A Spirituality of Imperfection: God Shines Through the Cracks in Our Armor

Nakedness and Inadequacy Remember that nightmare we've all had at one point or another about being naked in public in front of a crowd?  Do you remember what you feel in that dream?  Excited?  Elated?  Proud?  Seductive?

Most often we feel shame, fear, embarrassment, extreme vulnerability, powerful discomfort, maybe even horrified.

Why?  Because the dream is often about the fear of exposure, fear of rejection; that if people saw us for who we really are, they would not accept us, they might even ridicule us.  Dreams about nakedness in public is about a deep fear of inadequacy and even shame.

So our culture demands that we go out in public looking good, clothed not just adequately but impressively.  We grow up in families that equate high performance with value and worth.  We learn early on to hide our inadequacies as best we can in order to appear put together.  Perfection is the standard.

The irony is that deep down we know that perfection is not only unreasonable, it's pretty much impossible.  Read my last blog where I give the example of the hitting percentage of baseball's best players.  Even the greatest batters in history never hit perfectly.  And they're heroes.

And yet we continue to hold ourselves accountable to that perfection measuring stick, holding our self esteem and self worth hostage to an impossible standard.  And if you're a part of a religious community, that standard is spiritualized and theologized, raising the stakes even higher of having to measure up.

Connecting Perfectionism and Shame

Dr. Brene Brown, in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, points out that

"where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking.  In fact, shame is the birthplace of perfectionism."  (p. 55)

That certainly explains our fear of exposure in our nightmare of being naked in public.  We will do whatever it takes to keep our inadequacies from being seen because deep down there's a feeling of shame connected to failure or imperfection.  We see ourselves as "less than" in our failures.

So we resort to whatever form of perfectionism most fits our goal of appearing "together" in every setting:  e.g. we'll not take on any difficult tasks or take any risks for fear of failing and being exposed; we'll automatically assume responsibility for something going wrong, taking the blame; or we'll refuse to ever own up to mistakes, blaming other people for what went wrong; we'll avoid any situations that might cause us to look like we're not good enough; or we'll refuse to leave the house unless we look just "right" in public, trying to maintain a predetermined image that's acceptable to us and others.  And the list goes on.

But let's face it:  this is a really really tiring way to live!  Isn't it?  It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to try to maintain a perfect image for everyone else, including ourselves.  Exhausting!  And it keeps us from the freedom of really living life and enjoying life in new and wonderful ways.  That belief system narrows rather than expands our lives.

Three Ways A Spirituality of Imperfection is an Antidote to Perfectionism

One of the powerful antidotes to this debilitating life approach is the practice of a spirituality of imperfection.  That's right.  Healthy, genuine spirituality is based upon embracing the value of imperfection.

Here are several Whys and Hows to practicing this spirituality of imperfection.

First, imperfection is a call to practice compassion on yourself.

Dr. Brown interviewed scores of people who were engaging with the world from a place of authenticity and worthiness.  She noticed that all had a lot in common experience when it came to perfectionism.  First, they spoke about their imperfections in a tender and honest way, and without shame and fear.  Second, they were slow to judge themselves and others.  They operated from a place of "We're all doing the best we can."  Their ability to step into self compassion was extremely high.  (Ibid., p. 59)

The next time you make a mistake or do something less than perfectly, practice compassion on yourself.  Don't judge yourself negatively by going to that indictment, "I'm such a loser!  Why can't I do anything well!  If people knew I was this kind of a failure, they'd reject me for sure!"

"A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day.  A string of such moments can change the course of your life."  Christopher K. Germer

Second, imperfection is a place of Light.  Let it in.

The great spiritual teachers of the past saw imperfection as the crack in the armor, the "wound" that lets God in.

Meister Eckhart (the 13th century German theologican, mystic, and philosopher) wrote,

"To get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least."

