What causes the desire to be perfect? Through early programming, we look for approval outside ourselves rather than inwardly satisfying our own creative abilities. It’s a repetitive cycle. It’s hard to see others as whole when we cannot or will not do what we need to do to see ourselves this way. We hold ourselves as less than perfect. Big people want to make little people be like them, or be like they wish they could have been growing up.
Often unconsciously, parents and guardians force their children to fulfill the unrealized covenants of their own sacred stories. The energy of the children is rarely allowed, and therefore from the very beginning they get the message that it is not safe to be themselves. Parents also reward “right action” from a child by saying, “This makes mommy (daddy) proud.” A child will clean up his toys or the little girl will make her bed, awaiting outside approval in the words “You make me proud.” The real way to teach a child self-esteem? Another challenge is that we rush children’s lives to adulthood so they can be adults for 90 percent of their lives. Because we rush the process, we are not able to let children develop naturally so they can put their whole selves in. It is ridiculous to start telling a child at four and five to “be a big boy” or “be a big girl.” We are now putting such an emphasis on developing the intel¬lectual aspects of our kids rather than creating a space for them to discover their innate and sacred gifts.
We are all created from a place of wholeness, but if we are always treated as broken and are driven to be perfect, we will not be able to fully self-express. We will rely instead on being nurtured, sometimes becoming needy because we long to heal ourselves. Rather than being childlike, which is essential for the creative spirit, we grow up by not growing up and remain childish instead. The wounded perfectionist is often the most needy. A whole person relies on the Creator, whereas a wounded person relies on circumstances and other people. How can we change our reliance on outward circumstances and become more self-reliant? We must then accept that our parents, grandparents, and guard¬ians did the best they had with what they knew and felt at the time. To hold on to the energy of resenting what our parents, grandparents, and guardians did not do for us allows this energy to be “re-sent” (reexpressed) over and over again until we let it go.
We must wake up and get in touch with the possibilities of how we can begin to honor who we really are right now. We pull out the list in our shielded and protected heart and allow the memories to resurface of the individuals we longed to be. We hold on to the feelings of what it will be like when we become the energy we are dreaming of. Once this declaration is in motion, life begins to change. New energies of possibilities appear. The heart begins to open and feel. We begin to heal through what we turn toward, not what we have been turning away from. Once awakened, we never return to this place of perfectionism again, nor do we impose it on other children. We wake up, and over time we become childlike again.
Temple Hayes also hosts an extremely popular radio show, The Intentional Spirit on Unity Online Radio. For more information, visit www.templehayes.com
