A Really Honest Conversation about Deconstructing Perfectionism and Breaking My Own Heart

Remember that art project you worked so hard on, only to deem it unworthy and hide it away? I too have felt the crushing weight of perfectionism, especially within the realm of faith. Our latest episode tackles this silent struggle, opening with a story from my high school days—a sculpture, a symbol of the perfection we often chase, and its unexpected demise.

Journey with me as we question the notion of flawlessness that's deeply embedded in religious teachings. We bring to light the often misconstrued interpretation of being "like Jesus," suggesting that perhaps his message was not about achieving perfection but about embodying love and acceptance. As we peel away the layers of societal and religious expectations, we discover the transformative power of self-compassion. This candid exploration isn't just about faith; it extends to our everyday lives, challenging us to embrace our imperfections and find beauty in our authentic selves.

We close our heartfelt conversation by daring to question the traditional religious beliefs that may have confined us. Through my personal reflections, we ponder a God of love and acceptance, rather than a divine judge marking our every flaw. This episode is an open invitation to listeners to break free from the chains of perfectionism, and instead, create a life filled with freedom, growth, and genuine love. Whether you're questioning your faith or simply seeking a more compassionate way of living, you'll find an ally in this discussion, as we support one another in our shared journey toward understanding and acceptance.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Aloha and welcome back to Leaving the Church to Find God, your safe space for exploring faith beyond traditional walls. I'm your host, melissa, and whether you grew up in the Evangelical Church, like I did, or any other system, while seeking answers, you're in the right place. This podcast isn't about judgment or attacking institutions. It's about honest conversations, diverse spiritual paths and celebrating the unique journeys that we all take in search of meaning. We've all experienced indoctrination in some form, and here we explore how it shapes our understanding of ourselves and the divine. Each week, we'll dive into thought-provoking topics, share inspiring stories from guests and listeners like you, and offer tools and insights for navigating your own deconstruction journey. Remember, leaving the Church doesn't mean leaving your faith. It's about finding your own authentic connection to something greater. So buckle up, embrace the open dialogue and join me as we explore what it means to move beyond confines and discover the deeper personal connection to the divine that exists within us all. Aloha and welcome back. Today. I wanted to talk to you about perfection.

Speaker 1: 1:23

When I was in high school, I remember I really loved sculpting Anything with clay, anything with art. Really, I just spent as much time in the art lab as humanly possible, and I remember once when I was sculpting, I was making the sculpture of a little girl. It had started with the foot, and the foot was so perfect that I saw a little girl attached to it. So I kept going and made this whole little girl. She was adorable, like taking a step in a field with a little butterfly on her finger. It was something I was so proud of, it was so beautiful and this wasn't like a minor feat. This was about three weeks worth of work, and I'm talking about two to three, sometimes more, hours in a day for three weeks. It was about three foot tall, maybe A true statue or a true sculpture.

Speaker 1: 2:19

And I got to the point where I was working on her hair. The head was bald, everything else about it was perfect, but I could not figure out how to make her hair. I tried to make ringlets with the clay. I tried to make just like flat hair like you would normally see on a sculpture. I tried so many different ways and couldn't get it right. My teacher had expressed to me that I could go mixed medium and add something else for the hair, that it didn't have to be made of clay. But I had this idea in my mind it needed to be made of clay. I couldn't reach it. I couldn't get this perfection that I was looking for, so I smashed it all. I never fired it, I never completed it, I just smashed it. I still think about that on a regular basis. I can even tell I'm getting emotional just talking about it now, like why, why didn't I just finish that? I was so proud of it and I realize now that I didn't finish it because it wasn't perfect, because I couldn't make it perfect.

Speaker 1: 3:34

I find this playing out often in my life. So many ideas, so many things that I've started, so many things that I've created, but never take that last step into fruition because I just can't get it perfect. Why do I even need to make things perfect? Where does this come from? I've really been breaking this down quite a bit and I've realized that we are indoctrinated into believing that that's the goal, that perfection is the goal, that we are born imperfect, we're born in sin and that our goal in life is to be perfect like Jesus. I remember the hymn so clearly To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus On earth. I want to be like Him All through life's journey, from earth the glory. All I ask is to be like Him. The problem with that is that perfection isn't real, that it's a moving target. It doesn't exist, and you'll hear me say that a lot about church and sin and religion and all of it is that it's a moving target. That's because the goal, in this way of thinking, is perfection.

