In my last blog, I wrote about how an attitude of perfectionism was causing me to self-sabotage my diet through emotional eating. Today, I offer some lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s, Anthem, which speak to the same thing:
“There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”
Now… I’ve come a long way in the battle against perfectionism. I realised a while back that this attitude of being either perfect or worthless, with nothing in between, was driving many of my problems and anxieties throughout my life.
The problem, or course, is that ‘perfect’ isn’t achievable.
So when the cracks inevitably appear, there’s a tendancy to try and mend said crack with a pick-axe.
In the healthy-eating scenario I spoke about last time, it looks like this: I slip up and eat some sugar. I tell myself I’ve failed, and may aswell enjoy more sugar. I start eating every bit of sugary crap in sight, even though I’m full to the point of feeling sick. I feel depressed, ashamed, grotesque. I’m a failure. And so as a failure, I eat more crap, sugary food. It goes on and on.
I see a crack in the wall, and decide to pull down the entire house!
It just doesn’t make sense. So I’m going to strive to listen to Cohen’s wise words; to see imperfection and mistakes as little cracks in which the light gets through; to take a smaller, more suitable tool to fix said cracks or even to leave them, unprepared, appreciating the light that they bring in.
Anxious-Ambition.com 