How do you war with your imperfections?
In this next installment on Codependency, we focus on the relationship we have established with our imperfections (read Parts 1, 2, & 3a). Throughout our lives, we are all responsible for working through our weaknesses and embracing the process that God has laid out to produce fruit through our imperfections.
And yet, many of us have been diverted from God’s invitation through the cultural and familial waters we swam in growing up, resulting in the production of unwanted fruit. In our time together, I hope we can recognize the fruits produced by warring with this diversion. Then we can identify our learned patterns of engaging in this conflict, learn to adjust our course and align with God’s plan, and begin to display the natural evidence of following that path.
The Fruit of Warring
The best way to assess if this war plagues our lives is to evaluate the evidence. It is worth mentioning that this step alone can be challenging. If you notice discomfort with taking stock of less-than-perfect fruit, this is typically a byproduct of the very war we have been discussing. I recommend becoming familiar with the discomfort. Identify the thoughts, feelings, and body sensations stirring as we look at the fullness of reality. Take your time. This requires significant courage.
Our fruit begins to tell that story when we have learned to war with our imperfections. This disrupts the developmental process necessary to be at ease with our humanity and take ownership of our actions, and unwanted symptoms arise.
Consider the following prompts to gather evidence on this front.
- How do you handle mistakes? How do you handle disappointing, angering, or hurting another person?
- How comfortable are you with receiving forgiveness? What about extending it?
- What is it like to receive feedback from others? What about confrontation of hurt or harm?
- What is your relationship to your own culpability? What about your own vulnerability to impact?
- Are you crushed by guilt and shame when you fail?
- Do you demand your impact on others be dismissed or diminished without a need for amends?
The above questions explore your relationship to imperfections, taking ownership for how those flaws impact others, and making amends where necessary. Those who have reckoned with their shortcomings have learned through modeling and teaching that all human beings misstep. As a result, they can tolerate their own failures and make amends without losing connection to their sense of being loved and delightful. If we notice a challenge in these areas, it is likely we were in an environment that invited us to war in our own strength instead of cooperating with the path of transformation. The following section helps us identify the modeling and teaching we received as well as our possible reaction to aid us in our pursuit of a new path.
Modeling and Reactions Encouraging us to War
Through our early family and cultural interactions, we begin to form a relationship to this reality of imperfection as we observe and receive reactions to this aspect of our existence. We register the way our shortcomings are interacted with, whether they are met with a demand to achieve perfection or if the impact of our missteps is excused and overlooked. We also begin to take stock of how adults and peers navigate their own imperfections. The subsequent events that unfold help us gather clues and cues from those around us on traversing this life that is chock-full of mystery.
Our survival amidst these reactions and modeling cultivates several aspects of our identity. We embrace “being good” through an effort to meet the demands resulting in perfectionism. We embrace “being bad” by giving up on meeting demands, resulting in rebelliousness. Or, we embrace ‘being flawless” through imperfections and demand to be spoiled as a result of feeling ignored. These survival strategies split or deny our humanity and reduce us to being “all good” or “all bad’ and denying the opposite aspect of reality present within our being.
Please consider the following prompts as you compile information on your environment and your response to it in regard to your imperfections.
- How did your family/culture respond to your imperfections? With demands? With excuses?
- How did your family/culture deal with their own imperfections? Were genuine apologies and amends made?
- Was asking for and offering forgiveness demanded?
- Was impact acknowledged or minimized and dismissed?
- How was your vulnerability to hurt and harm dealt with? What about your culpability to hurting or harming others?
- How did you respond to the demand for perfection? Did you shift into perfectionism and attempt to comply with the demands? Or give up, resist the impossible demands, and embrace the label of ‘rebellious?’
- Did you parents coddle you around your imperfections or the impact your imperfections had on others?
It can be an intense experience to begin reckoning with imperfection when we have survived in an environment that waged war against them. If you notice a sense of threat as you consider these realities, this is to be expected. It was dangerous to be imperfect and facing those realities can result in an intense emotional experience. And yet, I encourage you to stay with it even if it needs to be a slow journey. It is a worthwhile journey! Learning to distance ourselves from our imperfections makes us insecure in our relationship with God, others, and ourselves. It disrupts our ability to become a person capable of giving and receiving love deeply.
Imperfections as a Part of the Plan to Produce Fruit
For those of us taught to war against our imperfections, it can be surprising and confusing to consider that weakness is a part of God’s plan for our lives. As He declared in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.” And yet, we are often uncomfortable with this reality when our imperfections were met with demand or denial growing up. We tend to interact with God as if he will react the same familiar way.
God made us for union with Him.
Through that union, we receive His help. We can develop the character needed to navigate the fullness of reality in ourselves, others, and this world. We have often learned to comply or defy in our relationship with authority, such as the two brothers in Luke 15. Instead, God is constantly inviting us to vulnerable connection with Him. He invites us away from a fearful relationship with Him that lacks trust to one that develops trust even through the fullness of the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4).
The fruit developed through turning to relationship with God amidst the reality of being imperfect expands our ability to become people full of faith, hope, and love. It allows us to release our fearful striving, hoarding, and grasping for survival as lord of our own lives. It invites us to embrace the fullness of being human and cooperate with the maturation process of each aspect. This improves our capacity to love our enemies and to move through this life the way Jesus did, as cunning as a serpent and innocent as a dove (Matthew 5:44; 10:16). This is just a snippet of the value of this journey. If you see benefit to this path, please message me. I would be honored to walk with you towards increased freedom in these areas.
Written by: Becca Cline, LPC
Online Counseling Team
becca@restorationcounselingatl.com, ext. 156
Becca works with male and female clients who are 13 years or older. She sees couples, families, and individuals. She has worked with clients dealing with various issues, including depression, anxiety, addiction, grief/loss, trauma, abuse, spiritual issues, sexuality, family-of-origin issues, codependency, anger, and interpersonal and relationship issues.