00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 116, "The Peace of Imperfection." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Hey, hey, hey, how are you, my friend? Glad to have you here. I am glad to be here. I absolutely adore doing this podcast. I will say that there are weeks that it takes me awhile to build up to doing it because it does take a lot of work and my primitive brain is always like, "oh, that's a lot of work. Let's just wait and do it later." So sometimes I do that. But other times I don't. But even on the weeks where I'm like, "okay, I need to get this done. I really want to get this done," and I keep putting it off. Once I get started, I'm always just amazed at how much I love it and how engaged I get. I've been doing this for a little over a year and a half now and it's amazing to me how much easier it is for me to get into what they call "the flow," right? Like, where I get in this space where it's just coming and I'm getting it and the pieces are fitting together. I love that space. 

01:22 

I think for all of us, when we do things more and more, we can get into this space where it just feels so intuitive for us and that's sometimes how I'm starting to feel more and more as I create this podcast for you. I just feel like it becomes very intuitive and I feel like there are times that the Spirit of God really directs me in what to say and in the perspective to take. I know the podcast I did last week on "Better Questions Create Better Answers," there was a point in there where I really felt directed by God in the insight that I was gaining and I was able to share with you and I'm so grateful for those experiences. I know for a lot of people this pandemic has been a trial of faith and I will say for me it has increased my faith. We're not going to church but I feel like my spirituality has increased through some of the things that I've chosen to do and what I've chosen to engage in. I will say that this podcast is a piece of that. 

02:26 

There is a lot of guidance from God that I receive in this and I'm grateful for that. I am in no way saying that I am a prophetess and that this is doctrine, but I do pray every time that this is a piece of guidance to help other people to find more mental and emotional health, and in that that they can find more spiritual guidance and direction and solitude as well. And I hope that that's what it is for you. I hope that if you're brand new, I hope that that's what you find here and that you find things to help make your life better. That's why I do this. I love it so much. I love doing it, and like I say, sometimes I'm human. It is hard to get myself to sit down and start doing the work. It's just like reading scriptures. I love to read the scriptures, but boy, sometimes the process of actually sitting down and opening them up is just excruciatingly painful for whatever reason, but once I'm there, I'm like, "wow, I love this. This is great." And that's kind of how I feel with this sometimes, right? Sometimes doing the best things in our lives, our primitive brain just wants to take it easy all the time, and creating these is not always easy. Sometimes it requires a lot of thinking and a lot of processing and a lot of time, but I'm really grateful to share that with you. So that was kind of a long intro, but I just felt I wanted to share some of that with you. 

03:58 

Okay, so today we are talking about the peace of imperfection. Now, as someone who has struggled with aspects of perfection throughout my life, which I think many of us do at some level, I'm really seeking to be more aware of what I'm doing with that in my life and what I'm creating with that. So I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that I have learned that are helping me to manage my perfectionist thoughts a little bit better, and helping me to catch on when I'm going there, and so I can go "whoa, whoa, whoa. No, that's not the direction I wanna go. That's not helpful for me." So hoping to share some of that with you. 

04:40 

I think that probably this idea that we have to be perfect or we should be perfect probably wreaks more havoc in our lives than almost anything else. It can throw us into a downward spiral so quickly, and it doesn't leave us room for growth, because we're just too busy beating ourselves up when we're expecting perfection. So today we're going to talk about how  this perfectionism steals our peace. We're going to talk about different kinds of perfectionism and then we're going to take a look at the thoughts that create perfectionism and the thoughts that can combat perfectionism. And eventually when we think these thoughts we can find that peaceful place that we're talking about. 

05:23 

So being perfect means "to be without fault or defect," in essence to be flawless. The first thought that comes to my mind when I read that definition is that the whole plan of salvation is built around the fact that we are full of flaws. We were meant to come to earth to discover our weaknesses and to discover Christ in His Atonement. The whole Plan centers around us overcoming our flaws and our weaknesses through Christ, learning to rely on Christ for our salvation, and we would never learn to rely on Christ if we were perfect. God sent us to earth as humans to learn to rely on Christ through our imperfections. So as we learn to turn to Christ in our imperfections, we can truly find peace, and I think that is so beautiful. The more that I acknowledge and embrace Christ's role in my life, the more peace I can find in my imperfection. 

