I used to believe that spiritual people had to be perfect. They never got angry, never made mistakes, never had unloving thoughts. Since I clearly wasn’t measuring up to this impossible standard, I concluded I must not be spiritual enough.
I was playing small by setting up a perfectionism trap that kept me feeling inadequate and inauthentic.
This belief created years of internal conflict. I’d have beautiful spiritual experiences, then beat myself up the moment I felt irritated or judged someone. I lived in constant fear that people would discover I wasn’t as evolved as I pretended to be. The gap between my spiritual ideals and my human reality felt unbridgeable.
What I didn’t understand then is that this perfectionism was just another form of ego. I was trying to use spiritual practice to become special—especially good—instead of using it to remember what I already am – perfect and innocent.
A Course in Miracles teaches that we’re already whole, already perfect, already complete.
We don’t become good through our efforts; we reveal the good that’s already there by removing the blocks to love. This is radically different from trying to earn our worthiness through perfect behavior.
The breakthrough came when I realized that every spiritual teacher I admired—including Jesus—talked about the importance of humility and continuous learning. They didn’t present themselves as having “arrived” but as fellow travelers on the path, committed to choosing love again and again, moment by moment.
True spiritual maturity isn’t about never having ego thoughts. I started to understand that it’s about catching them quickly and choosing differently.
It’s not about never getting upset; it’s about using upset as a sign that I’ve temporarily forgotten who I am.
The perfectionism prison has thick walls built from comparison and judgment. We look at other spiritual students and either decide we’re better than them (specialness) or worse than them (inadequacy). Both perspectives keep us trapped in the ego’s evaluation system instead of resting in love’s acceptance.
When I began working as a spiritual counselor, I discovered something beautiful: the more transparent I became about my own struggles and mistakes, the more people felt safe to be honest about theirs. My willingness to admit I was still learning, still growing, still occasionally choosing fear over love, created space for authentic spiritual community in my life.
This doesn’t mean we lower our standards or give up on growth. It means we approach our spiritual practice with compassion instead of criticism, with curiosity instead of condemnation. We become willing to look at our patterns without making them mean something terrible about us.
Consistency matters more than perfection.
ACIM talks about this as one of the characteristics of God’s teachers—not the ability to never make mistakes, but the willingness to consistently choose love over and over again. Honesty, it says, means consistency between what you think, say, and do.
Playing small through perfectionism is exhausting because it’s based on the false belief that you have to earn God’s love. But God’s love is already fully given.
Your worthiness isn’t performance-based.
You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, including yourself.
The invitation is to be genuinely human while remembering your divine nature.
To make mistakes and learn from them.
To have ego thoughts and choose love anyway.
To be patient with your process while staying committed to your growth.
If you’ve been holding yourself to impossible spiritual standards, consider this blog your permission to be beautifully, imperfectly human while you remember how to be consistently loving. The goal isn’t to become perfect—we’re already perfect–it’s to become authentic. And authentic spirituality includes both the light and the shadow, both the seeking and the finding, both the forgetting and the remembering.
Your spiritual journey is perfect exactly as it is, including all the detours and delays.
Are you ready to stop playing small? I’m offering an online retreat that starts this Friday, September 5. It’s one of the most effective and successful things I’ve done. People repeat it 3 and 4 times because they get so much out of it. If you feel like you might be playing small in some area of your life – this could be your breakthrough! Plan for your success and we’ll do it together – click here to learn more about the Stop Playing Small Online Retreat in September. If you’re thinking of taking this, you can combine it with Finding Freedom From Fear – which is on Early Bird Special, and you get an EXTRA DISCOUNT if you register for both right now!
TODAY, SUNDAY – Join me for Sundays with Spirit! I’m going to share a message of inspiration and my good friend, Tedd Swartz will bring his inspired music. Let’s gather and celebrate our spiritual connection. It’s FREE but you do have to register if you haven’t already. Click here now for more info.
NEW ACIM PODCAST EPISODE: my topic is The Two Voices in Your Head (And Why Only One Tells the Truth) We carry two conflicting evaluations of ourselves – the Holy Spirit’s loving truth that sees our perfection and the ego’s distorted perception that sees only lack and unworthiness. According to numerology, we’re in a completion year where unhealed patterns are surfacing for final healing before we enter a new cycle and this means we’re all being pushed to let go of the patterns of pain. In this episode, drawing from A Course in Miracles Chapter 9, Section 7, the core message is that the Holy Spirit never forgets our true nature while the ego keeps us trapped in littleness, and our only path to freedom is choosing which evaluation we’ll align with through our willingness to value what’s truly valuable.
