I tried too hard. I grew up with an ideal in my mind about what it meant to not only have the perfect things in life, but also how I could attain perfection as a person, through my actions. I wanted the perfect life – a husband, kids, a dream home, financial security. Really, the perfection that many want is based on their perceptions in the physical world. Our spirituality is forgotten, ignored, and overlooked.
My words and my actions created a persona of the devoted wife and selfless mother. Managing everyone’s lives around me, making their lives “perfect” so they wouldn’t have to suffer or want for anything. All the while, I neglected myself, my own deep wants and desires, my passions. My soul was starving; I was unhappy without realizing why.
Then I woke up. My father died, which changed everything for me. I realized that I needed to make changes and my only escape, was to leave the life I had known for many years.
It was difficult and I struggled for a long time about the fact that I was no longer perfect, my life wasn’t perfect, and I had turned the lives of my family into utter imperfection. I broke everything.
Slowly, over time, I came to understand that those things that I thought were perfect, were just illusions. They were things in the physical world that I thought would give my life meaning and fill the emptiness that I felt inside of me. I realized the physical had become too important and I needed to heal my soul by filling that emptiness with something more significant.
It has been a journey of reflection and growth; facing my fears head-on. Eventually leading to an awakening and discovering a very deep part of me that needed a lot more than physical comfort. I needed to accept and love myself. And with acceptance and love, came rebirth, as well as the discovery of a deep connection to something larger than myself.
Perfection is overrated, so goes the saying. And it is 100% true. If you live your life constantly striving for perfection, you neglect your soul, which is crying out for something far deeper – love and connection. Connection to others, yourself, and the energy surrounding us; we are all one and interwoven together on so many levels. Believing that we are only physical bodies and ignoring the light, god, divine – however you want to refer to a higher power – can lead to feelings of isolation, sadness, and fear.
I firmly believe that connecting to those things we cannot see, those spiritual aspects of existence, will help us evolve into empathic and loving change-makers. When we evolve, we spread our light and help others around us wake up to the fact that striving for perfection in the physical world is pointless. We must accept ourselves as we are and strive for balance of our spiritual selves. By feeding the soul, we feed the world.
Do you struggle with being “perfect”? Do you feel deep emptiness despite leading a so-called perfect life?