Have you ever found an old journal entry and been floored by what you read?
This happened to me last week when I was scrolling through past posts and came across one I'd written in the early days of the global pandemic.
It’s a conversation with my inner child, who shares how hopeless she felt in showing up in the way she wanted and thought she should, and my wise self, who offers her compassion and love.
I was struck by the emotional honesty and vulnerability in my writing, as well as by the nurturing voice that came through—the same qualities that later poured into our book, Permission Slips for claiming our emotions. (I hadn't realized I'd been writing that way for a while!)
I was also in awe of how long I've struggled with perfectionism that often feels crippling… and that I’ve known how to heal through it for almost as long.
In this conversation, my wise self had proposed a path forward to my inner child around embracing our imperfection.
We would:
Share one small truth each day with others about what we’re going through
Celebrate each time that we shared honestly, no matter what the response from others was.
Regroup when we make a mistake or things don’t go as planned, send ourselves love, and remind ourselves: we tried our best, we’re human and still learning.
Feel into the next right step, whether it’s a repair, a do-over, or letting it go.
It still sounds wise, beautiful and full of grace.
And what also struck me after reading the post…
…was my disappointment.
Because I wish I could say I did these things - that I showed up for myself and my inner child in this way from that day on - but I didn't.
The huge fear of others seeing me struggle, fail and fall apart—and judging me as unreliable, messy, incompetent or weak because of them—often kept me from sharing these more authentic moments... or from showing up at all.
Honestly, this crippling perfectionism led me to experience some dark times these past four years, some of which I share in our book.
I wonder if I'd kept those compassionate, loving and wise words to myself close during the next four years, would I have struggled so much? Could I have prevented so much needless suffering?
Entertaining this possibility can easily invoke that part of myself that might try to make me wrong.
Perhaps you experience this too? The part that criticizes you for failing also criticizes you for not being better at not criticizing yourself!
One of my greatest lessons: integrating our own wisdom takes time. It's rarely a one-and-done realization (ie "Oh, I see what I've been doing! Now I know better, and I just won't do that anymore!")
Healing isn't linear but spiral—we think we've made all kinds of progress and then Boom! there's our pattern again, appearing slightly different this time.
With each recognition, we grow. This midnight conversation paved the way for others, making me more adept at holding space for myself with each encounter.
Things take the time they take. We can punish ourselves for not healing faster... or we can extend compassion, recognizing that even our patterns serve us in some way.
While it's true that I eventually did start sharing that I was struggling with close others more than I did before, t
And the truth was, I was slowly learning how to reveal these messy, imperfect parts of myself - with my group of fellow authors, and in my writing.
The same part of myself that likes to beat myself up for not having it all together, for "failing" and disappointing people also is ready to beat myself up for not being better at not beating myself up! Or preventing myself to Oof!
Maybe you experience a similar predicament?
Things take the time they take. We can choose to beat ourselves up for not having healed a pattern... or we can send ourselves compassion for it. Something about the pattern was serving me.