Speaker 1: 4:47

When we really break that down to where that came from, how true is that? Was Jesus really perfect, if he even existed as a human being? I like to believe that he did. I don't know what he looked like or any of the details. I'd like to believe that he did. But either way, was there a human that was really perfect? Was that ever even his goal? Or is it that because he said to us that he was made in God's image that we've projected this perfection on him?

Speaker 1: 5:24

What if to be like Jesus is it to be perfect? Is it to be loving, to be accepting, to be kind, to be open, to see people in their wholeness? Jesus was able to make people whole because he knew them in their wholeness by him witnessing their wholeness. That allowed it to be manifest To be like Jesus. What if to be like Jesus doesn't mean to be perfect? What if to be like Jesus means to be loving and kind and accepting. Have we gotten it all wrong? Was that really true? Was that really what he was teaching us was to be perfect. What I remember learning from Jesus was to love one another, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be kind, to be generous, to be loving. I remember stories that I heard about Jesus and how he would be with the beggars and the sex workers and the supposed sinners, and that's who he spent his time with.

Speaker 1: 6:51

So why is it that the church is teaching us that perfection is the goal? I can only have theories about this. This is just. These are my own musings. I do have faith in the ideas that come through me. I do have faith in the things that I speak, or else I wouldn't speak them. But for me, is the idea of this moving target. If the goal is perfection, and we know that perfection isn't real, then you'll never reach the goal. If you never reach the goal, you'll never feel worthy, you'll never make big dreams happen. You'll spend your time trying to perfect yourself instead of loving yourself. But don't worry, because all of these problems have a solution and the church has got it for you right. It's not a coincidence? To me, not even a little bit. So when we look outside of that, let's go outside of the church. How is this applying it in our regular lives?

Speaker 1: 7:57

The thing about perfection is that it's a trap and we think about it. We're all trying to have a perfect body, so we try to whip our body into shape, we work out until everything hurts and we're exhausted and don't eat food that we love, and minimize our calories and minimize our calories. It's like constantly trying to control our bodies instead of letting them be the wild nature that they are, because we're striving for this physical perfection. But the thing is, is what was a perfect body 10 years ago even is not what's a perfect body now? What was a perfect face or perfect hair 20 years ago is not what's a perfect face or perfect hair now? This is what I mean by the moving target. It's like we're trying to reach this target, but by the time we get there, it has moved somewhere else, because perfection can't be defined right. It's like without flaws, okay, but that's subjective, depending on your situation.

Speaker 1: 8:58

And in this striving perfection, we've become so unkind to ourselves, unkind to our bodies, unkind to how we age, unkind to how we express to how much space we're taking up in the world. It creates this hypervigilance. My house has to be clean all the time and perfect, even if that means that I'm not having social connection, because every free minute that I'm off work I'm trying to keep my house clean. My body needs to be perfect, even if that means that I'm always exhausted and feel kind of stressed out because my body never gets that satisfied, full feeling. When perfection's the goal, the goal can never be reached and it just leaves us being so hard on ourselves about everything, trying to strive for something that isn't real.

Speaker 1: 10:00

And when we put all of this judgment on ourselves, then it's going to project out to the world around us. If I see myself as failing in weight loss, then it's going to be really, really easy for me to see where other people are failing in weight loss. If I see myself as failing in business, then I'm going to be looking for failings in other business people, which means that I never really see them. All I see is this projection of my own imperfection. And that's where the mindful self-compassion comes in, when we can stop trying to be perfect and work on accepting and loving ourselves as we are and seeing all the beauty that we possess, no matter where we're at, when we're in this place of love and acceptance, then that's what we're going to be putting out. Whatever's on the outside is a projection of what's on the inside. Our outside world reflects our inner self. It reflects our inside world.

Speaker 1: 11:14

I mean, there's so many ways of saying it, I can think of every cliche possible. If you've heard it, you've heard it. If you know, you know right. So when we can accept ourselves as we are, accept that we are whole, then we can see other people in their wholeness as well, and that allows for a really deep, intimate connection, which is what we're craving most as humans. But see, that's the thing about the church is, when we're seeking perfection and judging ourselves so harshly, then of course, we're going to be doing that to others. I believe that that's by design.