This truth is applied by the contemporary Jungian analyst who identifies "addictions," for example, as one of the "wounds" that lets God in:

"Addiction keeps a person in touch with the god .... At the very point of the vulnerability is where the surrender takes place---that is where the god enters.  The god comes through the wound."

So rather than immediately condemning ourselves for a mistake, failure, or even continual "wound" whenever it manifests itself, pause ... embrace it ... and let it bring you to the point of surrender ... let it point you to God who comes through that mistake to embrace you and love you, and then to little by little bring healing to your wound.

Isn't that what we do as parents when our child falls down, scrapes himself, and comes to us bleeding.  We don't refuse him, telling him to get cleaned and bandaged up first before we embrace him.  We get down on our knees, pull him into our arms, holding him tightly and tenderly, whispering words of love.  We gently clean up the wound, put a band-aid on it, and then hold him close again.  That moment of "wounding" lets our love into his life in tangible, intimate ways.

The New Testament spiritual leader Paul, who wrestled with what he called "a thorn in his flesh" (some kind of either physical or emotional or spiritual ongoing ailment) and kept asking God to remove it from his life, was confronted by the grace of God in the midst of his wound.  Rather than taking the "wound" away from Paul, God came to him in the middle of it, and said,

"My grace is sufficient for you.  My power is made perfect in your weakness."  2 Corinthians 12:9

So embrace your "wound" and let it allow God's amazing compassion and love to shine through the cracks of your armor straight into your life.

And third, imperfection is a place of Light.  Let it out.

To paraphrase Leonard Cohen's lyrics from Anthem,

"There's a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets out."

It is a misguided myth which our perfectionism gets us to buy into:  that we lose people's respect if we fail and make mistakes, if our "wounds" show too much.

Truth is, people aren't looking for perfection from us; people are wanting authenticity, honesty and transparency even about our imperfections.  "Be real," people often say.

The same New Testament spiritual leader, Paul, emphasized this truth when he described human beings as "clay pots"--cracked containers.  His point was that the Light (he called it the "glory of God") that lives inside us is able to shine out into the world through our cracks (2 Corinthians 4:7).  No cracks, no visible light to the world.  God needs our cracks so God's glory can shine through us in order to reveal divine compassion and love to others.

So rather than running from our imperfections, rather than covering them over, or hiding them, or even denying them, we can "sanctify" them (give them over to a holy purpose)--that is, allow them to be used by the Light as vehicles through which the Light of Love radiates out to the world.

Leonard Cohen is right.  There's a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets out.

Sometimes, it's the "sinners" that are more appealing than the "saints."  Who wants to be around someone who tries to be perfect all the time, who refuses to admit imperfection in themselves or others, and who thinks they're more "righteous" than everyone else?  No grace or compassion there.  Perfectionism is, after all, an attempt to play God.

So embrace the crack.  Be vulnerable.  Be authentic and transparent.  That will be used by God to let the Light shine out, to show others that even in our imperfections, love and compassion can shine through and be visible and experienced by others.  Sometimes, it's our willingness to be "naked" in public that reveals the true glory of God.

It's Time To Get Over Our Perfectionism: How To Take A Lesson From Baseball

Baseball's Lesson It's fascinating to look at the sport of baseball and notice the greatest hitters in the history of the game---you can't help but see something profound immediately.  The all-time best hitter, Ty Cobb, had a career batting average of .366.  No one has been able to reach that level in a career before or since.  That's .366 out of .1000.

What this means is that over 6 out of every 10 times Cobb got up to bat, he went out.  And he's considered the greatest.

Which begs the questions, why is it that our expectations for baseball are so radically different than our expectations for ourselves and everyone else in the rest of life?

The Commissioner of Baseball in 1991, Francis T. Vincent, Jr., made this astute observation:

"Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.  We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often---those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players.  I find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth."

Ironic--that errors are part of it's rigorous truth.  Almost oxymoronic.  But refreshing and true.

