Let me tell you (and me) something about imperfections.
caption: a sky full of imperfection.
I look at the sky.
It’s not perfect, but I love it.
I look around me as I sit in this little restaurant.
It’s not perfect, but I love it too.
I love how this place makes me feel.
I think of my parents.
They’re not perfect, but I love them.
So so much.
Even the parts that trigger me.
I look at the man across the street, speaking into his phone.
He’s not perfect,
and I definitely do not love him.
But he is a precious person,
and I believe he is loved.
We are all loved.
Truly, dearly appreciated by the ones around us,
the ones whose hearts stay and spend time with us.
It’s crazy, isn’t it?
How these people love us so much,
But we ourselves do not, as much.
Instead, we stare so hard
and we become so bothered by all the ways we are imperfect.
How does this make sense?
“I feel too much/ I’m too sensitive/ I’m overly emotional.”
I hear you,
and I also feel you’re just someone who feels deeply. And some people are uncomfortable with that.
And now you’ve grown to be uncomfortable with that too.
“I’m too slow/ I take too long to think/ I’m too indecisive”
I hear you too.
And I feel that you’re just someone who needs time. More time than people are comfortable with.
“I’m too far behind where I’m supposed to be in life/ I haven’t got shit together/ I’m a failure”
I hear you too. I feel you’re simply someone who has not done well in certain things you thought you needed to succeed in.
Things that others have succeeded in.
You’re in a different place in life from the people you’re looking at.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Can we learn to catch ourselves,
to stop using the word “too” in the way we talk about ourselves,
to ourselves?
Can we learn to stop slapping labels onto our foreheads and hurting ourselves with all the things we say about ourselves?
Because when we keep telling ourselves that we are “too” much of something,
“too” lacking of something,
when there has never been anything wrong with being a lot of something, or
a lot less
of something,
we’re constantly spinning ourselves around a self-conversation that’s
spiky and draining.
We kill our own energy, losing our spark,
when all this energy could have become something more filling for our hearts instead.
You don’t have to love your imperfections,
I just hope you hold them with grace.
The ways we fall short of how everyone thinks we should be,
of how we ourselves think we should be?
I say,
we laugh.
Really, just laugh!
I don’t know about you,
But sometimes it helps me to see myself as a potato, with all these weird little lumps and bumps.
They make me look funny,
and well, I can choose to be upset and insecure
or I can choose to poke at these curves and laugh at how weird they feel.
Give it up,
this belief that being imperfect is terrible.
Being imperfect is more awkward and funny than anything else,
really.
Being imperfect is more real and endearing than anything else,
truly.
Having all these little ways we are not picture-perfect humans?
These are what make us who we are.
Cute potatoes with ugly bumps and lumps in different places.
(Part of my mind wants you to stop reading here. Another part of my mind says NO. so… you decide.)
Oh also!
Another thought.
We all want to find out who we are,
we all struggle with not knowing who we are.
But then,
when we find out the parts of us that are imperfect,
we avoid and we shun and we condemn and sometimes,
we even hate ourselves.
These imperfections are parts of us that make us who we are,
that can help us understand ourselves better,
but instead of connecting with these parts of us and
befriending these parts of us and
understanding these parts of us better,
we say, “fuck you”.
We wish we could cut these parts of us out to make ourselves smooth as butter,
shimmery shiny diamonds.
When that’s not who we are, at all.
Sometimes, I do think we are such ironic, sad, and baffling creatures.
Anyway.
Here’s what I hope for you to begin telling yourself!
(what I also want to keep reminding myself. It really is much easier to forget, sometimes.)
““My imperfections COMPLETE ME.
They’re not scars to hide,
they’re not failures to compensate for.
I am more, when I work together WITH my imperfections.
I am less,
when I seek to disown these imperfections.
I still want to be “better”, to improve myself.
But not in a way that brings me closer to what I think is “perfect”.
I want to be better at working with my imperfections, to create magic in the important areas of my life.
It could be through setting schedules, timelines.
Getting someone’s support,
picking up a new habit.
or learning a different attitude towards my looks, and my body.
I shall be patient,
in trying each method and figuring out what works for me and what does’t.
I shall remember, every time my insecurity about my imperfections flare up,
“I feel and I breathe first.”
Instead of “I feel and I react.”
I breathe and breathe,
as I see these insecure thoughts loudly flashing through my mind,
but never holding onto any one of them.
I send loving energy towards my own thoughts,
and then I lovingly nudge them away.
I offer myself grace.
I offer myself kindness.
I offer myself embrace.
I offer myself release,
so that I find ease and peace in my own body,
my own heart,
my own soul,
my every imperfection.
Because my imperfections,
they complete me.””
love,
val
caption: a page from Yung Pueblo’s book, inward.
caption: immortalising my imperfect 24-yo parts.