Speaker 1: 12:04

I believe that when these stories are passed on, that they are retold in a way that is meant to influence the listener to believe the way that they want them to believe. That is indoctrination, and so many of these biblical stories, these stories of our past that have been passed to us, have been altered to cause us to think in the way that those who created them wanted us to think. And what better way to keep people separate from each other than to have them judging each other constantly? What better way to keep us separate from ourselves than to believe that we are fundamentally unworthy and flawed? Because when we love ourselves and we start loving others, then we start talking. And when we connect and community, truth comes up. They don't want that. They don't want us in our truth. They don't want us in truth together, because that would not serve the goal. And whether the goal is to save everybody's soul from hell, because they believe that that's real, or whether the goal is to keep people under control, or whether the goal is money, money, money, power, power, power. Whatever the goal is, the best way to achieve it is to separate people from themselves and from each other.

Speaker 1: 13:35

How do we fight back against this? Well, you don't, for one. Don't fight. Signing isn't going to help you. That which we resist persists, right, but we can start to dissolve it. We can start to untangle it. We can see it in ourselves, start to witness it, leave space for it, let it be okay.

Speaker 1: 13:57

I'm okay that you're a perfectionist. I'm okay that you were a judgey. It's okay. There's space for you to not be perfect. There's space for you to be love. There's just space for you to be you, to be the nature that you are. Give space to these things within us. When we see something that feels like a flaw, give space to it. Let it be there. It's okay that you're not perfect. It's okay that you made a mistake. You know what that's so human of you. I do that to myself a lot, like oh gosh, melissa, that's just so, you're a little human. You're human is really not like in this situation. You're human. Hates the intersection of Baldwin Avenue and on a highway and it gets furious in that intersection Like cute little human being. Human, because that's what humans do.

Speaker 1: 14:56

You know, I see myself from that place of source. I let the observer, the conscious observer, the love that I am made from, observe me by letting the love that I made from observe me. All it sees is beauty, all it sees is more love. Can we do that? Can we let ourselves be observed from the love that is within us? Can we see ourselves through God's eyes, not through the lens that's been created then put on God? God, when I was younger, I had taken it on as my personal responsibility to save the world, to save everyone in it. I didn't just take that on my own. It was definitely served to me on a platter in the church. Right, that's we know Jesus and that's the goal is to bring as many people to the message as possible. Right, and I was really good at it. It was really good at plugging in to the things that were working while ignoring the things that weren't. It was really good at emphasizing the benefits without acknowledging, even within myself, the detriment that was also happening.

Speaker 1: 16:14

I'm a very passionate person and I recognize that myself, that I get really passionate about things. I have a strong energy when I'm really loving something and believing in something that is felt by those around me, which kind of scares me in my own power a lot of times, because I can see how, as a child, that was used in a way that was harmful to people around me, and I have realized that as an adult, I often don't really step into my full power because of the fear that I will lead people down the wrong direction. And that's the thing is, when you know that you're meant to be a leader, when you know you're born with all these leadership qualities and this personality that suits leadership. These things are innate, like these feelings are innate, just like someone who is more innately shy or motherly, or whatever it is. We do have our innate traits that serve us in this life, but sometimes they work against this too, do not? It's one of the things that are considered under the umbrella of shadow work, right Of our shadows. So one thing that I've realized is that I carried that with me and I think about it now like in my heart.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I was really, really trying to do what was right. I really really believed that I had something that people needed and that without it they would suffer, and, as an empath, that really hit me hard and I made it my purpose to block as much of that suffering as possible. And a lot of times this awareness comes in really handy. Like I'm a great person to come to for advice. I have a very intuitive voice that when I'm giving advice, things come out of me that I I'm like, oh, I don't even know where that came from, it just came out, you know, and I, just for the sake of this conversation, we'll refer to the idea of God as love, because for me that that is what God is God, is love, very simple. So you know that love that's inside of me really expands when I'm able to use my voice in a way that helps people, that can give people clarity in their lives and that can be very valuable. But the thing is is when your mindset is set on perfection and you add that to the need to save people and then, within religion, this whole idea of I have these answers that you need and you don't have them.

