The Gifts of Imperfection

A while ago I wrote an article about what your perfectionism is really trying to tell you. Perfectionism is a misunderstanding that we need to earn our self-worth or prove that we are enough or worthy. The truth is that you came into this world worthy and then got disconnected from that truth over time. So, embracing your imperfections is a way that you can choose to reclaim your inherent worthiness.

Two weekends ago, I launched my six-month private coaching group for women called Living As If You Matter. Six courageous women came together and created a brave space where they could do the deep inner work to release self-limiting beliefs and ideas that are getting in the way of them living more fully as if they matter. This work requires slowing down to really see yourself and understand who you really are outside of the ideas and confines of societal conditioning and expectations that either you or others have placed on you.

Much of the work we will be doing during the six months of this program, is to support these women in living more fully, or in the words of Brené Brown, more wholeheartedly. The practice of wholehearted living involves letting go of what people think and cultivating authenticity; replacing perfectionism with self-compassion; no longer numbing and making ourselves feel powerless. Instead, we choose to cultivate a resilient spirit. Through the deep work of getting real with ourselves, about who we really are, what truly matters to us, and how we have been holding ourselves back, we move away from scarcity and fear into gratitude and joy.

We start to understand that our Egos want certainty, but that uncertainty is part of life, and we practice leaning into our intuition. Thus begins the journey away from scarcity, into trust – trust in self, trust in others, trust in Life itself. We stop comparing ourselves, because we start to recognise that comparison serves no-one and is the thief of joy and compassion. Instead, we incorporate grounding practices into our lives, that allow us to explore our own creativity. We stop using productivity to earn our self-worth and we stop seeing exhaustion as a status symbol. Instead, we cultivate play and rest, and we begin to understand the importance of play as part of the important work we do in life.

Over time, anxiety as a lifestyle is replaced with calm inner confidence and stillness. We can BE in the present moment. We replace self-doubt and worry with meaningful work that makes us come alive, and we enjoy being IN our lives more. We stop trying to control the outcome and always looking like we have our shit together. Instead, we embrace laughter, song, and dance. We play more, and our lives become more joyful moment to moment.

Now, this might sound like a wild dream, especially if you currently find yourself in the thick of rushing to get things done, hustling for your self-worth, and feeling like you are simply running on the hamster wheel of life. However, it’s important to recognize that you are choosing to stay on the hamster wheel. And that when we get to a place of exhaustion and depletion in life, Life is really inviting us to consider that there might be another way to live.

In preparation for leading this group, I have reread The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. I read this book a few years ago when I had just started working with my coach. At the time, I was still very much stuck on the hamster wheel of life, and wholehearted living seemed foreign and out of reach to me. Now, after five years of cultivating the practices of wholehearted living, the book lands differently. I read it with a different understanding, and things resonate at a much deeper level.

One of the things I understand more deeply now, are the gifts of imperfection – i.e., what we create and receive when we allow ourselves to be imperfect. Brené Brown identifies them as courage, compassion, and connection – the three C’s. And I appreciate that she also takes the time to explain what these concepts actually mean, because we can so easily distort the definitions of these constructs and then stay stuck in our perfectionism without even realising it.

Brené shares for example, that we tend to associate courage with heroism and then it can be easy to tell ourselves that we cannot be courageous, because we are not heroes, and yet, the original root of the word courage – cor – is the Latin word for heart. So, courage originally meant, “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Or put another way, it’s to speak your truth or share your heart openly and vulnerably. Showing vulnerability is true courage, especially in a culture that values Stoic attitudes of “just getting through” things and being “tough” or “strong” -i.e., not showing any vulnerability. Being willing to speak the truth or be truly vulnerable about what you really want, or what you are most afraid of, takes tremendous courage. Or as Brené puts it, “Ordinary courage is putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that’s pretty extraordinary.” And that is what I witnessed during the launch of this group. The women all demonstrated such courage in sharing their stories and fears with each other.

When we slow down to look at the root of the word compassion like we did with courage, we discover that the word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean “to suffer with.” True compassion is a willingness to suffer WITH someone instead of showing them sympathy – which is feeling sorry for someone. Brené believes that compassion is not our natural response to pain – either our own or someone else’s. We need to learn compassion. Our first, instinctual response to pain is to self-protect. That is why compassion can be so hard to do. We protect ourselves by looking for someone or something to blame, or we shield ourselves by turning to judgement, criticism, and/or wanting to fix things.

Brené quotes the work of Pema Chödrön. In her book, The Places That Scare You, Chödrön writes, “When we practice generating compassion, we expect to experience the fear of our pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently towards what scares us…” So, again, compassion also requires courage. They actually go hand-in-hand.

During the launch of the group, the women learned about two important and game changing practices that are taught as principles of Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica. The first one is the principle of Finding the Loving Essence in another. This principle assumes that all people are naturally resourceful, creative, and whole, and that they have all the inner resources they need to navigate their own lives. Thus, no-one needs fixing. This is a game changing principle, especially if you have spent a lot of time fixing, rescuing, or saving. It takes tremendous courage and compassion to step back and let someone handle their own life without feeling the need to swoop in and fix things. It takes compassion to be willing to meet someone IN their pain, without flinching, or wanting to self-protect, but to simply BE WITH them.

The second principle we spoke about was the principle of heart-centred listening. And I’ve written about this before too. When I’m in heart-centred listening, I’m seeking to see the magic in the other person. I recognise, appreciate, and respect that we are all spiritual beings having and using a human experience and that there is a divine and loving essence inside the other person who is calmly aware of their own ego perceptions and actions. I trust that the other person is wise and has all the inner resources to deal with their life, their challenges, or with anything that transpires in the conversation. I’m seeking to truly understand the person in front of me from a place of deep loving and non-judgment.

Through practicing these two principles of Spiritual Psychology, you can learn the skill of compassion, or really simply being with someone, in partnership with them, holding space for them, knowing they can handle their own life, and that sometimes the situation isn’t calling for problem-solving, but simply for understanding, care, and love for another fellow human.

Now, what happens when we bring courage and compassion to the conversation – i.e., when we share our hearts openly and vulnerably, and we allow space for others to share their hearts openly and vulnerably too, without the need to judge them, or the need to jump in and fix things? Something magical occurs – we feel deeply and profoundly connected to the person in front of us. When we bring these to qualities to a relationship, we receive the gift of authentic connection. Brené defines connection as, “the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment, and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”

Was the launch of the Living As If You Matter group, perfect? Not in the least and it didn’t need to be. In fact, by embracing our imperfections, and staying committed to creating a brave space where we could be truly courageous, open, vulnerable, and compassionate, we created the gifts of imperfection in the span of two and a half days. These ladies met as strangers, and left as confidants, friends, supporters, cheerleaders of each other. And their relationships will continue to grow and blossom over the six months they get to spend together.

My encouragement is to consider just what a gift it is to allow yourself to be imperfectly human and vulnerable. My sense is that it’s what we are all longing for in this life. We all simply want to be seen, heard, valued, acknowledged, and appreciated. We all long to feel deeply connected to another human being. We all long to feel like we matter. It’s what we are born for…