Embracing Imperfection: Wisdom from the 3 Principles

Ready to let go of perfectionism and embrace imperfection? Join Clare for this insightful 3 Principles talk and discover the liberating wisdom of imperfection. Release self-imposed pressure, cultivate self-compassion, and unlock your productivity by embracing the beauty of imperfection.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the CalmCast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out head teacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,

And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The CalmCast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music,

With an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today we are going to embrace imperfection with some wisdom from the three principles.

And it's really interesting to talk about this because I recently explored this in a live session on Insight Timer,

And we had such a great conversation.

I'm going to share some of the key nuggets from that,

But please do feel free to call to join me on another live on Insight Timer soon because we do get into some great explorations on there.

But we really started,

You know,

I started really with a conversation around what even does the word mean?

And where on earth has it come from?

How have we ended up with a word that has so much heaviness to it really?

And is,

I mean,

Two questions that kind of ask the same thing but in different ways,

But is there such,

You know,

Is everything not perfect already?

And is everything imperfect at the same time?

And if that's the case,

Then surely the word just becomes irrelevant.

Nothing is perfect except in the eyes of somebody who thinks it's perfect.

And there were a couple of examples that,

You know,

I talked about and I'm going to talk about with you is,

You know,

The first one is like my perfect song for dancing is probably something by Wham from the 1980s.

You know,

It's something quite upbeat with words I can remember,

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go comes to mind as one of those songs.

But if you're,

You know,

If you're not a 50,

I mean,

You might not be a Wham fan and you might be a woman in your 50s and really have preferred Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet,

But,

You know,

If you're not somebody who likes the music of Wham and makes it as a tune to dance to,

Then perhaps that's not going to be your idea of a perfect dance song,

Is it?

And you can see that actually when you,

You know,

If you go to a party and there's a DJ who,

You know,

Puts on a song and it's kind of a flow of people onto the dance floor,

But there's a flow of people off the dance floor as well.

And then the same will happen,

Another song comes on and there'll be some people that go,

Oh,

I can't stand this one,

And they'll be off the dance floor.

And,

You know,

There'll be another group of people who come onto the dance floor.

And I think we can kind of see that with something like a song to dance to.

And the other example I gave was,

You know,

In our motorhome,

Trevor,

Which is where I am right now,

Actually,

That,

You know,

The layout that we've got here in this motorhome is the perfect layout for us.

I mean,

It's not perfect,

But it's near as damn it in terms of,

You know,

We've got two seating areas so that both of us can sit and work in this van when we need to.

And,

You know,

It's got all the bits and pieces that we need in it.

So it's perfect for us.

But we looked at lots of motorhomes that clearly people buy because they're on the market and people are buying them and finding them to be their perfect,

You know,

Perfect layout of a motorhome.

And yet for us,

It was just like,

Why would you put that there and that there?

And that just doesn't work for us because it's not,

Because it's all about opinion,

Isn't it?

It's all about perspective.

And my idea of something being perfect for me is not going to be the same as it is for somebody else.

And,

And I'm wondering then why it is that we get so weighed down by things needing to be perfect.

When we can see,

We can see in other aspects of life,

Can't we,

That things aren't perfect.

You know,

There is no definitive perfection,

Whether that's in politics or dance songs or motorhomes,

We can see,

Can't we,

That there is no,

There's no perfection.

And yet we can really slow ourselves down and become,

I mean,

I find with a lot of my clients like frozen to the ground,

Frozen to the ground,

Hardly able to move forward at all because we have some concept that,

That,

That there is something that can be perfect.

And,

And an example for me of that is,

You know,

I,

I,

I,

You know,

I do a lot of courses on insight time,

Which you may have come across.

I hope you have.

If you haven't do follow me and you'll come across them too.

But,

But when I'm creating those courses,

I do,

I have a template to design all the different words and descriptions and all the parts of the course.

And then I use a template document,

Word document now to help me to do that.

And,

And I can,

I can spend a long time making a column,

Just the right line up with another column,

Like for a document that only I'm only,

Only I'm ever going to see.

So I really am,

I really am trying to make something perfect that is for my eyes only.

Literally nobody else on this planet is going to see that document ever.