Speaker 1: 19:06

Even stepping outside of the religion, that wiring is in my brain. That's the way that my brain works. I have for so much of my life looked at people through the lens of where they are stuck, where they are blocked, how they can fix it to make their lives better and, like with any shadow, there's a light side to that. It's very helpful. It's been very helpful in my life. It's been very helpful to people in my life, but it's also kept me very separated because until recently I couldn't find a way to turn that off.

Speaker 1: 19:47

Like even with the people that I am the most closest to and people that I look up to is hard not to see the things that are blocking them. Why do I see that to begin with? Is it because I was trained to search for sin and save people from it? I don't know. I don't know, but that's the way my brain works. Is it from neurodivergence? Could be. Is it, you know, for being a highly sensitive person who's also an empath? Could be, or all those things completely related to each other. Could be.

Speaker 1: 20:21

But for many of my friends, I can see how I have not shown up as an equal, but as someone who feels as though they need to save them. That hurts me. That hurts me because who I've been trying to be and what I've been trying to give in my friendships since always is unconditional love, and I felt like I was doing that. What I didn't realize was these observations. Even though I didn't think, oh, they're bad because of that, or how dare them, or that shameful, I thought, oh, wow, I can see where that's blocking them. You know, I need to let them know, even when it's unsolicited, and that has caused a barrier between me and other people in creating intimacy.

Speaker 1: 21:14

How can you be intimate with someone who you don't feel truly sees you, and how can you feel someone truly sees you when all they're seeing are the ways that you're blocked or stuck? This hasn't been true in all my friendships, people that I've known for a really long time, people who I feel or think like me, more neurodivergent people, the highly sensitive people I light up with those people. I don't tend to go there as much, but it's still always there and this came into my awareness recently and I really did feel some contemplation I still am and contemplation around that and how it has affected my relationships into any of my friends if you happen to be listening, or still my friends, I apologize, I'm sorry and I'm gonna do better at showing up in a way that just allows you to be you, without trying to make your life better, but trusting that you know what you need. I have been developing this more and more, like through awareness, but seeing where it comes from really really helps to get to the root of it. Something I love about breath work, it's something I love about therapy, somatic work it's just all about getting to the roots of these things, because we can keep trying to like cut the weeds, but until we get to the root, it's gonna keep coming back right.

Speaker 1: 22:37

This is something that really keeps coming back into my consciousness is this idea of judgment and how that is blocking me. You know, it's easy to see other people's blocks. It's easy to miss your own when you're looking at everybody else's right. The thing about the judgment is that it comes from a judgment of ourselves, and that's what we're taught in the church. We're always judging ourselves, always making sure that we are in right relationship with God's Word, always nitpicking ourselves over every little mistake. Why do we do that? Because every mistake equals punishment. If you get it wrong, if you're living in sin, your life is gonna be miserable. If you die while you're getting it wrong, you're gonna go to hell. I mean, who wants that right? So we become very like hyper vigilant, hyper critical of ourselves and getting into the work of Kristin Neff, who talks a lot about mindful self-compassion.

Speaker 1: 23:50

But when we're constantly criticizing ourselves, then we're constantly criticizing others, because that's what we do right. The people in our lives are mirrors. We're projecting our movie onto their screen However you want to see it. When we're judging ourselves, we're judging others, and when the goal is perfection, we're always judging ourselves, because we're never gonna reach perfection. It doesn't exist.

Speaker 1: 24:16

I remember as a hardcore perfectionist when people would tell me that perfection didn't exist. It was infuriating. So if you feel infuriated by this conversation. I invite you to lean into that and see what's on the other side of it. In this judgment of others. It hasn't made me safe at all. It's actually made me very isolated in a lot of ways, ways that you know.

Speaker 1: 24:40

Over the past few years, doing therapy and doing work, I've been able to start repairing. But I see it more and more as I really dive into this indoctrination, like how deeply it has affected me and my perception of myself, which then infects my perception of others. I try not to be resentful about these things because I know that the people who were teaching me in a lot of cases were very well-meaning. But I do feel resentment against the systems that put this in place, the symptoms that were using the people that were teaching me right, just the way that they used me for their own agenda. I've been postponing this and so afraid that I would make an imperfect podcast about imperfection or perfection. I do see the irony in that. That's why I'm sitting here with my messy hair in my room. That echoes and amplifies the sound of my breath. That's the point.

