Mantra

My new favorite phrase is wabi sabi.

Woman’s Day had an article promising the secret to happiness (and who could not read THAT article), and lo and behold, my new favorite mantra greets me.  Wabi sabi is, in its barest essence, the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature.  Before finding this concept, I had been saying in my mind and out loud “imperfectly perfect” as I go about doing “things” like writing, coaching, cleaning the house, parenting …you know pretty much everything in my life.  I think that wabi sabi is WAY MORE FUN to say.  I can see that being my daily (or moment by moment if need be) mantra to release the perfectionist tendencies that can stop me in my tracks.  Wabi sabi is like our little secret code-phrase in my Martha Beck circles; being “willing to suck at it“…again, wabi sabi feels much kinder. 

As seems to be true for me a lot lately,if I find something I hone in on (ie “perfectly imperfect)…I see more signs of it in other places like in this blog post by Christine Kane  and then in the concept of wabi sabi, and then in a book I just read called Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway (I wrote about it here).  As I often say…I’m getting signs from the Universe, that I’m onto something.

The Woman’s Day article had this poem which REALLY speaks to me:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That is how the light gets in.

By Leonard Cohen

And to end this post I offer this intention to you:  WABI SABI