Dear friends,

I have a feeling this week’s blog topic will resonate with many of you. I was recently reflecting on life and change and the feelings that come along with it. I had a bit of an epiphany while sorting through my feelings and wanted to share with you all.

If you’re reading this blog, I know that you care about personal development and living an aligned, peaceful life. You want to work on yourself and make yourself “better”. What I’ve noticed lately within myself is that, in my quest for personal development I tend to hold myself to perfectionistic standards, oftentimes leaving very little room for grace or nuance.

Can you relate?

What I wanted to share with you this week, is a gentle reminder to let yourself off the hook for being perfect in an imperfect world. Which means, you are allowed to have complicated feelings about complicated situations.

As you may have noticed, I’ve had a lot of intense, personal changes happening in my life over the past year. And as I’ve been doing my best to manage my emotions, be mindful of my actions, and heal from deep hurt and disappointment, I am not perfect.

I’ve noticed the swing from feeling angry to sad, disappointed to hopeful, and bitter to forgiving.

For so long I felt that I had to hold myself to a straight line of feeling; that I had to pick a lane and stick to it; that I couldn’t veer off course. And that is what I wish to remind you of this week: that life is not linear, it is not a straight line to healing and resolution.

We are allowed to have complicated feelings, wavering feelings, changing feelings in a complicated, wavering, and ever changing world. Life is not black and white, as much as we’d like for it to be that way. Life is gray, and somehow we have to find a way to live life in that middle path where we can find grace, acceptance, and understanding for our own humanity.

If you’re someone who is healing and reeling from life’s challenges and difficulties, I invite you to join me in going easy on yourself and your feelings that arise during this time. You do not have to maneuver through life perfectly, and trying to do so will only bring us more heartache and disappointment.

All we can do each day is show up as our best, most aligned selves, take our best, most aligned actions, and know that life is messy, and that’s okay.

xo, Michelle