A few years ago, this phrase “it’s wholeness we should seek, not perfection,” was repeating internally in regular intervals, like a mantra surfacing to the edge of awareness every time I tried to quiet my mind.

It came up like a response to a question I had asked long before, but had forgotten since. Like a missive, an important communiqué from a part of myself with access to a deeper wisdom sourced from not just this lifetime.

It was not a foreign concept to take in – this understanding that as a human I am bound to be imperfect. But understanding this as a concept, and holding the wounding of perfectionism are two different things. Realizing with the mind that we are driven by our need for things to be perfect is taking one step towards acknowledging the deep hurt we hold inside. And I had to take several steps to realize the source of this wound, instilled in childhood as a way to please and receive love and validation from my caregivers.
I had been bumping up against this perfectionism for so long that I was blind to the way it robbed me from my creative impulses and achievements. This need to be perfect, for my creations and expression to be perfect, did not allow me to make mistakes, to grow, to fail forward into another iteration — of self, of life, of creative output.

We lock ourselves into a closed-loop when we seek to be perfect. If you look closely at the need to be perfect, you might find that there is a process of meaning making that expresses a belief akin to “if I’m not perfect, then I’m not loved/wanted/valid/important/worthy, etc.” Pause, and look again. Is that true? When did you start making that assumption?

When we are stuck in this closed-loop thinking (“either I’m perfect or I’m not worthy”), we rob ourselves of the chance to grow and develop missing skillsets, capacities, experiences and the very act of learning.

Growth asks us to fail, to stumble and fall and get up and try again. To be messy and imperfect so that we can continue to create through this process of becoming whole again.

Here’s another way of expressing this: being perfect is not a condition for you to receive love. You are already enough. Nurture that.