Perfectionism and My
Pathway to Yoga
Pia Guerrero
“One more bite,” my mom encouraged me most nights at the dinner table. “Okay … Take a bite for every year that you are old. One—two—three—four … Six. Good! You’re all finished.” She’d smile as she pulled the last forkful of dinner out of my mouth. By seven years old, I was an active and outgoing kid. I climbed trees, talked to strangers, skinned my knees, and won first prize at the bubble gum–eating contest. I was good at pretty much everything. Except eating. Whether it was because of the smell of my mom’s liver and onion recipe or because it didn’t take much to fuel my small size, I didn’t really eat very much as a child.
And why would I? For most of my life, my mom was on a diet, sending me the message loud and clear that food and the enjoyment of it were bad. I also learned that my mom’s body was a battlefield, and fat was the enemy—planting the seeds for how I would view my own body one day. As a kid, I knew more about the diet doctors Atkins, Pritikin, and Tarnower than I did about the presidents of the United States. But I did look forward to when my mom would diet. I didn’t mind the bland dinners of meat slabs and unseasoned vegetables. I cherished this time together, for it was the closest thing to a family dinner we would have.
The Sober Life
As a recovering alcoholic, my mom’s nights were often filled with AA meetings. So, dinner was never treated as an event to savor or share. Instead, it was something to get through before the babysitter came over. Some nights, Mom was too busy to join us for dinner. The minute she walked in the door from work, she served dinner, rushed through a bunch of chores, and then left for a meeting.
My mom said she met God and sobriety early one morning after she woke up on the hardwood floor, completely oblivious to how she got there, her knees bleeding, and myself asleep in bed. She eventually joined the Self-Realization Fellowship in the late seventies as part of her spiritual journey that came with not drinking. Soon she began studying the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, her guru and the founder of SRF, and she committed completely to church activities, chanting, meditation, and yoga. I was in second grade when I was taught how to meditate. More accurately, I tried my best to sit still and fix my closed eyes into the spot between my eyebrows. I absolutely loved contorting my little body into different yoga positions, and, like my mom, I soon began to eat healthy, bland food that my uncle from Utah jokingly called, “nuts and twigs.” We made our own peanut butter and had a champion juicer on the counter. “Drink your food and eat your drink,” my mom often chirped, quoting her guru.
While my sister and I were ambivalent about joining SRF, we did love how we suddenly were doing things as a family. Mom was no longer rushing through our lives and was grounded and happy. She could finally sit still and be present. At the same time, I didn’t understand concepts like karma and reincarnation or who this dead guru guy was or why there were pictures of him hanging around the house. It all felt a little strange, and a sense of alienation was one that lingered through much of my life.
Sickness and Objectification
I began dancing ballet very seriously. I went to a college-prep school that told us seventh graders to keep up with our academic performance, because it would go on our “permanent record,” instilling in me a tremendous fear of failure. We had three-hour finals in every subject, including Latin. This, combined with the perfectionism that came with being the child of an alcoholic and being entrenched in strident ballet school culture every day, made me begin to deteriorate emotionally and physically. I was riddled with anxiety around my future. Could I keep up? Was I smart enough? Hell … was I even smart?
The summer after eighth grade, I was diagnosed with Lupus. Type A personalities are at a higher risk of developing the disease. And that was when my relationship with my body changed. My strong, little, thin body was no longer a fun vehicle for play and self-expression. My knees and hands became blown-up, creaky, arthritic hinges, making it impossible to dance. I was in pain and out of breath all the time. With the Lupus came a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, and I officially became a “sick person.” I was put on massive doses of cortisone, with side effects that included a dramatic redistribution of fat and retention of a lot of water. A “buffalo hump,” as the doctors called it, began accumulating behind my neck. I grew a “moon face” and a double chin. My tummy bloated out and the drug wasted away my arms and legs.
I began to hate my body—how it looked and the fact that it could no longer move the way it once had, thanks to pain and side effects of the medicine. I had to limit foods as a way to not tax my failing kidneys that the Lupus had been attacking. As a result, I soon developed an episode of disordered eating. In addition to the progression of the disease, I felt I could somehow control the drug-induced double chin, the buffalo hump, and my bloated stomach by eating less. I just wanted to disappear, and not eating figured into that.
Since I was at a teaching hospital, every doctor’s appointment became a “case” for student doctors to study me like an anatomy chart. One time I was in the hospital for extreme abdominal pains and two interns began prepping me for a gynecological exam. Upon hearing of their plans, my mom flipped out and stopped the procedure immediately. My body was no longer my own. Other people were deciding its fate. I don’t know how it began, but I started to separate myself from my body; as if I were two entities in different petri dishes.
A New Life
The treatment to save my kidneys was no longer working and my mother was told by the doctors that my situation was grave. As a result, she decided to get a second opinion. This new doctor said he would take me off all medications and put me on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. My mom got tested immediately and, by some miracle, she was a perfect match and was able to give me one of her kidneys to replace mine within a month! I had my transplant seventeen years and one day after my mom gave birth to me. I couldn’t help but note the significance. With a new kidney, the Lupus went into remission. My double chin disappeared. I was thin again. Both brought equal relief.
With this new physical reality and the subsequent relief, came a sense of rebirth. And I know it sounds cheesy, but I was grateful for every breath I took. I saw life and possibility around every corner. My bookshelf began to fill with the writings of Eastern philosophers and existentialists. And I returned to yoga. It was no longer a thing my mother did. I began to practice regularly and loved it. I loved the way it made me feel physically. There were no mirrors in yoga class, so my ballet mind wasn’t able to see what my body looked like. It could just be in the pose without being self-conscious. I eventually began teaching through my university. I brought humor, gratitude, and fun to my classes. I had finally found myself.
