self-forgiveness

When what you want is not happening

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

You may have heard my bear stories before, but I’ve recently been thinking about one I met this summer in the Appalachian mountains. I had begun my morning walk a little later than usual, and as I reached the top of the road, a young black bear crossed my path. She stopped and looked at me, as I stopped and looked at her. Deciding I was not a bother, she kept walking and even let me follow not far behind for a while. I could wax on about her grace and the deep gratitude I felt in seeing her, but that’s not what this story is about. What struck me was that had I not been delayed in getting out that morning, I would have missed her entirely.

Timing is a funny thing, and not all unexpected happenings are welcome. Despite knowing we are just tiny beings with limited life spans on a spinning planet in a vast galaxy, we get pulled into the collective societal consciousness that assumes we can take charge here. The conditioning of western culture makes us believe we should decide what we want and make it happen, otherwise we’re doing something wrong. So of course when things don’t go our way, we blame ourselves–or other people. Some of us respond by pushing our agenda harder; others fall into indecision and inertia. Either way, we lose the sense of being in the flow, in right timing. So what other options are there when life seems to be saying “no” or “not now”?

Rather than pretending to be ok, what if we let our reactions run their course? As in, “Hey sweetie, you’re allowed to be frustrated, disappointed, and even resentful. It’s OK to feel how you feel. Take your time, and let the waves come and go.”

What if we get curious about the obstacles that have shown up, asking, “What is there to learn here, and what more support might I need?”

Or maybe this is a resting time, not a doing time, and things just need a chance to work themselves out. What if we let go of trying to figure it all out?

In releasing what “should have been” and turning in a new direction, something else might even show up around the corner.

It takes a different kind of strength to slow down, accept what’s not happening, and look for the gifts that do show up. Underneath the conditioning, we are, like all sentient beings, wild and resilient, designed to adapt to change. We can unlearn some of the ways we’ve been enculturated and remember the innate call to harmonize with life and its timing. The old paradigm fights to maintain dominance and control, but there are more of us who want peace than not; we can start on the inside, wherever we’re at. 

May you feel more and more like your authentic self
Living a life full of curious synchronicities
Following the path as it reveals itself.

Walking with you,

Julia Aziz

*As soon as I took out my phone to take the picture of the bear, she felt it. Turned around and saw that I was still following her, then headed off into the forest. It’s not a great pic but it’s the real deal!

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When you feel lost and uncertain, remember we are just bitty things on this vast earth. The bigger pattern can't be seen from where we stand. It's OK to not know.

When you don’t like to mess up or make mistakes

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

Do you worry about things you said or did and how other people may perceive you?

Do you battle niggling feelings of not being good enough? 

If you resonate with the term “perfectionist,” “people pleaser,” or “impostor syndrome,” you’re most likely a highly conscientious, caring individual with an acute sensitivity to nuance. You may also struggle with an inner tension that won’t let loose, a guard and self-critic whispering “sour nothings” that something is wrong with you. On the outside, all may look manicured and pretty. On the inside, trying to maintain control and tame creativity can be an exhausting drain of energy. 

One way to break out of the inner prison is the practice of making imperfect. You might say, who needs practice making mistakes; we do that all the time easily enough, right? But I’m talking about practicing welcoming those mistakes, embracing messiness, and loving fallibility. It goes against the grain for those who grew up finding their value in giving people what they wanted. We give lip service to fostering a “growth mindset,” but we’re not taught how to emotionally integrate failure and keep moving forward when everything goes sideways. That’s OK though; sometimes the best learning comes from stumbling through.

I’d like to share a prayer I worked with almost daily for a long time. It originated in something I read and eventually evolved into something more my own. I invite you to edit the words as needed to bring the most genuine relief and freedom to you too: 

You know who is not a perfectionist? Nature. It’s not our nature, nor is it in nature, to have everything line up just so, for all eternity. Find the most beautiful symmetrical flower you can, and there will likely be just one little tear. Some tiny “flaw” that makes it slightly different from its neighbors. Yet wow, isn’t nature filled with such fantastically intricate patterns? Take a closer look at that flower, and you’ll see the awesome beauty of her just being herself.

