The Curse of Spiritual Perfectionism

This talk is all about Spiritual Perfectionism; what it is, how it holds you back and how you can let it go. Nicola shares with listeners how core beliefs such as 'I'm not good enough' can manifest as perfectionist tendencies, which hold us back from being our true authentic selves and prevent us from experiencing the miracle of 'true self living'.

The curse of spiritual perfectionism causes us to view our spiritual path as something to 'achieve' and attain. Nicola reminds listeners that the spiritual path is a way of life; there is no end goal, absolutely nothing to achieve and that we are spiritual souls here to experience all aspects of being human...the light AND dark...the true self AND the shadow self.

May all who listen be reminded of the Divine Light that shines within.

Namaste

Transcript

Hello beautiful Insight Timer community.

I'm Nicola from A Luna Moon and today I would love to talk to you about the curse of spiritual perfectionism.

Which is what exactly?

Well it's the curse of believing that to live as a spiritual being and to live a spiritual life we need to do so perfectly.

We need to be perfectly in the light at all times.

We need to be perfectly present and aligned with our truth always.

We need to be perfectly enlightened to please the divine and to class ourselves as truly spiritual.

We're not allowed to be angry.

We're not allowed to think so-called bad thoughts.

We're not allowed to drift away from our spiritual paths and we're not ever allowed to do or be anything that is not perfectly divine.

Well I don't know about you but this to me all sounds very exhausting.

So most of us know what it means to be a perfectionist.

I'm a recovering perfectionist myself.

Perfectionism is something that I regularly still work on within myself as I journey through this life.

And I'm talking to you today about spiritual perfection because I know only too well how we can have a sneaky way of taking over without us even realizing it.

And when we view spirituality from a perfectionist's point of view we can become too focused upon or even obsessed with an end goal.

The end goal is usually that of spiritual purity and enlightenment.

Viewing our spiritual path in this way immediately sets us up for a feeling of failure.

We become so caught up doing the spiritual path perfectly that we lose sight of the ultimate truth that the spiritual path is a way of life and an experience of being not doing.

It's not something we achieve and therefore it isn't something we can ever fail at.

The spiritual path consists of all that is.

The light,

The dark,

The true authentic self and the false shadow self.

We are spiritual beings living a human journey and part of being human is to experience life fully and to experience ourselves fully,

Our light and our dark.

So why do so many of us become spiritual perfectionists?

Well for the same reason that underlies all different types of perfectionism.

We have a conscious or an unconscious belief that we are not good enough.

I'd like you to imagine a large tree and I want you to imagine that the roots of this tree symbolize the core belief I'm not good enough and then I want you to imagine that the branches of the tree are symbolic of the beliefs,

Fears and behaviors that are born from this core belief around not being good enough.

So the most common branches might be the belief that we need to be accepted by others in order to feel good enough.

A belief that we need to live our lives seeking the approval of others,

Sometimes even strangers.

So we end up living our lives according to what we think we should be doing to gain this acceptance and approval and therefore feel good enough.

We basically place more importance on what others think of us and our lives instead of focusing on how we really feel and what we really want.

Another branch might be that we fear failure and therefore place a huge amount of pressure on ourselves to achieve and be the best and only then will we feel good enough.

We might fear rejection and so we give too much at the sacrifice of ourselves in order to be liked and accepted by others.

So we become the nurturers,

The caretakers but of everyone else and never really to ourselves.

We place such high expectations upon ourselves and when we don't quite reach those expectations we believe that we failed and experienced those feelings of embarrassment,

Guilt and shame.

We believe that we have to be perfect in every way and there tends to be no middle ground.

Perfectionism is a very black and white all or nothing way of thinking.

And so how does spiritual perfectionism show itself in our lives?

Well the obvious one is believing that we need to be perfectly spiritual which holds different meanings for different people but some common ways might be we believe that spirituality is a goal,

That it's something to achieve and that if we slip up by forgetting to meditate or do our daily yoga session or by making a human mistake or drifting away from our path temporarily then we failed at spirituality and not achieved our goal.

We might feel that we have to act in a certain way to fit in with various different kinds of spiritual groups.

So we might allow ourselves to go along with things that aren't really aligned with our own spiritual truth or we might feel as though we have to look and that's a certain way to gain the acceptance of our fellow spiritual peers.

We might feel that in order to be truly spiritual we have to be calm,

Present and balanced always.

We must never experience anger or other lower vibrational thoughts and feelings.

If we do then we failed at being spiritual,

Let ourselves down and we may even feel that we've let down the divine whether that be God,

Goddess or the universe and so on it's completely personal to you but we may even then reject the spiritual path completely because we have an all or nothing attitude so we might feel that if we can't do it perfectly we just give up.

The list can go on and on but the point is underlying all of these various different branches is the belief I'm not good enough which unfortunately is a very common core belief.

So how can we heal these perfectionist tendencies and turn things around?

Well the first step is to bring consciousness to the part of you that believes it needs to be perfect.

Instead of just going along and believing that belief we can challenge it,

Use self enquiry and meditation and ask yourself where does this belief come from?

Where did I learn that I need to be perfect otherwise I'm not good enough?

Who did I learn it from?

When we start to ask ourselves these important questions we can begin to understand why we think,

Feel and act in certain ways.

Our first introduction to the divine whether it be God or Goddess and so on is usually through our parents or the main male and female figures in our lives.

Our father represents the divine father and our mother represents the divine mother.

