Seeking Perfection

This morning, I was thinking about perfection and how we have skewed and made perverse the idea of perfection until it’s become a weapon that we wield against ourselves. About six months ago when I was struggling mightily, I decided to put an end to a small bit of that struggle by looking into some reactions I noticed going on in my brain. The set up in my life became clear to me, and my reaction to this specific trigger was the same every time.

This piece was written back in April, but the wisdom that came from looking into my struggle is timeless. Much has happened since these words were first drafted, and today it felt right to share.

Welcome! For those who are new to my blog, I write about my life experiences to help process them. The good, bad, and the ugly. A few years ago, I discovered hypnotherapy as a way of healing old wounds and trauma, and bringing through the real me that lives at my core. The me without societal judgment, labels, drama, or crud.

For the past 10 or so weeks, life has been a trial. My beautiful, sensitive son (13) had a crisis that necessitated my taking him out of school. You see, he has some “invisible disabilities” that in some regards are actually his superpowers. Along with a very sensitive body, my son’s physical chemistry has gotten out of whack and is affecting his emotions. Anxiety reared its ugly head so strongly, that it threatened to take my kid out of the game. When your body is so sensitive to everything around it that you can feel the vibrations of everything and everyone around you, it can be overwhelming. And with my son being 13, his hormones rising appeared to have been a big game changer (at least I’m guessing it correlates to hormones).

His crisis triggered feelings in me that caused me to have a bit of crisis. I began to notice a pattern in myself. When my son felt ok, so did I. When his anxiety was acting up so strongly that he couldn’t sleep and became a complete wreck, I reacted by becoming very depressed. He felt like a noose around my neck. Like a rock dragging me down.

Part of me wanted to pack a bag and run away, while another part wanted to stay in bed and never get out. A big part of me just wanted to not be here or have to deal with any of it. While another small voice kept telling me that this was a phase that would pass. Just hang on. This too shall pass.

The other week, after more than a week of barely being able to function, I called my hypnotherapist and asked to do a session around why when my son struggled it sent me into a tailspin, spiraling down with smoke streaming out of my fuselage.

I know from experience that when I react to a situation that repeatedly comes up, and especially when I tend to react in the same way, that there is an unhealed belief deep inside me from a long time ago. And with this situation there was no exception.

What I see in hypnosis might be merely a representative of what my beliefs look like, or it might be extremely real, based on actual events that actually happened, but were shuffled into the dark recesses of my mind. No matter, I’m learning that what we perceive as real is what matters. Because when we think and believe in something, it is very real for us and is totally valid.

In this session, what came up were thoughts of inadequacy of myself as a mother. We all hold beliefs of what it means to be a good mother (put on us by our family and society), and seeing my son in pain pinged on a very old belief that I was not a good mother. This belief was created when I was 15 years old and gave up my baby daughter for adoption. Part of me created the belief that I was not a good mother because I gave my baby away and did not take care of her. But that belief was created and buried so quickly that I’m not aware of it ever being a conscious thought. (And this is how tricky several of our beliefs are).

What helped heal that belief was my guide during the session, Mother God (who brought in higher wisdom), telling my 15 year old self that she was in fact a better mother for having given her daughter away. Considering the circumstances surrounding my daughter’s birth, it was the very best thing for her to allow another family to have her for their own; to raise her as theirs.

My fifteen year old self was somewhat comforted by this information, but it wasn’t until Mother God assured her that her daughter would always be watched over and protected (by Mother God) that she finally felt true relief. With that knowledge, my younger self was able to accept that she was in fact a great mother, and her pain released. And at that moment, I was reminded that when I think of my children, although I publicly acknowledge only my son, I am forever a mother of 2. Most of my family and friends that I grew up with still doesn’t know anything about my daughter.

After that huge healing moment, my hypnotherapist asked if Mother God had any further wisdom for me. In my mind, I was thinking about how I get depressed from time to time, especially when my son is struggling, and Mother God shared some amazing wisdom that changes how I see everything. Everything!

