Autumn 2015 Insights - Perfection in Chaos
Me saying hello to a spider
One of the many gifts of my work is getting to support other people’s journeys. Especially during this tumultuous time, I usually find great synchronicities between my own personal work, the work of my clients, and what’s going on in the collective. As we move into fall, I feel it’s important to look back at the season we’re leaving behind, to see how we’ve evolved. I like to ask: What were my intentions? In what direction has the collective shifted? What is the harvest of this time?
If there was one narrative that kept coming up over the summer it was the disparity between the intentions I set and the actual outcomes. This took me on a journey of my own around perfectionism and my need for external validation.
When we begin living with intentionality, we usually assume things will start to go our way. But The Universe often has different ideas for us. This summer the lesson seemed to be, “Go ahead, state what you want—but don’t get too attached to that vision.”
What does it mean when Spirit serves you a different reality than the one you named for yourself? To believe that perfection is based on external outcome is a fallacy. But the only way to avoid getting stuck in that belief is to value yourself. Validation must come from within.
For years I lived with a kind of covert perfectionism. On the surface I tried to go with the flow, let go of expectations. But there were still subtle, unconscious expectations that haunted me. Though I had successfully sloughed off many layers connected to my own unworthiness program, I was still defining perfection and impeccability incorrectly. I was basing my self-worth on external validation, on my ability to live ostensibly by my own creed, but secretly waiting for life to tell me I was doing it right.
The idea that we must unequivocally trust and validate ourselves is a common teaching in many of the practices I study, so it’s something I intellectually know. But in truth, I was not living this axiom. To really understand the depth of our dependence on external validation, we must back up and look at what we were taught.
The truth is, as children, most of us received conditional love. We only received love when we behaved according to our caregivers' needs. This sets up a problematic arrangement—we spend our lives believing our thoughts, feelings and actions are only as good as the response they stimulate. Concurrently, we were taught that important emotions like fear, shame, sadness, and anger (especially for women), are bad and unacceptable. Think about the double bind this puts us in: “If I were only better,” we think, “I wouldn't be having these bad feelings. But I'm not worthy of validating myself.” Sound familiar?
Green Helebore, of the Ranunculaceae family
Things came to a head for me during the July full moon, after returning from a flower essence convention in Nevada City, CA. The broken record of “If I had been perfect back then, I would feel fine now, and everything would be ok” kept playing out again and again. The structure around this belief became electrified, and began to crack. (Thank you Green Helebore flower essence!) Here’s what I received: Perfection is illusory, much like the wateriness of the moon. Meeting myself in my heart, where I am right now, that's perfect. Every feeling I'm having is perfect. Every way I choose to respond is perfect.
Coming to the deep knowing that I was doing—and had been doing—everything perfectly, what a relief.
So back to my original query: What should we make of things if the Universe offered us a chaotic, confusing summer? Let’s say you set the intention to meet someone— a potential life partner. Let’s say what you were trying to manifest this summer was love. And let’s say that, at least as far as you can tell, it did not happen. If you’ve reached a place of impeccability and validation from within, then there is no freak-out about how you’re being punished, or how you’re doing something wrong, or how you’re not good enough. Because what happened this summer is perfect, no matter what you sought to manifest. How you’re responding at this point in your evolution, with this level of consciousness, is perfect. And the way in which Spirit & The Universe are meeting you is perfect. You might not understand the karmic implications or like it, but knowing the inherent perfection of everything means surrendering to this truth.
My teacher Claudia recently reminded me that change and healing are happening on many levels, not just the levels we can consciously feel or comprehend. How presumptuous we are—to assume we know better than what we are being given! When your Highest Self, your heart, and your intentions are in alignment—that is perfection. That is impeccability. And when you reach a place where you feel this and know this on a soul level, it’s so terrifically liberating. It takes the pressure off of you to make everything okay.
As we transition from the expansive outward energy of the summer, the sun moves away from us and we turn our attention inward. The light inside invites us to reflect on what has been gathered. What has been reaped and readied for release. We are in a time of unprecedented frequency change and much healing energy is available. I offer up all my perfections and so-called imperfections, thanking all those who are teaching me this lesson and supporting a bigger letting-go that helps me move into greater self-love. May all beings know they are perfect and loved.