Speaker 1: 25:48

Sometimes I'm just showing up imperfect on purpose. Sometimes it's from a place of acceptance, sometimes it's on purpose. It's like, hmm, I could fix my hair right now, or I could accept that I'm enough. I'm just already enough that I was born enough. I was enough before I was born. I'll be enough after I die, because how can something that's infinite not be enough? It's everything, wherever you think.

Speaker 1: 26:18

So, in finding this kindness for ourselves, in finding this compassion for ourselves, we will inevitably start to find it in others. I guarantee that this will strengthen your relationships, or at least the ones that are meant for you, and it'll show you which ones that you want to let go of and accept that those contracts are complete. How do we, how do we get to the other side of this, how do we find a solution on this when it's so deeply in our brain, just like anything else? You know, it's a muscle that we have to build, that we exercise. Usually, once these kinds of things get brought into our conscious awareness, we can see it. We can see it and we just naturally start working on it, right when we allow things to come into our conscious awareness.

Speaker 1: 27:05

So in this, I invite you to drop the goal of perfection, because it's easy to fall into that trap, especially when you're healing Like it's really easy to go back into that state of looking for perfection. It translates into a lot of different ways. It translates into, you know, the new age world. You'll hear me mention that a lot. That I find it very similar.

Speaker 1: 27:35

I speak in my book about the oppression of healing and that when what we're trying to achieve healing from this place of looking for perfection, it's only creating more of that path, of that neural pathway that causes our brains to think that perfection is the only acceptable answer. So I've found my own ways of dealing with this, which is for one, to be aware of it and to continue to be aware of it, to continue to invite it into my awareness and leave space for it when it comes up, to not judge it and to understand that I am human and I'm not meant to be perfect and it's okay to make mistakes, to ask it where it came from, so I can go to that place within myself and give it love and shine some light on it. But one of the most powerful practices for me has been to show up imperfectly. So when I went to record the first episode of this podcast, a lot of stuff went awry. I recorded it several times and the audio wasn't working out and I had a lot of equipment that didn't come back on time and it just was like one thing after the other where it came to the point where the night before here I am sitting in this room surrounded by a cookie frox, making their noise with this huge echo, and you can hear my breath, which you probably can now too. I just made the choice that that had to be, that that was gonna be okay, that I had to get started, that it didn't need to be perfect to get started, that I just had to get started and then learn along the way, and that it can get better and better. Hopefully, you have noticed that this production does continue to get better and better. Doing this all myself, I'm learning this, learning these programs, I'm learning how to edit video and separate audio. This is all brand new to me.

Speaker 1: 29:38

Had I continued with this idea of it needs to be perfect, then it never would have happened. For me, the biggest work was to put out something that wasn't perfect, then to put out something that was. That was so much more meaningful. I have strived for perfection in so many things. I've put out so many things that took way longer than they needed to and way much more energy than they needed to, because it had to be perfect or as close as I could get to perfect, where I couldn't see the flaws. Yes, I've done things through force, through white knuckling it, through willing my way through it in a quest for perfection, but they never lasted. They never brought the satisfaction that I was looking for.

Speaker 1: 30:32

It wasn't like I had reached a goal. It was like, yay, I did that, and then here comes the next thing and our goals are like that. We're gonna reach our goals, and then that's our human nature. For me, we're meant to expand, we're consciousness expanding, and so we're always gonna have new ideas and new desires of things that we want to create and things that we want to accomplish. But we find much more satisfaction in these accomplishments when we feel good about them, when it happens in the momentum of the moment and when we reserve some energy for ourselves.

Speaker 1: 31:14

But for me, like when I was able to put out that first episode, knowing that the audio quality was a hot mess, knowing that my intro wasn't great and that my algero wasn't great either, it felt like the biggest accomplishment of all, because I know what it's taken for me to get past this need to be perfect. But one thing that I've noticed that when we let go of perfection or when we grow past any barrier like that, those who are around us who are dealing with those same barriers they're gonna be triggered by it. It's like how dare you be imperfect? I'm over here working so hard to be perfect and you just showed up completely imperfect. That's not okay. How dare you do that?