06:25 

So let's chat for a bit about how perfectionist ideas break down our ability to find peace in our lives, and let's start off by taking a look at our relationships. When we are in a place of always seeking perfection, we tend to get very judge-y. We become critical, and we don't just get critical of ourselves, but we also get very critical of others because we're not allowing either of us the space to be humans. So I follow a page on Facebook that has something to do with equitable marriages, and it fascinates me. It's a page just for women, and reading the comments always intrigues me because there is so much judgment and criticism of the spouses going on. So either their spouse is not doing enough, or their spouse is not doing it right. And I think a huge part of the discontent is coming from a place where so many of these women are expecting these perfect marriages. They're expecting their spouse to behave perfectly, and there is no peace in this expectation. There is only contention and dissatisfaction. I'm definitely not saying that many of these women don't share some valid points about more equity in marriage. I tend to be a bit of a feminist myself, so I see it all. But I'm also seeing that so much of the anger and frustration comes from their expectations that their spouse should be less human than he is and be more perfect, that our relationship should be perfect, that there should be no flaws, then we will become hypercritical of either our spouse or us, or more than likely both of us. 

08:07 

When we take a minute to remember that we're all humans, that this is supposed to be a big messy experience, then we can embrace it for what it is and move into a healthier place of peace. Life is supposed to be messy. Relationships are supposed to be messy. They're not supposed to be perfect and clean and all organized. When we expect perfection of ourselves or of others, we have a really tough time loving unconditionally or having that clean love that we've talked about. No one ever measures up because, well, nobody is perfect. And when we get critical, we have a tendency to speak unkindly. So we'll be unkind to ourselves and others when we're critical and expecting perfection. 

08:56 

We may also find that we start to slip into people pleasing. We will want people to think we are perfect or better-than, right? We will want them to think that we are something we are not. So we will go out of our way to create for them an experience with us that is false. When we start acting so that other people will like us, then we end up hating ourselves. We try to create this perfect relationship by people pleasing and it completely alienates the relationship with ourself. There is no peace in not being true to ourselves, in working to people please others. 

09:41 

Having perfectionist ideas also creates a lot of problems just within ourselves. First of all, let's look at some of the outside problems. For years I didn't think I had an issue with perfectionism because I didn't need things to be perfect outside of me. I was only looking at the outside perfection, right? The "Pinterest perfection," I like to call it. I didn't need my kids to always be dressed perfectly. In fact, they all started doing their laundry at about 8 to 10 years old. So you know that I had to give up that "perfectly clothed" ideal child fairly early on in their lives. I was never super picky about my house being just right. I could go to bed with a messy kitchen and the dusting just still never seems to get done. So I never thought I was a perfectionist, but some of us really struggle with these outside ideas of perfection. We're hypersensitive to our outside world and it can be because we are aware of how others perceive us, what we look like to other people. We create these expectations of how we want other people to see us. Or maybe it's just how we really like things. But it's definitely worth looking at if we find ourselves moving into this place of perfection. What are our reasons for that? What is our reason behind doing what we are doing? Either way, it's not helpful to us if we're feeling like we need to be hitting this space of perfection. 

11:10 

So the flip side of this, kind of the outside perfectionism, the one that I struggle with more, are the inside expectations of myself. And this is where we expect that we do all the things right. Whatever that means, right? It's so subjective. But there's this idea that we make no mistakes, that we should never sin, that we should have no flaws. This has been my special area of expertise for most of my life. I thought that I should always make the right decision, and I thought I usually did. So when somebody would call me out, I would get very defensive because I was sure that I was doing it right. Okay, that's funny, right? Except that it wasn't funny. Not being able to see your flaws in a marriage is the kiss of death. Not being able to see your flaws in any relationship is the kiss of death. And what about not being able to see my flaws in my relationship with myself? Still another kiss of death. And the pressure, oh there's so much pressure, right, from all these these perfectionist ideas. All the shoulds. I "should" always serve other people. I "should" always parent just right. I "should" be kind and never say anything thoughtless. I "should" be happy and positive. I "should" always be in control of my emotions. I "should" never take up too much space. It's all so unrealistic and unobtainable. So we either think we should be perfect and we know that we're not and we beat ourselves up for that. Or we think we should be perfect, and we think we are and we alienate the people we love because of our narcissistic style behaviors that drive people away. 

13:06 

So perfectionism can come from the outside or the inside or most likely a combination. A lot of us struggle with both. But learning to be pushing this perfectionist agenda in our lives are the first few huge steps to letting go of the pressure and the unrealistic expectations. Because until we gain awareness and see it, we can't do anything about it. We aren't even aware that it exists. So one of the ways that we can start to gain this awareness is to start listening to our mind chatter. What are we thinking? The word "should" is always a dead giveaway, or anything like "should," right? It's a dead giveaway that we might have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others. Have you ever realized that the word "should" is the first part of the word "shoulders?" So when I start shoulding myself, I imagine laying this big heavy weighted blanket of expectations on my shoulders. It slows me down. It weighs me down. It makes me want to sit down and not do anything. And when we have all these shoulds on our shoulders, we can start berating ourselves, being unkind and judgmental. And there is no peace in this type of self-chastisement. In fact, the more we rebuke ourselves for not being perfect for our shoulds, the more we shut down. 

