By DR. PETRA WELDES
This article appeared in the December 2021 issue of Science of Mind magazine
The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
— ANNA QUINDLEN
Maybe my childhood sounds a bit like yours? I was a straight-A student, yet my father focused on the occasional A- and the inevitable C in penmanship. I also tended to be pretty self-sufficient and could do my chores without supervision, yet my mother checked everything meticulously, and the smallest miss needed to be corrected before I was allowed to go out and play. I learned to be quiet, helpful and excel in every dance, sport or instrument lesson I was enrolled in. I was constantly striving to be a good, well-mannered and accomplished child, In other words, I wanted to be perfect. I was also one of those students in junior and senior high who had potential, and it was a major disappointment to those around me when I didn’t live up to it. Along with trauma at home, this insistence on being perfect created the perfect storm within me. To deal with it, I began smoking cigarettes and pot, drinking, doing drugs and being sexually active — all while still carrying straight As. And then I ran away from home at 15. What a mess. Stumbling into Science of Mind at 17 was my lifeline and my recovery. I learned I didn’t need to be perfect because I already was perfect. What an amazing revelation to truly understand that our inner essence is the Presence of the indwelling Divine Life, and my life is a place where the Infinite is making Itself manifest. It took me years to grasp and ultimately embody this, but it sure made me feel better, connected and powerful. I learned to demonstrate, manifest and heal myself as well as release my addictions. This idea that we are already spiritually perfect — that the life I am is the “I AM that I AM,” the Life Divine — is an amazing sense of homecoming. As we come to recognize the truth of the Life Divine, “The Thing Itself” (as Ernest Holmes calls It), we are taught to explore Its many attributes and qualities. My favorite list of Divine attributes comes from Thomas Troward in “The Edinburgh Lectures”: love, life, light, peace, power, beauty and joy. It’s not an exhaustive list, but Troward makes a good case for how each one falls naturally out of the one before, and ultimately all other qualities are aspects of these seven. I’m sure we’ve all added qualities to this list, but the most important thing is that these are absolute qualities, fully present, and in the causal reality of Spirit, they have no opposite. This causal reality of absolute perfection is living in, through and as each one of us. Wow! What a revelation. Now we can all relax and stop trying to be perfect because we already are.
THE TIGHTROPE TO SELF-DISCOVERY
Understanding that we are already perfect was the first part of healing my obsessive perfectionism my childhood created. However, it also slowly dawned on me that my life continued to show old patterns, unconscious behaviors and a downright lack of manifesting this perfection. I was still often anxious, angry, rebellious, intolerant, judgmental, scared, confused and uncertain. And I also still wanted to grow. I wanted to become better — a better leader, mother, speaker, partner, teacher, friend, coach, environmentalist, citizen and critical thinker. How could all this be true if it’s true that we are already perfect? I had also become obsessed with learning how to simply be and not be driven by doing, accomplishing or achieving, to consistently remember that ”being present to what is” is enough. Except for me, it wasn’t enough. After being with what is, I couldn’t help thinking about what could be. And isn’t this what Science of Mind taught me? That I could manifest a life that works for me and be part of creating a world that works for everyone? That sounds very different than being with what is. Are you as confused as I was? This is where my journey of becoming began. How can something that is perfect in its beingness, become ... well anything? Doesn’t become mean more, different or something else than what it is, as it is, right now? How are being and becoming related in an infinitely perfect universe that springs from an infinitely perfect Divine Life?
CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE TRUE SELF
I contemplated, meditated, explored and tried to feel into this for many years, both in my spiritual mind treatments (affirmative prayer) and my spiritual practice. Here are some key components that move me. • The Hindu notion that the fabric of the physical universe is based on complementary pairs of opposites: yin/yang, space/ time and wave/particle. • The absolute qualities of Spirit can be actualized anywhere on the spectrum of fully present (love) to completely absent (hate). There is no force for the opposite, just a complete sense of separation from Its presence. • The physical universe, in its infinite vastness and diversity, is necessary, otherwise the Infinite Reality of “The Thing Itself” is unrealized; it’s only the potential for all things. • In other words, being isn’t enough without expression and experience, which is inherently manifested though the complementary nature (pairs of opposites) of the physical universe. • And finally is the law of growth. How many times have you heard the creative process described using the seed-soil-plant analogy? The seed is the intention/cause (Spirit), the soil is the Universal Principle and Creative Medium which knows how to make the seed into the plant (law), and the plant is the manifestation in form (body) in the physical space/time continuum. But if we look at the process of seed to plant, while the oak is inherent in some absolute sense in the acorn, it must still grow from seedling to sapling to mature tree. In other words, it must become what it is intended to be. Maybe that’s too much abstract philosophy, but this series of contemplations led me to the realization that maybe I am in the process of becoming who I am meant to be. Or another way of saying it might be: “The innate being I AM is becoming that out here in the world.” Perhaps this is what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin meant when he said, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Why would Spirit need to create physical form? To become! To become all the ways the perfect tree can express “treeness,” from the stunted 200-year-old alpine spruce to a sequoia standing 200 feet tall to the oak blasted by lightening that is still growing but only on one side. Who is to say which one of these trees is perfect? They are all perfectly expressing as the tree they came here to be. Why would a perfect, Universal Life individualize as imperfect human experience? To become! To become more of Itself through all the multiplicity of ways humans live and experience life.
AN EMERGENT EVOLUTION
For you and me, this means our journey of becoming is necessary for the unfolding wholeness of the Universe Itself. Every moment of growth — whether in awareness of truth, in alignment with Spirit’s qualities, in skill or capability — is the being we are becoming more fully expressed and realized, adding to the infinite expansion of life as a whole. Holmes calls it “emergent evolution.” As we become more — presence more qualities of Spirit, actualizing them in the human experience — we are evolving humanity and all of life. We are actually evolving consciousness itself. We can stop trying to be and be perfect and rest in the paradox that we are perfectly imperfect, being and becoming, spirit and human — and that this is our wholeness. Want some more things to contemplate with me on this journey of becoming? Spend time letting these quotes work in you. Since Universal Spirit is infinite, the possibility of human expansion is limitless. Therefore, evolution or unfoldment is the eternal process through which Being passes into becoming. ... We could never become the whole Universal Spirit for then we would have exhausted the possibilities of the Infinite, which by definition is an impossibility. — Ernest Holmes The greatest good which our mind is able to conceive should be affirmed as a part of our everyday experience. From such daily meditation, we should venture forth into a life of action with the will to do, the determination to be and a joy in becoming. — Ernest Holmes Without you forever becoming who you are meant to be, the One Infinite Universal Life is not fully expressed and cannot fully experience all of Itself. —Petra Weldes Do be do be do. I think Frank Sinatra really did get it right.
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