Aspire for Imperfection

This is a repost from TashaBlue’s page. I need to keep this here as a reminder to myself. It resonates with what I just journaled about and NEED to keep top of mind!

When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don’t know what’s really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don’t know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don’t know. We never know if we’re going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.

—Pema Chodron

I was watching a program the other night about the universe based on Steven Hawkings work. The only way the universe can exist is because of imperfection… An imbalance in gravity actually helped in the formation of the universe.

So it makes sense…. if we are a microcosm of the universe…. inherently, we are meant to be imperfect.

I’m glad.

“One way to nudge ourselves out of this tendency is to look at our lives and notice that no one is judging us to see whether or not we are perfect.”

The above quote came from this article

Of recent years, I’ve been lucky enough to realize that there is no such thing as perfect. Or perfect is just as everything exists… it is all perfect right now.

Yesterday I lost the plot suddenly. Maybe because I felt so much at stake? I was assisting my yoga instructor in a class of pretty advanced students and I really made some errors while adjusting students’ poses. Not that I did them wrong, but I did stay long enough, or I stayed too long, or I adjusted the arms but didn’t do the legs…. Most adjustments were good and three people came up after class and thanked me for my help getting them into poses… but I’ve been having a hard time getting past the rest….

This is an OLD ghost coming back to haunt me so I feel inclined to start a goal for a while and reflect on what might be going on here… I do not want to fall into this habit and way of thinking.

“Sometimes, perfectionism is a holdover from our childhood—an ideal we inherited from a demanding parent. We are adults now, and we can choose to let go of the need to perform for someone else’s approval.”

For me, it almost seems immature to feel this way. How can you possibly think you will do and be perfect? And then sulk and feel so badly aftewards. And by whose standards are you being judged and held to? There was another teacher in the class who said I needed to stay longer in the adjustments and my own teacher said I need to be quicker in my adjustments… so how do you find perfection in 2 opposing opinions.

...we can choose to experience the universe as a loving place where we are free to be imperfect. Once we realize this, we can begin to take ourselves less seriously and have more fun.

This is how I normally experience the world. I want to make sure I return there safely through this detour.