The gifts of Imperfection

#1 Cultivating Authenticity: Letting go of what people think

#2 Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting go of Perfectionism

#3 Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting go of Numbing and Powerlessness

#4 Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting go of Scarcity and fear of the dark

#5 Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the need for Certainty

6) Cultivating Creativity: Letting go of Comparison

Comparison is all about conformity and competition. At first it seems like these two are mutually exclusive, but they’re not. When we compare, we want to see who or what is best out of a specific collection of “alike things”.

The comparison mandate becomes this crushing paradox of “fit in and stand out!” It’s not cultivate self-acceptance, belonging, and authenticity; it’s be just like everyone else but better.

It’s easy to see how difficult it is to make time for the important things such as creativity, gratitude, joy, and authenticity when we’re spending enormous amounts of energy conforming and competing.

Comparison is the thief of happiness.

The author shared her thoughts on creativity, when she was younger her parents and her used to be creative and crafty in New Orleans but once they moved to Houston everything changed:

“As far as my own story, the older I got, the less value I put on creativity and the less time I spent creating. When people asked me about crafting or art or creating, I relied on the standard, “I’m not the creative type.” On the inside I was really thinking, Who has time for painting and scrapbooking and photography when the real work of achieving and accomplishing needs to be done?

By the time I was forty and working on this research, my lack of interest in creativity had turned into disdain. I’m not sure if I would categorize my feelings about creativity as negative stereotypes, shame, triggers or some combination of the two, but it came to the point where I thought of creating for the sake of creating as self indulgent at best and flaky at worst.

Professionally, the more entrenched and reactive we are about an issue, the more we need to investigate our responses. I think tapping into how much I missed that part of my life would have been too confusing or painful.”

What research on Wholehearted living and loving says:

1. “I’m not very creative” doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and people who don’t. Unused creativity doesn’t just disappear. It lives within us until it’s expressed, neglected to death, or suffocated by resentment and fear.
2. The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.
3. If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. It doesn’t matter what but as long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.

It might sound cliché, but [after the research findings] the world doesn’t even look the same anymore. I see beauty and potential everywhere. It’s been an emotional transition.

Writer William Plomer described creativity as “the power to connect the seemingly unconnected”.

Letting go of comparison is not a to-do list item. It’s something that requieres constant awareness. Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared. And, without comparison, concepts like ahead or behind or best or worst lose their meaning.

DIG Deep

• Get deliberate: If creativity is seen as a luxury or something we do when we have spare time, it will never be cultivated. When I make creating a priority, everything in my life works better.
• Get inspired: It’s so important to find and be a part of a community of like-spirited people who share your beliefs about creativity.
• Get going: Risk feeling vulnerable and new and imperfect and take a class. You never know where you’ll find your creative inspiration.

7) Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth

#8 Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a lifestyle

#9 Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed to

#10 Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting go of being cool and “Always in Control”