if you could accept that perfection is impossible what would you stop obsessing over ? - rupi kaur
I went to a school that ranked people’s grades publicly. At theend of each semester we received a piece of paper listing all of thesubjects together with our respective grades and on the side there was a column detailing how many people were above you, how many people were like you and how many people were below you. I remember feeling the discomfort mixed with rage and frustration but at that time I didn’t know how to put language to it. Their argument was to promote a “healthy” competition and to prepare us for the tests we’d face when applying to the most prestigious colleges in thecountry. What they didn’t consider is the violence in such an act. To this day I can’t tell how many knots I felt in my stomach and my confusion looking at all the different faces in theclassrooms. Those occupying thetop of the list vibrating about their exhilarating performance and those who were at the very bottom trying to act as if they didn’t care though they felt hurt and ashamed inside. The school was trying to fit us in these boxes as we were still growing inside our odd teenage bodies. We all experienced a version of that or multiple. Like Lenu, a character from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, says: “I would always be afraid: afraid of saying the wrong thing, of using an exaggerated tone, of dressing unsuitably, of revealing petty feelings, of not having interesting thoughts.” Winnicott, an English psychoanalyst, talked about theconcept of true and false self. He contends that everyone is divided into these two selves, and that people develop a false self to protect their inner, more vulnerable true self. The true self refers to a sense of self based on authentic experience, and thefeeling of being truly present and alive. The false self is a defensive facade, its behaviors being learned and controlled rather than spontaneous and genuine.The process of developing a false self begins at a very young age. As babies, we are at our truest: we cry, laugh and react in a way that is wholly authentic to our needs; we are simply being.
For Winnicott, healthy development requires us to fully experience this time when we have no concern for the feelings and opinions of those looking after us. When things go “well” gradually and willingly the child develops a False Self, a capacity to behave according to thedemands of external reality. When we have been given the chance to be our true selves we do not, at every occasion, need to rebel or insist on our needs. We can accomodate because we have, for a time, been able to ignore them entirely. Unfortunately, many of us have not enjoyed such an ideal start. Perhaps there was an unavailable mother or father who was often irritated, maybe there were siblings in crisis or an insensitive school. The result is that we will have learned to comply FAR TOO EARLY, we will have become obedient at theexpense of our ability to feel authentically ourselves. This shows up later in relationships where we may be polite and geared towards the needs of others, at work we may be dutiful but don’t take risks. A lot came after Winnicott's theory on thepsychoanalytical world and we are much more complex than these two sides. However, the good news is that there are ways in which we are allowed to “regress” before a time when we start to lean on the False Self. It’s through a safely contained therapy, perhaps with a mentor, maybe in a loving relationship, in a trusted friendship where we are allowed to be difficult, real, annoying. We are allowed to have needs, make mistakes. We are allowed low grades. Imperfection. When this teenager in me comes up, feeling confused, measured, compared I want to remind her that a piece of paper doesn’t tell her whole story. So, how do we cultivate relationships, bridges, practices in our lives that allow for our true selves to exist? How do we open up spaces for our true selves to speak? What do both selves need? If, like Rupi says, this False Self could accept that perfection is impossible, what would you stop obsessing over?
With love,
Mariana