progress not perfection
I’ve been practicing a lot of Yin Yoga this summer. It focuses on resting poses held 5-10 minutes to open up fascia and move energy. Minutes into a pose there is resistance, boredom and even annoyance, but if you can stay in the pose long enough there is a distinct shift in your energy field. It creates space and opens up energy channels in the body.
When you practice you are reminded of how much conscious and unconscious energy we all hold in our cells. There is all this energy running around unclaimed and unknown that we have to be mindful of. In particular, in my profession, how much energy (both positive and negative) our homes elicit. We invest so much emotional and psychic energy into our surroundings. For many of us our home is our greatest asset and expense, and a physical representation of our tastes, travels, experiences, and aspirations. We spend our lives interacting in, decorating, and dreaming up ways to change our homes. I worry the pursuit of elevating our homes is doing the exact opposite; unwittingly robbing us of this joy of being in our homes. As much as I too obsessively love Pinterest, Instagram and design blogs…it takes real work to stay within the scope, limits, and budgets of your projects without losing your flow to comparison.
Yin helps by moving stuck energy (attachments, comparison, ego, perfectionism and comparison) and soothes the mind to shut it down a bit so creativity can flow and the true self emerge and show up in our lives (and designs). This creates a spiritual backbone where “progress not perfection” can more easily be celebrated. It’s been an essential soothing balm to my nerves as we moved forward on projects this spring/summer at the rental. We refreshed surfaces and added more creative depth to the rooms. Looking at where we began and where we are now it is clear how much progress we have made, year after year, project by project. Progress not perfection….creating now, how you can, with the budget, materials and time you have to the best of your ability.
