The Shadow of Perfectionism

I must admit that I am struggling, and it is not a bad thing. For 2021 I promised to say “yes” to wherever my intuition might lead. In mid-January an online course challenging me to join a twenty-two day painting meditation practice kept popping up on all my feeds. Every time I opened Facebook, this course appeared. I don’t consider myself an artist of any kind, much less a painter, but this course grabbed my attention. First, it was based on the female Buddha, (Goddess), Green Tara, and of course any aspect of the Divine Feminine intrigues me. Second, it was a working meditation, something I have not done before. Third, it was affordable.

My intuition kept nudging me, and so I signed up for the course. The premise is to paint daily on the same canvas after meditating on an aspect of Tara. The first day, we painted the symbol for Green Tara and wrote what we wanted to bring into our lives. Pretty easy. The next day we painted over the first day’s work with symbols and more words. Easy-peasy! Words are my thing. The next day we painted blue sky and white stars. Again, no sweat. Each day covered over much of the painting from the previous day. If I didn’t like what I did on one day, it got covered up on the next day.

But now I am on day thirteen, and I am being challenged to draw the figure of Tara. What I am seeing on my canvas is a huge head on a disproportionately small body. Not only that, but the face of my Tara is sharp and masculine, not at all feminine and compassionate as I picture the Tara in my head. I think it looks ugly, and I feel very inadequate

I want to cover the whole thing up and start over, or even better, give up and listen to that voice in my head that says I am not an artist; I can’t do it; why would I even think that something like this would turn out even the least bit pleasing.

Which leads me to my lifelong, internal struggle with perfectionism. I am a person who won’t even try something unless I know I can do it well. When I was a child, I might try something once. If I couldn’t do it perfectly, I would quit. For some reason, the idea that I would need to practice and fail many times before I could get something right, never quite clicked with me. And so I quit playing softball and basketball. I quit trying to draw. I concentrated only on those things which I could already do well. And in so doing I missed many opportunities for growth, for friendship, and for the joy of pure play.

The Tara on my canvas has become a metaphor for my life. In jumping into a painting practice, I am facing one of my shadows – perfectionism. Although I knew perfectionism has always been a part of me, I didn’t want to see how it stopped me from living my fullest life. As I look at my Tara, I am so tempted to give up. I want to walk away and tell myself that my intuition failed me. In reality it has brought me face to face with a part of myself which I don’t want to look at.

So – I have decided to keep on with this experiment until the end. I am determined that this time I will persevere and create a finished product that I know is very much less than perfect. This practice of painting is bringing me to a greater awareness of who I am in relationship to creativity, to art, and to the other aspects of my life that I deny because I don’t already know how to do them perfectly. I am discovering that when I judge myself harshly, I am much more inclined to judge others just as harshly. This self-judgment takes me out of the love that I want to be.

Life is messy. Art is messy. As I look at my decidedly imperfect painting, I am uncovering some very humorous metaphors for my own life. The fierce masculine big head and the very small body make me realize that I am still all in my head, that I am not embodying the Sacred Feminine or listening to my own body. The messiness of the project helps me to see that underneath that façade of perfection that I try to project, there is a hidden world of doubt and fear.

As I sit in the muck and the mire of imperfection, I am feeling the stirrings of creativity, of joy, and of freedom. Letting go of trying to be perfect from the beginning allows me to play, to experiment, to dabble.  I am opening to the possibility that it is the muck and the mire that brings me to joy, not the sterility of perfection. I may not call myself an artist, but I am a creator. Thanks be to the beautiful green Goddess Tara, for leading me to these truths.

Barbara Garland
February, 2021

If you want to know more about this 22 day painting challenge, go to

https://whitneyfreya.teachable.com/p/22-day-tara-painting-meditation-challenge?fbclid=IwAR1VpiN9L6UKDKcljfoIgrf50gQNk5b_4AadoLuz7UJ8yRuk0CQ9NCzblqY