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Email a FriendAmen Arwen you are helping convert me to this frame of mind. I recently confronted this head on when I wrecked my car by backing over some concrete that nearly tore my front bumper completely off. I was talking to a co-worker and remarking what an idiot I was when he stopped me and told me both he and his wife had done the same thing within the last year. He told me he knew I wouldn’t think of either of them as idiots for what was an honest mistake—misjudging the location of the concrete and its height—so why did I consider myself to be an idiot? Since then I have been trying to ease up on myself. It’s nice to know I have company in this pursuit!
As I Have Loved You
Applying Christ's words in unexpected places
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Monday, October 27, 2008 12:15 PM
A week ago I had a phone conversation with my dear younger sister, who is a self-admitted perfectionist.
She was upset about a mistake she’d made that day. It was a fairly minor thing and the consequences were going to inconvenience only her personally, but she was still beating herself up about it. “What kind of person is so stupid that they [insert mistake here]?” she kept repeating.
I made her stop the self-flagellation and helped her put the incident in perspective. I pointed out to her that if someone else she knew had made a mistake like hers, she would never call that person “stupid,” so why did she think it was okay to be so unforgiving toward herself?
After a while she calmed down and we got off the phone, but I’ve been thinking about the incident all week. I love to give advice (what big sister doesn’t?) and I’m happy I was able to help my sister, but I’m painfully aware that in this particular case, I’m not good at following my own advice.
Humility is a virtue, and penance can be a good form of discipline. Too often, though, I translate that incorrectly to mean that beating myself up is okay. I often spend days recalling small errors in judgment or silly words that slipped out, wondering how I could have been so “stupid.”
Ironically, this often distracts me from the pursuit of true humility. I am unable to do a realistic and loving assessment of my faults and to ask for extra grace from God in those areas if I’m obsessing about honest mistakes. And honest mistakes are not really signs of shortcomings at all, unless you consider being a human and not a robot a shortcoming!
I know that God has called me to live my life, with the help of his grace, in loving those around me with my best imitation of his perfectly just and perfectly merciful love. I know I am supposed to try to love all people in this way. I’m just not sure where I got the idea that “all people” doesn’t include myself.
This evening I talked to my sister and, happily, she seems to have taken my advice and moved on from her mistake. In honor of her resilience, I’m going to ask God to help me stop beating myself up so that I can have clarity to see the areas in my life where I truly need his grace… and so that as I love myself more kindly, I’ll be able to love those around me better as well.
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Posted by Maria on Monday, Oct 27, 2008 10:04 PM (EDT):
Thanks for a wonderful article! Someone once pointed out to me when I was being hard on myself that if I could truly see myself as I am before God (humility is being truthful), I would not be surprised to see that I am not perfect and I would trust God more to be my all. Perfectionism is not perfection. When Jesus told us to be perfect as our heavenly Father, he did so in the context that God our Father makes the sun shine and makes it rain over good and bad alike. He meant that we should treat everybody with the same love (without being partial), not that we should be perfectionists. God knows us well and never asks us for impossibilities. I hope those thoughts will help others as much as they have helped me in my life.
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