By Jennifer Davis
Becoming perfect, as the Savior is perfect, is the ultimate goal of Latter-Days Saints, however, becoming depressed and having anxiety over not being perfect right now are tools Satan is deviously using.
?There is nothing the destroyer loves more than taking pure, saving doctrine and twisting it ever so slightly into poison,? said Carrie M. Wrigley, an LDS Family Services counselor.
Perfectionism is particularly troubling for LDS people because they have been taught ever since they were children of their potential to be like God, Wrigley said. It is especially difficult for women, who tend to have anxiety attacks over it.
Two dangerous thought processes that lead to stress over perfectionism are the all or nothing thinking and the shoulds, said Wrigley using material from David Burns, a therapist who identified 10 dangerous thought processes.
The all or nothing thinking is the idea that if one is not doing everything perfectly right, then they are a failure. This thinking can lead to depression, which intake data shows is the No. 1 problem at LDS Family Services.
?Depression is directly related to perfectionism,? Wrigley said. ?Depression is largely about (especially among LDS individuals) feeling like ?I don?t measure up,? ?I?m not good enough,? ?I?m never going to make it to the level I want to be at,?? she said.
The other dangerous thinking pattern of the shoulds leads to a low self-esteem. It is not necessarily bad to have a list of things one should do, the problem is when Satan twists this principle and makes one feel terrible for not having everything done right away.
?It?s the tyranny of the shoulds that tends to get us into trouble emotionally,? she said.
If someone thinks they need to be perfect, they will procrastinate doing the things they need to do, until they feel they can do it perfectly. That is the relationship between thoughts and behavior, Wrigley said.
One of Wrigley?s friends was having a hard time with perfectionism, and it was being manifested through her inability to keep her house clean. She would just sit and look at it, not knowing where or how to start. Finally, Wrigley came over and asked her friend if she could show her what could be done in 5 minutes with the living room. After 5 minutes, the room was clean. When her friend asked how she did it, Wrigley responded with ?one item at a time.?
The metaphor from the messy room is that it is not necessary to be perfect right now, but focus on one element at a time, Wrigley said.
Even Jesus Christ learned grace by grace and never considered himself perfect until after he had resurrected.
?A lot of time we?re beating ourselves up about not being able to help one person because we were busy helping someone else, but that even happened to the Savior,? she said referring to Mary, Martha and Lazarus. ?Jesus wept. It was painful even for Him that he could not be simultaneously here and there.?
The vision and the goal is to be perfected. Just like a blue print, the vision is perfect, but the construction of a building starts out as just a big mess, she said.
?We are all under construction,? Wrigley said after singing the song she wrote about the road to being perfected titled, ?Under construction.?