Well hello!
Last week, I shared an article about embodiment – if you missed you – I hope you’ll comb back through your inbox and give it a read as it’s a nice tie-in to what I’m sharing today.
You may have read today’s subject line: “Embracing Your Imperfections” and thought: “But I don’t want to!” 😉
If you’re in this camp, we’re in the same tent!
In my experience, intellectually I know “perfect” doesn’t exist, but geez I want to be perfect so bad. This is SO much of the narrative that started the eating disorder for me when I was 14.
I don’t just want my body to be perfect – I want the way I show up here to be perfect – and social media – and in my relationship with Tim (my boyfriend for those who haven’t met him yet) – and my parents – and my friendships – and I want my home to be perfect and my yard and I want to be the perfect “mom” to Franklin and Lenny, and, and, and…
…are you tired just reading that?
I’ll tell you – it’s exhausting to live this way, as I know many of you know.
And I’ve found this drive to be “perfect” moves us away from ourselves. It puts the power in the hands of those that we feel most judged or unaccepted by. The people we’re trying to be “perfect” for.
Like I shared in last weeks email – we want to move toward ourselves – listen closely and intently to what we need vs trying to control.
Striving for perfection creates control vs embodiment. Again, it moves us away from ourselves.
But we don’t just wake up one day and decide to stop wanting to be perfect. Usually, we become so unbelievably exhausted by the constant striving that we self-sabotage.
For example – when I was in the throes of anorexia – I would go days without eating or eating as little as possible and if I did eat, I would go “run it off”. After months of this – I was literally and figuratively exhausted. But I had no idea how to just stop. I had no idea how to eat in a way that nourished me. So, I ate and over-ate everything. I self-sabotaged and started binging. And then I’d turn back to starving myself for weeks to “make up for it”. That was the cycle for YEARS.
What I wish I’d known then that would have potentially saved me so much heartache, among other health issues I face today because of the way I treated my body – the desire for “perfection” stems from something so much deeper than societal norms or comparing ourselves to others, etc. This desire usually starts in childhood and is completely unbeknownst to us when it takes route.
And this is my share today – Vienna Pharaon is a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in “family of origin” work and core wounds. I’ve followed her for quite some time now. She has been an incredible inspiration to me in many ways.
This is a very short – 2-3 minute read – that I hope pushes you to think differently about striving for “perfect” and where that striving might have started for you.
Whether we’re trying to heal the gut, manage cholesterol, improve thyroid markers, lose weight or just show up better in this world – we have to start at the root – resolve that and so much is able to truly heal. I know this is harder work and takes longer than just “binging” (per my own example above) aka putting a bandaid on it – but, I promise you, it’s worth it. I hope today’s article moves you to do this deeper work, if you’re not already. It has truly changed my entire life.
As always – my door is open.
Sending lots of love!
xoxo
Alix