I would like to believe that I haven't written a blog on perfectionism before, but since I have been blogging since January of 2012, the odds are pretty good that I have in one way, shape or form. Hmmm...I'm thinking right now that I should go back and look at all my blogs to check, but that would just reinforce what I am trying to avoid. During this morning's sermon at our dearly beloved Episcopal Church, I was singing on the Praise and Worship team. I exchanged a word ("through" for "by") in a song and it just drove me nuts!! In the next Chorus, my singing partner (there were just two acoustic guitars and two singers today) did the exact same thing. We smiled at each other, realizing we had both done it. No big deal, right? Oh, if you say "yes", you truly must not know me. It doesn't matter if, in a 100 person choir, 99 people sang the correct note and I messed it up. I would still beat myself up about it. 

And then the sermon began. Mother Jamie (who prefers "Jamie", but her official title as priest at our church is Mother Jamie. Whatever, right? So, she gets up and begins talking about how a dear friend told her about his tale of woe with perfection. As a very wealthy financial advisor, he was struggling to even sleep because he was constantly thinking about work. Now, let me be very clear with what resonated with me. The not being able to sleep thing has not typically been my problem---thank you, Melatonin! But wow! during the day, I can get wrapped around the axle about not having everything "perfect". I joked with some administrators the other day that if they were diagnosing children back in "the day" (I told them I wasn't going to give them numbers so they could make a number equation and come up with my exact age), I would likely have been diagnosed with OCD and possibly ADD. No matter---I am a perfectionist in so many areas of my life. Work is one of them. If I tell a client I will be there on such-and-so day, then go to Urgent Care in New York to find out I have COVID, I still asked the doctor if I could do the three days of training (in three different locations) before going home. He must have truly believed me to be a moron. Luckily, that was three years ago, and while I have had "long COVID" and continuing issues since then with lung capacity, etc., I am fine----just fine.....except that nagging need to make sure everything is perfect or nearly so.  One of my participants the other day jokingly asked, "Do you want us to use your phone to text Dave to see what he says?" First of all, you're going to use my phone????? Ewwwwwww!!! No thanks, But more than that, what would be the point. Dave and I have been married for 32 years. He knows my flaws (and there are a lot, truly). OCD is just one of them.
So, hearing a sermon on the need to work on letting go of perfectionism is something I needed to hear.....apparently so much so that I was crying and, without any tissue, I was dripping from my eyes and nose (and without tissue). Have I mentioned my issue with OCD. I didn't have tissue but I did have hand sanitizer, which helped a little bit. 
What Jamie's sermon reminded me is that everyone messes up a word every once in a while, and that if 99/100 people in a workshop I teach say it was all amazing, I still have a tendency to hyper-focus on the 1/100 who said "this could have been taught in a half a day" even though the Superintendent said this administrator said this school leader is likely the one who needs the most help in being objective, building culture, eliminating biases, etc.

I am so grateful when my work issues align with my spiritual solutions. This, I pray for each one of you.
If you think you are one of the people in my life who needs prayer but is not getting it, worry no more. I am praying for you.

Just for today, join with me in letting go of one thing that you try to do perfectly.  It is the Serenity Prayer at its finest:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 
I say this prayer every single morning. It's great because it applies to just about everything that will come up every day!

By the way, I traveled this week, and I am sleepy, so if there are any writing errors, write to me, and I will change them. :) I want to make it perfect, after all. 

Happy Communicating,
Shelly

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Dave and I rescued and fostered and adopted out 25 Labs through Desert Labrador Retriever Rescue. The number would have been 26, but we foster - failed when we adopted Kirby. Now, come on. We got him when he was 6 weeks old, and we couldn't put him out on the Dog-a-Log to be adopted until he was neutered, and we couldn't neuter him until he was 4  or 5 months old. Well, by then, he had wormed his way into our other girls' hearts (and maybe ours, too). This was a puppy who, along with his litter mates, would not have made it alive for another day or two as they were on the side of the highway near Mexico.  He was a puppy, so we had to do all the puppy training (we had had girl dogs for so long, I tried to get Dave to teach Kirby how to lift his leg to pee, to no avail), don't chew up our carpet training, don't chew on your leash if you want to go for a walk, and so on. This puppy who could have died instead grew up to be a handsome boy, who has a bit of Chihuahua, a bit more of Clumber Spaniel, and mostly Lab in him. If I am not feeling great, he will curl up in bed with me all day if I like. It is unimaginable to think about life on this earth without a Kirby (and his siblings, as well). When we go down to the River Park in our neighborhood, he and L.C. (our 4 year old deer-chasing nut of a Lab) are never on a leash anymore. Kirby is FASCINATED with the armadillos. He will chase them until they find one of their "Ho Chi Minh Trail" holes, then look at us like, "What the hell just happened?" He is hilarious.....

Fast forward to about 10 days ago, when I saw that a local rescue organization (which has WAY too many dogs, but they are doing their level best to help get these dogs two walks a day and some play time as well) had a Lab/Great Pyrenees puppy mix. This puppy was the lone survivor of a brutally savage situation, I should warn you that what I'm about to say is really graphic. Hang in there. These pups deserve us hearing tough stuff.  Someone on the south side of San Antonio decided to strangle the two parents (they had decomposed so much in the day before they were found, it was hard to tell the exact breed, but they believe the mom was Lab and the dad was Great Pyrenees). Three puppies were tied to the parents (but not strangled), and the babies were desperately trying to get milk from the deceased mom. You honestly cannot make this stuff up. Three puppies were found alive....only one of them survived. We have her at our house, now. Most of you who know us know that we typically have named our dogs initials (K.C. (Kacie); M.E. (Emmy); L.N. (Ellen); Rudy (an anomaly, but Replacement Unit Dog for K.C.); L.C. (Elsie), etc.). We are simply fostering this survivor pup who is already as tall as L.C. and Kirby and is only 6 months old. We got her in the pick-up to bring her home, and she promptly puked on Dave's Ram....once....twice....thrice. So we decided Ivy was a great name (I.V. stood for I Vomited until we decided she is a true survivor so she is now Ivey because she is "I'm Victorious"). Within a day, this girl who was mopey and moving slowly had commandeered the entire Arneson selection of toys (moving them one at a time from the living room to our bedroom). She was sitting on command. She had never been potty-trained (duh) and she potties on command, now (with a couple of accidents in between). Oh, and what about being on a leash because everyone says she will run off? This girl, Ivy, has been walking at the River Park twice a day since we got her, and she stays with us (we are her "pack") while L.C. chases butterflies and searches for golf balls, and Kirby does what Kirby does. 
What a beautiful new beginning for this beautiful girl! 
Anyone looking for a new roommate? We'd have a hard time giving her up, but this rescue needs people to foster more dogs.  
Just for today, perhaps we should all consider what makes us feel joyful and free. What a blessing we have to be alive and have the freedom to have new beginnings.
Happy Communicating!
Shelly
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