Imperfection and Forgiveness

I beat myself up pretty bad over the poor eating choices I made this past weekend. Then my friend Sally came to me yesterday and told me to knock it off (she was nicer than that, of course). She said she saw "fear" in my post the other day. Fear of what? Fear of failure? Fear of success? Fear of not being perfect? Fear of self-sabatoge? Probably all of those things and more. Sometimes we need to stop beating ourselves up for not being perfect. Sometimes we need a kick in the pants from people who care about us. Thanks Sally! Every few nights before bed I read a passage from The Women's Book of Soul - Meditations for Courage, Confidence and Spirit by Sue Patton Theole (picked it up at Barnes & Noble on the bargain book rack).  Some of the passages are pretty intense, so I can't do one every single night -- I usually can deal with two or three a week.  So it was unusual for me to read a passage on both Sunday and Monday nights. Sunday night the passage was about not judging others or myself based on the perfectionist standards I've unrealistically set in my own mind. I came to realize that just because I wasn't 100% perfect this past weekend with my eating plan... I DID do some things right and I wasn't a complete failure. I made some poor choices, but I also made some good choices too. I'm human. I'm not perfect. I need to stop judging myself so harshly because I expect perfection from myself. Monday night the passage was about forgiveness. Being able to recognize that I'm human and humans make mistakes. And by forgiving myself I'm setting my soul free to live without the burden being perfect. The author reminds us of a quote by Mark Twain: "Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the hand that has crushed it." Forgive yourself. At last night's support group meeting I talked about my struggles over the weekend with emotional eating and bad habits. Just saying it out loud helps, I think. Knowing I'm not the only one who struggles, helps too. So today I started the day with less burden and I'm going to try very hard to erase some of the perfectionist expectations I've placed upon myself. ~Pam