How much money, time, effort, and stress have you spent trying to improve yourself? We read beauty magazines, watch make over shows, read self-help books and spiritual texts, leave inspirational affirmations on our mirrors, visit the gym and yoga class like it’s our job…the list goes on and on. We do all of these things with the hope that we will forever end the toiling and striving by reaching “perfection”.
Ick! That word! That word that drives us crazy; that word we independent women of the 21st century claim to renounce, along with its implications: stepford-wifedom, a stick-thin figure, equating worth with fertility. But who among us hasn’t gotten caught up on the idea of perfection? Who among us hasn’t spent long hours trying to boost the self esteem of our girlfriends who say they would feel so much better if they could be a little more this, or a little less that. If “perfection” is not the aim, what exactly are we working towards when we are focused on our self-evolution?
The answer is simple: Opportunity. We decided a long time ago that there would be more to being a woman than cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing. But have we simply replaced this ideal with the one called “the perfect independent woman?” In either case, there is little variety to be found. Once something becomes our idea of perfection, it becomes trapped up on a pedestal, alone for eternity. So which sounds like more fun: being adored in a tower of perfection or joining a big party where large varieties of people, food, drink, and music mingle?
As you move through your day, simply notice the times when you say to yourself “I’m not ____ enough.” This is just one hors d’oeurves at the party trying to make itself the main course. Who says you have to be caviar when being a donut is just as fun (and comes with many more style options). Stop and affirm for yourself “I am a chocolate donut with pink frosting and sprinkles to boot. Take a bite outta that, Perfection!”

We’re control freaks. We’re varying degrees of control freaks, but we’re all control freaks. We can’t help it, it’s in our biological makeup. I’m pretty sure even cavemen and women knew something of jealousy, possessiveness, and greed, and I’m also pretty sure that the capabilities of these tendencies to flourish have evolved along with our brains and bodies.
We are such control freaks that we have convinced ourselves that we are able to tell the future. We can’t. What we can do, is fear that we will go down a path that is mysterious.
Give it up! You aren’t in control, and all that means is that you actually don’t know what will happen when you venture out in any given direction. Of course there is a time for trusting your instincts, but
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In South America, some hunters employ a very interesting practice in order to capture wild monkeys. These hunters set traps by placing rice, a favorite of these monkeys, inside a coconut. The hole cut in the coconut is large enough for the monkey to get its hand into the coconut, but not large enough for it to be able to remove its hand after it makes a fist around the rice. The monkeys are always captured because they refuse to let go of the rice.
Sound familiar?
Time and again we allow ourselves to become entrapped by attachment.