So if we look at the strong belief perfectionists hold around seeking approval and acceptance from others we can see how in spiritual perfectionism we feel that in order to be accepted by the divine or to please the divine that we have to be perfect,

That we can't make mistakes,

That we have to be 100% dedicated to our spiritual path every single day and if not then we're failing at spirituality somehow,

We're letting the divine down.

So perhaps ask yourself did you feel the need as a child to gain acceptance from your parents?

Did you feel like you had to be perfect,

To be loved and accepted?

Did you always want to please them and do you still feel this way now?

If so it makes sense that you would feel now that you have to be perfect to be accepted by the divine and that not being perfect or not reaching those expectations means that you might be letting someone down.

But the ultimate truth is that we are here to be real,

Not perfect,

Real.

We are souls who chose to incarnate into this life to remember,

To evolve,

To align ourselves with our truth and to live fully and experience all aspects of what it's like to be human.

There never has been and never will be a human being on this earth who is perfect.

Our life mission and our divine life purpose is not to achieve perfection,

It's not to do spirituality perfectly,

It's to heal,

To grow,

To be present,

To experience it all,

The light and the dark within,

To have fun and experience joy and to come home to our true authentic selves.

There is nothing more divine than true self living.

You are an embodiment of the divine,

Both light and dark,

True self and shadow self.

You are here to embrace all that you are because all of you is divine.

Your spiritual path is a way of life.

There is no end goal,

No destination to reach,

No enlightenment to attain.

So I'm sorry to break it to you,

But you'll never succeed at spirituality because there's absolutely nothing to achieve.

Devotion to your spiritual path is a beautiful offering to the divine.

But remember,

Your spiritual path is not about pleasing others,

Including the divine.

It's about coming home to your true authentic self.

Your spiritual path is not about living a perfect spiritual life.

It's about balance and enjoying and experiencing all of life.

Spiritual living is real living.

So give yourself permission to be real.

Give yourself permission to let go of perfectionism.

And it may help you to think of that word real,

R E A L,

And imagine that it stands for the following.

R.

Remember that you are an embodiment of the divine,

Both light and shadow.

E.

Evolve beyond the false self beliefs.

They never have been and never will be rooted in your true authentic divine self.

A.

Align your life with your desires and passions,

For they will guide you to your ultimate divine life purpose.

And L.

Live according to your own spiritual truth.

Listen to the voice within and stay true to who you are always.

It might be useful to write these truths down and remind yourself of them daily.

It can really help to give a brand new,

Much more true meaning to the roots of that tree that we spoke about earlier.

And when you change the meaning and the energy of those roots,

The branches have no choice but to transform into new,

Much more authentic beliefs and behaviors.

Thank you so much for listening today.

I hope that you've learned something and that you'll take something positive from these teachings.

And if true self living is something that you feel drawn to,

Then I'd love to invite you to join myself and Sam on our online course,

Master True Self Esteem in 10 Days,

Which can be found on the courses section of this course.

During the 10 days,

We offer teachings and meditations that will guide you back to your true authentic self so that you can experience the miracle of true self living.

This is what we feel true self esteem really is.

So I hold space for you to love,

Honor and embody all that you are because you always have been and always will be truly authentically,

Deeply divine body,

Mind and spirit with love and blessings to you.

Sat Nam.

Reviews

This is amazing, thank you ❤️

Such a precious message. I listened to this twice in a row.

Thank you, this was wonderful & I will need to listen several more times to it! You mentioned several things about perfectionism I have not named in my 50 years & that I know I need to address to be true to myself. Thank you thank you ❤️

I am beyond speechless right now. What a perfect timing.
I've been doing this, quite a long time to myself. Thank you so much for your wisdom.
This was amazing

I love your voice. Very soothing. There was a lot as a Christian I believed in what you were saying and I applied how you spoke to my beliefs. There were a few things I didn’t agree with but I reminded myself people have a right to their own beliefs and I can take all the good and nourishing things from someone and just keep piling those good bits in my backpack to cart along with me on my journey. I appreciated the reminders about not being good enough etc. you really put your thoughts together well. Something to listen to often to help break my perfectionism habit! Thank you for the time you spent on our behalf and for sharing your self with us.

❤️added 7/17 - thanks for your response I will absolutely listen again. I think it was wonderful we can learn from each other so much even when some of the thoughts don’t align with ours - can’t wait to listen to your others!!! Continued blessings to you!

Beautiful! I’ve always tried to make everything perfect and it’s tiring. I’ve learn to let go of so much and to practice self-care more. Thank you! 😊🙏🏻

Great talk! A lot of this rings true for me and it’s a good starting point for thoughtful consideration .

Such a wonderful reminder of how to rethink about spirituality. I will to listen to this again <3.

Very interesting. Thank you🙏🏻

Very thoughtful.

Thank you for this reminder. Breathing deeper now.

Amazing! I am a recovering perfectionist as well so every word of this meditation was very relatable and helpful. Thank you!

Just what I needed to hear today. Thank you so much 🙏🌟

Perfectionism can be really subtle and insidious. I've noticed that I do it w spirituality too. E.g., if I visit my folks and brothers and react to their triggering behaviors then I think I've failed and will often even devalue the spiritual practices that have helped me.

All this to say that what you are talking about here is real and important to become aware of in oneself. 🙏❤️

Inspiring 🌅 Namaste

This view is so needed to hear for me and so many others. Made me realize why (maybe)i say, and do things. Thank you for the wisdom.

Excellent thank you