Perfect In My Imperfection

We all know, intellectually speaking, that no one is perfect. However, for a perfectionist, Type-A personality such as myself, we may “know” it, but honoring it and being “okay” with it is an entirely different story. 😉 In my couple of years in therapy, I have taken a good, hard look at my perfectionism, and how it affects me both on a daily basis, and how it’s affected me during my entire life. Now I have no problem admitting to others that I’m not perfect . . . but boy-oh-boy, do I still beat myself up for it daily!

So when I have a day like today – where my body responds to something with pain (in this case today, a sore knee and mid-back) – you would think I would let myself off the hook! By the middle of the day, my knee was really bugging me and, because I was compensating for it in the way I was walking and standing, the middle of my back hurt, too. And instead of being gentle with myself and promising myself good self-care for the evening and tomorrow, I – almost immediately – began to beat myself up.

You’re so stupid.
What did you do NOW to hurt yourself?
You’ve got to be more careful!
If you were smarter/healthier/better/stronger you wouldn’t have done this.
When are you going to get your act together?
Why can’t you just be like normal people?

I would have waves of this self-abuse, then catch myself and stop . . . only to start up again later! And honestly, even as I was turning on the laptop to start writing this blog, I was still beating myself up.

As my therapist reminds me constantly, awareness is the key to change. I’m highly aware of this, that’s for sure. So, my plan for now is to rest, take a hot shower when I get up in the morning, and take tomorrow off for healing and self-care. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually be nice to myself during that day off. 😉