Whatever gave you the idea that you need to be perfect?
Whoever told you that if you do not say it or do it PERFECTLY, you are bad or have failed?
Somehow somewhere this message became imprinted in your cells, there are very few of us free of this imprint. Because our culture has a perfection shadow, understanding this drive in ourselves and outside of ourselves is such a confusing underlayment– especially because it is clear to anyone with eyes that we are in impossibly imperfect times. Under the current circumstances of the world, perfection–as we see it– is unacheivable so half of us have given up and the other half are in a chronically distressed state of trying to fix things to an impossible standard!
How many messages do we receive each week that if our clothing or our bodies or our objects are perfect, maybe we’ll be ok…so consumerism, capitalism, and even activism are all driven by the sickness of trying to out-do ourselves.
Maybe we should re-evaluate this, maybe being anchored in being, in the perfection of what is right in front of us, even in its pain or ugliness or horror. Most of the humans I know are working with at least one of these elements in their lives—
Pain of the body or the soul of the collective
Ugliness of our own behavior or environment or of our community or of our collective action or inaction.
Horror of what we have done of who we have (or have not) become of our collective destruction and violence towards “other”.
SO, what to do you ask?
Be more messy, expect to be seen and heard anyway.
Forgive yourself, forgive others.
Listen under words and actions-sometimes, not always.
Spend time unplugged and in nature—what we see when we walk a beach or stand in a stand of old trees or hear birds and bees IS PERFECT, in its imperfection, in its chaos, in its messy livingness…being disconnected from this disconnects us from ourselves and disallows our systems to register this truest of truths: Perfection lives in everything. There is perfection in the imperfection—allow more of this and then you allow more of you to exist, just as it is.
