Healing Trauma and the Beauty of Imperfection

Trauma: the life occurrences that have hurt us the most but also shaped us and defined us in a real way that makes us road-worthy and resilient and stronger. Beauty born from a scar whose roots have a more solid material to grab onto with the hardened flesh, imperfect and unique, is the most resilient…

"Surrender" Acrylic on canvas 2023

I was thinking today about the extensive work I’ve done towards healing over the last 13 years. I imagined I was peeling back many layers of trauma, revealing them one by one, working down towards the core of my being, down into the dank and musty core of my body where shifty things with sharp teeth live, not having seen daylight since they were born…I wondered if perhaps the moment traumas enter our being it’s like a reverse birth; they crawl into the womb of our psyche where they take root and begin a long period of incubation.

I was peeling away the layers of the trauma-onion one after another. I had them all laid out in front of me neatly organized like I was rebuilding an engine in the garage. They seemed to never end, yet at a certain point I seemed to find the bottom. What was there at the end of my trauma was a glistening thing with no skin, it was the real me! With all that icky trauma peeled back to the bone, I had exposed my being as it would have been if not for all that messy life experience stuff.

I was feeling pretty accomplished when suddenly a realization started to creep in. There I was, sanding in the hall gazing into the metaphorical full length mirror at my beautiful true nature. And guess what? It was FLAWED! The deeper I looked into the mirror the worse it got. It was like my 10 year old self’s bedroom, a f**king mess!

At first I was tempted to try and clean the room. To make it right. What a terrible child I was to let my room get like that, I mean look at all that stuff shoved under the bed! But then I heard a voice: “Dude, just stop it! You are not broken. You don’t have to fix everything.”

We are imperfect creatures, trauma or not. The notion of perfection is a ridiculous fabrication of the mind! It’s the mountain with no peak. The reason it’s so tasty to be an imperfect human is because that’s where the beauty of life shines the brightest and makes others fall in love with us. Our imperfections make us relatable to others.

In that moment I realized that while I was far from perfect, I was healed. I was a normal messed up human-being just trying to carve out a decent life in this crazy world. If I continued to examine myself too closely with a critical eye, there would be no end to the flaws I would find; so many beds with hoards of mysterious things shoved under them. I could get trapped there in a very unhealthy process of trying to whittle away all that stuff until there was nothing left of me.

In the past I’ve been tricked by this way of thinking, that I needed to be a better person, and I would get stuck in that miserable self-critical pit. Now I see how boring that is, how misguided.

If this is also you then I have a message for you: Don’t sell off that aspect of you that really makes you You; that rough-hewn gem that is your gift and within holds your brilliance. As others have said, be careful that in exercising your demons you don’t loose the best part of yourself! Your imperfections are what make you beautiful, so embrace them and learn to work with them. Get to know them and make your biggest flaw the tool by which you paint your masterpiece.

I’m not saying that once you’ve healed from your traumas that you should stop your practice of self development. Don’t be that person who takes the lazy path and says ‘this is just who I am’ as you continue to talk over everyone, or eat the last piece of cake knowing that your brother really wanted it. You still have to continue to develop self awareness, work on compassion and grow as a human.

My brother once said to my mom, “why should I clean my room when it will just get messy again?” A clever argument indeed, but I think it is in the act of doing the thing, that we learn so much about ourselves.

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Thanks for reading this. please like and comment below if you have any thoughts on this subject. Also feel free to take a look at my artwork of you feel inclined. It’s through my creative practice that I’ve done the most healing.