Meditation and the Virus of Perfectionism

Came across an interesting article in the Financial Times (Christmas eve) on meditation - yes that's interesting in itself. The journalist interviewed Laurence Freeman, a benedictine monk and catholic priest. He's the director of the World Community for Christian Meditation http://www.wccm.org/

On my 40th birthday i was given a book by Laurence (Jesus, the teacher within) - i tried reading it (that was almost 10 years ago) and couldn't get into it. A couple of years ago I picked it up again and enjoyed the read. He was at Greenbelt Festival 2 years ago http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/ - he spoke about Christian Meditation and taught some of the techniques. From then on I've practiced meditation (on and off)...it's a great way of entering into the present.

Here's a couple of quotes from the article:

“What people really mean when they say they can’t find time to meditate is that they can’t manage their time or good intentions. It’s a bit like New Year resolutions. But the biggest barrier is perfectionism.”

Freeman warms to this theme. “Perfectionism is like a virus. In religion, it can lead to fundamentalism and self-loathing. The secular equivalent is success. If you only judge yourself by success – of your job, your marriage, your children, even – you are setting yourself up for failure or a sense of inadequacy. Learning to meditate, you have to unlearn perfection and the need for success.”

read the entire article :

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/b5c16414-265c-11e1-85fb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1iacLRRlj

I think that this is a big challenge for us, our society insists that we need to succeed - or else we're losers - and the church/religious organizations imply that we need to be perfect (in order to be accepted by God and included into the religious community...

we're already accepted by God...just accept his acceptance and stop trying to be perfect...

As Augustin put it "Love God and do what you want!"...

Christian Meditation could help ?