Unattainable Perfection

I realize that I am probably just like everyone else… I have these inner pictures of what I consider to be the “perfect” look, the “perfect” physique, you know… the “perfect” body. The toned, tanned, cellulite free, sculpted, muscular body with 5% body fat, six pack abs, and arms that are chiseled and utterly breathtaking.

I’m talking not about the perfect “life” in general here, but more one portion of the whole, one aspect within the entire spectrum. We all live in a broad bubble of what we want in our lives, what our dreams and hopes are, and then we have the bullet points, the sub categories, of how we personally picture perfection, or define ultimate success within those certain areas of our own lives.

I think we all have these visions of sugar plum perfection dancing in our heads and messing with our hearts and our minds. I think there’s a fine line between them helping us to better ourselves, to push ourselves, to challenge ourselves, and well… frankly they can also drive us utterly calfshit mad. It’s that version of “if only” that gives us both the drive to get up and get it done every morning, and leaves us utterly disappointed day after day when the reflection in the mirror never seems to morph, evolve, arrive at that desired state of sleek physique our mind has attached and settled on.

As you can probably tell, I have spent too much time lately scrolling through the oodles of pages in my social media feeds… the memes, the photos, the stories, and I’ve also suffered yet another disappointment as I stepped on that scale again this morning. The work and results I’m trying to demand of my body, and the reality of the results I’m after, are not meeting up eye to eye these days. The battle both within my mind and within the structure of the physicality of my body are at great odds again… still… as always. Story of my life.
I should know better than to get sucked into this comparison game, this seesaw game of back and forth, and up and down, between mind and reality, expectation and actuality. I should know better… but I obviously don’t. This has been my battle, my mind game, my inner war for thirty years now. Thirty years of the lies and whispers within. Thirty years of yo-yo weight loss and weight gain. Thirty years of fighting to achieve an unrealistic goal, an unattainable reality. It’s left me some days exuberant, some days exhausted, and most days a crazy mix of both and I’m left lost and floundering in the chaos and crazy of it all.

It’s me against myself. There is no one else in control, no one else calling the shots, no one else making the final decisions. Oh we want to blame it on someone else, something else… The food preservatives and high cost of organic, the stress, the busy, the expectations and obligations. But we are also the ones somewhat in control of how many appointments and dates and responsibilities fill the boxes of the days on our calendars. Yes, there are things we have to do, must do, need to do. But there are also probably a large handful (or more) of things that perhaps need to be reevaluated and reexamined. There are things we need to say yes to, there are things we need to say no to. There are things we’re currently say no to that need to becoming yes’s. There are things we’re currently saying yes to that need to become no’s.

Ahhh but I digress on this little rabbit trail and step back down off my little soap box of trying to dial back and do less in an effort to become more (smile). Another post for another day - or a previous post from a previous day. lol

I have spent a lot of time and a lot of energy battling the inner demons of perfectionism and enoughism. I know I mention this a lot, and my apologies. It’s just something so hard to overcome, so hard to honestly face head on and dive into deeply and authentically.  It’s so much easier to live in the shadows and the lies that I’m not enough, that I’m not perfect, that I’m not valid in my current state. It’s easier to come to believe that it’s useless to try and futile to care… For years I attempted to drown out the truth, numb the chatter, and plow forward day after day after day, never feeling true contentment and happiness.

Of course there are moments and seasons of joy, don’t get me wrong, but all my life there has been an underlining rose prick of being a little lost, a little misunderstood, always searching and seeking and reaching for “something" - yet never quite knowing how to define or even find that “something” that was always just out of reach, just around the corner, just after the next success.

Does this undefined “something” really exist? Is this “something” really even attainable? Or is it all really a grand illusion and the wiring inside my brain are just faulty and frail?

Year after year of this searching and questioning has merged into a mental image of what my life should be looking like, what my body should be looking like, what my house and family and income and job and bank account and success should be looking like… and it all always just continued to fall short. The weight was a little too much, the income was a little too little, the house and family and job all a little too messy and a little not perfect enough in what they are giving and offering back to me in return for my time and investment in them. Never enough. None of it. Me. Them. Me to them. Them to me. Never enough. The expectations and realities always set too high - an unattainable and unachievable bar no one would ever, or could ever reach - least of all myself.

