Tag Archives: truth

Letting Go: Challenges of a Perfectionist

Posted on by
Reply
Yellow Flower from the Garden District in New Orleans

Yellow Flower from the Garden District in New Orleans

I think I probably could have called this Blog “Letting Go” because on the spiritual journey that I am on it seems that I am coming up on the need to do this over and over again, each time in slightly different ways. My need to let go is very strong evidently.

I have always felt driven to always tell people exactly what I think about them and about the best course that I think they should take. The problem is that, not everyone wants to hear my opinion all the time and sometimes I just need to shut up and let it go. I have to trust the universe to get the message out without thinking that I am the sole messenger of truth or wisdom.

I may be driven to perfection, but I don’t have to use it as an instrument of torture over myself, my family, my friends or my associates. I have to learn to let things work themselves out sometimes or simply fall where they may and find their own way.

I am grateful that I am learning to temper my perfectionism. I am grateful that I am learning how to express it. I am grateful that I am learning to let go of my perfectionism. I am grateful that there is a wonder and a beauty to the world around me that is an imperfect world.

Learning about perfectionism is learning about forgiveness.

Neat Little Packages: Emotional Perfectionism

Posted on by
Reply
Neat Little Packages with Bows

Neat Little Packages with Bows

On my walk the other day I was thinking and meditating about an argument that I had with a friend a few days earlier and I was trying to figure out what the problem was or what had gone wrong, and for the life of me, I could not come up with anything that had caused the problem that morning. I could not see what I or they had done wrong. All I came up with was an image of a tiny little package tied with a bow. At that point, it made no sense and I gave up on trying to understand it’s significance, and just kept on walking.

When I turned around at my two and a half mile marker, it hit me. I always seem to want to tie up “all my packages” with neat little bows. This can be an emotional package, a relationship package, a conversational package, a work package or any number of things that I might encounter or experience as part of my life. Life in all of it’s glory is not easily packaged in a neat little box. Friendships and intimate relationships certainly can never be neatly contained and perfectly wrapped. I guess this is part of my perfectionism that I need to learn to release. I cannot expect any relationship to not have a certain amount of dynamic tension or mystery in it. I have to learn to be comfortable with letting things be unresolved sometimes. I have to more trusting that the answers will come to me over time if I am patient.

I am grateful for the things that I am learning. I am grateful to be able to release the need for neat little packages. I am grateful to be able to embrace a larger and more powerful truth. I am grateful that I can enlarge my perspective on life. I am grateful that God and truth are bigger than my neat little packages. I am grateful to release more of my perfectionism to be able to embrace life as it is.