4 - MOVING PAST PERFECT IS SCARY
We cling to our Perfectionism for a damn good reason.
My achievements were a really solid wall, keeping me from feeling the existentially dreadful question we all wonder deep inside. Why am I here? Like, here alive on earth. Do I deserve to be here? DO I MATTER?
So yeah, when someone’s handing you a trophy in front of a clapping audience, it’s a little easier to feel like you matter.
Yesterday, I felt great about the state of my life and where I was with my calligraphy business and with this new side of my business.
Today, I woke up feeling AWFUL about it.
So I turned to an exercise that’s really been helping me lately. Writing letters to “Love”. I heard about this from Elizabeth Gilbert and I put my own creative spin on it… but it always helps. Always.
Here’s what I wrote today and what I heard back from the loving, warm & wise voice inside of me:
“Dear Love - Today I feel the scared-ness squeezing in on me… telling me it’s not enough, I’m not enough. Comparing, worrying… what do I do?”
My dear sweet love, you are so amazing.
You’re learning so very much about what it is to be alive without all the meteoric success and great accomplishments and standing at the top of the mountain, above everyone else.
You’re learning to feel what it is to be down here, in the muck of human existence. Where you always were anyway, you just always had your successes to cling to, to block out the feelings of just being.
Breathe. Feel your body. Feel everything supporting your physical form right this very minute. Watch the birds go about their mundane, thrilling, short lives full of tragedy and pleasure. Remember how your loved ones smile at you and hold you tight and love you with everything they have.
Your only job here is to exist and experience and feel and be. The beauty is only exquisite because of the pain right on the other side of it.
You are loved. You are loved. You are so very loved.
I’ll write more about this practice later. But you know how I mentioned in “3 - LETTING GO OF PERFECTION” that you have to repeat repeat repeat in order to start letting go of those old, perfectionist habits? This is me doing that.
Let me know if you’d like to hear more about Letters from Love, ok?
With Curiosity,
Shinah