The wisdom was about the word perfect; how we define it and use it. The information that was plunked straight into my head was: the only thing perfect is creation. The way we humans think of the word perfect is all wrong. The only thing perfect is creation. Look around. What is around you? Everything you see is created. Every single thing you are looking at has been created! And as such, it is all perfect!

Everything and everyone is absolutely perfect at any given moment in time. Perfect. As it is supposed to be.

Yes we have free will, can make choices, and have preferences. Of course. But because everything that happens is an experience we agreed (with God) to have, every single thing that happens is valid. No matter what it looks like, it matters, it carries weight, it is ok.

The pain comes from wanting other than what is in your grill. The pain comes from that distance, that dissonance, that disconnection between what IS (which is perfect) and what IS NOT (that you desperately want).

The pain comes from not knowing that at any moment, everything is already perfect.

Because of my past with my daughter and feeling like I was a bad mother, when my son came along, there was a part of me that screamed out to not fuck up my son. Do whatever you have to do to not screw him up. Don’t mess this one up. And when he came out “broken and not normal” that part of me jumped into action to “fix” him. And when he can’t be “fixed,” it’s somehow my fault.

Saying that everything is already perfect in every moment, you’re probably saying, WTF? How can I say that people who are hurting and who are in pain are perfect? How can I say that dead babies washing up on the shore as their parents flee their war torn countries, is perfect? How can anything uneven, unbalanced, or ugly be perfect? Because none of it is a mistake or invalid. It all serves a purpose and exists for a reason.

I might not know what that reason is right now, but there is one. We all play our parts in this big dance of life, and we never know the reason why one person’s role might seem imperfect or not desired. Everything that happens in any moment is perfect because it is valid and worthwhile.

Because of having preferences, we make choices all the time. When we choose one thing or another, we don’t know which choice is good or bad, because either choice could warrant either judgment depending on things we might not even know about. We assume we know everything about everything. We carry our beliefs. We see a situation, and feel free to be judge, jury and executioner.

A great example of why our perceptions can be wrong was demonstrated to me when I found out about my pre-birth plan to experience shame. My soul wanted a lifetime (or several) to understand shame. And not just a little bit of shame. Because my soul is truly bad-ass, it wanted to feel boatloads of potentially soul crushing shame. It wanted to know what shame feels like, tastes like, looks like, walks like and talks like.

So, my soul made an agreement with another member of my soul family that he would help me with this endeavor. He would block out so much of his own light and forget how beautiful and powerful he is, that he, after suffering his own wounds, would take out his pain on me and try to feel powerful again by dominating me. He would rape me again and again, chasing his human need to feel better. In being molested over and over I felt shame because I took on blame of not stopping him. And because of bringing a baby into the world in such a manner (my being molested and being a teen out of wedlock), even more shame was created.

My father felt shame and his way of handling it was to dig the biggest hole he could and bury it, much like how we deal with radioactive waste. And as with radioactive waste, shame sits, waiting for the day to be transmuted and made harmless. Agreeing to keep everything a secret kept the shame bound to me, like a festering boil.

The human perspective is to look at what happened and judge it as bad. The soul perspective sees everything that happened as being perfect. It was what my soul wanted to experience. And not only have I healed the shame, I knocked that sucker out of the park by taking my life and discovering ways to heal myself at levels that not only heal me, but my family as well.

The way our society defines perfect no longer works for me. The judgment and weight of the old definition is something I no longer wish to carry. From here on out, the only thing that is perfect is creation. And because everything is created, it is all perfect. Every situation and every person is already perfect just because they exist. Bringing a spirit into the physical is an intentional act. Bringing experiences into your life are intentional acts (sometimes at a subconscious level, but intentional nonetheless). The act of existence is intentional and as such it is all valid and is perfect.