Perfectionism & Reflections on Motherwort

A while back I saw a post with an overwhelmed mom and a dish pit in her home. Naturally I read it because I thought "I feel you girl" ...the lady went to a therapist because she was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. She complained about the dishes and never ending duties. She was annoyed with how much time she was spending rinsing the dishes before even putting them in the washer. I thought "yea exactly it's almost like the dishwasher is pointless if you have to wash through dishes first ! "

Then the therapist asked her , "Well why don't you just run the dishwasher twice or three times ? There are really no rules, you can do what's best for your mental health for now and then when you're feeling more caught up, maybe take time to rinse them first if you think it's necessary." The post went on to say she went home and ran her dishwasher 3x and it really helped her. I tried out the advice as well and was so surprised when my dishes came out clean after just one cycle , and no rinsing! This reminds me so much of how we put all these unnecessary pressures on ourselves as parents, or just even as people. I definitely would have never thought to do that with the dishwasher. It would waste water ! Plus the right thing to do is to rinse the dishes first ! Living in this constant perfectionistic lifestyle is rough. Always trying to do the right thing, the harder way , whatever it may be. I recently spoke with a good friend and mentor of mine about this. Truly she is more of a mom to me. Like a mom who tells me how it is. She said why do we feel we need to strive for the unobtainable? Why do you have to be so hard on yourself if you have a rough day and lose your chill? I'm continuing to learn how to have grace with myself in these moments , and remind myself if I didn't lose my chill once I awhile, am I even actually mothering ? It would probably mean I am a robot or something. Reflecting on this makes me think what kind of a lesson does this striving for perfectionism teach my children ? It's really hard to know how to best raise your children. Especially when there are so many people giving out their advice on the matter. But at the same time, I continually hear the advice that you have to figure out what works best for each individual child. Most likely though trying my best to not pass on my perfectionism habits to them would be a good start. I know it can be a good thing in some ways to always be striving to do your best but I also know it is a delicate balance, to make sure you're not expecting too much from yourself. So my style of parenting involves a lot of communication with them , trying to explain to them why I do things a certain way , why I may have gotten upset about this or that, and try to apologize my best when I need to. I think it has taught them to take responsibility for their actions as well , because sometimes my 4 year old will immediately take the blame for something he may not have even done and I try to explain to him what happened, and that usually there's no one to blame and no reason to even worry about who's fault it might have been.

Twenty years ago when I went to college I chose to major in Psychology , mainly because I had taken a summer course my senior year about psychology and found it very interesting. But when I realized how many years I'd have to go to school and how much it would cost, I decided against pursuing that career. I was interested in massage therapy because I learned from a friend in college that he enjoyed his job. It was no surprise I gravitated towards Healthcare jobs, as my mom was ill and had been pretty much most of her life. It was confusing to me and I wanted to understand what was wrong and how I could help her. I wish I would have chosen the massage therapy route , since the crowd I would have gotten into that way may have led me to help her. My independent side won out. I can't even remember who but someone discouraged me from the realm of massage and eastern holistic medicine , even though it made a lot of sense to me. I really knew nothing about it and had really grown up in the western medicine world , hearing about how my mom was always going to doctors. She never did listen to them fully though , never seemed to be taking her medicine correctly and always was prescribing herself supplements and had a huge vitamin cabinet. This was all before she had spent some time in the psych ward , which didn't seem to help her much at all. Maybe that was what discouraged me from pursuing psychology, the thinking that it doesn't help much anyway. Most of all though , my chosen path was decided by a lot of coercing from my friend Katie. She was always very pushy in high school and quite demanding due to her insecurities I suppose. I loved her to death and she truly did have a heart of gold though, even if she wasn't the best for me in terms of friends. She made a good point. If you go to nursing school , it won't cost a lot of money , and you'll always have a job. Plus you'll be done in a year. I was honestly not interested in nursing at all, but these perks did sound good. We joined an LVN program together and she dropped out right away because she got pregnant. I finished however and got a job at a hospital. Literally one of my least favorite places in the world. I tell this whole story to make a point. We can always look back on our lives with a perfectionism mindset , thinking wow I did that wrong , if I would have made this or that choice then this or that would be different. But it's not necessarily true. I struggled with this for awhile thinking maybe I would have this or that different for my kids if I would have made different decisions, but it's really not true. Every choice we make leads us perfectly to where we are, someone is always guiding us and we eventually end up right where we need to be. If I hadn't made those choices , which led me to marry and divorce someone who was not right for me, then struggle through several other relationships in between where I am now , I would not have the exact children I have now. I would not have the exact partner I have now. We have almost been together 10 years now and that is longer than any other relationship I've held in my life. This occurred to me last night and I felt a huge wave of gratitude for him. It means we have truly loves each other through our best and our worst. We didn't give up. And our children are the most perfect things we could have imagined. All the other strivings toward perfection are not useful when I look at it with this mindset. They are exactly who they are meant to be and I want them to learn that. I want them to learn to listen to their intuition and trust that life will give them exactly what they need. As for living holistically , I did eventually find that lifestyle. It was always meant for me. I think my mom would be proud of me looking down at my huge cupboard of elixirs and mushrooms and ideas for future medicine. I think she would be happy that the Tylenol anand ibuprofen are hidden away , only to be used if I really really have to , but that my children mostly ask for Reishi. Reishi and Motherwort work together so we'll because they are both so calming.

My final thoughts on perfectionism bring up something I tend to forget about. The tendency to have this perfectionism mindset leads us to also have Uber high expectations with others as well, which is definitely not how I want to be as a person. I am not a fan of being judged and so I try to be aware of how much I'm judging others. It's obviously important to always try our best. But this just looks different from time to time. Especially as a mom. I remind myself daily that some days will be better than others. Some days I may be able accomplish way more and feel very productive and then some days will just be a struggle or I may not feel well. And I always accept myself because I know that I am enough in this moment.