This post is excerpted from the September newsletter

Humans are wired to notice the negative more than the positive. At one point in our evolution, it was a survival skill. The point might have been your childhood, but maybe you were lucky and it’s just an ancient ancestors thing. In any event, this tendency, which astrologer Dana Gerhardt describes as a Shadow Virgo trait, seems to get louder this time of year.

Mercury Retrograde is an excellent time to shift out of that. Write gratitude lists. Celebrate your victories, no matter how small. Remind yourself that everything in the Universe in the Universe is constantly expanding and contracting; that all matter is energy; that all non-matter is energy; that energy is defined by it’s motion, which is a push and a pull, or expansion or contraction. So the Universe, and everything in it, is breathing. We might strive for balance, as well we should, but we will never achieve it, because we are made of energy. We are constantly in motion. Everything in us is constantly in motion.

So let yourself off the hook. An ideal is just an ideal, something to strive for. You are exactly where you are, and that is right and good.

We suffer from perfectionism in our society, driven by the ego messages of “I’m not enough,” “There’s not enough,” and “There will never be enough.” These are the lies our ego tells us to keep us from growth. If we can’t do it perfectly, why bother at all, right? This is what keeps us powerless and paralyzed.

Take your power back!

Allow yourself to be exactly where you are. AND strive for goals, work for change, stretch yourself, challenge assumptions. Work to make yourself a better person. Work to make the world a better place. Don’t let the myth of perfectionism strip you of your power.

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