Modeling Imperfection
Posted on February 16, 2014 by Penelope Rose Miller, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
How to come to terms with our imperfect selves.
Sometimes clients come to coaching with how they want to be perfect in their lives, to not make too many mistakes. You know, to play it safe in that way. We work with this topic often. We look at how the fear of imperfection can create a small and lackluster life. How the fear of failure creates stagnation and self hatred and lack of creativity and enjoyment. I actually love coming to this topic with clients as I have a wealth of experience in this arena in my own life. A mountain of experience. A valley of experience. A deep sea of experience. Cringe worthy experience. Of course I self-manage these experiences when I am in a coaching session with a client, but my own material is never too far from the surface.
I sometimes wonder if my clients think that as a coach I am perfect. Sometimes I feel the need to foster a smoke screen of the happiest most fulfilled and mindful life. Come see me in my cottage and you too can have the same. Oh my what a TRAP that is. I have now started to state in the beginning of my coaching relationship with my clients that I will probably be the first to model imperfection and failure. This takes the pressure off of me to be that perfect specimen of a human being. It also gives them room and permission to do the same. It outs the monster lurking in the corner. The monster that eats up courage and a life worth living.I am not perfect as I make plenty of mistakes and I fuck up daily. You should see the mess I made of things today! The difference is now instead of shaming myself after these experiences I own them and try to take my own counsel. I try to be loving towards my flawed and funny self. It usually sounds like ""Oh You Dearheart. You truly got yourself in a tizzy.. Calm down…Breathe… Touch your hand to your heart as you will not be crushed by your saboteur." Instead now when I see myself in a pickle I try to laugh, and if I cannot muster that I just hold my tender racing heart and create a space for it to be. As long as I can be kind to myself I have had a victory. I see mistakes as an opportunity to cultivate loving kindness towards myself and others.
There is no cosmic eraser, white out, or delete button invented which is big enough to take away all my ugliness. I’d rather be a dynamic mess than a black hole of emptiness. It is no wonder I give all my clients, The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, for their birthdays. It is medicine in this world and teaches how to be messy yet brilliant. As my dear friend as coach says, “That is messy excellence!”
