07/21/2024
I do a little camping and it gives me time to think about and observe nature up close and personal, taking lessons as I go.
Have you noticed that nature produces nothing perfect? Everything has some sort of imperfection in its formation or is changed by something in the environment around it. Looking at a forest landscape, it can look perfect from a distance. Leaves are green; there's different texture. But, up close, there are millions of imperfections in the shape or color of the leaves. Imperfect in their own perfect way. The lesson I take is we can’t expect perfection in anything natural. We want our relationships to be a reflection of nature, fluid, changing, growing all the time.
We expect perfection from ourselves or others. But is that our attitude? Don’t we get upset when our partner doesn’t meet our expectations? Getting to know our partner, we notice the beautiful things in them, things we see as perfection. Just like the forest’s perfection from a distance. But, get a little closer, we start to see the flaws. Those flaws draw our attention away from what we thought was perfect. We might feel betrayed, duped or sold a flawed product.
There's a time to back up and pay attention to the imperfect perfection that is all of us in nature. Perspective is important! You know you are not perfect. Where does your partner focus their attention? Sometime, your partner made a choice of what to focus on. This applies to self compassion as well.
So, have you been focusing on the imperfections in your partner or in yourself? Practice noticing the perfections in yourself and your partner. And remember, nobody is perfect; nothing in nature is perfect, relationships aren’t supposed to be perfect.
