Email from Ajlaa...

Dear maz...hope you may find below email useful :)

When we have beliefs about how hard life is, we may put demands onourselves and others about how life and we "should" be.Can you see how an imposition of perfectionism fosters our unhappy beliefs about ourselves and the world? Of course! Expectingperfection of ourselves and the world inevitably leads todisappointment and pain.When we believe that life is supposed to be "perfect," we eitherpretend that we are perfect or we try to hide that we are not. Andif allelse fails, we simply blame someone (or something) outside ourselvesas the reason we (or life) is not perfect. All of these optionsresult in proof that the world is a hard place to be.When life is not perfect, and it never is, we move into resistanceby complaining, whining, blaming or feeling overwhelmed. Our"perfectionism" ends up fostering a belief that life is hard, andcauses us to spiral even further into a "Victim" mindset.Our escape from Victim-hood happens through a shift in thinking thatcan only come from understanding that the cause of misery andsuffering lies within the mind - not the external circumstances.Our beliefs about ourselves and the world keep us in Victim-hood.Positive ways to view our imperfections:"Perfection is not possible, nor even desirable - only willingnessto learn and do my best.""The lessons learned through this journey we call life are perfectbecause of their imperfections - the most valuable lessons in life
are learned through our "failures".