When I Am Perfect –
I put on jeans today for the first time this year. This is going to sound silly, and I feel like a bit of an idiot even for writing about it, resistance is doing a damn good job of telling me I’m making myself look ridiculous right now, but I bet I’m not alone and so I will –
It’s kind of a really big deal for me to feel confident enough to leave the house, or heck even BE in the house, wearing jeans. I know a lot of my fitness girls will understand this particular little obsessive compulsive situation, but of course it’s representative of so much more …
I typically avoid wearing them because I feel like I’m never in good enough shape, and that I just look fat in them. I feel uncomfortable, self-conscious, and very much ON DISPLAY. Being an athletic build often makes me feel like, when I put on ‘normal’ clothes, that I just look BIG, and so, for the most part – I avoid normal clothes. I like being the gym chick, it’s definitely who I am to shower after the gym and then get into another gym outfit to leave the gym, but at the same time –
It’s a way of hiding. It’s like a mask, a second skin, and that can be a good thing at times, ain’t nothing wrong with retreating now and again, but at the same time, hmmm. Maybe not always ideal?
Especially when it comes from a place of ‘when I am good enough / better / perfect, then I can _______ (insert all the things you’re not pressing play on because you don’t feel good enough yet)’. You know?
I realised last week in yoga class that I may actually have some kind of body dysmorphia. There’s a girl who I always see in my class, who is SUPER thin. Frail even. I always notice her in the change-rooms, and I guess I’ve just observed something in my mind about how tiny this girl is, how small her waist is, especially. The other day she and I ended up next to each other in class. Both wearing shorts and crop tops. And I was SHOCKED as I realised that, standing side by side with her, I couldn’t deny that my waist and her waist were pretty much exactly the same. Now I definitely would not say this makes me realise I’m actually ‘frail’; I’m pretty muscular, but to have it kind of shoved in my face that this girl who I thought was SO much tinier than me is actually about the same around the mid-section as I am, well – it honestly felt like a BIG wake-up call.
One which got me thinking of all the ways in which I STILL put off fully living my life, because, for my entire adult life and a little bit longer, there’s always been this God damn mantra in my head that ‘when I am tiny enough, I can – ‘
What?
Well, I’ll tell you what. And maybe you can’t relate to the body stuff, maybe you just think I’m crazy and you’re rolling your eyes at me, but before you scoff too hard at how out of whack both my perception and my standards apparently are, just think about this –
Right now, there are definitely areas in your life where you’re not pressing play, where you have your life on hold, because you’re telling yourself some version of ‘first I must ______ ‘.
First I must be better.
First I must be further along.
First I must do it right.
First I must be GOOD enough for that, and then I can do it right.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I know. 🙂
Believe me, I do see the irony here. Of what I teach, of what my tagline on literally thousands of blogs now is, and of how I’m doing the exact opposite here. We all have our areas to work on. And, we always teach what we need.
As I drove along to the airport this afternoon, JEANS STILL ON (a big deal!! Really!!) and feeling like a woman for it, top down on my convertible to further the whole ‘done hiding’ thang, I thought about all the things I’ve been putting on pause, delaying my LIFE for, because I’ve been running a story which says I’m not yet good enough for that.
A tired old story, is the truth of the matter! Just one which, even though of course a part of me HAS known this, I’ve still not felt ready to let go of.
Telling myself I can’t wear jeans (or numerous other ‘proper woman’ clothes) because I don’t look perfect yet, spending literally decades now waiting for that perfect time when I’m ‘just right’ … as though I’m a fucking avocado or something, gotta get that one perfect day, then blink – and it’s gone.
Do you know where else I’ve just noticed the same pattern? This is gonna seem SUPER random at first, until you realise it’s just more of the same thing; delaying living the life you know you’re meant to live in one way or another. Church! I’ve just started going to church again, COMMITTEDLY. The pull got too damn strong; I couldn’t ignore it anymore. It’s always the way in the end…
So yes, I’ve now taken the time to do the rounds, choose a home church, and have now signed up at it, so to speak. Church and what it MEANS is now once more a consistent part of my life, and not just for Sundays.
Wanna know how long it’s been since I’ve attended church consistently, and allowed myself to feel actually part of it?
..
…
….
Uhhhh, well the attending consistently thing, definitely a couple decades. The feeling part of it thing? 25 years? Nearly 30? I grew up in church, my family is all Christian, I am Christian, my Grandfather was a preacher, church is a part of me I don’t want to NOT be a part of me and yet I’ve felt separated from it and then also HAVE separated myself from it for all that time because –
I haven’t felt good enough for God.
In my teens I felt like I somehow ‘missed out’ on the revolution all my friends got caught up in, and I just couldn’t seem to ‘get it’. Eventually I stopped trying. Life took me in all sorts of messy directions and I’ve just felt, well – unworthy. No need to preach to me on the grace of God, I know all of this! But that doesn’t mean I’ve allowed myself to feel it.
The entire time, the ENTIRE time in which I’ve not been going to church I’ve known I WILL go back some day, and it will be all in, in a way which frankly scares me a little as I remember things which were prophesised over me and which I do believe, so that’s kind of another thing, but the real thing? It’s just never been the perfect time, I’ve not yet been the perfect or worthy me. I’ve been waiting to feel acceptable. For 20+ years.
Funny. 🙂
There are other areas which come to mind for me as well. I look at the choices I’ve made with men, and again, with quiet and non-judgemental observation, just – notice. How again, there’s this awareness that ‘one day I will ______, allow in _____,’ and a KNOWING within me that this will come to pass, but yet my actions have actively demonstrated otherwise.
Can you think of an area in your life which is like that for you?
You’re waiting.
Just – waiting.
Waiting to be ready.
Waiting to be perfect.
Waiting to be worthy.
Waiting for a sign.
Just – waiting.
The thing is, as Dr Seuss himself says, on waiting, (God too!), NO –
That’s not for you.
Well, you KNOW it’s not for you, and yet, it is still a choice you have to make.
One of the bravest ones, I think, to see our own areas of insecurity, of self-consciousness, and the stories we play out which our conscious mind KNOWS are really really SILLY as much as they are really really REAL, and to take a deep breath and decide to do the damn thing anyway.
Walk through the church doors, terrified of not being enough or of not fitting in, not being like the others –
Speak your true message through all the fear of rejection –
Name and claim to yourself the exact standards your soul holds for a relationship, and precisely what you’re going to call in –
PUT ON THE DAMN JEANS!!
You get the idea 😉
Do you know what’s always so hilarious, about this sort of work?
It’ll take you usually less than a day, once you decide to be that person, to remember you ever found it so scary. The jeans feel super comfy and HAWT, super quick. So to speak!
Do you wanna know WHY this is true?
Because you already were the damn person. You’ve just been playing a really long game of pretending otherwise. But don’t kid yourself this is about becoming someone you don’t know how to be, and practising at doing it right so nobody notices.
This is plain and simple about giving in to who you always were.
And I’d say that’s something worthy leaping for. Maybe sorta also something you’d be crazy not to.
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