The Perfect Racist
With the current state of the world, (or rather, the state of the world that has finally come to light after being kept hidden for centuries), naturally I began to question my identity as a white woman and the structures that shaped it. When the Black Lives Matter movement resurged, it began a tidal wave of reflection. People flocked to the bookstores to grab books like White Fragility and How to be an Antiracist. They listened to interviews, they posted then reposted, then shared, they frantically shoved as much information in their heads as they could so they could “do the right thing” but mostly so they could be seen doing the right thing. In this time of frantic sorrow, guilt and shame, I was getting my information from a different source — peoples’ bodies.
What Gives Me the Right to Make Things Right?
As a healer, I was terrified to do my first session after the death of George Floyd. Who was I, a white woman, to be bringing healing to people who had presently and generationally experienced so much trauma? I had absolutely NO answers and no idea of a magic fix for any of this. That I realized was what made me right for the job. I simply went into every session and listened. I let the bodies do the talking. I let them tell me tales of great grandparents ripped from their purpose to serve someone else’s; I let them tell me of their fear to go outside and be; I listened to white bodies too telling me the tales of the fear that pushed them to silence rather than reaching out to their black friends; I let them tell me about the trapped emotions of their ancestors that made them paranoid today. What I began to realize was that the job was never to clean up or fix or release the mess, it was to honor it, to give it a voice and allow it to be seen.
At the beginning I too felt triggered. I wanted a way to “fix” it all, to make it go away and atone for what is and had been done. Then I realized that my need to make what was and is a mess neat and tidy was my racism in action.
The Good Ole Girl Days
Perfectionism was a way of life for me growing up. Straight As were a necessity to me. In my mind I had to be a “good girl” to be a good person. I did what my parents wanted, I smiled when you were supposed to and hid my tears, I found the way to hack the high school system to hang out with the right people even though I connected with none of them. I used to always attribute my need for perfection to the fact that I grew up in the Mormon religion but I realized this was something so much bigger than that.
Tears and Fears
I used to be absolutely terrified when someone cried in front of me. My defense mechanism was to offer them food to get them to stop. Worse than that, my ultimate fear was crying in public. I remember countless nights in my room getting angry at myself and telling myself to stop crying. Now tears are my favorite thing to see. They’re like old friends who finally joined the party. It means something is happening, something is changing and unleashing. Now I make grown men cry on a daily basis. What I’ve noticed is right after the first tear drops and that person sees that I notice it, their immediate reaction is to say “I’m sorry.” As if they have to apologize for showing how they really feel because it’s not perfect and might make someone uncomfortable. Their mess is showing and that’s not perfection so they do all they can to sweep it back in.
There Isn’t a Perfect Way to Feel.
How much of our lives do we spend shoving our pain into perfect little boxes until we can’t keep the lids on anymore? We’ve been taught to have feelings about our feelings to keep them hidden. When we cry, we cover it up with shame. When we feel jealous, we try and convince ourselves it isn’t real because that’s not right. When we feel guilty, we throw shame on top of that too so we don’t have to feel the truth of what we’ve done. It’s what we’ve been trained to do and we have mastered it.
There Isn’t a Perfect Way to Heal.
Heck, perfectionism even pops up in healing too. People will come and want to clear out all of the pain, all of the mistakes, all of the trauma at once so they don’t have to acknowledge the severity of the mess and they never have to fully feel it. We try and rush things along so that if we move fast enough, it will all just be one big blur instead of individual pains. Then maybe we won’t have to see it in its full form, or more importantly, no one else will see what we have done or what we are feeling. We’re just rushing from one release to the next, running an imaginary race we’ll always lose.
The Need to Keep Everything Perfect is the Need to Keep Things the Same.
Even when it came to writing this article, I was so afraid I’d say something wrong. That right there is proof that when writing about dismantling my racist perfectionism, I am still trying to go about it perfectly. Then I thought about writing a disclaimer like “I know I have said some things wrong here so please feel free to call me out just make sure you feel through it first instead of attacking me.” Screw that. Have your emotions in front of me. Call me out, get angry. You certainly don’t need my permission to do so.
The need to keep everything perfect is the need to keep things the same. It’s the need to uphold the system at all costs. Keep things neat and tidy. Hide your messes and if they come up, get a cleaning crew on that stat.
If we go back to the Bible here (because somehow people always like to do that), the human race began because of a mistake. Why would we think that now we have to stop making them?
What if You Can’t Fix It?
Our nature is messy. Nature itself isn’t landscaped to perfection in its truest form so why are we trying so hard to prune our emotional outbursts into passive aggressive comments? Why are we cancelling the messes? (Oh ya there’s perfectionism on both sides of this one). Why are we looking for the fastest way to fix something before we fully understand it? Here’s a scary thought — what if you can’t fix it? What if you can’t clean it up? What if there’s no amount of anti-racist literature, supporting black businesses and sharing instagram posts that will make this suddenly ok? Can we see the mess and allow it to speak to us rather than covering it up?
I’m Sorry for the Mistakes I Didn’t Make
So that’s what I’m working on — seeing the mess and not having to do that perfectly. I’m unwinding generations of panic about doing things the “right” way. It’s the most relieving and terrifying thing.
I’d like to apologize for all of the mistakes I was too afraid to make because maybe those would have brought about the changes the world needed a whole lot sooner.
With love and healing,
Jess the Mess
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As an Energy Healer I use muscle testing, breath work, chakra clearing, and more to connect you to the truth your body is telling you. I work with experienced healers and first time explorers looking to release mental, physical, and emotional blocks that are causing pain. Book your energy healing session here to start your healing journey.
