Authors: Lori Deschene
We buy this, right? We take these messages into our hearts and stab ourselves in the back with them every day. But at some point every perfectionist discovers that even 110 percent isn't enough. We
find ourselves trapped in the perfection spiral: creatively blocked, self-loathing, controlling, and alone. And we see that perfection is not an absolute, but always shifting, unreachable, indefinable—and outside our grasp.
Perfectionism is our denial of two very basic truths of existence: we are not perfect; and we are not, ultimately, in control. When we absorb the law of perfection, we are infected with the virus of self-doubt, which eats away at every area of our lives. The more perfect we are, we believe, the more valid we are as people. But with every advance in one area, we find ourselves wanting in another. We worry that we are not good enough, and, therefore, on some level that we do not deserve love, happiness, or maybe even life itself.
We fear our imperfections will expose us as failures when actually they show the places we have grown, the markers of our realizations, our unique situation in the sands of time and cycles of nature. In the words of Leonard Cohen, “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”
The truth of the matter is that in our quest for perfection, we negate our experiences and ourselves. In a perfect world, in a perfect story, the moment of 110 percent would have been the perfect lesson. So neat and tidy. But in reality it took many more years of hating my beautiful body, being bridezilla over my special wedding, and finally being simply a good enough mother with my three imperfect children to lead me to this moment (which I still have to relearn continuously): I will never be perfect. I can only be good enough.
Having seen the impossibility of perfection, I sought another path, another gauge—one that has become popular in recent years: the 80/20 rule. This states that for any project or endeavor we take on we need to focus on the first 80 percent, because the final 20 percent takes 80 percent of the effort. 80 percent is good enough. And it's usually the last 20 percent that exhausts us and kills our creativity. This rule requires the “good girl” or “good boy” in us to settle for 80 percent. For the overachiever, it can feel, at first, like going out in your underwear.
But soon you notice more joy in your work, more freedom to experiment, take risks, make mistakes. And most of all you notice that you are getting more of you—your work, your love, your voice, out into the world, rather than withholding it for fear it is not good enough.
Jason McLennan in his wonderful book
Zugunruhe
talks about the theory of ¾ baked: “When I talk about ideas or tasks being ¾ baked, I mean that they have reached a special moment in time or development where the idea has significant shape . . . that it can be offered up, in its stage of near completion.” He continues by explaining that when we release our work at this stage, it means that others can help us to hone and polish our creations, which makes the end result far more powerful than the work of one mind can ever be.
Learning to drop an extra 5 percent is another place for learning. It requires us to release our need to define ourselves by our work, for its perfection to be a reflection of our own ego, and
instead allow collaboration and feedback to be part of creativity. It makes us let go of our need to be in control. This is what I aim for now: no longer perfection, but a glorious work in progress. A living creation—be it myself or any project or relationship I have—which is always evolving and changing, with feedback and input not only from myself, but everyone around me.
And so I am, rather imperfectly, learning to embrace my own imperfections—the glorious typo that escapes my final edit; my gray hairs; my stretch marks; the freckles on my nose; my moments of impatience and forgetfulness; the mess in the kitchen; the way I get oversensitive when I socialize too much . . .
These are the signs that, for today, I am choosing to live with compassion for myself—and, by extension, for others; that I am embodying the dynamism of life itself rather than control or blocking its flow. Knowing that truly, on every level, I am good enough. And so are you.
by Jaclyn Witt
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself
.
—T
HICH
N
HAT
H
ANH
I read the quote above from Thich Nhat Hanh the other day, and I have to say, nothing has shaken me to the core more.
I was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy at the age of two, and growing up I always struggled with loving myself and having self-confidence. For the most part, you wouldn't know I have a serious physical disability aside from my visible limp, my difficulty getting up and down stairs, and my tendency to fall when I get weak.
I was never able to do sports growing up like my friends and often had to enroll in special adaptive Phys. Ed. classes in school. I always felt my disability separated me from my peers, so I put up an emotional wall and convinced myself that I had to wear the latest clothes, have perfect skin, and have the perfect body in order to “blend in” with everyone around me—in order to be truly loved. Then maybe I would be considered beautiful. Then maybe no one would notice I was different.
If I just looked like those Victoria's Secret models, then someone would accept and love me. So often we look to external things to define our beauty, most commonly, our physical appearance. We think that if we just fit into the mold that society has told us is “good-looking” then we'll feel good about ourselves and will gain acceptance.
I put a lot of value in being in a relationship too. Because of my disability, I was extremely shy for a long time and very insecure. All I wanted was for a guy to come along, sweep me off my feet, and fall in love with me. Then I thought I would truly be like everyone else, because I would have someone (other than friends and family) there all the time telling me that I was loved and valued.
In today's world especially, it's hard not to feel like our lives need to have a certain set of circumstances for us to truly be accepted. With social media like Facebook, we're exposed to all the intimate details of a lot of people's lives at one time. When they get engaged, married, have children, or are traveling the world with their fabulous jobs, we know almost instantly. For a lot of us, that creates increasing internal pressure to have our life be a certain way because we think that's what we need to feel happy with ourselves and be accepted in the world. We look to all of these other things outside ourselves to feel beautiful and to feel accepted when the whole time the only person who can truly allow us to feel these things is staring back at us in the mirror every day.
After I read the Thich Nhat Hanh quote about beauty, I went to clean the bathroom in my house and was suddenly overcome with
emotion. I realized that all those things I'd been doing were what I thought I needed to do for everyone else to accept me, when in reality I wasn't accepting myself. Whether it was having a boyfriend, having a lot of friends, or looking “perfect” all the time, I was trying to show everyone else, “Hey! Look! Someone loves me! I have value now!”
