Imperfect is the new perfect.

This is my first blog post EVER… and I’m a little intimidated. In general it won’t be this long! My plan is to update it pretty regularly with short posts… but we will see!
My teenage daughter informed me that if  want to really be an author, sell my book and I have a website, I better have a blog and start posting. So here goes…
Does this thing have spell check? Does it come with an editor? Yikes!
It’s Mother’s Day and I feel like I’m giving birth again. This time to my book “The BLT That Saved My Life.” There has even been labor pain and swelling, not to mention wild cravings.
The book has a lot to do with living in the moment with more joy, love and gratitude.
Just as the first finished copies of the books were scheduled to arrive at my door, I seemed to be less in the moment than I had been in the two years since coming close to death and coming alive in a whole new way. Maybe the pressure of thinking that in order to promote the book successfully I have to be a “perfect” example of everything I’m talking about in the book; an expert. Yeah right! Give me a break! Maybe it was all the excitement of the upcoming book tour and re-connecting with old friends. So much happening so fast, SO much to do that I thought I’d better take control so I could manage all this! Or just really bad peri-menopause or something I ate.
No matter what the cause,  I am starting to see the beauty in it all and the “Perfection” of losing it right as I am about to go public with it. I get to re-experience the ego death and rebirth, not take this amazing experience for granted and remember to let go even more.
This last week or two, I forgot that my quiet, inner voice is my boss. I fell into thinking my “To Do” list, other people and money were my bosses. Before my near near-death experience, I could go much longer periods being out of the moment, disconnected from myself.  Now it feels like death. In the past two years (even with all of life’s ups and downs) I had only felt off  for an hour or two once in a while…. until last week. It happened just long enough to really wake me up and get me ready to speak about my book in the present! It is fresh all over again, once again…
I think life is just too complicated these days to try to figure it all out and take control. There are too many choices, too much to do and experience to manage from my head.
I find that when remember to Breathe and  really Let go (of ego, fear, perfectionism and to the “Gods”) and Trust (that all is well, things are happening just as they should be) then Slow down enough to Be in the moment, then what I should do next, naturally occurs to me. I don’t even really need to think or decide. When I am present, Enjoy, Love myself and others and remember to be Thankful, I seem to be able to listen to my heart and my body. When I’m not, I overwork, overeat and generally over worry about everything.  Maybe things don’t always turn out “perfect” with this method, but life is richer, more peaceful and a lot more fun. This is what I mean by imperfect is the new perfect.
About 25 years ago I was at a meditation intensive led by Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. She opened the weekend by saying “I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want first?” The crowd of hundreds wanted the good news first. She went on: “The good news is that you are perfect just the way you are. The bad news is that you are perfect the way you are.” I think she was trying to impart something about acceptance.
Someone else wise once told me that if I let go to the higher order of things, my circumstances may not turn out the way I thought they needed to be to bring me happiness, but the experience of living my life would be beyond my wildest dreams. I have found this to be true.  Though being the human that I am, I seem to try to control things again when fear arises. Much, much less since almost dying and discovering BLT’SBELT, but I still go back to it now and then. Maybe to remember how precious the gift of living in the moment is. Sometimes it’s scary to let go of control and trust but it is SO worth it!

If you got to this blog from other than my website… check it out at kaibravo.com or bltsbelt.com

Thank you!

Kai

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