The Myth of Perfection

If it were possible to become a CPE supervisor in three months or less, I would be working really hard to do it. In fact, my biggest weakness at the moment is one of my greatest allies much of the time: I work hard at processing, learning, growing and just generally trying to "figure it out." The problem right now is that I am working way too hard to have it all figured out. Not only that, but to have it all figured out NOW. I'm having trouble just embracing where I am and loving myself in it at the moment. Kind of goes back to the basic shame issue I wrote in a previous blog about my encounter with Brene Brown's work.

So, I continue to work through "Recalling Our Own Stories" and am impacted by this "Myth of Perfection" Wimberly talks about. I definitely get caught in this myth and this myth is preventing me from really blessing and embracing my gifts and embracing my weakness as a resource. I work so hard to hide my weaknesses from others and myself. I mean I work really hard. I do this because I want to show myself as "good," which to me means perfect. All I'm being asked to do at the moment is to demonstrate I am "ready" for this journey, and yet I am trying to prove I have met all the competencies and all of the theories and all of the self-awareness... and so on... The truth is, I am quasimodo and just where I need to be. I am not fully formed and not expected to be, especially at this stage in my journey. I'm just beginning.

In recalling my story, I need to remember how I have been gifted and how I have recieved grace in those areas of my life I am in a liminal state. I am in a liminal state and I need to be o.k. there or the stress of this process will hurt me, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Especially with my Chrohn's Disease. My family deserve to have me care for myself in this journey and I need to learn how to do that and still move forward. I can't stop "working" that is my nature and who I choose to be. But I also can choose not to work so hard emotionally in this process it hurts me in all other areas of my life. Instead, this is an opportunity for me to really embrace this as a spiritual journey. One that is in itself an immense gift, if I allow it to serve me and not hurt me. So, I hope to move from striving for perfection in this process and instead move toward living into realism in this process: grace. Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of vulnerability as Christ exhibited it. Living into the tension between being called to be disciples of Christ and recognizing and accepting that our way of living into that is flawed and imperfect. The fact is that I am wounded, and called. I am gifted and graced. I am living into my discipleship and yet flawed in my execution of my call. I am empathic and yet unable to be fully attentive to the needs of another. Accepting myself and loving myself in this process does not mean that I simply accept that I am powerless to moving toward growth or healing. But it does mean that while I am as I am, that I love myself in that process.

I will choose to live into my story in a new way, I hope. Not perfectly, but with grace and acknowledging my own woundedness just as I thank God for my being gifted with grace and healing movment.