“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”
~ Anonymous
I went to yoga the other day and the yoga teacher told a wonderful story about a man who goes to the river every day to get water, carrying two pots. One pot was perfect, the other had cracks in it. So each day by the time he got back from the river, most of the water had seeped out of the broken pot. This went on for weeks.
One day the pot said to the man, you have two of us here and one is perfect and I am not. Why do you hold on to me? The man asked the pot if it had noticed all the beautiful flowers along the path to the river. The pot had not noticed. I know you have cracks in you, the man said. So I took the time to plant seeds. Your water that seeped out watered those seeds, which are now beautiful flowers.
I left yoga feeling energized. I could not stop thinking how meaningful this story is to our everyday lives. If we can live with our imperfections (and we all have them), and not resist them, if we can see the beauty in them and ourselves, we would be so much further along in our life, in our work, in our being.
At the end of most alignment processes I do with clients is a step of forgiveness. Forgiveness is about two things a. accepting the imperfections in ourselves as well as others and b. letting go of the judgments we placed on ourselves and/or others. When we can just accept the weaknesses we have, and just be, we don’t have to resist ourselves any more. When we accept all parts of ourselves, we are happier with ourselves, our families, our work and, in the end, our life. By accepting our imperfections we are able to see the beauty in ourselves.
Too often we focus on our imperfections. We think: I could be thinner; I could have gotten an A instead of an A- on an exam; I could have finished that project in two days rather than 3 days. That kind of thinking never leaves you satisfied with your accomplishments, never lets you be proud of the last sale you made, never lets you soak in what you have learned, or enjoy a personal best. Imagine if instead you were proud of yourself for the weight you did lose, left a class thinking, “ I learned a lot today,” or accomplished to finish a difficult project.
I recently worked with a man who was distraught about his career. He was very accomplished and knowledgeable in his field but had not done little to advance himself. At the age of 57 with a Ph.D. he was underemployed and underpaid. On top of it he felt that everyone had passed him up and it was too late to do anything. He had no real vision for himself. He hated to go to out with people he did not know and always felt awkward when people ask him what he did. Using Neuro Emotional Coaching it became obvious that he was judging himself profusely and that he felt very bad about himself. After a period of talk and reflection I guided him through a forgiveness process where he had a change to let go of all of his imperfections and judgments he had put on himself. He should know better. He was lazy. Why didn’t he have a clear vision and he should have worked harder to begin with.
A day later he called me and reported that a cloud had lifted from his shoulders. He felt fine to talk about his career was happy to be a student at age 55 and felt excited about figuring out what was next.
So what happened and how do you break this cycle? Start everyday with a review. Look at the things that went well and what didn’t go so well. Appreciate these good things about yourself (you’re a good listener, for example) as well as your imperfections (you are not so good at being organized). Forgive yourself for them and for the judgments you make of others. This will end your day in a state of peace, harmony, and joy. In time you will see the flowers growing along the path, instead of the cracks in the pot.
