Perfection, Fluff and Fairyfloss

I just had the most amazing conversation on Facebook – I seem to be saying that a lot lately

It started out like this:

The gorgeous, inspiring and wonderful Tracy posted: “Aaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!! (◑﹏◐)” and “Bereft… Sad… Stunned… Shocked… Tired… Resigned…”

this sparked off the most amazing conversations all around being real and what’s perfect:

Jivan: go for it Tracy!!! One of the things folk in the Light Brigade forget is the importance and beauty of feeling what is and allowing it to be by sitting in it until it transforms us…..within the middle of the emotion lays freedom….you go girl!

Tracy: What I’ve learnt with everything that I do is that all emotions as they arise need to be felt. When something has come along to knock the wind out of me letting those emotions free rein helps me grow, and as you say Jivan transforms me. I know that I am growing closer and closer to ME. With each elation, with each sorrow, with each laugh and feeling of despair, I am always growing and knowing me more.

Linda: I SO hear you Wonder Woman!!! How did you ever become so wise??? Muah

Tracy: LOL Linda!! My EGS (Emotional Guidance System) the GPS to my soul. Where all plans for my life were deposited before birth. It’s such a wonderful instrument to use… try it more!! ♥

Arcadia: Yay!! Let it out Tracy…rage….dance…yell…scream…stomp…shake!! I love it…the feminine it all her magnificence…cool still waters one minute…raging volcano the next. Mind you, I’m yet to fully rage… mine’s more like hot springs…just simmering with an occasional blast!! LOL Big hugs )

Linda: When I post statuses like that (and when I’m feeling like that), as I did just yesterday, everyone tells me to stop being so negative! In fact, I’m sick to death of people telling me not to be negative when I let my emotions out!

Samyo: Linda let it out … just find people that can receive it .. all of this Lightworker fluff is so limiting .. find your shadow, expose it, let it ignite you true nature …

Annie: I’m with you Trace every now and then a good AAAAAaaaaarrrrgggghhhh! never goes astray! I have had a few of those myself lately – if I tell you I spent one whole trip from Buderim to Coolum screaming @#*&% at the top of my voice last week – will it make you love me less? ps- the car on the highway is a great place to scream and scream bad words – it’s so liberating and no-one can hear you! Tracy, Linda, Jivan, Samyo being your authentic self really does mean being real and authentic – well at least that’s what I thought it meant

Ian: t is the challenges in life that help to create who we are, sometimes i really hate it (at the time) but the universe works that way, look at the butterfly

Annie: It just goes to show that sometimes not being perfect in that moment is the perfect thing to do… it eases up the tension, releases the pressure cooker and allows ease to return in those moments when you really need it! That’s what being REAL is all about for me!

Linda: Not being perfect – that does it for me! We strive so long and hard for perfection but it’s really only a couple of “swear words” away! hehe

There was even more to this conversation but it would be way too long, these are the salient points.

Now that we are here and all on the same page, I have to ask you, are you being real and authentically you?

It is on social media that the “perfection, fluff and fairyfloss” (cotton candy for the US readers) syndrome becomes most apparent. So many people think that they have to pretend to be up all the time, that things are perfect every day – are you one of them? Even if you are marketing a business online, you need to be authentic, real and yourself.

Authenticity even when it’s not pretty every day is more engaging to your audience, customers and clients than false fluffy, fairyfloss because they can then identify with your humanness. You are just like them, you are real and you will earn their trust, respect and allegance just for being real, telling them the stories of your life without falling into a state of victimhood.

Just like fairyfloss false happiness is full of air and so sweet it leaves your teeth feeling on edge and coated in fluff. This doesn’t mean you air your dirty laundry in public for all to see and read, it does mean that when you feel like saying “Aaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!” you do it and then you can choose to tell the world why or not, it is up to you. However personally I would be discreet.

Recently I found myself in a very sad situation, now my family is not great at expressing grief and for the first time in my life I felt I really had to let it out somewhere. I found myself telling the world on social media a few days later how distressed I was and how in need of comfort I was.. the response was amazing and I certainly recieved my share of comfort, compassion and connection for which I will be eternally grateful.

Yes, I am marketing businesses online and yet this moment of deep humanness became for me a real turning point in my life, where I realised I was allowed to be sad, be real and still be accepted perhaps more so because of my vulnerability than for my strength. This does not mean I would blurt my whole life to the world online or off, but I always have believed in being real, I may in the past have avoided my online friends during a time like this and missed out on the comfort my friends brought to my life.

I was chatting just last week to another lovely soul who had been going through a lot over the past few weeks, she had avoided all her online friends during her darkest days and had missed out on so much. This young woman only came back online once she was feeling on top of the world, is this you? Do you think that you have to live up to some perfect ideal of who you are?

Stop! Your very imperfection is what makes you perfect and believe me it is a lot easier just being yourself warts, Aaaarrrrgggghhh days and all than pretending or trying to live up to your idea of others expectations. As Linda said, “We strive so long and hard for perfection but it’s really only a couple of “swear words” away!”

It is the stories of your life that are the most engaging way to create real-ationships, it is through the shared stories of our lives that we find our friends and the family we wished we’d had – those wonderful people we find along the way who love us just for being us. Tell me your stories and I will tell you mine and together we will weave a story of our time together and perhaps in the continual weaving of our stories – together we might create a new Earth in the weft and weave of our love and compassion for eachother…

I love you just the way you are!

© 2010, AnnieInfinite. All rights reserved.