Perfectionism doesn’t always look perfect

Perfectionism doesn’t always look perfect.

What it really is, is a set of beliefs that suggest that sustained effort, a certain level of “rightness”, pouring all of ourselves into everything or trying to control the outcome will give us what we want.

In other words, looking for safety through achievement and often at the expense of ourselves.

It gets applied to so many aspects of our lives and work we find ourselves juggling so many pots of efforting that we end up “failing” a lot and it can actually feel like chaos.

It is in fact the most common wound I see in women, it is so widespread, and is absolutely endemic to motherhood, it often tears us apart.

We can end up carving ourselves out from the inside and then wonder why we are empty.

So many are left with that deep sense of unworthiness, the “not enough”, which is directly related to the illusion that there was a point we could give to that would make us enough.

And this is underlined by our society, by materialism, in the way that we are marketed to, so it’s no wonder it’s so insidious.

In reality, what we are doing is giving up the opportunity for connection with others through a great sense of

∆ Authenticity
∆ Presence
∆ Possibility

To step out of the pattern, what we can work with instead is our capacity….the capacity of our nervous system to hold periods of stress before it activates our emotional responses. To hold a sense of the unexpected.

We are working with our bodies.

When we start to grow our capacity and call in a greater sense of surrender, we can open ourselves up to:

∆ It might not go the way we planned but we have the resources to deal with it
∆ Others will relate to our openness and willingness to be with what is
∆ We will end cycles of competition
∆ We have the power to chose in the moment
∆ The possibilities we open ourselves to might be far greater than we ever could have imagined.

We learn to trust, in ourselves, in others, in what’s greater than us.

And once we’ve moved past the perfectionist pattern and grown our capacity, there is of course a place of self mastery that’s available to is.

This is where we get to choose where to place our time, effort and creative energy. We can call in the skills we have learnt and a greater sense of patience that comes from a regulated body. We only work with a sense of loving energy, without attachment, without the link to our worth or the need to call in love through what we put out in the world.

And this is where we step into our true greatness as Creators.