14:48 

And all of this applies to how we see others as well. We seem to have a huge list of shoulds. for so many of the people in our lives. In my coaching industry, we call this a manual for other people. We all have a manual of shoulds for the people we interact with. They "should" be on time. They "should" offer to help. They "should" know what I need. They "should" step up and carry more of the weight. They "should" give me a break sometimes. They "should" stop asking me to do things. So all of these should thoughts, okay, they've got to go. "Should" is a word that could be dropped from the English language and we would all be better off. "Should" only serves to create unrealistic pressure and create guilt or shame. So if you're interested in learning more about "should," go back and check out podcast number 55 called "Don't Should Yourself" if you feel you want a little bit more understanding on this one. 

15:44 

Okay, so what do we do? How do we combat these expectations of perfectionism? So let's start with a pretty foundational one: our understanding of perfection. The more we really start to understand that perfection is just not something for this life, the easier it gets to let go of it. God sent us here to earth to have a human experience. And as mentioned earlier, a big huge part of the plan of salvation is that our spirits come to earth to get a body and learn and grow through experience. If we were perfect, there would be no need to spend time here on earth. We wouldn't need the growth. And God sent us here to be in an imperfect body. Our body is not perfect. Is it amazing? Darn right. What a miracle it is. But it is not perfect. It is subject to disease and pain and death. It gets blemishes and it retains scars, bones break, organs shut down, skin gets old and saggy, it is not perfect. It was not created to be perfect. 

17:00 

Or we could say that since God created it, that it is perfect in its imperfection. And God also sent us here to an imperfect world. Though this earth as well is magnificent and glorious, it is not perfect. Everything eventually dies or erodes or decays. And people are not perfect. The systems and governments that people create are not perfect because we as humans are not perfect. We have strengths and we all also have weaknesses. We have a brain that thinks helpful things and that also thinks some very unhelpful things. Like "we should be perfect," right? Like it thinks that. We have ideas that are great and we have ideas that hurt people. And we're sent down here to earth to interact with other people who are not perfect. We were raised by human parents who were full of flaws. Right? Our parents were not perfect. Our siblings were not perfect. Neither were our neighbors, or our friends, or our teachers. Nothing on this earth is perfect. This is a world that is currently in a telestial state, not perfect. There is nothing in our lives that God expects to be perfect. 

18:15 

So, if He sends us here to an imperfect world, with imperfect people, and imperfect societies and family units, and imperfect bodies, what does He expect from us? Not perfection. What He expects from us is for us to have a human experience, for us to mess up pretty much everything at one point or another. But this is the whole point. There is no growth in perfection because there is nowhere to go. If we were perfect, there would be no need for a Savior to provide an atonement. We would not learn to rely on God for salvation. We would not learn to turn to Him for comfort and guidance and peace. We were not created to be perfect on this earth. Part of this is also understanding what imperfection looks like. It is messy. Because no one is perfect, no relationship will be perfect either. Relationships with people we love dearly will be messy. Relationships with ourselves will be messy. Sometimes our relationship with God will be messy. 

19:28 

But it's in the messy that we grow and progress and increase our intimacy with others and with ourselves and with God. A huge part of our work here on earth is learning to be merciful to the imperfect. It's a place of peace to accept our own imperfection, to give ourselves space to make mistakes and not beat ourselves up. And when we can extend that mercy to others around us as well, dropping our expectations that they'd be perfect as well, our peace multiplies. So much of our discontent in life comes because we are expecting other people to always do it "right" or say it "right." And when they don't, we get all bent out of shape like they're doing something so wrong. We get upset and offended and start talking to other people who we feel will validate our thoughts and feelings of how wronged we were. And all of that is coming from a place of judgment of other people because they were not perfect. They're not doing it right and they should. And there's that word again, right? "Should." They "should" be kinder. They "should" know that that would hurt my feelings. They "should" apologize. 

20:43 

What if we interacted with other people expecting them to be humans and to mess it up about half the time? What if we expected us to mess it up about half the time? What if we just expected that about half the time, what we did would be great, and the other half would provide us with some really great learning experiences? Think of how much pressure and stress we could let go of if we dropped our expectation of perfect and embraced the expectation of 50-50. If we embraced our humanity and the humanity of everyone around us, just imagine how much drama would drop out of our lives if we allowed space for lots of imperfection, at least 50% imperfection. When we can really embrace this concept, it can become easier for us to settle into imperfect and find peace in our imperfection. 

