Life coaching, yoga, and spirituality all intersect in the world (or the industry) of personal development. An industry that has grown and boomed in the last decade or two. When I did my yoga teacher training 15 years ago, a lot of people didn’t know what yoga was. And when I trained as a life coach 10 years ago most people didn’t know what that was. Fast forward to now and yoga, coaching, spiritual approaches to life are in the main stream, which is wonderful!

However…as a witness and a participant of the growth of the personal development world I have seen good things and bad, just like everything, the personal development and spiritual world is no different. There are good practitioners and bad, there are good methodologies and bad…we could go on. One of the negatives I have seen pop up in this space is the idea that you need to be ‘perfect’ in some way to participate in and be successful at personal development.

In the early days this goal of ‘perfection’ was around appearance and image in the world, such as having the waif like ‘yoga body’ and sparkling clear eyes from lots of breath work and zero late nights. As we progressed the emphasis moved to manifestation and showing off what you have created in your life to showcase how ‘good’ you are manifesting, such as lovely homes, cars, beautiful holidays etc. We have since moved through a phase of ‘trauma and healing’. Attaining perfection in this area one needs to deeply and completely heal your trauma so that you may manifest brilliantly and look amazing. (Yes, I am being a little tongue in cheek :-))

I describe the above with a hint of sarcasm to highlight how silly some of the goals of perceived ‘perfection’ can be. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look your best, manifest like a queen, enjoy a beautiful life and heal your trauma – I am the first in line for all that good stuff. The issue creeps in when we are striving for a level of perfection which when attained shows we have done a great job…this is because there is no such thing as perfection. Everyone is different and multifaceted and complex. Each of our dreams coming true and our goals being attained will look (and should look) entirely different. If anything these images of perceived perfection actually hold us back rather than propel us forward.

Why are we talking about this?

Because in order to create real freedom and fulfilment in life, we need to allow ourselves to be authentically us. We need to let go of the images of perfection and tune into what is fun and nourishing and meaningful to you, and you, and you and me. You don’t need to be a vegetarian and sober to get so many benefits from yoga. You don’t need to have all your trauma healed and sorted before you find a beautiful, long term relationship. You don’t need to get up at 5am every single morning to be a leader and smash your business and career goals, there’s a place for late Friday nights on the dance floor with your mates.

What does this mean for you?

This means you are free to be you, and as long as you are not hurting yourself or others, I encourage you to explore what that really means. Where can you throw off the perceived perfection of who you think you should be and how you think you should be behaving and step into your authentic self? Perhaps it involves a steak and a beer, or a spliff and boogie or a shot of tequila and karaoke – great! Enjoy!

There is a tendency to be ‘holier than thou’ in this wonderful world of personal development and spirituality. To be obsessed with clean eating and clean everything, however life is here to be lived to the full and personal development works best in your real, messy, gorgeous, hard, sweet life experience.

To be clear – I am a huge fan of clean living, love it! But over the years I have become rigid and contracted at times by trying to conform to external perceptions of perfection, which only really made me unhappy and unwell over time. As a result I learned to be intuitive in my choices, to tune into my body, not the external chatter, and the result is a more real, much more fun, and really juicy experience of life. I invite you to join me!

If you’d like to continue the conversation, drop me a line and we’ll have a chat. Sending love xx