin-addled voice

so many nights a bottle in my hand
comforted me while Elliott tried
to confirm the Seattle rain's promise
that it never gets better

I remember those nights
as little more than a poem
I once read, vague words
and images of decay

now this desert sun, ever-present,
dissolves the self, melts everything
beneath its glow, blurs the lines
separating me from myself

I sit in the evening, sticky
and salty, never quite getting cool
enough, so I watch my breath,
and wander off the cushion

but the breath anchors me in now,
pulls me back to its rhythm,
a stillness that still feels strange
when hungry ghosts crave escape

my mind repeatedly tries to flee
and recalls a night I saw Elliott
play at the Crocodile Tavern,
he seemed so painfully shy

later that night in the bar,
I bought him a beer and thanked him
for his music, but I wish now
I had simply held his hand

Tags: poetry, poem, Elliott Smith, Seattle

Animusic: Acoustic Curves

"Acoustic Curves" from Animusic.

Tags: animusic, acoustic curves, cgi, animation, video

Withdrawing from the World

[The Hermit]

This was the Daily Om from a couple of days ago:

Coming Out Of Hiding
Isolation

There are times in our lives when withdrawing from our social obligations and taking some time to be alone is necessary to rejuvenate our energy and renew our connection to ourselves. However, there are also times when withdrawal is a red flag, indicating an underlying sense of depression or some other problem. We may not even have consciously decided to isolate ourselves but wake up one day to find that we have been spending most of our time alone. Perhaps it's been a long time since friends who used to call have given up. Without anyone inviting us out, we sink deeper into alienation.

The longer our isolation lasts, the harder it becomes to reach out to people. It is as if we have failed to exercise a particular muscle, and now it is so weak we don't know how to use it. Yet, in order to return to a healthy, balanced state of being, that's exactly what we need to do. If you find yourself in this situation, call an understanding friend who will listen to you with compassion, not a defensive friend who may have taken your withdrawal personally. The last thing you need is to be chided; a negative response could intensity your isolation. If you don't have a kind friend you can rely on, call a spiritual counselor or therapist. They may be able to help you determine the underlying cause of your isolation and help you find your way out of it.

When you've been in a pattern of secluding yourself, it can begin to seem impossible that you could reenter the world of friendships, conversations, and group activities, but with time, you will. Most people will understand if you take the time to explain that you've fallen out of touch and would like to reconnect. Take your time and be gentle with yourself, starting with one person and building from there. Try to reach out to one new person every week. Before you know it, you will find yourself back in the company of friends.

I am, by most people's standards, a hermit. Aside from work and a couple of friends I have very little social life. I like it that way. I posted a few days ago on HSP and social anxeity, and I think part of my chosen isolation is a result of those two qualities.

Not everyone is designed to be a social butterfly. This article mentions being able to distinguish between isolation as a need and isolation as a pathology. However, for some of us, the line isn't so clear. We need more time alone than others -- to whom we may look strange with our need for quiet and being alone.

Some of us have a couple of friends, or a partner, and need little more. The issue of which to be conscious is allowing anxiety to be the factor that keeps us alone. It's one thing to need alone time to recharge after a day spent in a social atmosphere (very draining), and another to be alone because leaving the house creates anxiety.

If we can bring mindfulness to our need to be alone, we can distinguish healthy needs from unhealthy fears. And if we can bring mindfulness to the fear, and learn to see it as an object instead of living within it, then we will no longer be its prisoner. Of course, that's easier said than done.

Tags: social anxiety, highly senstive people, aloneness, isolation, mindfulness

Poem: Denise Duhamel

[image source]

Buddhist Barbie

In the 5th century B.C.
an Indian philosopher
Gautama teaches "All is emptiness"
and "There is no self."
In the 20th century A.D.
Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man
with such a belly could pose,
smiling, and without a shirt.

Tags: Denise Duhamel, Buddhist Barbie, poetry, poem, Buddha

Speedlinking 8/18/06

If my father were still alive, he would be 80 years old today. I send him prayers for a peaceful new incarnation.

In cheerier news, IT'S FRIDAY!!

Happy linking . . . .

~ Matthew Dallman posted a brief note yesterday that led me back to Tuff Ghost's blog and a discussion on the (non)usefulness of Spiral Dynamics. Essentially, MD is arguing that SD is worthless due to its "mangling of reality." I know MD is well-versed in SD theory, but I think so many others simply see it as steps on a ladder that they can easily use to describe people or cultures.

What most people who talk about SD miss is that each stage develops as a corrective to the previous stage, and that each stage is the result of biopsychosocial responses to specific life conditions. For example, you simply will not see much Orange/rationalist/achiever-self development in a pre-industrial society -- the conditions are not present for such an adaptation to occur.

In order for SD to make sense, we really need to add the integral component and make it SDi -- Clare Graves intuited this long before Ken Wilber stumbled upon the quadrants. Graves was looking at all the ways that people respond to increasing complexity and new challenges, including the interior (personal and collective) and the exterior (new social structures and biological adaptation in the form of complex patterning in neurons and changes in neurotransmitter levels). There is much more to SDi and Gravesian theory than most people grasp, so it tends to look useless and/or that it mangles reality.

~ David Jon Peckinpaugh at Zaadz blogs on The Most Pretentious Collection Of People On The Net, and who might those people be, you ask? Those who want to change the world David Jon answers.

~ spiritofnow at where do you want to go, my heart? blogs on Speaking of Faith, the radio show. She is looking especially at gay marriage and the problems of organized religion in moving beyond its small worldview. There's a lot of discussion in the comments, and some of it is on topic.

~ Politicians beginning to use MySpace (a Rupert Murdoch company, for those who care about such things) to campaign, including using the comments section "as an informal focus group." Saw that coming.

~ John Mark Karr has confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey, but many have doubts -- including me, and I am certainly no expert. He would have been very young at the time of the murder to have done such a crime, outside the usual profile. And that is just the beginning.

~ Is installing another puppet dictator becoming an option for the Bush administration in Iraq? The Progressive thinks a hint was offered in the New York Times.

~ Jon Stewart rocks: