What’s holding you back?

I have a question for you…

What don’t you like about yourself?

Do you have a characteristic you wish were different?

I do (or at least, I did!)

One of these weaknesses is my disorganisation and untidiness.

My lack of organisation has been so bad that sometimes I have wondered if I have some sort of disability – like dyslexia, but for organisational skills. Compared to others, I am a complete beginner and no matter what I do, I have been completely unable to make ‘progress’.

In this area, I believed I was failing.

Until now…

My confession about my untidiness provoked such a big response in the Academy community. Lots sent private messages of commiseration, telling me of their own similar struggles.

But one such private message led to a huge shift.

The author of the message is a musical composer and long-time follower of mine. He told me he had found great comfort in the discovery that many of the world’s greatest composers, people he loved and respected, were also very untidy people.

And in an instant, I saw right through my ‘mistake’.

My discomfort and unhappiness at my own untidiness and lack of organisation came, not from the untidiness itself, but from my judgment of it. It was an external judgement that I was wrong, I was ‘bad’, I was not as good as other people – tidy people.

And what nonsense is this?

Who cares if I don’t have a spotlessly tidy home or office? Who decided that was the only way to be? Seriously, who appointed themselves God of tidiness, the queen of organisation, who set those rules?

After all, I’m a successful businesswoman, author and coach, I have a loving family, I’m good to my friends and I’m a great mother. And out of the clutter of my desk and the untidiness of my office and the utter chaos of my mind has come books, courses, and the whole Academy of Magic.

Turns out that nasty little judgement ‘you’re too untidy and you should be more organised’ is no more correct or true than the judgement ‘you’re too fat’, ‘you’re unlovable’, or ‘you’re not good enough’.

In fact, the judgement ‘you’re too disorganised and untidy’ IS a just another version of ‘you’re not good enough’. And we all know what rubbish that is.

There was nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with YOU. There is nothing wrong with any of us. We are all perfect. We are all ‘good enough’.

It is only IN the judgement itself that anything is ever truly ‘wrong’.

So I want you to think about this. Because we all have blindspots. (And until now, this untidy/disorganisation thing was one of mine.)

What do you feel is WRONG about you?

Where is your weakness, your shame, your failure, your ‘thing you wished were different’?

Who decided it was wrong? Who set the rules of rightness and wrongness?

What if, in fact, you’re perfect just exactly AS YOU ARE?

Wrongness exists ONLY in the act of judgement. And judging yourself as too stupid, too ditzy, too untidy, too old, too wicked, too shameful, too neurotic, too scared, or too lazy is just as nonsensical and untrue as judging yourself as too gay or too black or too female or ‘too’ ANYTHING!

It’s the judgement that’s wrong, NOT the situation being judged. And it’s the judgement OF the situation that causes us to suffer, the resistance TO the situation, NOT the situation itself.

So whatever you think is wrong with you, be reassured – this is only a temporary blindspot.

It’s an illusion. It’s a bit that looks true, but will one day reveal itself to be nonsense.

Because the fact is (and this is an actual fact) you are perfect, EXACTLY as you are.

So let it all be okay, including you.