I am not a perfect therapist.
That’s an unusual claim on a counsellor’s website but it’s true. When I first started counselling, I felt pressure, from myself, for each session to be perfect. It was almost paralysing. As soon as I realised that it was impossible it was liberating for me and helpful for clients.
You don’t have to worry about being the “perfect” client either – there is no such thing. Just try and be yourself, be present and be open to the counselling process.
In an air-brushed, Instagram world we are surrounded by messages that we must look perfect and have the perfect life. Of course, no one is or does but very few people let you see that. So many people pretend and show the rest of the world only the good bits. We then make the comparison between what we know is really going on inside us with the outside masks that other people let us see. We can never come out well from that comparison and so become dissatisfied with life and with ourselves.
This isn’t a blog about the tyranny of constantly struggling for impossible perfection and how to free yourself from it.
Instead it is just an invitation to enjoy three bits of modern and not-so modern culture that offer a different take on imperfection. The approach they suggest is softer and more helpful but also braver because they embrace the world and ourselves as we really are – imperfect.
I hope you enjoy.
Broken
Kintsugi is the five hundred year old Japanese art of restoring broken ceramics with lacquer mixed with powdered gold.
It deliberately highlights imperfections rather than hides them.
Meaning “joining with gold”, this centuries-old art is more than an aesthetic. For the Japanese, it’s part of a broader philosophy of embracing the beauty of human flaws and staying optimistic when things fall apart.
This not only teaches calm when a cherished piece of pottery breaks it is a reminder of the beauty of human fragility as well.
Cracked
In the words of the late, great Leonard Cohen
Ring the bells that still can ring,
forget your perfect offering,
there is a crack, a crack in everything
that’s how the light gets in. Anthem, 1992
No one is “perfect”. No one can do everything perfectly. We all have our vulnerabilities and sensitivities. That isn’t being flawed or weak; it is being human.
We are all “cracked” and that really is how the light gets in.
Lined
With age come lines, wrinkles, crow’s feet. They are reminders that we are changing and that we are not immortal. Those are hard facts but there is peace to be had if we are able to embrace them as just part of the experience of every human.
The Beautiful South created so many wonderful songs with great melodies and lyrics that managed to be both personal and universal.
“Prettiest Eyes” celebrates the lines on a face as reminders of past experiences and life not as harbingers of ageing and death.
Line one is the time
That you, you first stayed over at mine
And we drank our first bottle of wine
And we cried
Line two, we’re away
And we both, we both had nowhere to stay
Well, the bus shelter’s always OK
When you’re young
Now you’re older and I look at your face
Every wrinkle is so easy to place
And I only write them down just in case
That you die
Let’s take a look at these crow’s feet, just look
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
60 25th of Decembers
59 4th of Julys
Not through the age or the failure, children
Not through the hate or despise
Take a good look at these crow’s feet
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Line three I forget
But I think, I think it was our first ever bet
And the horse we backed was short of a leg
Never mind
Line four in a park
And the things, the things that people do in the dark
I could hear the faintest beat of your heart
Then we did
Now you’re older and I look at your face
Every wrinkle is so easy to place
And I only write them down just in case
You should die
Lets take a look at these crow’s feet, just look
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
60 25th of Decembers
59 4th of Julys
You can’t have too many good times, children
You can’t have too many lines
Take a good look at these crow’s feet
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Well, my eyes look like a map of the town
And my teeth are either yellow or they’re brown
But you’ll never hear the crack of a frown
When you are here
You’ll never hear the crack
Of a frown
Of a frown
Of a frown
Of a frown
“Prettiest Eyes” The Beautiful South, 1994
