Live by Grace, not Perfection

I seem to find myself scanning the walls in a lot of different rooms and having small signs catch my eye. While I probably need to work on keeping my focus on the task at hand, or person speaking, I’m amazed by the relevance of some of the messages my eyes land on! As readers of the MTSB blog have probably noticed, grace comes up often in my posts. Whether it is my detailing the unmerited gifts (grace) I have and continue to experience in both my recovery and life in general, or unfortunately, the difficulty I have in fighting off feelings of guilt for some of these blessings; gratitude for, and allowing for this grace seems to be the answer!

I was in an early morning discussion just last week in a room I’d never visited before when a small sign grabbed my attention. It wasn’t that I was bored with the interaction that had my gaze wandering around the room, in fact, it was a phenomenal reading and deep diving discussion into human relationships. And that this morning, now four days later, the signs’ simple five word message remains in the forefront of my mind is telling: After all, as I’ve discussed, my memory post-TBI is certainly something of a work in progress!

In light of my suboptimal memory I had to go back to confirm it, but I actually wrote a post in early June about perfectionism (“A ‘Perfectionist’, not me?”). In that post I talked about indifference, lack of effort, “settling for the bottle”; or for lack of a better phrase “The F its”, as the darker or less polished side of the perfectionist coin. Seeing “Live by Grace, Not by Perfection” was especially powerful for me, someone who tends to feel inherently undeserving. While the lack of effort that perfectionism can spawn is bad enough, less than perfection in either results, effort, or decision making as a driver of guilt and shame can lead to misery. To approach life with this mindset of unworthiness, with the need for being ultra-high achieving in whatever it is that you do to feel “ok” is the precursor for unfulfillment.

Although I often find myself thinking, “I’m the only one who feels this way”; from what I hear in the various supportive communities that I’m fortunate to have found; I’m just one of many to struggle with perfectionistic tendencies. That the feelings that accompany my perfectionism are often filled with guilt rather than gratitude continues to be something I need to work on. Perhaps the answer, or at least a good beginning, lies in the text on a seemingly random sign I saw that implored the reader to, “Live by Grace, not Perfection”!