Customer Reviews

Present Perfect: A Mindfulness Approach to Letting Go of Perfectionism and the Need for Control

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Everyone who suffers the discrepancy between what they want and what actually exists moment by moment has something important to gain from reading Pavel Somov's illuminating book Present Perfect. Far more than a compelling antidote to perfectionism per se, Somov's book actually shows us how to escape the "holodeck" of our endless worries about the future in order to find the real perfection that exists right now. If you have been looking for a way to learn to enjoy just being, think Present Perfect, and then stop thinking. Always original, always experiential, Somov reveals the subtle and deep truth that to find the gem at our feet we absolutely have to stop kicking it down the road. Highly recommended.
~Andrew P. Yake, PhD
Licensed Psychologist

First, let me say that within reading the first chapter of this book it was already making an impact on my thinking and thus my life in a positive way. Of all the titles relating to perfection I found on Amazon, I gravitated toward this one because I already practice mindfulness and meditation. With that said, one does not need to have any familiarity with mindfulness to delve into this book. Somov does a wonderful job of introducing the reader to the concept.

The premise of the book, in a nut shell, is learning to accept each moment as it is, and understanding that no moment can be more than what it is. In essence, each moment is already perfect. Somov demonstrates this concept through many small exercises throughout the book. I will admit that I did pick and choose the exercises I completed because there were so many.

I really appreciated this book because I found it so applicable. You know it's a good book when you feel like the author is describing you in the text! The author's lessons stuck with me, I found myself being able to apply his wisdom throughout the day (yet another sign of a good book!). I wish I could be less vague in my description; however, I found that the lessons were so deep and meaningful, I don't think I could do them justice in this review. This book has brought new perspective into my life and I highly recommend that anyone struggling with control and perfection to give it a read.

This book literally changed my life. In the best ways. And the changes have STUCK. The author's uniquely resonant voice hit home in every way imaginable. I consider myself a "recovering perfectionist" who has fallen off the wagon countless times throughout my life. If I could tell potential readers anything about this book to encourage them to read it, it would be this: You have probably read many other books that have been in the same genre of self-help. But I assure you this book is unlike any other. It will allow you to feel more freedom, more possibility, more peace and acceptance and more true satisfaction with life right where you are, no matter what that looks like.

PP =is= a terrific book. You =should= buy it. Regardless of what I have to say. But here =is= what I have to say:

Dr. Somov seems to be of more than one mind here, which (to someone as down in the trenches on borderline personality organization as I am supposed to be) bothers me. He's pitching Gurdjief-style mindfulness and acceptance here... and "emotional bulletproofing" there.

The former I am delighted with (think Tara Brach, the Siegel brothers, Steven Hayes, Marsha Linehan, Zindel Segal, Eckhart Tolle and all those paradigm-transcending, mindfulness people). The latter rattles my confidence.

Because I =am= a "vending machine repairman," I have "been down this road more than twice" (TY, SC), and I know (a lot) better than to assert that emotional bulletproofing is ever going to be possible, even though DSM-IVR Axis II Cluster B types will sell their immortal souls to acquire it. (Recall a certain pizza-parlor operator who thinks he's got a shot at the White House. Or Javier Bardem's unforgettable "Anton Chigurh.") Chapter Nine is especially troubling.

Okay; if you're a self-involved, achievement-addicted, success-obsessed yuppie, get the book and knock yourself out. (But there is no such thing as emotional bullet-proofing regardless of what Dr. S. asserts every now and again in what is otherwise a fine and dandy volume.)

Somov's "seven elements of existential rehabilitation" provide the platform here, and they are all both research-proven and rooted in both his own Sufism and every form of Buddhism I've thus far run into. Marsha Linehan's and Terra Brach's "radical acceptance" is in vogue again these days, just for one of the seven, and Somov provides one of the better manifestos for it on page 31.

Perhaps because he's Russian, and authoritarianism is always "in" in Russian cult-ure, Dr. S. slips repeatedly on the banana peel of absolutistic dichotomism to the exclusion of relative dialecticalism. (I know, I know. "Why the big, smartypants words?" Answer: 'Cause the mindfulness-based therapists know what they mean.) And that seems odd in a book about recovery from absolutistic perfectionism.

One further example of the dichotomizing is in an otherwise terrific final chapter on forgiveness in which Somov asserts that forgiving those who "trespass on your well being" is outside his box. He then goes on to do an excellent job of dialecticalizing the issue in a way most well-read, recovering codependents would readily understand.

Nevertheless (and proving that I can sometimes contain both ends of a dialectic in the same sentence now), Somov has come up with one of the better jungle guides through the bramble patch of recovery from shame-soaked obsessive-compulsive disorder, even touching on the Perls' upward spiral of repeating the same mistakes a little more consciously that is so important for patients to appraise and accept as therapeutic reality.

Beg, borrow, buy or steal it. RG, Psy.D.