Today I read a great post over at Shaboom's blog. She talks about a few things but the part that hit me the most was her discussion of "spiritual perfectionism." That's when you're in transition from one way of viewing the world and your place in it and you expect yourself to be at the finish line of the new way before you're really there. So you try to pretend that you're there which isn't helpful to getting there.
Awhile back I talked about being addicted to seeing myself as a victim. Stuck in a "poor me" stance. I have been in an abusive marriage (that I'm finally getting out of) for 14 years. I recently lost my job. My friends and family are very supportive and they have been providing me sympathy that I was feeding off of. Thankfully I saw that I was projecting negative energy and decided to stop doing it.
Now when I talk about my current situation I try explain it in the positive way I see it - both these tough situations are huge blessings in disguise. I have the world open to me now. I can figure out who I am. I can build a life that suits me better. I am so lucky.
Despite my attempts to keep a positive outlook and project positive energy, I hit those inevitable times where I'm not feeling particularly positive. Where I just feel like crap about everything. And the fear and anger and sadness close in until I'm struggling for air. I want so badly to be able to be positive about things. To stop whining. Instead of accepting where I am with my real feelings at the moment, I start pretending that everything is ok.
The big problem with that is - I'm just getting back into the same rut from a different direction. I've always tried to pretend everything was ok. I tried to pretend my marriage was great. I pretended that I loved my job. I pretended I had everything together so that people wouldn't see how miserable I was. So people would like me. It got to where I didn't even know how I felt about anything. That's why I put up with an abusive relationship for so long - I was pretending so hard that it was ok, I even convinced myself.
Now I'm trying to live authentically. To figure out who I am and how I feel about things. In order to do that, I have to actually feel things. Positive and negative. Happy, sad, weird, angry, elated, annoyed, jealous, unloved, loved, loving, lonely, overwhelmed, peaceful and even neutral. It all is what it all is. Before I can be at peace with myself and know who I really am, I have to learn to accept my feelings and my moods, even if I don't like some of them very much. Maybe I can find a way to feel crappy about certain things in my life but still - at least on balance - project positive, loving energy to the Universe. But until I'm able to do that, I have to accept myself and my real feelings during those times that I can't muster up any of that positive stuff.
Is spiritual perfectionism holding you back?
