Weekly Om - Imperfectly Perfect

Weekly Om

Imperfectly perfect

I was reading a book to my daughters the other night called Princess Perfect. I have no idea where this book came from but I read it anyway. This little princess does everything perfectly - she brushes her hair without being asked, makes her bed, does her homework, her room is clean and tidy, she eats all her vegetables and she goes to bed early without an argument.

Call me crazy but that seems a little unrealistic. So my girls and I had a discussion about being perfect. I thought it was important because I can remember wanting to do everything perfectly. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe I wanted approval from my parents, recognition from my peers, praise, celebrity, and notoriety - everything that had to do with my ego.

In times like this, when you recognize the ego, it's important to question it. To ask yourself, what are you afraid of if you don't appear to be perfect? What will happen if you don't know the answer? Or what will happen if you have to admit an ending of a relationship, a business or a change of paths altogether? Oh my, what then?

To do everything "perfect" means you are always right, right? That everyone else is "wrong". But who says its right? Isn't it the goal of the ego to be right all the time? Who's keeping track of what is right or wrong?

Being perfect sure seems like a lot of responsibility to carry if you ask me. Who wants to be right all the time? How tiring! And anyway, how can we be right all the time? Aren't we learning new things everyday that may prove past theories to be outdated? Not wrong, just outdated.

Not only that but why do we push ourselves way out of our comfort zone, past our voice of reason just to prove we are perfect? To prove that we have it "all together?" I'm not saying that we shouldn't do our best. I am saying that we can do our best without comparing ourselves to others. Without attaching an expectation to whatever it is; that it will be without flaws or mistakes. Without killing ourselves or sacrificing our souls purpose just to prove a point - that we can be "perfect."

Why do we put up a front that everything is "perfect" when maybe it's not? Why are we afraid of saying, "Things aren't perfect and I need help." Or "I don't know that answer - can you help me?" Why do we let our ego get so far ahead of us that finally, one dayjust before we jump off a cliff, we raise the white flag and say, "OK! I'm not perfect!" When this happens, we usually feel like we have failed, or we are disappointed. Why do we do that to ourselves?

When instead we could stop, breathe and notice the aliveness in each moment. We could stop fighting life in order to be perfect and instead allow life to happen around us. This opens us up to a state of spiritual instinct - our senses tell us that everything is going to be alright. Even if we don't pass that test, perform that piece without mistakes or keep our business going regardless of the circumstances. Geez, at least we appeared to be perfect...

We spend so much of our life being what we think we are supposed to be - a definition of what we "think" perfect is, that we lose our Self along the way. But we begin to realize after time that we are already perfect without being perfect. We are imperfectly perfect when we trust who we really are - the genuine Self that can withstand anything.

Sometimes it takes a loss or a huge shift in ur life to see that perfection isn't all it's cracked up to be. We lose our business, our home, our car, our "friends" and we realize we are left with only our Self. But instead of being judgmental and self-loathing we are full of strength and we realize that really, we are exactly where we are meant to be. We realize that change is the one thing we can rely on and that perfection is really only a state of someone else's mind.

Have an imperfectly perfect day - it's the only way to go!

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