It's not perfectionism, its self abandonment
on people pleasing ✨ The buzzwords of avoidance and creative spring 🌱
Hello sweet reader,
What would the world look like if we sifted through the muck? If we insisted on the grey area? Instead of settling on the black and white.
One of my biggest beefs, my own personal big boss if you will, is the Instagram-ifitcation of big, complex, nuanced, ocean deep ideas. You can blame it in my penchant for the black and white, my insistence on justice, my inability to double think. I could write books on how much I think these glossy over-simplified theories and labels keep us further away from ourselves than closer to the truth of us. They come as info graphics, glossy canva templates, ideas reduced to branding. A lifetime of work and reading stuffed into a label we can slap on ourselves without having to pick apart what it means.
I understand our want for a simple word, people pleasing, perfectionism, whatever other one line monikers we want to add to our bios. A linear example of something feeling clear. “Hi I am Phoebe I am a people pleaser” but I do not think we actually capture the honesty of what that means. We gloss over the middle in favour of a simple understanding. And like, I get it. The world is horrible, bad, hard place to be in. The desire to grab onto one clear thing is tempting. But I think if we were to get honest with ourselves, really we know…
Its not people pleasing, its abandoning ourselves.
It’s not perfectionism, it’s abandoning ourselves.
You are not a people pleaser you are living inside white supremacy.
Where self abandonment is rewarded with safety, likability, wealth, status.
You are not a perfectionist. You are living inside capitalism.
Where cohesion, understanding, simplification, branding and the ability to profit off of your body + labour are rewarded.
Or as my sweet friend Dr Emily Bennet says “Burnout has a buzzword problem”
I am weary of sounding like an old man shaking my first from my lawn. Maybe I am being hard on the internet. Maybe its our desire and nature (or at least my own Autistic brain) that prefers the black and white. The black and white is a soothing promise, a promise of right and wrong and categories and box ticking.
But unfortunately for me (and you too, I guess). The world is not black and white but instead the murkiest grey sludge. I know I am close to an answer when I feel this thick goop tied around my ankles. I look that the flowers blooming in spring and think of how uncomfortable it must be to push through frost to bloom. When I am far from the double think and closer to understanding that context exists, that the pictures of war on my phone and what I ate for breakfast and the concerns I have for the daffodils blooming last week not covered in snow (will the lilacs survive the frost?) all contribute to my general feeling of this grey muck.
I’m not a people pleaser. I am extremely good at abandoning myself in order to make other people around me happy. On every report card I have ever gotten back, regardless of grade my teachers have written “Phoebe is a great leader”. But what I am great at is trying to control the outcome. I am fucking fabulous at micro managing the tasks around me. I am stellar at avoiding decisions that I fear will make someone else feel bad. I excel at tinkering to get the exact outcome I need to stay the same amount of safe. likeable and with my dragons hoard of time and money and resources intact.
But, my ability to try and control the situation, to avoid the proliferation of other meta verses and time lines comes at the cost of my body. My wellbeing and my art.
I think this work and noticing and actual untangling can only be done if we move past the label and over simplification of it all into understanding and knowing what that actually means inside of ourselves. To dig past the label of it all (or as my sweet friend Dr Emily Bennet says “Burnout has a buzzword problem”) and let curiosity be our guide. It’s not enough to just declare the title, but instead ask ourselves, how will I begin to untangle this knot? It serves the big bosses of perfectionism and people pleasing (white supremacy and capitalism!) to not be curious, to maintain label wearing as status quo.
Because just calling ourselves a perfectionist keeps our work locked up in a drawer. Tinkering with outcomes and what if so no one can ever really see’s us or know’s the person being puppeteered inside.
I wonder if tulips ask themselves for perfection as they push past the dirt? Neatly order their petals before the show? Or if they trust they know exactly how to bloom.
The opposite of perfectionism is failure tolerance. The opposite of people pleasing is authenticity. Both ask for the truth of the room. Both ask for your bravery. And both need your art.
🪄many blessings on the journey of ungangely our perfectionisty-people-pleassy-knots🪄
FINDINGS
My 1:1 books are open again 💕 I’m here to be a mirror. I’m here to cheerlead. I’m here to run the experiments along side you and find the direction you want to go in. I’m here to celebrate the magic, bravery and knowledge you already have. 🪞☁️🪩 1:1 Creative Coaching + Strategy to uncover your creative process🌷
We kicked off the messy DIY quest sunday! There is still “time” to join us (time is fake🥰)
Like movies? Cool! Read this weeks Professional Sweetheart from
(and I promise I wont do my ✨perfect✨ transatlantic accent at you)Do You Ever Feel Like Pod is back… if back from being gone on a break is actualy… back?
Big love + Many blessings on sifting through the muck💕
xx
Phoebe
*typos are left to reflect the fury passion and 3D humaness of being a passionate freak in the world – and you know not a robot *beep boop*
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