And yet I am titivating it and,

You know,

Crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's.

Obviously you can't not do that when you're typing because the computer does it for you.

But you know what I mean?

That concept of trying to make everything absolutely perfect.

But let's go back to what I said right at the beginning again.

Who says that columns that are aligned are perfect anyway?

Who says that's the right way?

Maybe they're not supposed to be.

I mean,

Who knows?

The whole thing is made up,

Isn't it?

And it's seeing that that brings some lightness to,

To the idea of us ourselves,

To embracing the imperfectional of what it means to be human.

But perhaps we don't even need to embrace imperfection because everything is just ideal and perfect exactly as it is.

It can't be anything else really.

And maybe we don't even need that word at all.

Maybe the phrase is really embracing being human with all the ups and downs that that brings.

As Sidney Banks said,

Life is a contact sport.

And in every aspect of life we will think some things are great and some things are not.

And some things we'll kind of cruise through and some things we won't.

And some things we will look back and go,

Look at,

We'll sit back and go,

Yeah,

Actually,

I'm really happy with that,

How I did that.

And other things will go,

Do you know what?

I think kind of next time I'm going to do it differently.

Or,

You know,

Actually,

I could have done that a little bit better.

I can see the little space where I could make a tweak.

But perhaps all of that can be done without the concept of perfection.

Maybe it seems to me as if we think we need it in order to not cock up.

If we keep ourselves held by these high,

High,

Ridiculously high standards,

Then perhaps we won't make a mistake and we won't get into bother.

Because that's really it,

Isn't it?

We're trying to,

I think with a lot of perfectionism,

We're trying to avoid some perceived idea that we could be in trouble for it or,

You know,

Into,

You know,

Get into,

I guess,

From our childhood,

Get into bother for doing something wrong.

That the perfectionism really is looking towards that,

Looking towards protecting ourselves from that.

But when you start to sit back and think about this,

Not don't think about it too much,

But when you start to sit with the made-upness of words like perfect,

And it's not the only word that has a lot of weight to it that's fundamentally made up.

The word itself is made up and the ideas that we as each human being on this planet are saying make something perfect or not is also made up.

The whole flipping thing is made up basically is what I'm saying.

And so maybe we embrace imperfection by just embracing life and realizing that sometimes we'll be happy with how it's turning out and sometimes we won't.

But where I see this linking to productivity,

Which is my theme for this month,

Is that it stops us,

Doesn't it?

Because we make up what something has to look like,

So we keep at it and at it and at it and at it like me trying to line up a table on a document that nobody else is going to read.

Or we,

Before we've even started something,

We get such a huge idea about it that,

You know,

It's such a huge idea of what we have to do to make it be perfect that again we're literally,

You know,

We're frozen to the ground,

Unable to move forward,

Stuck really.

A lot of my clients talk about feeling stuck.

So there's something there to notice as always around your thinking about this.

What appears to be in your way around the topic of perfectionism?

Where does it feel sticky?

Where does it feel difficult?

Where does it feel like you can't do it?

And just compassionately bring some non-judgmental awareness to this.

It's just noticing that's all.

Just like,

Ah,

I see,

I see what Claire was saying.

I can see this thinking.

And,

You know,

As always your clue will be that it doesn't feel good.

You will feel stuck,

You will feel stressed out,

You will feel anxious.

If you're trying to create,

Because really like what's just come to mind is that you are trying to create an illusion and that's really hard.

You're trying to create something that doesn't exist in this idea of perfection.

So embrace what you believe to be imperfect and find yourself more able to move forward in life.

So I hope you have an absolutely imperfect day having listened to this and please do check out the rest of my content,

Particularly on,

Check out the rest of my content on Insight Timer.

Joining my courses,

Golf course,

Particularly focused around productivity,

Called From Stress to Success at the moment.

And do join me live as we will explore more of these topics and other topics to come if you're not catching this in the month of,

The month when I'm making it.

But there's always new content,

Always new lives.

So follow me and find out more.

The Three Principles has changed my life and I hope the same for you.

So take care and I hope to see you again soon.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been the Calmcast with Claire Downer,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

Hi Clare
Love this. Very helpful. Thank you so much. Blessings.