Do you ever have periods of time when it feels like God, or the universe if you prefer, is conspiring to teach you a lesson? My journey forward with Boundless feels like that. If you put me in a room with my hands on someone, I am in my element. My self-judging brain settles down and hands over the reins to my feeling intuition, and I am in my happy place! But as any new business owner knows, it takes time and getting the word out to grow a business. This is not so much my happy place! As much as I'd like to call it something else (like torture!), I'm getting to know this thing called marketing, as I am trying to get word out for Boundless' existence. Though I believe I have something valuable to offer, I'm finding some deep-seated fears hiding out in my psyche. So just as much as I hope that my clients will find physical (and perhaps some emotional) healing during their association with Boundless, I am hoping that I too find some healing in this journey. And do you know what? It isn't easy! Mr. John Barnes who developed and teaches JFB Myofacial Release likes to say, "Healing is messy!" So I'm going to welcome you to my mess!
What is this mess I speak of? Perfectionism. This isn't some nice term that means I do things really well (though sometimes with time and effort that can be an outcome). It is a devil on my shoulder that constantly tells me I am not good enough, so don't even try! So a quick blog post that should roll off my computer in 15 minutes may take me hours, because heaven forbid, if every word isn't well thought out, and every person in the world doesn't wholeheartedly agree that it is just the best thing they every read, then my whole world is going to crumble!
So how has this played out in my life? Want all my messy details? In short, sometimes my subconscious self is so afraid to try and fail, that is causes me to fail to try. Do you know how long it took me to pursue this dream that is Boundless? Well, lets see, I took my first Myofascial Release course 15 years ago, so we could start there. I suffered my first severe burnout in traditional physical therapy settings 12 years ago (because surely if I couldn't get everyone seen in 23 billable minutes, write perfect notes in little or no time, and meet arbitrary productivity standards, I must be a failure!), so we could start there. I took a wonderful course in Neurovascular Integration which could have been my launch point 4 years ago. How many times since then did I dream of offering physical therapy my way, and didn't act, frozen between my fear of staying miserable where I was versus my fear of failing if I tried something new? Too many times to count!
Failure to launch is one thing, but sometimes my perfectionism plays out in the "all or nothing syndrome". If I failed my diet already, I might as well eat the whole bag of chips. If I can't get the whole house cleaned, why bother cleaning anything at all? If I broke my exercise streak, well, I guess that is the end of that! If, I can't find the time to do a perfect job on patching the hole in the wall, then I'll just ignore the hole for the next two years. If this blog post isn't perfect, I just won't ever push the post button!
If I could find a perfect way to recover from my perfectionism, and then present to you only my perfect self, I would totally do it! But since that is a total oxymoron, and my self is not perfect, nor will I ever be, I am stepping forward as I am. I am pushing the post button! So if you are brave enough to read my blogs, explore my website, follow my facebook page, try some of my self-care suggestions, or trust me to come lay on my treatment table, you are going to meet my forever-recovering, imperfect, perfectionist self.
So for those of you who have already achieved perfect, wait for me at the finish line, or better yet, cheer from the sidelines! For the rest of all you imperfect people like me, I look forward to meeting you along the way! I know I'm not going to hit perfection on this side of heaven, but I plan to keep learning to enjoy the journey!
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