21:44 

Now, this doesn't mean that we don't still strive to become better people. That's why we have the Atonement of Christ, right? We still are striving to become better people, but we're realizing that it's a process. And I really believe that this is a huge part of what we're here on earth to do, accept and love ourselves and others because of our imperfections, rather than in spite of our imperfections. What if we learn to embrace imperfection as beautiful and amazing? What if we saw the incredible opportunities for personal growth and relationship growth in all of the humanity, rather than getting bent out of shape by all of these opportunities? Life, as many of us know it, would be completely different. When we expect perfection of ourselves, it's easier to move into a space of beating ourselves up or being judge-y with ourselves and never being able to settle into a place of peace. And when we expect perfection of others, we get all judge-y with them as well, and we blame them and we move into victory and we are always unsettled. The frustration and judgment overtake all of our senses and blind us to the reality that people are humans and the vast majority of humans are trying really hard to be good at it. 

23:10 

So let's work on dropping the shoulds for ourselves and for others. Let's focus on embracing humanity. The best way to do that is to start focusing on the thoughts going on in our heads. So I'm just going to give you some really great thoughts to start practicing with. ]It's not all inclusive. There are millions of thoughts we can think, but here's about, I don't know, 10 or so. Okay, "it must be really a really difficult situation for her." "I'm sure he's doing the best he possibly can." "I'll figure it out." "I'm sure he can use some support right now." "I made the best decision I knew how at the time." "What can I learn from this?" "What's the best way to move forward from here?" "I'm in such a better place than I was a year ago." "What can I  do to support her?" OK, millions more, but hopefully you're getting the idea. 

24:11 

And one last thought to finish up today. This one comes from the scriptures. We are taught to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. We do that through accessing the Atonement of Christ when we have fallen short. It doesn't say to be perfect and then come unto Christ. It says to come unto Christ and then become perfected. All things in order, my friends. Let's learn to accept and embrace our humanity, our faults, and our imperfections as part of our life experience given to us by a loving Father in Heaven. These imperfections will help us to grow and learn and progress into someone worthy to be in His presence again someday. Knowing it's all part of the plan, that it's His purpose for us, and our progress allows us to embrace the peace that is available in embracing our imperfection. There truly can be peace in our imperfection and we can have it. I love growing up. This middle-aged gig, one of the best gigs in town. 

25:31 

OK, my friends, if you struggle with unrealistic expectations of perfectionism, let's chat. This is what I do. My job as a life coach is to help you invest in your life and create what you want. 

25:49 

And if part of that is learning to let go of perfection, to let go of these ideas for yourself and for others, let's chat. I can help you see what's going on in your brain. I can help you figure out how to move forward and how to truly find peace and imperfection. It is available to every one of us. Promise you that. Okay, so you can contact me on my website tanyahale.com. There is a place there, a "contact me" button where you can either send me an email or you can just go straight to my calendar and sign up for a free 30 minute consult. I love doing those so much. 

26:30 

So those of you who have called and done that, oh, you're rock stars. I just think it's amazing and not everybody who has called for that consult has chosen to work with me, which is totally fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I know that this is not for everybody and not everybody's ready to make the investment, but I still love doing this for you. I still love doing these free consults. So don't feel like you're taking advantage of me or whatever else, right? Because I love doing them. 

27:00 

Okay, if you love this podcast, please subscribe. Please share it with your friends. This is how it grows. This is how we help people move into this healthier space of mental and emotional health. This is how we do it, by sharing this. And this is all free information. It's so good. And I just want everybody to hear it and to know about it and to grow into a better place. Okay, and leave me a review. If you haven't yet and you love this, go into iTunes. I think you can, even if you don't have a Mac product, I think you can still go into iTunes and leave a review. I have not tried to do it because I've got all Mac products, but give it a shot and see because I would love that. I would love to get some feedback. If you have anything that you would love for me to explore in a podcast, go to my website as well. Go on that "contact me," leave me an email and say, "hey, what about this? Can you do a podcast on this?" I would love some ideas. I have loads of them, but if there's something you would like to hear about, let me know, and I'll get it on there. We'll create something just for you. 

28:07 

Okay, I hope my friends that life is treating you well and that you are treating life well, right? That with all these challenging circumstances that come up, I hope that you are learning to manage your mind and be in a healthier mental and emotional space with all of that. Have a fabulous great week and I will talk to you next week. Bye. 

28:31 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.