Speaker 1: 32:02

And, whether they realize it or not, it's coming from this need and this desire of having everything together, everything all right, doing everything just exactly the way that you decided that it's meant to be, or that someone's told you that it's meant to be, or that you heard somebody else do it. But I invite you to consider that there may be more power and doing it differently than the way you've been doing it, that if you've been putting out perfect things, only perfect things, what have you missed? What little statues have you smashed to pieces Because they weren't perfect? Now, knowing this, I would give anything to have that sculpture, even if she were bald, even if I bought a cheap ducky wig to put on her head or a hat or just left her bald. How many other things have I missed Because I was afraid to be imperfect.

Speaker 1: 33:25

Can we dare to just be ourselves? Can we dare to show up authentically and say this is me, take it or leave it? Can we dare to not have it all together and then just, piece by piece, get it together as we go? Because when we can allow ourselves these imperfections, when we can allow ourselves to be human, when we can give ourselves compassion for our humanity, understanding that it's not a sin, understanding that our humanity isn't our downfall, that we chose to be human, how much sense would it make for a parent to have a child just so that they could criticize them and punish them if they didn't get things right?

Speaker 1: 34:25

If we're children of God, we're beings of love. Same thing right. Children of God, beings of love, children of love, intelligent love. Wouldn't it make more sense that we're created with love? Would it make more sense that, when we are witnessed by love, that all they see is all that love sees is love? The idea that we are born into this life as a sinner and that our golden life is to relinquish ourselves of this sin that we're born into and to be like Jesus, to find the perfection of Christ? Because I beg you to consider that Jesus, jesus, the person and Jesus Christ are two different things. Jesus Christ is the perception of Jesus that was created by other people.

Speaker 1: 35:44

I invite you to consider that love, god is love, that love would not birth us into a losing game, that love would want us to feel love and joy. And the fruits of love, right, the fruits of the Spirit they call it in church right, peace, joy, connection. I don't remember what all the all the fruits are at this moment, but like to be born to say I'm gonna create you just so that you can prove to me my own worthiness, so that you can prove to me that you have unconditional love for me, so that you can prove to me that you are willing to worship me and make your whole life about me. That doesn't sound like love. That doesn't sound like love at all. To say that you're born with this impossible goal and you are unworthy and anything beautiful that you receive is the grace of God and anything, any punishment that you avoid, that's the mercy of God, because you are imperfect and your life is about becoming perfect.

Speaker 1: 37:22

And the thing about life, like what life is right? It sounds like a losing game. What would be the pleasure of an all-powerful, all-knowing, infinite presence to watch its offspring suffer, to witness its own suffering as punishment for being. What sense does that make? What's the point in that? What pleasure would God if God were this entity outside of us, living somewhere else, that created us into these bodies his children, it said here's this really difficult game that you need to play to show me how great I am. Your life doesn't really matter to you, it's for me. Your whole purpose of existence is for me, so that you can spend all of this life proving to me how worthy I am, how great I am. If you were this infinite love right, would you need that? Would you need to create a species just to tell you how great you were?

Speaker 1: 38:46

I can't imagine an omnipotent God that would create us just to condemn us. In my world that makes zero amount of sense. I can't imagine a God that's just waiting to punish us for getting something wrong. I can't imagine a God that would set up a system that's created to keep us oppressed and depressed, that keeps us separate from the joy of being human. That God doesn't make sense to me, and if that's the God that y'all are worshiping, I don't want any part of it.

Speaker 1: 39:39

Stop inviting me to your church. I don't want that, because the God that I'm serving, the God that I feel, the God that I am, is love, is whole and sees me and sees the world through its wholeness. That's the God that I want to be a part of, and you can come to church with me. If you want some of that, it's right here, everyone's welcome. The only rule is that you listen to yourself. That's the expectation. Don't expect me to have all the answers, but we can enjoy this ride together. Welcome to my church. If you want to serve the God that's loving and the God that's kind and the God that didn't set us up to fail, the God that is enjoying life and enjoying the experience of life good, bad and ugly through us, welcome. Welcome to the church. Wherever you are, it's right there. It's always right there, accessible for you, with or without me. We're glad to have you here.

Speaker 1: 40:52

Wouldn't it make more sense that we're here to enjoy the experience? Wouldn't it make more sense that God loves us unconditionally? Wouldn't it make more sense that we were born into love than into sin? When a baby's born into the world, it's very rare that the parent is going to look at parents or parent is going to look at that baby and think, wow, I'm going to give you a whole lot of trouble and you better proved to me how great of a parent I am. I can't imagine looking at a newborn baby and seeing it as sinful. I can't imagine looking at a newborn baby and perceiving it as flawed.

