Have you ever found yourself so afraid to do something that you, in a sense, become paralyzed?
It's a weird feeling. You know action is required, but your mental & emotional state hasn't met up with the rest of your body yet.
It's a feeling, that for most of us, can be closely associated with lots of different moments in our lives.
Maybe for you it was a moment when you were trying to profess feelings for someone else and couldn't work up the nerve to ask them out or say how you felt.
Maybe it was a moment during an interview for a job you really wanted. You're asked a hard question and can't find the right answer, or at least the answer you thought they were looking for, so you stammer or make something up.
Maybe it's that moment when you have tons of work to do, but decide to take a nap instead (not that I've ever done that....).
Perhaps it was a time of danger, a car accident, witnessing a crime, etc and instead of jumping into action and handling the situation well, you just go numb, overwhelmed by adrenaline and fear.
Whatever it is, we've all had experiences where we feel afraid or overwhelmed and instead of stepping forward with confidence, we avoid, become paralyzed, and don't do anything.
In some fashion, I've experienced moments similar to the above examples (yes, even the nap one). I've found myself hampered by fear more times than I care to admit. Fear can be a good thing, there is absolutely such a thing as healthy fear (fear that actually keeps you safe in some way), but I'm referring to unhealthy fear here, fear that for me comes from a deep need to feel loved and accepted.
Literally as I type the words to this blog post that I've been wanting to write for weeks, but haven't (out of fear of sounding dumb), I find myself constantly nagged and poked by every word. Instead of focusing on the heart of what I want to express, I find myself wondering in the back of my mind how every word will affect those reading or their opinion of me.
It's unhealthy fear and it's paralyzing.
I know a lot of people who struggle with fear, anxiety, depression, etc. Perhaps you are one. I wish there was some magic cure to these internal issues many of us face, but the reality for most of us is that they stem from a complicated network of emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical, and relational experiences throughout our lives that have taught us to think and act the way we do.
It's a seemingly impossible task to undo all the baggage and hurt we have accrued that we feel have turned us into the mess we are sometimes. Yet, there is a hope. Not temporary hope, not the distractions we normally turn to when we want to numb or avoid the fear (TV, sex, food, gambling, etc) but hope that gets into the root and helps us to re-wire ourselves in a positive way.
For me, I know it's a pervasive fear of failure. I've built up a narrative throughout various experiences in my life that, unless I perform well and am mostly successful at whatever I do, I will lose all love and acceptance from God and people in my life.
So how do I respond to this potentially crippling fear? Perfection. I'll just be perfect. I won't ever make a mistake. I'll make sure the house is clean everyday, I'll be a good person to everyone, I'll be funny, charming, well-spoken, say and do all the right things so no one ever has to see my flaws and so that I never have to experience anyone seeing my flaws.
Ok. That works for a while, until I get honest with myself and have to come to grips with reality: The loneliness and fear haven't gone away, not completely. In fact, sometimes they've even gotten worse.
You see, when we build our lives on a foundation of perfection, always being great people, and attempting to avoid ever having anyone enter the messiness of our life, we actually become more lonely and afraid.
Perfection takes on many forms. Make everyone like you, be a people pleaser, accumulate stuff, post all the right things on social media.
We operate in a false self so often that we may even begin to lie to ourselves and convince ourselves that we are way better of a person than we actually are.
"Oh well, that wasn't my fault"
"I'm a pretty great person and everyone loves me, nothing at all is wrong with my life."
The costume and mask we wear to hide our true selves and avoid intimacy starts small but eventually becomes as vast and complicated a web of emotions as the web of experiences that made us feel lonely and afraid in the first place.
Basically, instead of fixing the root causes of loneliness and fear, we add to them and make it worse. All in the name of perfection, or at the least appearance of it. We all have a million things we don't like about ourselves and assume others will feel the same way and reject us.
I've lied to myself, put on a mask, operated out of fear, and tried too hard to get others to like me. All in the name of conquering my fears and loneliness.
Then I remember 1 John 4:18:
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."
Oh.
That hits me at my core. I convince myself that I will only experience love if I don't make any mistakes. So I isolate, hide, put out the persona I want others to see, etc. But this verse tells me that perfect love drives out my fear. So, the question is, what is perfect love?
Perfect love is faithful to us when we screw up, perfect love trusts, hopes, perseveres. Perfect love keeps no record of wrongs, perfect love is full of grace and truth. Perfect love meets us right where we are, in all our mess, and helps us grow and move forward.
Perfect love. In a word, God.
God is faithful. God perseveres with us. God is full of grace and truth. God loves us right where we are and doesn't let us stay there. Could it be that simple?
We get tripped up because everything we've experienced in this life tells us otherwise. It tells us that people don't always stick around, that we are all selfish, that we have to look out for #1, that we have to keep it together or we lose it all.
When we experience the kind of love God has to offer, we realize we don't have to live in unhealthy fear of rejection anymore. We experience a kind of freedom as the fear and stress melt away.
I think of what Jesus said in John 16:33:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
The world can be a hard place to live in sometimes. But we can find hope and take heart because we have a savior in Jesus who isn't ignorant to our struggle, but who knows what its like to be human, who ultimately conquered sin, death, and fear.
When we experience freedom from fear through God's faithful love, when we find ourselves able to trust God, we find also how we can break the cycle of fear and loneliness in others:
Galatians 5:13
"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love."
We have the opportunity every day, in every circumstance to extend the kind of love we need from God to the people in our lives. We have the opportunity to extend love that hopes, perseveres, is faithful, trusts, and casts out fear.
When I have lucid moments, I realize my pursuit of perfection is ridiculous. Not only am I an imperfect human being (and always will be), but I'm pretty sure we can never realistically expect others to be perfect. No matter how much of a pedestal we put our fellow human beings on sometimes (which we shouldn't), a part of us should never be shocked by the brokenness and imperfection in our world.
Maybe in a weird way, our own mess empowers us to have grace for other people when faced with theirs. Maybe thats the whole point, to not put people mentally in high places they don't belong, or even to view others as lower than us.
Maybe the point is to walk out life together, with all it's mess, and keep pointing our fellow imperfect human beings not to us or other humans, but to the only perfect love capable of driving out the fear and loneliness for good.
I think our lives would be infinitely more beautiful if we all put away the mask, accepted the imperfections of us and others, and let our true selves walk in the freedom of the love of God.
So to myself and all the other perfectionists out there I say:
Stop hiding in fear.
You aren't alone.
Be relentlessly loved and accepted as you are by God.
Develop a ruthless trust in God.
Start relentlessly loving others because you are free to do so.
Put away the mask for good.