Soon my old friend perfectionism began to visit me daily. My life required it to. I had to take dozens of pills to prevent my body from rejecting my new kidney: at the same time, every day, and without fail. It was novel to be a yoga teacher at that time, and I could tell how my friends admired me. I was in a great place compared to when I was sick, but there was still this shadow that followed me. A dark side that couldn’t get to a place where I could even look at, let alone accept, my inner or outer flaws. Behind it all was the fear that the Lupus would come back or my body would reject the kidney. Somehow if I wasn’t perfect, my illness would return to teach me a lesson.
It took significant time to not treat my yoga practice as another form of ballet, with my head raised proud, my toes pointed, and my technique perfect. While I could do the poses just right, I wasn’t fully practicing yoga. While others in class breathed loudly and even sighed deeply, I couldn’t. I still had to keep it together. I felt silly making a noise and looked strangely at people who did. When I practiced yoga in front of my mom, she would yell, “breathe!” Yoga was not something fun to do with my body like it was when I was a child. It was something to master and control, just as I did with everything else in my life at that time.
The Long Road to Yoga
It took me more than a decade to truly understand yoga as a spiritual practice. And when I say yoga, that includes yoga philosophy and meditation. Luckily, I’ve had many teachers, including my mother, and I learned something new about myself with each and every one.
It was Monique, a former ballet dancer, who chastised me for not “breathing right.” Despite her tone, I eventually learned how to “breathe.” More importantly, she taught me how to connect to my breath. Once I “discovered” my breath, the healing of my body and mind truly began. I strove to be a human “being” and stopped trying to be so perfect.
It was also in watching how hard my mom was on herself throughout the years and how she changed during her years at SRF that I witnessed how much yoga guided her into a new philosophical and spiritual place. In recalling her journey, I saw so much of myself. I realized that yoga was also my teacher and that I needed to keep practicing with the eye of a beginner to really get the most out of it. When I was angry and didn’t know it, my anger was amplified on the mat. When I was sad, sometimes I cried in class. I began to notice how my emotions were ruling my state of being. And I saw that I could change the state of my negative attitude with breath and movement. I began to surrender to the moods and see them as just that: moods. I was no longer ruled by the conditions of my life.
I thought of the advice to stay with a teacher, even if you don’t like them, for they have something to offer you. I recalled a former teacher who taught me compassion and gratitude. She had a hard edge, and she shared every thought in a brusque manner. One morning after our yoga class, I told her how frustrated I was over the consumerization of yoga, how it had become nothing more than a glorified exercise class. With a stern look, she said, “It doesn’t matter how people get to yoga. As long as yoga is in their life they are on the path.” I could feel my cheeks flush at being called out for being judgmental. She had a point. I soon realized what she said was a call for compassion and that moved me. I understood that under her hard veneer was someone who was truly on “the path,” and I dropped my judgment of her, along with that of fellow yogis. I saw that there were so many different areas in my life I could bring forgiveness. I soon let compassion into my life and began a long journey of healing.
Where once my inner monologue said “You’re not good enough” or “What’s wrong with you?” a new voice appeared. One that answered, “It’s okay, you’ll be alright. No one is perfect.” My mom had a long history of dealing with my perfectionism, and I realized the new voice in my head was actually hers. And a hopeful attitude washed over me.
Forgiveness and Surrender
Where I once would do the splits and hold poses in the acrobatic forms you see on the cover of yoga magazines, I now began to stop pushing myself. I found respect for my body as this amazing home and teacher. As a result, I stopped reinjuring an ongoing problem in my back. Today, I listen to my body and judge it so much less.
With forgiveness of myself came forgiveness of and gratitude for my mother, who I had always hoped to be the perfect parent. When I was thirty-seven, she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. Toward the end of a long struggle with the disease, she was completely bedridden and her muscles grew incredibly tense and painful. I began doing slow movement and yoga with her. Sometimes it was just moving her arms up and down slowly with her breath. Other times I guided her through a meditation of one of her favorite memories. And other times I’d prop her up with pillows so she could be in a restorative pose. Bringing yoga to her in this way brought her great relief. And it brought me great relief. I was able to be of complete service to her and truly be present with her in a way I had longed for my whole life. We grew very close. There were no resentments and nothing left unsaid when she died. I’m so grateful to yoga for giving me this opportunity.
Today yoga is my touchstone. It is a slow and steady practice, no more fast yoga flow classes here. I don’t have to do perfect acrobatic poses nor compete with myself or anyone else, for that matter. I’m much more present to the love in my life. And I am genuinely grateful for my body. At forty-four, I can do so much more with my body than I ever thought was possible. Where I once resented all that it couldn’t do, I now relish what it is I am able to do. I am incredibly in tune with my body and listen to it every day. Some days are harder than others because I still struggle with fibromyalgia, but on the harder days I surrender. Sometimes all I can do is breathe or meditate. I trust my inner voice on a different level, and with forgiveness of myself has come an increased sense of peace.
Pia Guerrero is a writer, public speaker, and leadership coach. From Harlem to Hawaii, she has led dozens of workshops and presentations on body politics, identity, intersectional feminism, media literacy, and social justice. Her work at Adios Barbie is informed by Pia’s own life straddling different worlds as a bicultural Mexican and American who has never quite fit in but has finally found her home. Committed to love and justice, Pia is a yoga student/teacher and unprofessional dog walker. Author photo by Lawrence H. Leach.