False Promises - Perfection

You are a magnificent, powerful hero. This human journey is not easy: feeling all the emotions, choosing to make changes in your life, stepping into new experiences, re-writing beliefs you no longer want. You are the hero of your journey!

There is a systemic structure in our world that keeps us believing we need to be perfect. A perfect friend, sister, brother, partner, employee, manager. This conveys a false promise that perfection is the holy grail of life. How many times have you said to yourself, "If I just get this right, I will be okay"? "If I just get this relationship/conversation/job right, then maybe life will be better"?

What if who you are - right here, right now - is the Perfect You? What if your journey, mistakes, stumbles, failed relationships and disagreements are what make the beautiful mosaic of who you are? What if you could extend the same level of understanding and compassion to yourself that you have for your best friend, pet or child?

We judge ourselves very harshly. We are our biggest critics, and we allow these internal critical thoughts to keep us in fear. Fear that keeps us stuck, small and blocked. These inner critics and beliefs about ourselves are passed down to us, unconsciously, through deeply ingrained structures and systems like: the educational system, our family system, the financial system, our country's structure and political structures. These systems perpetuate the beliefs that who we are, right here, right now, is not enough. What if you said to yourself, right now, I Am Enough. What's that like? How did that feel?

Today, I invite you to:

1. Begin noticing how you talk to yourself.

2. Ask yourself, "Would I speak to [insert person dear to you] in this way?"

3. Ask yourself, "How would I speak to [favourite person]?"

4. Practice speaking to yourself in this same way.

5. Ask yourself, where did I learn to speak to myself in this manner?

6. Journal: What you notice from the questions above.

7. Journal: Where did I learn to be so hard on myself?

8. Journal: What could life be like if I changed the way I talked to myself?