This year, I’m using the Present Over Perfect Guided Journal. I read Shauna Neiquist’s Present Over Perfect book when it came out a few years ago and so much of it just connected with me. When I saw she had created a journal, I knew it was right for this season of my life. The journal has small excerpts from the book and prompts to help you think, reflect, and write. I’ll be sharing some of the prompts and my responses.
Prompt (pg. 79): What images of perfection have you been hustling for?
So much. So much hustle for perfection.
And I’m exhausted.
I feel like I did this so long I can’t even point to where it started. When I was a girl I felt the pressure and drive. I got upset when I didn’t have an A or wasn’t the go to person with the answer to fix it.
Then work started and I wanted to be the best so people would like me and praise me. Even as a cashier at Hardees.
Wife. Mom. Leader. Race wife. Foster/adoptive mom. Pastor. Somehow if I could be perfect at those I could be loved and I was ok.
What a lie.
Perfection is my enemy and it robs me of my true self.
Rev. Kris Mares 