How To Stop Being A Perfectionist Today

Learn to embrace imperfection, cultivate self-compassion, and find balance in your life. Say goodbye to self-criticism and unrealistic expectations, and hello to a more fulfilling, authentic existence.

Transcript

Today,

We'll talk about imperfection.

Very big topic,

Huge topic.

One of the difficulties of life is that we have these minds that are constantly saying that everything is imperfect.

Even if it's a beautiful day,

The mind will say,

Oh,

I wish it were cooler,

Or oh,

I wish it were warmer.

Or if you cook a delicious meal,

Oh,

But if only it had more nutrients,

If only it had more chia seeds,

Whatever.

The mind always wants things to be slightly more perfect.

That's an illusion.

And a key to happiness and a key to self-compassion is being comfortable with imperfection.

Grounded in this current reality that we are in.

So comment below,

What comes up for you in your mind when you hear the word imperfection or imperfect?

Arnaud West,

He was my professor at Harvard Divinity School,

Used to say that without imperfection,

You or I wouldn't exist.

Salvador Dali kind of made the same point,

But from the other end.

Have no fear of perfection,

You'll never reach it.

So the very big picture here is wanting perfection is resistance to reality.

And resistance to reality is suffering.

A beautiful equation that I use all the time when I teach is suffering equals pain times resistance.

So it's not so much the experience you have that's painful that causes suffering,

It's the resistance you have to that experience.

It's the,

This shouldn't be this way,

I hate this.

It's the story your mind puts on it.

So even if an experience is unpleasant,

It can just be an experience.

It can just be a sensory experience.

It's the resistance that makes it problematic.

And kindness to all things,

Real kindness to all things,

Including yourself,

That takes out that resistance.

So that's what we'll do and talk about today.

Kindness to imperfection is the same thing as saying kindness to reality,

And it's the same as saying kindness to yourself.

So the main point I wanna make is that there's actually no perfection or imperfection.

Perfection or imperfection are these fake categories that the mind creates.

There's no perfection or imperfection,

There's just the flow of life.

Life is flowing and it keeps flowing.

And the mind can call these things whatever it wants.

It labels these things as perfect,

Imperfect,

Better,

Worse.

The mind tries to control life by putting life into categories.

Like this is perfect,

This is less than perfect,

This is imperfect.

Perfection is an ideal that's imagined by the mind.

Perfection is something the mind creates.

Nature does not bother with such things.

Nature just exists and it's in harmony with its cycles,

It's in harmony with itself.

There's no perfection or imperfection to be found,

There's just the flow of life.

So in nature,

No two snowflakes are alike.

Yet each snowflake has this beautiful form,

It has its own journey.

And if you look at it really closely,

Each snowflake is perfect in a way.

Like no two pine trees are alike,

No two drops of water are alike,

No two human beings are alike.

Each is alive and authentic and free.

You wanna be alive and authentic and free and that's when perfect and imperfect doesn't matter anymore.

You don't need to make things perfect if you are alive and authentic and free.

It's like there are real flavors found in nature and then there's artificial flavors,

Like artificial coloring in a store.

Perfection is an artificial coloring,

It's in concrete,

It's subjective,

You can't really create that flavor.

Something might feel absolutely perfect in one moment and that same thing won't feel perfect the next.

Someone might tell you something and it might be just like the perfect thing in the moment.

Someone else might've said the same thing,

It wouldn't feel the same.

So wanting perfection is a kind of cognitive error of the mind that we can move beyond.

So perfection is something the mind creates,

Not something that exists.

Meditation helps us move beyond that.

Let's get into Buddhist cosmology here because it's super cool.

I wanna introduce you to a Buddhist philosopher of Mahayana Buddhism who lived in India about first century BC,

Between first and second century.

His name is Nagarjuna.

Nagarjuna is one of the most important teachers and he made this point.

When his students would come to him and told them that they're practicing to reach perfection,

They're practicing to reach that perfect enlightenment,

Which is nirvana,

So that they can leave all this like yucky,

Imperfect stuff behind,

So they can leave kind of the imperfect daily existence of samsara.

Samsara is everyday life.

Nagarjuna's reply was shocking.

Nagarjuna answered,

Nothing of samsara is different from nirvana.

Nothing of nirvana is different from samsara.

In Buddhism,

What changes is your mind state.

So what feels incredible and what feels just like the very frustrating routine of everyday life,

The two are not actually different.

All that's different is your perception.

This is at the core of the Buddhist idea of non-duality.

And then 13 centuries later,

I love these connections between East and West across time,

13 centuries later in the play Hamlet,

William Shakespeare makes a similar point.

Nothing is good or bad,

But thinking makes it so.

To me,

It is a prison.

Again,

That is basically Buddhist non-duality.

We could rephrase this as nothing is perfect or imperfect,

But thinking makes it so.

To us,

To all of us,

It is a prison.

Wanting things to be perfect is a prison.

The imperfection in Buddhism is actually a key part of the experience of being alive as human beings.

It's not like imperfection is something we need to get rid of,

Like this extra thing in the way.

Imperfection is the main event.

In Buddhist cosmology,

Out from a place of limitations and working with these limitations,

Like that mud,

That muck,

Suffering,

From there we reach enlightenment or nirvana.

It's like the lotus of enlightenment grows from the mud.

So there's an idea that no mud,

No lotus.

The beautiful lotus only exists because the mud exists.

Another way of looking at this is all polishing is done by friction.

If you have all smooth edges,

You can't polish.

So imagine you're this demigod floating around the sky all the time and you're made of light and you just always feel 100% satisfied.

In that situation,

There's nothing to polish.

There's no rough edges in you or in your surroundings.

We need the rough edges.

We need our surroundings to have the rough edges so that you polish and you get more compassionate.

You become more wise.

You become more spacious.

As a result,

You also become more happy.

As humans,

The good news is that we can do this amazing compassion practice toward what our minds says is imperfect all the time.

We can do this practice all the time because we can do it towards ourselves.

Self-compassion is constant kindness to what your mind says is imperfect in you.

That's releasing yourself from blame,

Being unconditionally on your own side.

And as human beings,

We get the benefit of practicing compassion toward reality itself,

Of connecting to reality as it is,

Even when we think or consider it to be an imperfect reality and even being grateful to reality as it is.

That is so empowering.

So my wish is to you,

May you welcome your own imperfection and the imperfection of those around you and know that imperfection is just a fake concept.

May you be supportive and kind to yourself always and may you enjoy what there is to be enjoyed.

May you put aside any judgment.

I wanna support you in every way that I can.

And thank you so much for listening.

I will see you soon,

Bye.

Reviews

This was so great! I'm going to try and really take everything you said to heart. Thank you so much for creating this! ❤️‍🩹

This is something I will need reminded of often...it is the truth. The mind creates perfection