From the book by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love:
“If we try to become aware of things, we can easily understand why relationships do not work—with parents, with children, with friends, with our partner, and even with ourselves. Why does the relationship with ourselves not succeed? Because we are wounded and filled with all this poison that we can barely handle.
We are filled with poison because we grow up with a perfect image that is not real, that does not exist, and this is not fair according to our mind.
We have seen how we create this perfect image in order to please others, even though they are creating their own dream that has nothing to do with us. We try to please our mother and father; we try to please our teachers, the government, religion, and God. The truth is that, from their point of view, we can never be perfect. The perfect image tells us what we should be like in order to acknowledge ourselves as good, in order to accept ourselves. But guess what?
This is the greatest lie we believe, because we will never become perfect. And there is no way to forgive ourselves for not being perfect.
This perfect image changes according to the way we think. We learn to deny and reject ourselves. We are never good enough, or right enough, or pure enough, or healthy enough according to all the beliefs we have. There is always something the judge cannot accept or forgive. This is why we reject our human nature. This is why we never deserve to be happy. This is why we look for someone who will abuse us, who will punish us.
We have a very high level of self-abuse because of this perfect image.
When we reject and judge ourselves, declare ourselves guilty, and punish ourselves so much, it seems as if there is no love. It seems that there are only punishments, only suffering, and sentences. Hell has many different levels. Some people are deep in hell; others have just entered, but they are still in it. There are relationships with much abuse and relationships with almost no abuse.”**
Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements
My observations from my practice confirm this: it is precisely the most idealistic, the most perfectionistic, the most sensitive to the imperfections of the world and to their own imperfections who are most vulnerable to psychological suffering and feelings of inferiority. Their impulse toward beauty and perfection has turned into a source of constant guilt and dissatisfaction.
If, however, they manage to throw out the “dirty water” (the constant judging and feelings of inferiority born of comparison with the ideal image) and keep the “baby” (the desire for self-improvement and the embodiment of one’s ideals in life), they will alchemize the heavy lead of the depressions born of their perfectionism.
And they will understand that true perfection is that of unconditional love.
Note: The quoted passages are translated from Bulgarian.
