Pursuit Of Perfection

I think it’s safe to say that all of us will aspire to be perfect at something over the course of our lives. Life is competitive that way. We compete with ourselves as much as we compete with others. Likewise, we pursue our personal and professional goals while concurrently working to meet the expectations of our families, friends, employers and communities as well. But at some point, we realize that the pursuit of perfection is futile – and quite exhausting really.

We learned from Brene’s writings that being enough is the key to wholehearted living.

Throughout the evening, each of us revealed our own experiences and vulnerabilities, along with some of the aspects of the book that spoke to us personally. Below, I’ve done my best to capture …show more content…
I once heard someone refer to this as “shoulding on yourself.” I mean, that’s what it feels like, right? One example Brené presented in her book was the expectation that good parents should pick up their children on time without exception. The reality is that we all mess up sometimes. External standards bleed into other areas of life as well, including how clean our homes should be. We talked about the difference between meeting the accepted standards of “clean” and being okay with saying, “My house is as clean as I want it to be.” It’s ironic that we often compare ourselves to the Jones’ even though we know they are as flawed as we are. Since perfection doesn’t exist, the Jones’ are simply living a façade of perfection. And that means we are pursuing a façade as …show more content…
More often than not, the bar gets raised higher. Perfection gets pushed just beyond our reach again, and we continue to pursue false peaks. Essentially, each summit reveals another in the distance and the pursuit never ends. Finding satisfaction in our definition of enough puts and end to that game.

Play

In her book, Brené described her discovery of the importance of play. That intentional process of letting go and tapping into the creative side of our brain is therapeutic and necessary to live wholeheartedly.

As a group, these were our takeaways:

“I want to have more honest conversations.”
“I’ve learned how to say ‘it’s okay’ to my kids and that pain is okay.”
“I understand that it’s okay to be wrong sometimes.”
“I’ve learned to let go of anxiety and embrace

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