I absolutely love Beyonce’s song Flawless!  I can’t think of a bigger boost to my self-esteem than singing loud and proud that “I woke up flawless!”

It’s energetic, uplifting, and empowering while promoting the well-being of women!  That is a lot to pull off in one song! My issue is that it can be a little misleading and downright self-sabotaging if taken out of context.
 
In case you missed Homecoming, Beyoncé’s new Netflix special, Beyoncé works hard and have made countless sacrifices to create the life she has.  She constantly looks for weaknesses and ways to improve as an artist.  This my Wildflowers is no different with love, you too will have to work hard, make tough sacrifices and constantly look for areas for improvement in order to cultivate the loving relationship you desire.

With that in mind, my major problem with being flawless is that it’s one of the greatest roadblocks to creating a healthy relationship, for that matter, a healthy life.

When you believe that you are perfect, without shortcomings and that you do not make mistakes, you simply are not incentivized or motivated to practice self-awareness.  Even worse, when you believe that you are flawless, you aren’t open to receiving feedback from others.  You do not see your shortcomings, do not want anyone else to mention them, but think that you have what it takes to be in a loving relationship.  Think about that for a moment while I sip some tea…

I know that right about now, many of my Wildflowers are probably thinking that the flawless mentality is ego-driven and regulated to the “Real House Wives”, high-maintenance reality-tv crowd.  I’m challenging you to consider that we all subconsciously pick up this flawless mentality to a certain degree.  From the time we can stand and talk, we are taught to be a good person… be kind, polite, generous, hard-working…etc.  As a “good person”, you integrate these values into your life and work hard to exemplify these characteristics.  You unconsciously start to base your identity on being a good person, regularly checking off the boxes with reasons why you are a good person.

Case in point….

I have a good friend that was accused of being selfish by another friend.  Understandably, she was very hurt by this assertion.  In response to this claim, she rattled off a laundry list of attributes and deeds that qualified her as a “good person” and a great friend.  What she missed in the encounter was the opportunity to actually understand what the other person meant by calling her selfish and possibly identify an area for improvement, because she like many of us was preoccupied with protecting her status of being…you got it…a “good person”. 
 
When you base your identity on being flawless or a good person, you start to dedicate a whole lot of time and energy defending an image of yourself versus trying to live your best life.  How many times in relationships have we blocked out feedback and ignored signs that we may need to adjust our thoughts or behaviors because we were more invested in defending our image than we were with cultivating a healthy relationship?
 
Just to let you in on a secret, you can be a good person and still have “stuff” that you need to work on.

As a Wildflower creating your season of bloom, I implore you to give yourself permission to not be perfect.

I know it sounds simple when you say it, but what this does is free you up from instinctive defensiveness and start to remove the unconscious masks that we wear, so we can begin to see our True selves and make the changes needed to cultivate the life and relationships that we want.
 
I can’t pretend to speak for Beyoncé, but in my mind, Flawless means love of self and love for self…as-is, while always seeking to be aware of areas for improvement and striving to be your very best.  As a society, we have been conditioned to think that having flaws is abnormal and a sign of weakness.  When you go through life thinking you don’t have any imperfections or shortcomings you start to show up in your relationships with this flawless mentality, constantly ruining opportunities for genuine love because you are not willing or not able to self-reflect.

So how do you give yourself permission to have flaws?

Start by acknowledging one thing that you said or did that wasn’t perfect at the end of the day.  Just write it down in a journal.  Don’t attempt to judge it, correct it or even make amends for it.  Just acknowledge it and let it be in peace.  Right now, at this stage in your journey, the goal is to clearly see yourself and be okay with who is staring back at you in the mirror, flaws and all.
 
Life is a journey, a becoming, a growing, and a process.  Take each moment to reflect on who you are being and decide who you want to be going forward.  Listening to ourselves, loving ourselves, and growing ourselves, that’s flawless.