The Basic Proposition

You lost sight of the fundamental principle that we are all one and are perfect as we are. What you came to believe instead is that people are not accepted for who they are, and that the world judges and punishes bad behavior. You learned to gain worthiness and love by being good, correcting errors and meeting the requirements of your critical mind. You often suppressed your personal needs and desires, and at the same time, developed resentments and suppressed anger or guilt over your impulses, bad behavior and what is judged as wrong. Your attention naturally goes to what is wrong and what needs correcting or improvement.

The central issue for healing

To experience healing and personal growth, a Perfectionist needs to become less dominated by the dictates of the critical mind and, in time, regain a sense of being an undivided whole. This means understanding and appreciating that whatever you frequently judge as “wrong” is actually just “different” because it deviates from your imagined ideal. Perfectionists need to learn to observe the critical mind and detach self-worth from it. The difficulty doesn’t come from having high standards or too many standards, but from the power of the relentless inner critic in determining self-worth and dictating life.

Six healing and growth commitments for Perfectionists:

• Practice releasing the domination of the critical mind
• Appreciate errors, mistakes and imperfection as differences
• Observe the constant monitoring for comparison purposes (good/bad, perfect/imperfect)
• Welcome anger and guilt as signaling “unacceptable” behavior (often what is forbidden)
• Practice acceptance and forgiveness (not just improvement)
• Integrate instinct and desire

Next: Type 2

Key themes of all types: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

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Read more about key themes of the types in The Essential Enneagram by David Daniels, M.D.

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