Institutionalized Perfectionism

I grew up in a Church that rigorously fights an ongoing war against failure.  Error is seen as a lack of spirituality and trust in God.  If you simply trusted God more, you would overcome your tendency to "strike out" when you stepped up to the plate of life.  With God's help, you can get better and better at hitting the ball whenever you're up to bat.  And before the world ends, God expects you to hit home runs or at least hit safely every time you're up.

There's a word for this view:  perfectionism.

For the most part in my life, I played the game pretty successfully.  I knew the rules inside and out and was quite accomplished at fulfilling and living up to them well.  I certainly received a lot of accolades for how successful I was, at least on the outside of my life--which is the only side of anyone people can really see, right?

So when you live in a perfectionist culture where mistakes and failures aren't accepted as the norm, there's intense pressure to measure up to the highest standard in order to feel good enough.  Self worth becomes built upon performance.

Without realizing it, my sense of self was being constructed on a shaky foundation.  I had to make sure I was successful and didn't fail; I had to constantly prove my worth by my performance.  So if you're one of those lucky ones, like I was, who is able to be really productive within the accepted measurements, you're rewarded---you get praise and positive attention from others and therefore you can give yourself the same.

Until the big failure and fall.  And I had it.  Epic.  My whole world collapsed around me.  And in one fell swoop I was on the outside, no longer seen as successful, all my past accomplishments wiped off the slate of institutional memory.

Unlike baseball's radical paradigm in which the player steps up to the plate and strikes out, still maintaining his beloved stature as the valued and famed hitter even though he goes out 6 out of every 10 times---in my world it was, one big strike and you're out, for good.

Identity and Self Acceptance

Beyond the pain of the institutional response to me, my biggest personal challenge suddenly became, Now that I've blown it big time, what is my identity, where do my feelings of worth and value come from without that great reputation?  Can I accept myself even in the midst of failure?  Or am I simply a loser forever from now on?

My road back to a sense of deep personal acceptance and worth was long and difficult.  But in the end, the opportunity to build my sense of self on a much more stable foundation, than the shaky one of performance and perfection, was the most important outcome that could have ever happened to me.  It has given me a sense of confidence, security, and acceptance of myself in powerfully authentic ways like never before.

Perhaps baseball has a lot to teach us about life.  Like the Commissioner observed, errors are part of the game and perfection is an impossible and unrealistic and not even expected goal.  No player ever bats .1000 in a career.  Ever.

So the ongoing questions for me in my life is that whenever I make mistakes (and I do, often), whenever I don't live up to my values in even small ways, whenever I try something and make a mess of it, whenever I feel the need to present myself to others as all together, whenever I am tempted not to feel good enough unless I do it all perfectly--whenever I'm faced with these moments, can I still feel a sense of value, acceptance, and okayness and refuse to place my worth in judgment?

A Spirituality of Imperfection

What would happen if we built our view and experience of spirituality on imperfection rather than perfection, that we would stop expecting no mistakes or failures and start expecting errors as a natural part of the game of life?

Would it mean that we would simply compromise away our values?  Would it mean we're simply trying to rationalize and justify our mistakes?  Would it mean that we would be embracing an "anything goes" philosophy, that it wouldn't matter any more if we failed or made mistakes, no matter how many people we hurt along the way?

That's certainly not the way it's worked with me.  Re-establishing my sense of self and building it on the foundation of the reality of imperfection, and learning how to embrace myself in the midst of failure, has in fact increased my value for healing and wholeness, for showing up in the world in ways that elicit deeper trust and joy in others.

But I have done this on the unshakable foundation of self acceptance, not for how successful I am or am not, but for who I am as a child of God---fully loved and deeply accepted as I am, not as I should be.

When I get clear on this truth, I am much more empowered to grow, to take risks on my journey of transformation, knowing that when I step up the plate and strike out or ground out or hit a fly ball and go out, I'm still a perfectly loved and valued person who belongs on the team of life. My place is secure.

