Perfectionist

I’ve been listening to Russ’s “Perfectionist” lately and it resonates with some feelings I’ve been having.

It makes me think of all the ways I’ve attempted to project a “perfect” facade even when I perceive my internal landscape to be far from it.

Ultimately this stifles the flow of creative energy. It is selective vulnerability (from vulnerabilis meaning “wounding”).

“I’ll show you these wounds but not those wounds. Definitely not those wounds.”

Over the past couple of months of writing emails again and posting on social media, I’m aware of the shame wall that still wants to hide things. The free-flowing river of creative energy all of a sudden becomes frenetic and scared to share freely.

And yet, the creative channel is one stream, freely flowing… freely moving.

Like the breath, it moves naturally, without us needing to do anything.

It doesn’t have a personality, it just wants to flow.

Splitting it or stifling it by hiding things only makes matters worse because emotional health is energy in motion.

Water that doesn’t move, collects algae.

A stream that flows, cleans itself.

I was reminded of this, this past week when my romantic partner shared with me that seeing my imperfections made her feel better about her imperfections.

… I literally can not hide anything from this beautiful woman, not even my thoughts - she is psychic AF 😂.

There was a deeper connection that occurred. We felt so much lighter because we were seen in the realness… the totality. Not just the “prettiness”.

The parts we deem “positive” and the parts we deem “negative” coexist, like day and night because they have to… it is natural law.

The paradox is that the perceived imperfections in us actually create the perfection (from parfit: “complete, finished, ready”) of who we are.

We can’t claim our best parts without also claiming the parts of ourselves we aren’t proud of.

Some of my greatest shame in life has come from sexual wounding to struggling with debt and mismanaging my own finances. I’ve beaten myself up through an 8-year chewing tobacco addiction to more recently: numbing out with tech-generated dopamine and food when I’m emotionally overwhelmed.

Overall, it is not the mismanagement of money or smashing pizza like I’m Donatello 🐢 that is the problem. It is the layers of self-judgment that turn a neutral experience into a dark and negative experience that can be problematic. This negative charge can run rampant and erode the architecture of the individual and collective system like corrupted computer code.

What’s hilarious is that the aspects of myself I’ve judged the most have actually turned out to be seeds that birthed the greatest gifts I have ever received… because they are part of the curriculum that is uniquely designed for each and every one of us.

These gifts are usually difficult to see in the moment and reveal themselves down the road.

This is the Divine design… a natural and magical alchemy that turns lead (pain) into gold (gifts).

At the end of the day, we are all a bit f’d up because we are all human. We’re all going through a different flavor of the same stuff because it comes from the same place and it is all steering us to the same place: the truth of who we are… which is sooo uncomfortable.

Keep going!

Your superpowers are my kryptonite.

My superpowers are your kryptonite.

That’s why we need each other yo!

The journey of self-love is a journey (not a destination) of accepting the totality of who we are instead of just the parts that we really like. There are opposites in the favorable parts that actually create the conditions for the favorable parts to exist… so I’m grateful for all of it.

And as Russ says: your bruises are also your muses.