I read the book Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist a while back and also listened to her Super Soul Sunday podcast interview with Oprah recently and one thing from the podcast has really stuck with me — it’s the reminder that we are already 100% worthy and loved as we are, in each and every moment.
In the podcast, Shauna shares her daily centering prayer. She starts by envisioning a symbol that represents God / Universe / spirit / etc. She envisions a big red heart and centers herself fully on this image.
To Shauna, the image is “a reminder that there is nothing that you can do in the course of a day that will ruin, or squander, or break, or fracture his love for you. There’s no mistake too great. And, there’s nothing that you can do to get more of his love…to earn more, to prove more, to get more. It’s already all there.”
This has really stayed with me and it’s a message that I’ve heard from in a lot of different ways from many different spiritual thinkers. When you truly know that you are complete and whole just as you are, it is so freeing. As Shauna puts it, it’s “freedom to not have to prove your worthiness. Freedom to not be perfect. Freedom to experience life and make mistakes. Freedom to afford yourself some slack to explore. Freedom to offer yourself compassion and forgiveness.” We are unconditionally loved — so deeply that we don’t have to earn or push or prove.
With this knowledge that nothing we do will impact our true worth, it helps give us the courage to start living true to ourselves.
A few more quotes from Present over Perfect:
“In a thousand ways, you live by the sword and you die by the sword. When you allow other people to determine your best choices; when you allow yourself to be carried along by what other people think your life should be, could be, must be; when you hand them the pen and tell them to write your story, you don’t get the pen back. Not easily anyway.”
“The world will tell you how to live, if you let it. Don’t let it. Take up your space. Raise your voice. Sing your song. This is your chance to make or remake a life that thrills you.”
“But this is what I’ve learned the hard way: what people think about you means nothing in comparison to what you believe about yourself.”
“How we live matters, and what you choose to own will shape your life, whether you choose to admit it or not. Let’s live lightly, freely, courageously, surrounded only by what brings joy, simplicity, and beauty.”
“It is better to be loved than admired. It is better to be truly known and seen and taken care of by a small tribe than adored by strangers who think they know you in a meaningful way.”
“Many of us, myself, included, considered our souls necessary collateral damage to get done the things we felt we simply had to get done – because of other people’s expectations, because we want to be known as highly capable, because we’re trying to outrun an inner emptiness. And for a while we don’t even realize the compromise we’ve made. We’re on autopilot, chugging through the day on fear and caffeine, checking things off the list, falling into bed without even a real thought or feeling or connection all day long, just a sense of having made it through.”
“It’s in the silence that you can finally allow yourself to be seen, and it’s in the being seen that healing and groundedness can begin.”
So good, right? And finally, on the podcast, she said the advice she got from a trusted mentor when she told her she knew something about the way she was living wasn’t working anymore: “Stop right now, remake your life from the inside out.”
And Shauna’s response: “I don’t know how to do that but I’m going to figure it out. I am the one who will get myself out. I get to author my life.” LOVE IT.