Practice Makes Perfect...Really?

There is a perfection theme going on this morning as I sit to write. I have started a few other posts, but I move on to a new page and begin again. This is the third one. The first is called "Nice Is A Four Letter Word" and the second was "Actions Speak Louder Than Words." Now, the third and what will be the post for today is "Practice Makes Perfect...Really?

I am wrestling with perfection at the moment and I am observing so as not to judge myself, and others, and the world from this place of "not perfect." This issue of perfection is coming up as I create a website for my coaching practice. If you have ever created a website, you know how much energy, creativity, skill, and 3000 other adjectives I could use to describe the experience. Now, replace website with "I am working on a book, a marriage, a career, a new recipe or a piece of art" and watch the issue of perfection rise up because my hunch it is has before and it will again. Or maybe you are wrestling with it right now. I am aware that there has been freedom from the tyranny of perfection for a long time now, but it was a place I spent many, many years and it is an all too familiar experience as I sit with it this morning. Because that is what the experience feels like, I am literally sitting next to something that feels solid, has weight and mass, and is masquerading as something real and separate from me. The illusion of perfection, the idea that it is something out there, to be pursued, chased, "practiced after" is very seductive and alluring. It can also literally stop me in my tracks and keep what wants to be expressed from pouring out. In the belief that there is a perfect way to write the website, the way the website will be written is stopped, true creativity and freedom is blocked. There is now much more wisdom in not getting trapped by the illusion of perfection, okay, not getting trapped for very LONG. Because, now it is what is waiting behind the block that I am curious about and not the block itself. The block is the red herring. More and more when I work with clients and observe myself, I realize that we miss so much because of the illusion. We are looking over our left shoulder when all of the action is happening over on the right. I am being guided to go back inside and see/feel/sense the creative energy that has been stopped in its tracks. For instance, there would be those days of getting ready for work and going through the 3 to 5 outfit mornings and knowing all the while that it didn't really have anything to do with the clothes, but something inside. Now, I go inside...so that is what I am working through in this post...why perfection, why now, why about the website? What am I afraid to have seen? My hunch is that as I continue to create a website that feels right to me, it may be too weird, or unique or different for others to understand, not mainstream enough. Well, I have been aware that I am a bit of a hybrid, we all are, human and spirit and that is what wants to be expressed. But I create that on the website and then I pull it down... So the waiting to finish begins, not the waiting to start, the waiting to finish. And then the "weight" comes in the waiting. Yes, that solid mass masquerading as something real and separate comes...the proverbial ball and chain. I am reminded of Martha Beck writing about the dungeon in Steering by Starlight...it is hard to create a website from the dungeon! When I started creating the website, my essential self was creating and writing and sharing and then the social self showed up and I stopped. I lost my way...I literally gave away the vision for the website to countless strangers to decide and well, that's crazy because I can't possibly know what they want...only what I want to offer today. I can feel the energy shifting. The image of a tumor comes to mind and the radiation focused laser-like to shrink the mass, the block to this creativity. That is exactly what this feels like and the radiation is the freedom to create whatever wants to be created and put it out there. Just like this post...there will not be super editing and scrutiny...I will practice with writing and posting and releasing and see what comes from the freedom to write, the freedom to express, the freedom to radiate this light on the masses.