That freedom motivates me to be my best, to know who I am in every situation and live it out with confidence and courage, even if I don't do it just right every time.  Because the fear of failure has been removed.  I even allow myself to expect it from myself.

"Errors, of course, are part of the game.  They are part of our truth as human beings.  To deny our errors is to deny ourself, for to be human is to be imperfect, somehow error-prone.  To be human is to ask unanswerable questions, but to persist in asking them, to be broken and ache for wholeness, to hurt and to try to find a way to healing through the hurt.  To be human is to embody a paradox, for according to that ancient vision, we are 'less than the gods, more than the beasts, yet somehow also both.'  Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is:  There is no one to 'blame' for our errors--neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else.  Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing."  (The Spirituality of Imperfection:  Storytelling and the Search for Meaning, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, p. 2)

What this means is that we stop theologizing and religionizing perfection and imperfection.  Instead, we learn to embrace our humanity without negative judgment, simply what is.  And we allow ourselves to go on the journey of life with patience as well as resolve to become more and more whole, while living with our cracks.  And we ramp up our courage to actually admit, "Nobody's perfect.  Neither am I.  And that's okay.  I'm still valued and loved and accepted as I learn to grow and develop into my healthiest self.  I belong on the Team."

If I can do this, I can then step up and, using all of my growing skill and wisdom, boldly and freely swing away.  I can let it rip more often because whether I hit it out of the park or into a fielder's waiting glove I am still loved and deeply accepted in who I am as a valued child of the universe, to myself and to God.  Period.  I'm on the Team.

Next time I'll talk about some of the significant implications of the spirituality of imperfection and building on this unshakeable foundation of Self.  Stay tuned.

Three Steps to Choosing Authenticity and Getting Your Real Self To Stand Up

To Tell the Truth Do you remember that classic TV game show "To Tell the Truth?"  It was one of the longest running game shows ever, airing shows in every season for 45 years.

The premise was that four celebrity judges would try to guess which of the three contestants was the genuine character being described in an unusual and unique life story read out loud by the host.  All contestants introduced themselves by the name of the true character.  The two "imposter" contestants could lie with their answers, the true character had to tell the truth in every answer.  After questioning each contestant, the judges would vote.  The host would then say those famous words, "Will the real [name of the character] please stand up."

I used to love watching the show, trying to guess which was the real character.  I sometimes got it right.  But often I was completely surprised.  And I've never forgotten the host's line at the end of the vote:  Will the real ________ please stand up."

So what was the appeal to such a simple game show?  The drama of trying to figure out who was who?  Deception?  Humor?  Seeing judges voting?  Unusual life stories?  A competition of winning and losing?

Probably all of the above.  But I think there was also something else at play.  We are drawn to that which is true, to people who are able to stand up and truly be themselves.  We call this Authenticity.

Defining Authenticity

I'm inspired by the way Brene Brown, in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, defines Authenticity:

"Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are."  (p. 50)

The "letting go" of this ideal self we think we're supposed to be (and even that can change depending on which environment we're in at any given time) is really hard.  Isn't it?  Why?

Why Living Authentically is So Difficult

Our external culture.  We live in a world that strongly encourages, sometimes even demands, that we fit in, don't stand out too much, conform to accepted expectations and standards.  Though our country was founded on individuality and the pioneering spirit, our culture has strong ways of limiting all of that.

We're raised to acquiesce to authority---the authority of parents, adults, institutions, people who know more than we do, power, position, status.  We're taught not to trust ourselves or our gut instincts or to look too deeply inside ourselves.  All true authority is outside ourselves, we're told.

No wonder we have in our culture an authenticity challenge.

Our internal Culture.  Compounding this cultural squeeze is the truth that inside ourselves we often have another battle raging.  It's a self-esteem and self-worth issue.  So that whenever we feel shame or unworthiness or guilt that creates self-doubt, we can quickly and easily sell ourselves out and say, "I can be anybody you need me to be.  Watch me!"

