Land of Perfection

Dear Friends, Last Monday we visited the land of perfection and the stress of living with the demand for perfection.

What is this imperative for perfection? Mostly it come from the superego which demands that we strive for the impossible, that we never make mistakes, disappoint, or fail miserably. For some aging, even dying is a failure. This striving is stressful. Our thinking becomes anxious and obsessive. Our bodies tighten up. And most of all we disconnect from our living embodied presence. This pressure is relentless and in fact for some it becomes the normal way of operating. We don't think twice about it. And if we fail to live up to these perfectionistic expectations we fear we will drop the ball-- the many balls-- and ultimately collapse. We believe that life will become dysfunctional without the drive for perfection. We will end up like blobs eating bonbons all day! If we don't measure up we feel guilty, we feel ashamed and frightened. At its worst we may give up trying at all. The stress is simply too much. The standards of perfection are imposed by the superego. Pressure, stress is the nature of superego. It is aggressive, coercive, and relentless in its demands. We internalized these demands when we were young. And they live on in our consciousness unexamined mostly unconsious. These standards do not take into consideration our limitations or our true desires. There is simply no room to discover what we desire; no room to discern our capacities objectively; no time to breathe,to  slow down and discover where we are and what we want and truly need.

There is something compelling about perfection. It feels great when we actually succeed in keeping all the balls in the air. There is pleasure and pride in the accomplishment and we are certainly rewarded by the outer world. The results may be magnificent and beautiful. But the implicit assumption is that without the kick of the superego none of this would be possible.

So what happens is the supergo is banished. Does this mean we are doomed to fail.

As a species we seem drawn to excellence, to beauty, to incredible discovery. Spiritual work especially seems inspired by some kind of perfection. We only have to visit gothic cathedrals, gaze at the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, listen to Bach's B Minor Mass to know that they were inspired by great love and a vision of a kind of perfection. Being is complete, needs no improvement. Divine presence is not worried about being graded, nor is it on some self improvement project. Grace unfolds  with ease and with an implicit perfection. Perhaps that is why we are drawn to spiritual work. 

It seems that we-- our egos with the so called help of the superego-- attempt to imitate the perfection of Being, of God, by trying to achieve perfection in our work, in our bodies, in our personalities, in our relationships. Rather than unfolding ease, effortless effort, seamless concentration and love, we push ourselves, we become obsessive, anxious, grandiose demanding more and more of ourselves and others. In the end we suffer and we ultimately fail. How many of us don't try something new and fresh because we are sure we can't make it perfect, we can't make it right.

So the question is who rules the land of perfection. Is it the superego? If we are to discover the perfection we long for, we need to banish the superego and all its aggressive and ultimately impossible demands. When we get closer to our essence, to Being our lives become infused with a grace. Is it possible to liberate our hearts, our efforts from the allegiance to the standards of the superego? That is the work of practice of presence. That is why it is so important to recognize when we are under the influence of the superego and banish it!

So this is not about walking away from excellence, or from great efforts. On the contrary this is about freeing the creative energies and love of our souls so that we can live fully and enjoy the fruits.

Hope to see you next Monday. I appreciate you letting me know if for some reason you are unable to attend our sessions.  Warmly, Alison