We don’t usually judge our friends or acquaintances or peers because they need help with something or don’t know something or aren’t perfect at doing something. At least not the first hundred times. 🙂 After 100 we tend to get judgmental but I think it might be warranted in some cases. However, most people are 100% negative when it comes to themselves in these situations. Compassion seems to go out the window. We aren’t allowed to be human, to be unsure, to make mistakes, to try something and fail at it, or to need or need to be healed. We are perfectionists when it comes to ourselves and since we know intimately that we aren’t perfect, we are constantly reinforcing for ourselves our brokenness, incompetence, and utter failure at being.
There are whole industries built around helping us deal with this as well as others trying to foster it (…ahem…advertising…ahem…marketing…*cough*). To me the issue is not to try and fix ourselves so we become perfect, but to try to heal this need to be perfect. Ain’t gonna happen so why try? Why continue to punish ourselves for something we never be? Why hold ourselves up to higher standards that we have for any other living being? Even super heroes fail sometimes and have flaws and act human. That’s why we like them. If they don’t we have no interest in them, can’t relate, and are turned off because they seem to be a judgement on the rest of us….aha! Perfectionism is judgement. I think there’s a truth in there somewhere.
I bring this up because 2013 is all about self evaluation, internal change and process, and taking in what happened in 2012 so we can make a new self from the revelations. It’s all about becoming. And the transformation process is so NOT about judgment and perfectionism. It’s messy and painful and full of insight and new awareness and totally new perceptions. It’s about experiencing being raw and exposed and honest, even if only to yourself, so that you can start taking the steps that will lead you to a more authentic life. And it’s impossible to delve into the depths and experience transformation if you are constantly distancing yourself from the truth by judging yourself and looking for perfection. If you feel that being sad about something or needing something is a failure, then you lose the opportunity to find out the root cause of the emotions which can lead you to healing and an entirely new aspect of yourself.
So just say no to Perfectionism. Give yourself as much empathy and respect and support as you give to others or to your personal hero or inspiration. Stop the beatings and start being honest about yourself. You’re allowed to need and want and hurt and cry and laugh. In fact, we would all be a bit less if you weren’t. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for us.