May you be imperfectly, beautifully whole, and gloriously you,

Julia Aziz

🌝🌜🌚🌛🌝

Sidebar on the word “prayer”

If you’re not used to praying, or if the word “prayer” brings up religious trauma or resistance, know that it doesn’t matter if you are praying to something or not. I think of the phrase Baruch Hashem from my own tradition, meaning “Blessed is the Name.” I like it because it captures the non-nameable aspect of divinity–I translate Baruch Hashem as “What an amazing wonder this all is, whatever you want to call whatever it is you’re calling.” How could our limited language capture the essence of interconnection and everything we can’t perceive/don’t understand as a tiny person in a vast universe? So it’s OK, we don’t need intellectual understanding of what we’re doing here. What matters is we keep expressing from the heart. We keep opening to ourselves, to each other, and to all of life as is.

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Beautiful Mistakes & Life U-Turns

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

The other day, my 10-year-old asked if she could teach me how to paint wildflowers. While I am a person who delights in all forms of creativity, art has always been the most challenging for me. I can throw some colors on a piece of paper, but ask me to visually represent a specific object, and you’ll receive something that looks like a young child made it. My daughter, however, has taken many hours to master the art of small flower watercolor painting. As she demonstrated her techniques, I followed along but couldn’t quite get my messy blob petals to match her delicately formed ones. “Beautiful mistakes,” we decided to call my stray colors. “Because when you make a mistake, you can keep going and make something new and beautiful out of it.”

I try to be mindful of my language around this topic, as even the word “mistake” implies there is one right way you can get wrong. Some of us learned early: good girls follow directions. If you do what you’re told, you won’t stand out or get into trouble. We can hide behind this facade of who we think we’re supposed to be for decades. What starts as protection from criticism can easily become a cage with no room for individuality or creativity. Keeping up appearances by trying to stay inside the lines can drain our essential life force to near empty.

The old way, the way of perfectionism says:

Get it right the first time. Don’t make a mess. Don’t be a bother.

Really though, haven’t we had enough of this already? Life is messy! It just is. The artistry of my life–my decisions, the ways I fail, the ways I grow–doesn’t match the artistry of yours, and thank goodness! Our messes make us unique. I think of a flower with a torn petal. Shall we toss it to the wind for being imperfectly symmetrical, or will we cherish its fragile beauty? 

If you’re someone who finds her/his/their self caught in this perfectionist prison, what would happen if you fell out of character once in a while? It can be scary to forgo the filter and start responding authentically. Being raw and real, even with self-consciousness, is a service though: we help other humans feel better about making mistakes and being seen too. When we forgive ourselves for not always getting it right, we don’t become more self-absorbed and narcissistic. We become more available. There is more of us to give to others when we’re not busy fighting ourselves. 

Old patterns get entrenched and so often release slowly, with intentional practice. My personal practice lately has been about embracing with compassion, curiosity, and humor what I’ve been calling “life U-turns”. A life U-turn is when we get invested in a new idea for change and go full throttle towards it, only to say “never mind” some steps in. When we do a U-turn, we head back to where we came from with a different point of view. Was it a personal flaw that caused us to move toward that new direction in the first place? Was precious time wasted doing the wrong thing? Or is it possible the “mistake” re-affirmed some essential value we still hold, allowing what was too familiar to be discovered anew. 

Mistakes clarify direction; coloring over the lines helps us think outside the box. I say “Hallelujah!” to this trial and error path forward. As we return to public life, what used to be commonplace feels novel and pretty bumpy. I hope to appreciate even the awkward moments, navigating new boundaries and getting used to each other again. Shall we give it a try, even with our differences? Slowly, let’s stumble forward and rediscover each other’s wholeness again.

Wishing you ever deepening breaths and the gift of seeing beauty in unexpected places,

Julia Aziz

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PRACTICE UPDATES

If you’ve been curious about working together in 1-1 sessions, listening to the first 10-15 minutes of this recent podcast interview will give you a better idea of what my practice is like. If you listen further, you’ll also hear stories about how I became a therapist and what working as an interfaith hospice chaplain taught me. While the title of the interview is Grief and Loss, and we do talk quite a bit about death and dying, it’s also about embracing the inherent discomfort of change. Give a listen if you like!

The next season of the Release & Empower Women’s Circle is open for registration, so check it out!