Really though,
I
was the one who didn't like that I was different. I was the one who couldn't accept this disease I was born with. I had amazing friends and an incredibly supportive family who didn't care if I walked with a limp or not—people who didn't care that I couldn't run a marathon or that sometimes I needed their help getting up a curb. I was even told growing up how beautiful I was, but I couldn't understand why I never felt like it. It's because I wasn't truly being myself and accepting myself. I didn't feel beautiful, and no amount of people telling me I was beautiful was going to change that. I was letting a circumstance I was born with define me and define how I thought others saw me.
In our extremely visual culture, I think we all struggle with the idea of “beautiful.” And it can feel like no one ever really says, “Just be yourself, love yourself, and accept yourself.
That
is true beauty.” Beautiful doesn't mean being physically attractive or looking like those people we see on TV or in magazines. It's not defined by having or not having a significant other or by how many friends we have. We're all born with our own struggles, and beautiful isn't defined by those either. Beautiful means just being and loving you!
I wasted many years trying to do everything I could to be considered beautiful by my peers and by society. Comparing myself to others and wondering why my life wasn't like this or that. The thing we don't realize is that we are beautiful all along just by being ourselves. And
we
are the key to accepting ourselves—no one else. There's only one of each of us, and this is our chance to really live, so why waste our energy trying to gain acceptance from everyone around us and trying to make ourselves look perfect in order to feel loved?
When you start down that road to self-acceptance—that road to truly loving who you are, flaws and all—you can truly open yourself up to being beautiful, for you and no one else.
by Mary Dunlop
The moment you accept yourself you become beautiful
.
—O
SHO
From the time I was a little girl, people told me I was pretty, but I never believed them. Instead, I scrutinized myself in the mirror searching for ways to look better, not realizing that what I was really looking for was a way to be me and feel good about myself. As I focused even more on my looks throughout my twenties, I became increasingly self-conscious and dependent on how others perceived me. If someone complimented me and gave me attention, I would feel confident. But if I went unflattered or unnoticed, I would return to the mirror in an effort to figure out why.
I had often heard the expression “what you are inside shows on your face.” However, I didn't know what these words truly meant until one day at the age of thirty-five. That day, I took another long look in the mirror, and suddenly something clicked: My looks were not the problem—they never were.
Somehow I understood that what I didn't like about my face had nothing to do with my physical features. It was something else; something within myself that was reflecting out and causing me
to feel unattractive, ill at ease, and unconfident. At that moment, I knew there were two things I needed to do. The first was to stop staring in the mirror. The second was to look at what was going on inside.
Soon, a friend recommended meditation, so I gave that a try. I sat, breathed, quieted my thoughts, and shared my feelings in a nine-hour course, which I soon followed with a two-day silent meditation retreat. It's possible that a silent retreat may not be for everyone, but it was one of the most valuable experiences of my life. The two days forced me to reflect and be with myself in an environment that did not permit social interaction, not even eye contact. There were also no distractions, such as telephone, TV, books, or computers.
Was the experience disagreeable? Initially, yes. Was it painful? Sometimes. But it allowed me to bring forth a lot of valuable self-information and one remarkable realization: I became conscious of how unnatural I felt. In the time I was there, I recognized that I was not uncomfortable in that setting because I didn't know how to be with myself. I was uncomfortable because I didn't know how to
be
myself.
This was also why I often felt unattractive and ill at ease with others. I was frequently projecting someone who didn't feel like me, and that projection habitually depended on who I was interacting with. It was this realization that launched my journey to authenticity and the discovery of a beautiful me. Slowly, I started to learn about myself and the things that make me happy, and I found that I had a
rhythm. I could hardly believe it, but I actually had my own beautiful flow, and as soon as I began to follow it, my authenticity started to build on itself.
I gradually began to feel less self-conscious around others and much more comfortable with myself. For the first time in my life I started to feel well and beautiful—and it showed. I saw it in the mirror. My husband noticed it in my body language. He said I carried myself differently, like I had more confidence and ease.
If you're looking for ways to feel more at ease with yourself, start by honoring your body. I can't say enough on how important it is to celebrate your body. Every day I thank my body for all that it does, and I honor its needs through thirty- or forty-minute runs, long showers, flossing my teeth, and drinking lots of water.
It helps to make a list of the things you need to do to take care of yourself so you feel healthy and grounded. Then, schedule them into your day. It's easier to feel good about who you are when you make your needs priorities.
Along with running, creative writing has contributed greatly to my journey. It keeps my mind filled with positive thoughts, and so much of who I am comes out in the characters I write about. I also love to read, learn new things, and travel to different places, even if it's just to new areas or neighborhoods near my home. Doing what you love is an important step in loving who you are. What practices make you feel passionate and positive about the way you're living your life?
Lastly, make an effort to maintain a healthy, happy spirit. Without inner peace, authenticity is fleeting. I meditate daily and do my best to live where peace is found—in the present moment. I also make a point of watching one or two funny movies every week. Nothing helps my spirit soar as much as laughter. It helps me see the world through younger eyes and reminds me that, no matter what, every moment contains hope and possibilities.
Take time out to nurture your spirit, whether that means practicing yoga, walking on the beach, or simply relaxing. In order to be comfortable with yourself, you first need to be comfortable just being. And always keep in mind that finding your authenticity—finding yourself—
will
help you feel your beauty. When you endeavor to be who you are and be true to yourself, you will automatically feel attractive and unique.