Speaker 1: 41:43

Another really harmful part of this is that our parents are indoctrinated into this. So for those of you who are adult children, who are raised under these types of teachings, then it's likely, if your parents believed this, it's likely that they saw you under this lens of being born into sin and needing to be corrected and perfected, not because they're bad or evil or anything like that, but because they love you and they believe wholeheartedly that. Maybe wholeheartedly, I don't know. I can't speak for them, but I do know that they're well-meaning in the belief that they are saving your soul from hell, that they are saving you from a life of misery and they are saving your soul from hell. But what that causes is the child never being seen for themselves, never being accepted for themselves, every flaw, every misstep being highly criticized and punished, shamed. It leads to a disconnect of emotional intimacy between the child and their parent. It leaves that child becoming a grown person who feels inevitably unworthy, no matter what they do. They just can't get it right. It leaves parents more concerned with criticism and control than acceptance and unconditional love, and I think we've all seen the results of what that looks like in our lives.

Speaker 1: 43:30

I've been avoiding recording this. It was actually like a suggestion of my therapist. I'm sure it came out much more flowing in that conversation. But talking to my therapist when I first published the podcast about how proud of myself I was for publishing it so imperfect and she brought it to my attention that this would be a great thing to share with others, and I hope that I've shared it in a way that you can really hear what I'm saying. I've been putting this off for a month, afraid that it wouldn't be perfect, afraid that I would say the wrong thing, afraid that it wouldn't come out the right way, afraid of how it's going to come across, recognizing that that cycle continues to show up, even though it gets smaller and smaller as I exercise this muscles of imperfection and acceptance.

Speaker 1: 44:34

What I want to leave you with is this how much freedom and how much space is created in yourself when you let go of the need to be perfect, how much permission does that give you to do things that you want to do when you know that they don't have to be perfect? How will your relationships improve when you don't expect others to be perfect? How will your relationships improve when you don't expect yourself to be perfect? Do you believe that we were created so that we could be perfect or do you believe that we were created so that love itself could experience itself in many different forms, with many different feelings and emotions and probabilities, outcomes? If God has love and we are created in God's image? If you believe that, in what ways will letting go of the need for perfection increase the love in your life? Thank you for listening. I hope that this made an impact. If it did, let me know. I'm just over here doing this on my own. I appreciate any encouragement I can get you know how to support the show. I'm going to leave it in the outro. So it's coming and I'm going to leave you with an exercise.

Speaker 1: 46:26

You often hear me talk about nature. Nature is a reflection of God, right, it's a reflection of us, of creation, of love. We're a reflection of it. When you go into nature, look for the imperfections, look for the things that would be considered not perfect, and then look at the overall picture. If it's a flower with a weird little bump on it or some asymmetrical petals, or if it's a tree that split open in a weird way, or a river that's kind of mucky and stagnant. Just pay attention and see if those imperfections take away from the beauty of that which you're looking at. Spend some time in contemplation, get quiet, listen, observe, observe with new eyes.

Speaker 1: 47:33

If you were God witnessing your own creation, what would you see? Would you see flaws or would you see wholeness? Think about yourself. God is witnessing in you. Love is witnessing in you it's own creation. Do you think that it's seeing you as flawed or do you think it's seeing you as whole? Can you allow the love that is within you to show you your own wholeness and to understand that wholeness and perfection are not synonymous? To understand that when you show up for yourself in a way that is perceived to be flawed, that you are showing yourself God's love, that you are letting God's love shine through you? When you look at yourself through the lens of the love that lives within you, you will start to see wholeness and not flaws. Thank you for being here today. I hope you have a perfectly imperfect day. I can't wait to hear from you. I love you and Aloha. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Speaker 1: 49:11

If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to show your support is to subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, share your thoughts by leaving a five-star review. It really helps more people to find this space. Want to go deeper? Head over to my website at LeavingTheChurchToFindGodcom. There you can make a donation and make sure that we continue to have these conversations, no matter where you are on your spiritual journey. If you or someone you know would like to join the podcast and tell your story, please reach out to me on Instagram at authenticallymelly. Remember you're not alone on this journey. Keep exploring, keep asking questions and keep finding your own unique connection to something greater. Until next time, stay authentic, stay open and Aloha.