One Year on: How I Am Embracing My Femininity to Heal Perfectionism

When we honor feminine values equally, we experience greater love, connection, and balance.

In my home studio, I set my iPhone to video mode, tapping to record. Stepping a few feet back from the camera, I breathed deeply as my fingers pressed to the keyboard keys, my mouth moving close to the microphone. For six minutes, I played freestyle melodies and improvised lyrics. But as I watched the recording afterward, I felt waves of shame.

You keep messing up; why haven’t you been practicing? Ah, your hair looks greasy; why didn’t you shower? Yikes, your singing. When will you finally finish that voice class?

Thankfully, I’ve been researching the roots of my shame and perfectionism with shadow work. When I recognized the shame voice, I picked up my journal to write it out. I don’t push it aside anymore.

Shame thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgment. But when we voice our shame, we open ourselves to empathy where shame can’t survive. Even in our darkest moments, we deserve compassion.

Healing my perfectionism means removing judgment, allowing myself to be whole rather than striving to be good. Sometimes my keyboard playing gets rusty; sometimes, it doesn’t. Some days I shower; other days, I don’t. By accepting myself more, I allow space for mess-ups.

Through exploring the roots of my trauma, I believe repressed femininity fuels perfectionism. Over the past 12,000 years or so of patriarchy, our culture belittled has feminine values. We equated “emotional” with weak, suppressed creative expression, and valued logic over intuition. As a result, many live in shame, struggling with perfectionism or overachieving.

Through embracing vulnerability and other divine feminine values, we can individually and collectively get back to a place of love, connection, and balance.

Repressed Femininity Fuels Perfectionism

Growing up in a patriarchal religious environment, I learned many false beliefs, i.e., emotions make me annoying, being “girly” means “stupid,” being sensitive makes me weak, and we should avoid all weakness. Every time I got sick, my older brother chastised me, “You’re so weak.”

Doing my best to avoid being “weak,” I pushed myself to excel in everything. Early last year, I told a coworker, “I’m awesome at excellence.” There’s a time and place for doing a “job well done,” but when perfectionism keeps us from self-compassion, we have a problem.

“Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.” — Brene Brown.

Masculinity and femininity flourish when we honor them equally. We need divine masculinity to get things done, focus, set boundaries, have stability, and assert our needs. But we desperately need femininity to be vulnerable, authentic, compassionate, supportive, and creative.

Without this balance, we experience wounding. Feminine energy grows insecure, needy, manipulative, and inauthentic. Masculinity becomes abusive, unstable, aggressive, and controlling. Looking at my past relationships, I recognize these qualities.

Growing up, I didn’t learn to love myself. I never felt seen. After experiencing over 26 years of narcissist abuse, Southern patriarchy, and conservative Christianity, my self-judgment grew strong. I developed compulsive coping behaviors, i.e., codependency, overachieving, people-pleasing, and numbing.

Fear of judgment urges us to push ourselves harder to be perfect. Over-valuing productivity, I often felt stressed, overworked, and under-appreciated. I’m doing all the right things; why don’t I feel better?

Honoring Femininity Heals, Connects, and Empowers Us

After hearing Dr. Kristen Neff’s lecture on self-compassion and taking the quiz, I scored below average. My early masculine conditioning led to a strong tendency towards isolation and high self-judgment. After months of examining my childhood with depth therapy, I felt more sad than surprised when I saw the results.

Judging ourselves and each other fuels shame and separation. Living in shame prevents you from taking risks, asking someone out for a date, reaching out to a potential mentor, or asking that cool person to be your friend.

Because so many of us grew up over-valuing masculinity, we cut ourselves off from vulnerability and compassion. By honoring feminine values such as surrender, empathy, and compassion, we move past shame, embrace our process, and expand our lives.

Since initiating my creative recovery nearly one year ago, I have been reclaiming my inner feminine. I’m learning to embrace anger and jealousy, use play to nurture myself, take risks, and let myself be bad at things.

Our lives flourish when we begin to love and accept our whole selves, even the parts that don’t seem beautiful. Voicing our shame creates space for compassion. When we’re vulnerable, we connect to our shared humanity.

“Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” — Brene Brown.

Reclaiming femininity means valuing who we are as much as what we accomplish. Every day we take responsibility for how we are being, honoring ourselves, and living in our values.

How I Reclaim My Inner Feminine

“Love is the real power. It’s the energy that cherishes. The more you work with that energy, the more you will see how people respond naturally to it, and the more you will want to use it. It brings out your creativity and helps everyone around you flower. Your children, the people you work with — everyone blooms.” ―Marion Woodman, author of “Addiction to Perfection.”

At 27 years old, I feel blessed with a fresh opportunity to become whole, embracing both my masculine and feminine qualities. Here are some approaches I’ve found helpful to reclaiming my femininity:

• I give myself more space: Taking time between tasks to breathe and reconnect with myself allows me to stay grounded. By acknowledging how I feel and what I need, I honor myself and live more authentically.
• I let myself change slowly: I didn’t amass these layers of shame overnight; change won’t happen quickly.
• I stay connected with my body: Our bodies are incredibly wise. Yet, most of us learn to value logic over intuition. My body always knows what it needs. I use dance, yoga, and somatic processing to build a loving relationship with my body.
• I relax more. When we get caught up in our extended to-do lists, we miss out on the pleasure of living. I’ve been focusing on creating more balance within myself through more dedication to relaxation. When I do need to handle tasks, I feel more energized, self-aware, and focused.
• I observe more. Without striving to please people or wearing my credentials like armor, I give myself more freedom to sit back. I take more time to notice how I feel about other people and assess whether or not I want their energy in my life.
• I embrace spontaneity. I’ve always struggled with spontaneity. My friends used to laugh at me for “scheduling spontaneity” into my planner. I felt afraid of not being prepared, scared of the unknown. With greater empathy and curiosity, I release judgments around trying new things. I embrace the unexpected and see the opportunities in each challenge.

Being more in tune with my feelings has brought me renewed joy and daily exhilaration. We can fully embrace the painful emotions as well as the deep love for each experience. A simple meal or neighborhood walk becomes an exotic adventure when we engage our senses.

Closing Thoughts

“Perfection has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead,” — Julia Cameron, author of “The Artist’s Way.”

A few months ago, I felt incredibly annoyed and anxious with my therapy and self-work. I craved more validation and a sense of completion. But I learned that our healing journeys never end.

The more we embrace the never-ending mystery, the more peaceful we’ll feel. Instead, I focus on celebrating progress as I notice it and being present in each moment.

The voices of shame, fear, and perfectionism don’t go away; sometimes, they even become louder as we move towards our vision. Instead of expecting those voices to go away, I focus on embracing them using practices that work for me, i.e., journaling, mindfulness, self-compassion.

If you remember one thing from this article, I hope it’s this: every emotion we experience is healthy, acceptable, and valuable. Anyone who belittles your feelings does not have your best interests at heart.

The next time you feel ashamed, I hope you voice the shame instead of repressing it. With vulnerability and empathy, we free ourselves to be loving, whole beings.

“As you heal, you help heal the world,” — Melody Beattie.