So we can allow our self-identity to shift with the winds and tides of our surrounding people---whatever it takes to please them or get their approval so we can feel good about ourselves.

We definitely have an authenticity challenge these days.

So how do we learn to choose authenticity more and more in our daily lives---to choose to be our real Selves in every context, living out the fullest and most confident expression of our true Selves?

Three Steps to Choosing Authenticity

Notice the three actions described in Dr. Brown's definition of Authenticity:

• Daily practicing

It's unrealistic to think that all of a sudden, one day we can simply declare, "Okay, I'm perfectly authentic now.  I'm good to go."

"Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day.  It's about the choice to show up and be real.  The choice to be honest.  The choice to let our true Selves be seen."  (p. 49)

When you consider that we are making this choice against everything that we've established through the course of life as being "true" about ourselves and what's really important---pleasing others at our own expense, living up to everyone else's expectations, letting every situation determine how "real" we should be, hiding behind masks, or trying hard to be someone we're really not---it's no wonder authenticity is a daily, even moment by moment, choice.  We have to practice it regularly.  We have to develop a new normal.

Authenticity is a process of becoming---a journey into being more fully genuinely ourselves.  So our practice demands:  "In this moment, faced with a choice of how I'll show up in this situation, I choose authenticity.  In this moment, I choose to be real and genuine and honest.  I will not hide myself.  In this moment, I will not let fear of what others might say or think dictate how I show up.  I choose to let my Self be expressed.  In this moment, I will be Me to the best of my knowledge and ability and in a spirit of respect, love, and compassion."

• Letting go of who we think we're supposed to be

We have to stop living our lives based on other people's expectations and standards.  We need to respect and honor their choices.  But we don't have to emulate them.  We are each unique individuals.  We have to let our masks go.  We have to let go of our attempts to squeeze into someone else's mold.  We have to let go of our obsession with pleasing and seeking approval in order for us to feel good about ourselves.

For a trapeze artist to let go of the trapeze and fly through nothing but empty air takes courage.  It's scary and even risky.

So is letting go of false identities---especially if we've lived them for a long time.  We end up flying through uncertainty, even at times lack of clarity about who we are.  We risk rejection and lack of acceptance.  People close to us might actually like us the way we've been.  We might "fail" at being Ourselves.  Yes, it takes courage to let go.

But we can't grab a hold of the true identity (the other trapeze bar) without letting go of the false.

• Embracing who we really are

Think of a time when you felt really true to yourself, when you felt completely safe, loved, accepted, honest, when you felt really strong and energized.  What was happening?  How were you showing up?

Chances are you were actually being your true Self.  That's what you have to embrace and grab a hold of.  That's the new trapeze bar you've been flying through space to catch.

That story you remember is a snapshot of your Authenticity.  Remember it.  Relish it.  Visualize it again and again.  Those powerful positive memories will give you courage to choose Authenticity again and again.  Embrace who you really are.

Embrace vulnerability.  Let go of the need for perfection, even in trying to be You.  Give yourself permission to fail, to make mistakes, to not do it really well every single time you embrace You.  That's okay.  You're on the journey of Authenticity.

Embrace compassion for your Self and for others.  Remember that you are made of both strength and struggle, as Brene Brown puts it.

Embrace the truth that you, as your true Self, are always enough!

Embrace that your greatest gift to the world---to everyone around you---the gift that God has given you and you alone, is You.  No one else is or can be You.  Stand in your Truth and that truth will set you and everyone around you free.  Only Authenticity gives freedom.  Don't deprive the world of your Authentic You.

So next time, when the situation arises and says, "Will the real You please stand up," jump to your feet, hold your head high, and with joy reply, "Here I am, you lucky people!" :)  And the rest of us will the better because of it.  So will You.