Have you ever just wanted everything to fall into perfection? I understand that feeling. The success you feel when every single thing works out “just right!” That is mostly not normal life. I have been noticing that more and more as I get older. That expectation often leads to disappointment and frustration!
I have spent the better part of the past year getting free from a false standard in my head that is not attainable for me. In the midst of the that freedom I have found myself rising to accomplish things that I never thought possible! I lost weight, I forgave, I laughed more, and I avoided a lot of anxiety attacks. Releasing myself from having to be “perfect” was the very best thing I could have done. Even as I set out to release my CD there is nothing about it that could even be remotely perfect. Its been four years since I recorded it, I have two small children, I have a terminally ill father, and a challenging situation with my brother. I don’t even personally have the band-width to “have it all together!”
I remember a day in my childhood when I realized last minute that I had a 4-H talk to give that night. My mom and I scrambled to pull together a talk about edible play dough. I think my mom was rather impressed that we got it read in time but the “honest engine” that I was told every one during my talk that we had just “pulled it together that night.” She was obviously embarrassed later when she told me that “we don’t have to tell everyone everything.” My response was “why not?”
We are set up in this world to worry constantly about what people think, what they might think, or trying to avoid them thinking about it all together. We are plagued by their maybe opinions, whoever “they” are. You actually might know who “they” are. They have already made their opinions known and very apparent. Maybe a kid at school years ago who said you were fat, or a coworker you overhead talking about you negatively, or a fight with your sibling who said all the awful things you feared. We are not defined by these moments. We are not defined by the likes on our posts or the lack thereof. In the stillness there is an opinion that is spoken and that is honestly the opinion that has been changing my life for years. These quiet moments, when I let myself slow down and listen, these are the things that change me. More recently I have heard Him say that I am “precious”… this is not a word I have labeled myself with before. I have many other opinions of myself. So I let that word affect me. Precious. Cherished. Loved. Wanted. Seen. Known. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I am still in process. But through that whole process I am precious and loved. There is something about that knowledge that changes how I live, how I go into my day. But then I forget and I try to control. All because I still believe it HAS to be perfect. It has to fall into the lines of life and leak into the outsides. No spilling over here or… or what? What will happen if its not always perfect? Someone will find out that I don’t have it all together? Well I guess then now they have permission to ALSO not be perfect. There. Now we have fixed the worlds problems. Giving each other permission. Permission to be themselves.
Permission granted. Just be you. See what happens. Because we are all in process!