It's Ok To Feel Like You're A Mess
A large part of why I personally have been able to accomplish some of the things I have in my life and why I have been able to grow and consciously change directions is because I accept that I am an imperfect human. That is actually a redundant statement. Allow me to explain.
For most of my life I was conditioned to be an aspiring perfectionist. This is not too uncommon, many of us have this infliction. Too often we fail to realize this about ourselves and understand the serious drawbacks this has on us.
Mistakes and failures are a part of life. As is pain, hurt and loss. Bad things happen to us, bad things happen through us. Live life long enough and you are going to experience some serious life hurt and pain, and you will cause your fair share of it as well. This doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you human.
What I've learned over the years is that we all do the best we can with what we know. And we all know different things on different scales. There are those of us that continually seek to know more and those that don't. This is a choice. Far too many do not realize this about themselves and that is unfortunate because we are all capable of learning, growing, and improving. As I previously mentioned I was in fact conditioned to be a perfectionist for most of my life. This mindset stopped me dead in my tracks from trying or exploring anything I even thought I would fail at or not be naturally good at. This resulted in a seriously limited life with basically few challenges. This limited my growth potential. Somewhere along the journey I realized that I can go the other way if I just accepted that I could in fact I could get better at anything I choose if I just accept that I will suck at it in the beginning. This became easy for me to do once I realized that this was the case for just about everyone who is actually good at what they do. This included my perception of self and my emotional self.
We live in an incredibly prosperous time but the pitfalls of what makes these prosperous times comes with hazards. The veneer of the realities we all subjectively create are dangerously littered with people everywhere telling us how we are supposed to be. And it is all the same in that we should be more positive, happy, optimistic, healthy, etc. There are unsolicited opinions and advice given on how to be this and that, and I confess that I do believe in these things as well, but I know that in order to become all these great things we have to not only acknowledge but embrace the suck. This means letting ourselves feel pain. Letting ourselves feel hurt. Letting ourselves not only know we are imperfect but that it's ok to be imperfect because that is the only way to improve. An old friend used to always tell me we have to take the bitter wth the sweet.
I personally have been grieving off and on for a variety of reasons for almost six years now. I've had a challenging run of life events. I got divorced, had to put my dog to sleep, and my mom got dementia (which is an ongoing challenge) all in succession without a break. Through out this period I've accomplished a great many good things. I've written my first book, I've made significant personal and emotional changes, all while continuously working to become the best version of the man I can be. I've struggled with things from time to time emotionally only to have many people I confide in tell me I need to do this or that to feel this in attempts to stop me from feeling my pain. But what I've realized is I needed to do the opposite to effectively manage my pain. I had to step into it.
I've made mistakes along the way, big ones in fact. The difference is that in the past I would berate myself to no avail while accomplishing nothing while now I just accept I made a mistake and try to learn from it. I let myself experience the pains of life without judging myself for feeling these things. By doing so I release myself from their hold.
There are going to be good days and challenging days (notice the play on words....that's an important habit) in life. We can't have control over many events we face but we can work to manage them as best we can and sometimes managing them means we can let ourselves feel like we are a mess. It's only normal, and temporary.
For most of my life I was conditioned to be an aspiring perfectionist. This is not too uncommon, many of us have this infliction. Too often we fail to realize this about ourselves and understand the serious drawbacks this has on us.
Mistakes and failures are a part of life. As is pain, hurt and loss. Bad things happen to us, bad things happen through us. Live life long enough and you are going to experience some serious life hurt and pain, and you will cause your fair share of it as well. This doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you human.
What I've learned over the years is that we all do the best we can with what we know. And we all know different things on different scales. There are those of us that continually seek to know more and those that don't. This is a choice. Far too many do not realize this about themselves and that is unfortunate because we are all capable of learning, growing, and improving. As I previously mentioned I was in fact conditioned to be a perfectionist for most of my life. This mindset stopped me dead in my tracks from trying or exploring anything I even thought I would fail at or not be naturally good at. This resulted in a seriously limited life with basically few challenges. This limited my growth potential. Somewhere along the journey I realized that I can go the other way if I just accepted that I could in fact I could get better at anything I choose if I just accept that I will suck at it in the beginning. This became easy for me to do once I realized that this was the case for just about everyone who is actually good at what they do. This included my perception of self and my emotional self.
We live in an incredibly prosperous time but the pitfalls of what makes these prosperous times comes with hazards. The veneer of the realities we all subjectively create are dangerously littered with people everywhere telling us how we are supposed to be. And it is all the same in that we should be more positive, happy, optimistic, healthy, etc. There are unsolicited opinions and advice given on how to be this and that, and I confess that I do believe in these things as well, but I know that in order to become all these great things we have to not only acknowledge but embrace the suck. This means letting ourselves feel pain. Letting ourselves feel hurt. Letting ourselves not only know we are imperfect but that it's ok to be imperfect because that is the only way to improve. An old friend used to always tell me we have to take the bitter wth the sweet.
I personally have been grieving off and on for a variety of reasons for almost six years now. I've had a challenging run of life events. I got divorced, had to put my dog to sleep, and my mom got dementia (which is an ongoing challenge) all in succession without a break. Through out this period I've accomplished a great many good things. I've written my first book, I've made significant personal and emotional changes, all while continuously working to become the best version of the man I can be. I've struggled with things from time to time emotionally only to have many people I confide in tell me I need to do this or that to feel this in attempts to stop me from feeling my pain. But what I've realized is I needed to do the opposite to effectively manage my pain. I had to step into it.
I've made mistakes along the way, big ones in fact. The difference is that in the past I would berate myself to no avail while accomplishing nothing while now I just accept I made a mistake and try to learn from it. I let myself experience the pains of life without judging myself for feeling these things. By doing so I release myself from their hold.
There are going to be good days and challenging days (notice the play on words....that's an important habit) in life. We can't have control over many events we face but we can work to manage them as best we can and sometimes managing them means we can let ourselves feel like we are a mess. It's only normal, and temporary.
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