The Language of Letting Go: April 14th

Perfectionism

Recovery from codependency is an individual process that necessitates making mistakes, struggling through problems, and facing tough issues.

Expecting ourselves to be perfect slows this process; it puts us in a guilty and anxious state. Expecting others to be perfect is equally destructive; it makes others feel ashamed and may interfere with their growth.

People are human and vulnerable, and that is wonderful. We can accept and cherish that idea. Expecting others to be perfect puts us in that codependent state of moral superiority. Expecting ourselves to be perfect makes us feel rigid and inferior.

We can let go of both ideas.

We do not need to go to the other extreme; tolerating anything people throw our way. We can still expect appropriate, responsible behavior from ourselves. But most of us can afford to loosen up a bit. And when we stop expecting others to be perfect, we may discover that they're doing much better than we thought. When we stop expecting ourselves to be perfect, we'll discover the beauty in ourselves.

Today, I will practice tolerance, acceptance, and love of others as they are, and myself as I am. I will strive for that balance between expecting too much and expecting too little from others and myself. 

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

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Perfection: What a Crock (Blog Published Wednesday, March 23, 2011 12:47 PM)

The maxim, “Nothing but Perfection” may be spelled Paralysis.

Winston Churchill

If I have to do everything Perfectly, why bother even trying? I can’t be perfect, no matter how much I’d like to be or how hard I try. 

If I strive for utter perfection in my life, I wind up paralyzing myself.

What I do strive for is doing the best I possibly can.

Nowadays in Maintenance, I am not perfect either. What I am, though, is Committed to my food plan & the lifestyle change I undertook back on June 11th of 2008.  On that day nearly 5 years ago, I decided I was going to change my life because I was sick & tired of being fat & medicated because of my own bad eating habits.

I decided I was tired of being a glutton.

 

By no means am I perfect but I am Committed. There is a big difference between those two words, isn’t there?

If I have a bad moment with my food intake, that’s what it is: a moment. I get right back to my routine & my food plan if I veer off track momentarily.

The routine is my new lifestyle: eating 6 small, healthy meals a day & working out for 25 minutes after dinner every night. And climbing 4 flights of stairs at work 3 times a day. Whether I feel like it or not. And many, many times I do not feel like it, let me tell you. What I do feel like is staying thin & healthy, more than I don’t feel like exercising or eating right.

But motivation & ‘feeling like it’ has nothing to do with Commitment. And Commitment has nothing to do with perfection.

Once I ditched my ideals of attaining perfection, only then was I able to accept the fact that weight management is an ongoing process. Many of us call it a journey.  Whatever it is, I can tell you what it isn’t: a struggle for perfection.

If a person strives for Perfection, he’s probably weighed down with the All-Or-Nothing mentality, too. You know…..the “If I Eat One Cookie That Means I Have To Eat The Whole Box Of Cookies” way of thinking? Because hey, if I eat that cookie, I may as well eat the whole box because I’ve already ruined the whole day & now I have to wait until tomorrow to start the damn diet again. The “Day One Again” mentality, which I personally detest. Every day of my life is Day One.  Every day is a new Day One to do the best I can at whatever I attempt. Every day is a new Day One for all of us, unless we don’t wake up that day. And, if we don’t wake up, we will no longer care about earthly matters anyway.

One day at a time, we can do anything. One day at a time, we can ditch the struggle for Perfection & accept the terms of reality. Reality is, we’re prone to being fat; we tend to eat too much; we tend to rather sit on the couch & watch TV than work out; and we’d rather eat what we want when we want to and still be thin & healthy.

When we ditch the fantasy & the struggle for perfection & accept Reality is when we get our heads into the game.

And this is one game that lasts for Life. If you made a mistake this morning, make a healthy choice now. If you ate a cookie, leave it at one cookie & don’t turn it into a Box. If you want to lose weight & get healthy, Make. It. Happen.

I believe you can.

Do you?