How my dog helped me overcome perfectionism
“The essence of perfectionism is an internal motivation that comes from the belief that your self worth is related to what you achieve”
— quote is taken from the most recent recording of my podcast “Happy Dog Happy Human” Season 2, episode 1 : on perfectionism. —
Recording this episode brought up a lot of feelings and reminders of how I am, as I call myself, a “perfectionist in recovery” and how perfectionism still plays a role in my life.
Prior to 2017 (when I started intensive trauma therapy), I was a full blown perfectionist. What that looked like for me was that I had an intense fear of being perceived as “bad” or “doing things wrong”. I would go above and beyond to ensure that I behaved and appeared “perfect”— the perfect friend, worker, body, daughter, student. I wanted to master every role I played and be the best at it so no one could ever question the possibility I could be anything less than….well, perfect.
I adopted Duchess in 2015. In my blog post “How living with a reactive dog helped my mental health”, I mention that Duchess’ personality did not develop in the direction I had imagined it would. I hoped for a dog I could bring with me everywhere and who would act as a sort of therapy dog to my clients and peers. Duchess, instead, geared toward reactive behaviors that were often triggered by other people and dogs. Her triggered fear could suddenly switch to aggression. She would often flip going into fight or flight mode barking, circling and/or chasing other beings and trying to nip at them to defend herself and me from her perceived threat. Her behavior scared me and fear is the perfect breeding ground for perfectionism. Additionally, her unwanted behaviors were not in line with how I wanted to be viewed and they became and extension of myself. I categorized her behaviors as “good” and “bad” and when she was acting “bad” that also meant I was “bad”— a bad dog mom and bad person for allowing my dog to act that way. Often this feeling of “badness” was reinforced by people’s reactions and comments of her behavior and how I was not training her correctly. Why would people do this? Because perfectionism is pervasive in Western culture. Society places “perfect” ideals on absolutely everything including how dogs should be.
“Good” dogs are cute, sweet, loyal, loving, submissive and sociable toward everyone. “Bad” dogs are disobedient, aggressive, and moody. As humans we tend to categorize things into contrasts— “this” or “that”, “light” or “dark”, “bad” or “good”. Society puts almost everything and everyone into these dichotomies, which inevitably sets us up for failure and deep rooted insecurities because the reality of people, animals and nature is that there is a grey area and there is nuance— you can in fact be both “this” and “that” not one or the other.
Learning the grey areas with Duchess meant realizing reactive behaviors weren’t “bad” only a response to her environment. This helped me begin to question my own grey areas. For example, I could be a motivated person most of the time while also having moments of being “lazy” or less motivated. I learned that just because one person doesn’t like me doesn’t me everyone doesn’t like me. In order to help Duchess and be able to take her places, I also started to realize that the way people interact with dogs is often undesirable for dogs invoking responses people don’t like. For example, many dogs don’t like it when strangers pet their heads, it makes them feel vulnerable and unsafe. Some dogs recoil but some attack in response. This does not make them “bad” or “good”. What it does imply is that we need to educate people better on how to interact with dogs and if you do have a dog, like in my case, who will attack then it is important to learn their cues and set boundaries for them. Again, this is the nuance. Sometimes setting boundaries meant other people thinking badly of me which is the ultimate trigger for a perfectionist, but through Duchess and setting boundaries for her I learned that it is okay if someone is mad at me. The important thing is I kept everyone safe.
The world is not black and white and Duchess is neither “good” nor “bad” and neither am I. I am me and she is Duchess— unique individuals with many different qualities to offer.
