Hello.
Join me in finding a comfortable seated position.
Feel free to lie down on your back if that feels a little bit better.
Take a few moments to adjust as needed to just find a space that you can sit in for a few minutes.
Maybe start checking in on your breath.
Can you feel that it's there?
Can you notice where it's coming from?
Perhaps your nostrils?
Maybe your chest?
Maybe your tummy?
Maybe you can just hear the sound of your breath.
Start grounding yourself in whatever physical place you're in.
Today I want to work with imperfections,
Specifically physical imperfections.
Today when I was on a work call,
I realized that I was trying to position the camera so as to hide the huge sty that I have on my right eye.
If I just put the camera a little bit to the left where the light was shining,
Maybe it would completely mask the fact that my right eye is just blown up and swollen and help me avoid having to answer questions and feel insecure about my presence.
This is what I do.
Perhaps you can relate to it.
Something doesn't look perfect,
Something doesn't look right,
Something entirely outside of our control.
We have some swelling,
We have some scar,
We have an injury,
We have a birthmark,
We got a bad haircut,
We're wearing bad clothes,
We have a stain,
Whatever it may be,
What do we come to when we run from that,
When we hide that from ourselves?
What are we conditioning ourselves to believe?
One possibility is that we're not supposed to have imperfections like that.
We're not supposed to show ourselves in vulnerable states.
We're not supposed to reveal the natural ebbs of life.
We're not supposed to show that something isn't right.
All this does is condition other people on the call,
Other people in our presence to do the same when something imperfect shows up for them.
Well,
I've never seen something imperfect in the middle of a call,
So now I need to hide it as well.
Now I need to turn off my video.
Now I need to silence my audio.
I need to stay in for the night rather than going out and meeting up with people.
I wonder what would happen if we challenged this collectively,
Starting with ourselves of course.
What if we wore our perfections like they were the clothes,
Like they were there and they were welcome to be there?
What kind of message would that send to our colleagues?
What kind of message would that send to our friends,
To strangers?
What kind of message would that send to ourselves?
What happens when you experience the imperfection?
Can you even know that it's there when you're not looking in a mirror?
Does it hurt?
Perhaps of course it may hurt.
And for all those people who are experiencing imperfections that physically cause you pain,
I urge you to do the same thing that I urge those of you who feel like they have imperfections that do not cause pain.
Go deeply into that experience.
Explore that experience.
And more importantly,
Explore what does hiding do to impact this experience?
From my vantage point,
It just makes us more obsessed with imperfections,
More obsessed with our own and other physical looks and other appearances,
The way other stories appear to be.
I'm not sure that gets us any closer to the wisdom we're inevitably after or to the well-being we're after.
It's rather just a series of detours and barriers to that end.
So to whatever extent this concept resonates,
Let's sit in that.
Let's sit inside our imperfections like we're in a jar and there's no way out.
We just put the cap on the jar and sit inside of it.
This is how we are right now.
This is how we look.
This is how we feel.
There's a certain suchness to it.
Feel the breath as you go into it.
Does the breath stop?
Does the breath waver?
Does your awareness of it stop or waver?
This is where there's peace.
This is where there's freedom.
This is where there's compassion.
And most importantly,
This is where there's love.
Thank you for joining me and have a great rest of your day.
