To thrive and lead a fulfilling life, I believe we need to nurture the most important relationship in our life – the one we have with our Self! Thus, my intention here is to share with you matters I hope you’ll find useful to guide you on your journey to create a loving relationship with yourself and others, and to build a life you desire.

Let’s begin on a summery note, light and easy…

For some of us summer started early, for others it is just beginning. In any case, it feels good to be outside, enjoy the warmth of the sun and relax a bit, does it?

In between a course on New Code NLP in Portugal, followed by a vacation, the second module of the NLP Practitioner in Vienna and a training on self-coaching with women in Skopje, I skipped to publish the June edition of the Self-Expedition newsletter. What is interesting is that, for the first time, I didn’t feel guilty for doing so. Instead, I gently patted myself on the back and said: You are doing great and it’s okay not to be perfect!

Things got even more interesting when my mom was in the audience at one of my trainings and I felt way out of my comfort zone presenting in front of her. After the first day I asked her: “So, what is your experience of this first day?“. Her answer was: “Why do you make these weird faces when you speak?“. For a moment I felt the old insecurity, the urge to change my imperfection and just when I was about to react defensively I stopped, shook it off, adjusted my physiology and answered:

“Because this is who I am and those faces make me, me!“

The next day I asked the same question, to which she answered: “I cut your face from my viewpoint, I focused just on your body language and your voice. I could follow this way“. 😂

Turns out my faces reminded her of my grandmother, her mother-in-law, and she didn’t quite like it. But, in my perception, I took this as a compliment and felt proud to look like my legendary grandmother.

Throughout life we constantly get conditioned, by our parents, by society, by school, by religion, by the company we work for, by social media… (you name it). We have to look like this or that, we have to fit in a frame, we have to behave in a certain way, we have to be the perfect child of our parents, the perfect colleague, write the perfect email or create the perfect report… – we do all this in order to belong and be valued. And whenever we don’t adhere to these specific standards and expectations we have set for ourselves as “perfect”, we feel guilt. This can be highly unconscious, but also we can be well aware of our perfectionism. Even when we are aware and we know it doesn’t bring us anything good, we may still end up entangled in the perfection-guilt loop.

You probably know by now that I am not interested in the “why”, but I am interested in the “how”. How do we do it? – is one question that I won’t entertain now, because it is highly individual and you can explore it for yourself. Instead, how do we get out of it?

Below I share with you some of my ways of dealing with perfectionism:

• The first step to change is always: awareness and acceptance. Stand in your own truth.
• Who are you trying to be perfect for? Truth is, everybody is so self-centered and in their own world, that usually no one notices your imperfection. What may be imperfect for you, could well be perfect for someone else. It’s all in your head!
• And, as much as you want to, you can not influence someone else’s opinion about you. The opinion of others about you is none of your business! Mind your own business!!!
• Notice your physiology when you are in the loop. How is this body posture different from the one when you feel proud of yourself? Calibrate, adopt and adjust properly.
• Hear the voice inside your head: What are you saying to yourself? What is the tone of voice? Whose voice it is? Begin by changing the words and the tone, talk to yourself like talking to your best friend. How do you sound like then? What would you say then?
• Change the frame from “what if I make a mistake” to “I can learn and grow only by making mistakes”. There is no failure, only feedback! There is no cure, only evolution!
• Forgive yourself! I know it is not easy, but – we are all doing the best we can at any given moment with the knowledge and the resources we have.
• Laugh at your imperfect self, it’s the best medicine against perfectionism!

I went to Portugal in May to learn New Code NLP, a new approach in coaching that aims at balancing the left and right brain hemisphere and “is applicable in a variety of fields such as business, education, sports, health, coaching, trauma recovery, parenting and any life area where significant improvement in choices, performance and congruency is desired“. Every day on my walk to the training venue I took one selfie of my not-so-perfect selfand created this not-so-perfect collage. 😂 🖤

And, in the words of Virginia Satir:

“Everyone is a wonderful human being”

Me, too!

You, too!

To continue,

A few announcements:

=> This summer I will be again in Vienna for a consultancy with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), so I am happy to re-connect with my network. If you are one and reading this, get in touch!

=> The third module of the International NLP Practitioner is scheduled for 7-9 October in Vienna. If you have already taken the first module, you can continue your NLP education and jump to the third module! Get in touch to reserve your spot.

=> For the first time I will offer NLP and New Code NLP in Macedonian. The first module will take place 27-29 October in Skopje. Currently there is an amazing early bird offer of 25% off until 31st August, so take this opportunity now. You can also join online. Payment in instalments is possible, too!

To finish,

My message for the month of July is:

Be gentle with your imperfectly perfect self 🖤