BECOMING You.

September 28th, 2020

As a perfectionist, I have always had the tendency to feel like “If I am not first, I am last”, meaning if I didn’t figure out how to do everything perfect, and by the book then I was doing it wrong and would sink into a “why even try” mentality which is a very complacent, toxic state of mind to be in. Perfectionism is a Very real evil in all of our lives that sometimes we don’t even realize how prevalent it is. Take social media as an example… It’s the host of all hosts for the “highlight reel” of everyone’s lives… The perfect moments… The unrealistic realities that we put up there to show the good sides of everything in our lives without the bad. That is just one small example of how we have chosen to show up in this world… but truth is, we are being taught through all sorts of things that those perfect, polished, highlighted, ‘without flaw’ moments are the ones that we should be talking about. A lot of people, including myself, don’t even feel completely comfortable posting a single photo without a filter… and not that it would Ever be right or acceptable to place any shame on someone who prefers to use filters than not, but we have CREATED and ENABLED a society where showing up as You, flaws and all isn’t necessarily normal. It’s becoming much more normal to show up as the modified, “perfect”, filtered, “bettered” version of you.

If you struggle with the thought that Perfection is the way you should be showing up in your life and in other people’s lives over your Authentic Self, remember that the people standing around your grave will not be there because of how well you did everything in the time you were alive, or how good you always looked in photos, or anything else materialistic or monetary… The people who are going to be there are going to be the people whose life you influenced and deeply impacted by SHOWING UP as your authentic self and expecting/allowing the same of them. Never expecting them to be anyone but them and welcoming them into your life flaws and all. THAT is when we as people make progress in this life is when we are able to have a deep enough connection to someone to expose our darkness, flaws, and shortcomings. We are not perfect! Therefore we aren’t all good at everything and have completely different life experiences than other people… And other people are likely to have a fresh perspective, deeper understanding, and more experience in things that we may not be making progress on in our own lives. You will never reach this venerable side of people if the spoken but unspoken culture of who you show up as is “Look at the perfect 10% of my life that I want you to see… this is Me.” It’s not and we are accepting this unrealistic way of living as normal! 

We. Are. ALL. Different…. and the gross thing about the world nowadays is that we have somehow chosen what is “perfect” (which never sticks as time goes on) and thrown it out there in various ways and a lot of us have decided that instead of seeing why we are who we are is different than why they are who they are, and that we were created differently on purpose, decide to doubt ourselves and chose to be insecure because we are different than what the world is telling us is “Perfect”. We allow ourselves to feel less than because someone decided they like “That” better.

Perfect. Doesn’t. Exist.

So stop trying. Instead, take all that energy you are endlessly pouring into being someone the world is telling you you Should be, and put that into Being You. How amazing would the world be if everyone harnessed the exact person God created each of us, individually, to be… and just strived to be more of That person every day? We would love in a whole different world. 

There are times in life where you realize that God is a little more closely involved than you feel like He is and his hands are at work in your life. I feel like people and experiences, situations, conversations can give you the feeling that you are Exactly where you are supposed to be, at the exact moment you were supposed to be there. This mornings conversations and experiences dove me hard into these thoughts and reminders, and I hope that in my life, I can learn to Show Up as unapologetically, authentically, recklessly myself… and that the people in my life can also take off that costume and relax in their own skin around someone who wants nothing from them but the real them. 

Maybe the moral of this novel is… Don’t only be yourself and no one else, but be yourself So Hard that people who aren’t being authentic won’t be comfortable being anyone else but who They are, around you also. Lead by example…

So to honor this mornings thoughts, I decided to take an unfiltered photo of myself that I naturally just don’t like…

No makeup, redness, uneven skin tone, acne scarring, wet hair, eyebrows not filled in, no filters… ALL the things I wouldn’t want everyone to see because at some point in my life I believed a lie that I had to Be someone, and Show Up as someone I am not…. Covered, concealed, patched, filled in, dressed up, perfected… 

There is resemblance, yes…

But one picture was taken out of complete comfort because I was conforming to what people in this “striving for perfection” world, appreciate, and one was made in a moment of complete discomfort, but real, raw, and felt natural to take and post after writing this.

Let’s get comfortable with being uncomfortable… To the point where it’s comfortable again to Just. Be. Us. What a beautiful life we could have if we just stopped doing things to impress people we don’t care about or even like… and started working harder on our hearts, our minds, our character, how we treat people, our leadership in people’s lives… All the things that Actually matter.

Be you. It’s the only person Only You can be. There’s something so beautiful about that.