And yet I sat with the blinders on for years and years and years as I gazed through the rosy pink stained reality, shielding my vision and sensibility every day as I looked outward at everything and everyone surrounding me and as I looked inward at everything buzzing and whirling around within me.

Within the whisper of not enough there was always an echo of questioning and discourse, of silent lashing back. The tiny specs hidden within me wanting to let it go, release it all, open the arms wide and just stop the battle, stop the war, and simply embrace it all. Embrace the imperfections, the weaknesses, the failures. Stop running from them and stop allowing them to define me, somehow releasing them and finding a way of honest love and acceptance, of removing the glasses and seeing life with a clarity I think I always knew was there but would never allow myself to examine.

To be aware of the reality of the change in mindset that needs to occur is step one, and I was beyond excited and driven to begin the journey of change, of letting go, of self overcome that I knew I need to begin working on. However, I have found that the implementation and work needed when moving into step two has been a whole other reality.

Knowing, and obtaining, and maintaining the self discipline of fully implementing any change is where the rubber meets the road. Where the real pain and reality sets in. Where the work becomes the reality that was only previously defined within our minds.

I have had seasons of success and felt I made great strides forward. And then just as quickly the season of success fell back into a season of doubt, and regression, and backward slide. The ten steps I had been able to take forward was now back to only four steps forward. Six steps again lay before me, needing to be re-overcome, and finding the drive and motivetion and self dicipline to tackle those same six steps yet again I’m finding is much harder doing the second (and third and fourth time) is much harder than it was that first time. And the first time I was afraid might kill me.

So, I sit here wondering why. Why do I keep hanging on to this defination and picture within me of the perfect body image, having on to this stupid dream and personal expectation that I know I will never, can never, honestly achieve?

Am I supposed to keep hanging on to this unattainable dream as a way to continue to propel me forward, continue to drive me onward and higher, or am I supposed to honestly come to grips with this unattainedable dream and open my arms, open my hands, and release it… lowering my dreams and expectations to something more realistic, more attainable, more achievable?

I’m torn between leaving the unattainable as the goal, or just lowering the bar and changing the expectation to something far less. If I lower the bar - will I ever know if I could have perhaps achieved that higher unattainable dream, or if I leave it too high - will I ever stop killing myself trying to actual achieve and reach that dream that is in fact unattainable?

Is it “perfection vision” unattainable merely because I just haven’t reached and conquered it yet? Or is it really really unrealistic and really really unattainable? Which is doing me more harm than good? Which is going to drive me further, faster, and more fully?

Do I delete that screenshot of that instagram photo of the woman standing on the running track with her lean and beautiful body in all it’s perfection (as definined within my head) so I stop coming across it, stop looking at it, stop obsession over it, because I can’t ever and will never achieve that personally for myself? Or do I print it out and hang it on my fridge and bathroom mirror and treadmill as a constant reminder of all that I could still achieve if I were to keep working on it - a reminder not that that is something I can never become, but as the person I just haven’t become yet?

Part of me says delete and come to grips with reality and just figure out how to redefine “perfection” so I stop killing myself mentally and physically over something that will never be because it can never be achieved, no matter how much time and effort and work you put into it.

In other words, give it up, take the easy road and allow the dream to actually be unattainable.
Part of me says print it and quit trying to give up. Maybe it’s time to just dive in deeper, work harder, push even more, because what if I could achieve, what if I might achieve, what if I can achieve it - I just need to give myself more time and effort and work toward achieving it?

In other words, allow the dream to drive me to attain that which I currently only fear as unattainable, because I'm not willing to push and put in the hard work and self discipline to actually get myself all the way there.

To delete or to print? To give up or to modify? To not give up or to continue on?
To release the insanity? Redefine the insanity? Or simply continue on towards the insanity?

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