UNBOUNDED
When do you get to forgive yourself and finally live free?
When do you get to forgive yourself? When are you let off the hook for prior imperfections? When do you get to stop apologizing?
These are the thoughts I have had the past couple of days. I am an imperfect soul. No matter how much I have sought perfection, it continues to evade me.
Of course it does. Perfection is an unrealistic goal. A goal post that keeps moving. No clear destination. No GPS coordinates. No longitude and latitude to point the way. Humans are imperfect by design. And still I have chased the impossible.
This chasing has created feelings of failure. Self-condemnation. Guilt. Ruminating over the past. Bound to a standard I inherited, absorbed, or manufactured.
When I first started my coaching practice, I prayed and asked God for a word to describe, define, and distinguish my work.
UNBOUNDED.
That is what I heard. Freedom. No limits. No restrictions. No boundaries.
I have been on a journey of freedom from perfection ever since. Because perfection is its own kind of boundary. It limits you because it is not real. When you chase a phantom idea, you are not free. The illusion owns you. And the life you are called to live sits and waits for you to break free.
When I think back to being a mother, the pursuit of perfection had me bound. There was no manual, no college degree, and no practice test. It felt like I was out there on my own. Trial and error. Watching others from the outside and their outside usually appeared better than my inside. There were two older women whose wisdom I watched and benefited from. But my life, my kids, and my home required adaptation. All children are different and need a unique touch.
So I adapted. Tried new techniques. Retried old ones. And prayed a lot. I messed up sometimes by being impatient. By holding standards that were hard to live up to. By sometimes letting the issues in my marriage spill over into my parenting. My children will probably tell you I favored one over the other. I did my best to give each what I believed they needed. They don’t always see it that way. What I am confident of is that I loved them well and gave it everything I had.
And it did work out. My adult girls are amazing young women. I am proud of who they are and who they are becoming.
And they have scars. Some of them have my fingerprints on them. That is hard to sit with. There are moments I replay and wish I had handled differently. Words I wish I had chosen more carefully. Times I was so consumed by my own pain that I could not see theirs clearly enough. I own that.
What I have had to learn is that owning it does not mean drowning in it. I can acknowledge the harm without allowing my guilt to derail my healing. Their healing belongs to them now. Not because I am releasing responsibility. Because for them to live the life they are called to, they must lead their own journey forward. The same way I took my power back and now live a life I am proud of.
We all carry something from the homes we grew up in. No matter how much love was present. No matter how hard a parent tried. The pains and disappointments linger. That is not an indictment. That is just human.
The question is not whether the scars exist. The question is what we do with them now.
I am not who I was. Not because I became perfect. Because I became free.
Free from the standard I could never meet. Free from the guilt that kept me anchored to moments I cannot change. Free to love my girls well today without being imprisoned by the yesterday I cannot redo. Free to step fully into the life and purpose I almost missed.
That is what Unbounded means to me. And it is available to you.
If you are ready to stop apologizing for being human and start living like the woman you were called to be, I have a space for you. A Private Conversation. Just you, being REAL and telling the truth to someone who has lived it and knows exactly what waits on the other side of self-forgiveness.
Use this link: Private Conversation
And come as you are.
Here with You, Trini