Whole Hearted Living Over Perfection
It can be easy for me to be hard on myself. As a recovering perfectionist, I have felt that everything I do must be special, done just right, and perfectly. This has meant that I like to throw my whole heart into my endeavors, but it has also meant I stop myself from pursuing things for fear that I won’t be perfect at them. I once asked my best friend what she thought my biggest shortcoming was and she said something along the lines of - you let your perfect get in the way of your great. That has stuck with me.
A concept that has helped me transform my paralysing perfectionism is that of shraddhā. Shraddha comes from two Sanskrit words: shrat (shrad), which means “truth” or “faithfulness,” and dha, which translates “to put or place; to direct one's mind toward.” Some translate this word as wholeheartedness. I like to think of it as the act of doing something with your whole heart and full faith. For me, this means full faith in both myself and the universe; full faith in myself to follow my heart, listen to my intuition, and act with wholeheartedness, and full faith in the universe that I am supported in what I am being guided to do.
When I see the world in this way, there is no more room for my perfection. As long as I give my whole heart to something, I must have faith the end result will be what it needs to be.
Shraddha is about having confidence in our ability to figure things out as we go. We don’t have to have everything figured out beforehand in order to take action. In fact, we can’t. We can never see the future or control the outcome, we must move forward in spite of this. When we trust ourselves, we are able to throw our whole hearts into our lives. When we doubt ourselves, we often hold back out of fear. When we trust the universe, we know that it is safe for us to take chances and take action because there is no failing, only course correction.
Without relying on shraddha, I would not be where I am today. There are so many times in my life I jumped off a cliff into the unknown. These have been some of the most defining moments of my life. Despite the fear, I was able to stay grounded, clear and confident in these decisions. I trusted they would unfold as they needed to.
I always brought my whole heart with me and I always brought my faith in the universe and myself.
Shraddha is what we can turn to when the perfectionism starts to creep in, when all we feel is the doubt and self-criticism. We must remind ourselves that if we are doing something with our whole hearts, we cannot fail.
