MY CONFESSION! RECOVERING PERFECTIONIST!

by Elmarie Swartz
(South Africa)

Greetings All,

Oh Yeah, my toys went flying because I had one of those "menopausal brain" moments and slipped momentarily back into perfectionism.

Like any "ism", perfectionism is an addiction, an addiction that started when I was very young as nothing I ever did was good enough - for my parents, my teachers, my religion (a BIG ONE this) my siblings, my friends (oops sounds like I'm eating worms doesn't it).

Never mind - I'll keep on looking within - so I just kept doing until doing was all I could do.

Now when doing did not make any difference whatsoever, I thought that O.K if I could do it perfectly I would hit the mark. I genuinely thought that I had it all sussed out.

For a while it seemed so because the more "perfect" I became the more voices other than my own sang my praises!

It sounded like a choir of Heavenly Hosts!

Nothing and I mean absolutely nothing could compare to the sheer ecstasy of actual compliments!

Like most, I am human and a creature that lives by my senses, and since the response I got for my perfectionism felt amazing - the fact that it was for a few seconds only made no difference.

I wanted to keep on repeating the experience. The pursuit of perfectionism became my opiate of choice...

I started recovery of this addiction some years ago and I am doing fantastically well until this morning... when after a few hectic days I decided to do what I love most, work on my book and some of my healing courses.

Everything, of course, did not go as planned and the my toys went flying out the cot!

Suddenly I realized that I had slipped...

I "dived" into my computers hard drive and after some real hard searching of this device found what I was looking for.

The following words are something that I found (can't remember where) when it was very, very needed and just having read it again put the monster back where it belongs (not in my universe) and a smile on my dial! ENJOY!!

"Dear God

Help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)

Help me to relax about insignificant details, beginning tomorrow at 7:41:23 a.m. EST.

Help me to not try to run everything - but, if You need some help, please feel free to ask me.

Help me to consider people's feelings, even if most of them are hypersensitive.

Help me to take responsibility for the consequences of my actions, even though they're usually not my fault.

Help me to be more laid back, and help me to do it exactly right.

Help me to take things more seriously - especially laughter, parties, and dancing.

Give me patience, and I mean right now!

Help me to finish everything I star...

Help me to keep my mind on one thing - oh, look, a bird - at a time.

Help me to do only what I can, and trust for the rest. And could I get that in writing?

Keep me open to others' ideas, misguided though they may be.

Help me follow established procedures. Hey, wait - this is wrong ...

Help me slow down andnotrushthroughwhatido.

Thank you. Amen

~Author Unknown~

Today I thank my husband for giving me a priceless gift - he once told me that my sanity and happiness was much more important than the misguided feelings being perfect gives and added oh so wisely:

"Angel, upon completing the creation of the Universe, our Creator pronounced it - "very good" NOT "perfect".

I give you this gift today and remember you only live once, don't waste the time on being perfect - live every second, create your beautiful life and pronounce that IT IS GOOD!

Walk in love and light
Elmarie