My life is nowhere near perfect.
Ahhh, those words used to make my skin crawl, now, I feel like I state them as a badge of honor.
As a recovered perfectionist, who after mucking everything up from the depths of despair that my 12-year-old self would never live up to the (ridiculous) parameters I set up in my “Perfection Packet” I wrote up with the meticulous description of who and how I would be in my later years… I’ve come to understand that what seems imperfect, is actually an expression of perfection from a scale the human mind is not built to fully grasp.
I used to believe that it was my responsibility to get it right the first time around, every time- and if I didn’t then I was letting people down on a universal scale. This created endless guilt and shame because I never could live up to those standards- the realization that no one ever would and that I was inclined to want to love them anyways, became my saving grace.
I’ve come to understand that the only real way to let myself and others down on a universal scale would be to demand that every person, including myself, must get it right the first time… or that I would never try, for fear of getting it wrong. That truly would be the greatest universal let down, because the expression of consciousness that is me, would never be allowed to be expressed- hindered and held back by the fear of never being the best, never being a good enough expression.
This over the years has lead to what I feel is a very healthy perspective on mistakes, growth, evolution, and change. Now, it is more that I expect to get it not right, or at least not exactly what I am striving for the first, second or even the third time. I only expect that I am observant of my own process through the creation or at least take the time to reflect on the aspects that went into the creation. I merely expect myself to be as conscious of what I am creating as possible.
As I grew into more deep acceptance of this way of striving, I came to connect intention as the paramount of how to guide any action, creation or thought form. This lead to learning to observe my thoughts and feelings. This lead to reconnecting with the idea often put forth today from Eastern influences that we are the observer, the consciousness behind everything- I am not my thoughts or my feelings- these are indications of where I am within the soup that is existence, that is all- both of these aspects are meant to change.
I found myself drawn to The Law of Attraction. Or the law that likes resonates with like. What I put out is what comes back to me. It really is a game, because there is no way to mess up, ie become so imperfect, or divergent from what is wanted that you cannot, given the right focus and vibration- come back from anywhere you have gone. It is only the thinking that you cannot come back that would make it so.
I am now a mother, and my little one has grown to express definitive preferences for how she is approached, interacted with, touched, looked at, etc. There is part of me that wonders if she is so strong in her preferences already because that is what I have modelled, but then I think back to that first night after she was born- and I feel certain that that strength of knowing what she wants and how she wants it is a part of who she is.
There are already ways that this strength of character creates friction- people want to hold her, and she is not necessarily inclined to want to be held by people other than her father or I. This is not 100% the case, ie always, yet it is something that is coming to be observable as a preference of hers. There is pressure from the parties external to our little 3-being nuclear family unit that has expressed displeasure at her offering adamantly this preference. And for a moment, I weighed those perspectives and thought maybe there might be something that needs adjustment within her. Then, I sat with it. And realized no, she has every right to express preferences as she is. In fact, I find myself feeling proud that she feels empowered enough to be so forthright.
Maybe it is because I, myself, had to struggle to reconnect with my own preferences at an older age (in my late teens and early 20s) that I feel so proud of my little one’s depth of insistence to honor her own quirks and differences from the expected “norm”. As I spent more time contemplating on this, I found myself realizing that it is because it is a part of our culture as a society that has pushed so many to accept what is offered, go with the flow of the mainstream, to do anything else is to cause others around you undue nuisance and it is just plain inconvenient and selfish to insist upon our quirks and differences being honored and accepted, learned by those who we have in our lives and familial circles.
I realize that this is an aspect of how I am choosing to raise my child very differently than I was raised, then I see and observe so many being raised in today’s world. Our world centers around convenience, and yes, in some ways it will be more of an effort to navigate the social world because she will not be as inclined to outright agree, without question to what is going on around her. But, isn’t that a good thing? Especially with the televisions blaring commercialized opinions of who we are supposed to be? I would say that we are en masse suffering from a lack of willingness to learn and honor our own preferences and this is part of why so much of the Westernized world (heck, it’s likely the whole world, but I really only have contact with the Eastern world through text and the off hand internet facilitated conversation in broken-ish speech) suffers from such deep feelings of disconnection from self and feelings of meaninglessness and worthlessness of themselves as individuals. I’ve realized that it is an expression of the trauma done to us, in our youths and throughout our lives that we perpetuate unthinkingly onto the next generations.
It’s part of why the social movement of reconnecting with our emotions and delving into figuring out what brings each individual their own deepest bliss is connected to, a later form of symptom of- the fact that we have absorbed the perspective that honoring our emotions, honoring our preferences is an inconvenience and no one wants to be an inconvenience, right?
But look at the dysfunction this breeds. Especially among women. Everyone is expected to want the same thing, this creates the illusion of scarcity. When really, if we all were encouraged from birth to better wade through the offered options, saying “no” until we found that which pulls us, draws us, calls to us- there would be that trust that yes, what I feel drawn to, is what I am drawn to for a reason and the fact that I am different from you, is a good thing… yes, commercial mass induced preferences would become obsolete, but isn’t that what we are realizing is a good thing and somewhat inevitable for us to strive for? Lest we destroy our creativity and ingenuity in exchange for the dumbed down SAMENESS that we have felt so long has been shoved down our throats and we have been forced to accept lest we be shunned from the social world?
Yes, we all have similar needs and basic instincts- the need for connection and the instinct to be loved and to love- to be a part of the bigger whole of humanity. But we also want to be needed and wanted for our uniqueness- for what only our individualized expression of consciousness can bring to the table. In order to cultivate that, we must as children be allowed to have our uniqueness honored, not rejected and dissuaded from being a part of us because it is not convenient for our parents or caretakers. IE, the responsibility then falls on the Elders, those raising the children to be willing to take the time and learn a little one before insisting that what they are offering the little one IS what the little one is supposed to want and accept. The inclination of our older generations to drown us all in comparisons- goods and bads.
My little one is different than your little one. She wants what she wants as she wants it. And it has been my perspective that it is my responsibility- no, my honor to be able to take the painstaking time- no, the joyful time and effort it takes to be observant of what makes her tick, what makes her smile, what makes her uncomfortable, what causes her pain, what brings her joy, what helps her relax, what makes her restless, and every other manifestation of her existence in between. Yes, this is time-consuming. Yes, it’s not always easy and I find I am more inclined to frustration with this dance than she is.
But isn’t that how she is teaching me how to be a better person? Isn’t that how she is the Old Soul I am merely the guardian of until she comes into her own awareness of her own sovereignty? Isn’t that how she is a manifestation of the evolution of my greatest dreams and strivings, encoded into the DNA I and her father passed on to her? Isn’t that how she is exactly what our mass consciousness has been calling for to manifest into our dimension, in this plane? Is she not an example of the change that we all have been reaching for, either consciously or subconsciously?
Yes, it is. <3