In the gift shop of the COPE Visitor Centre in Vientiane, Laos, all the toys have limbs missing. Some also have eye patches or crutches. It is a powerful message that those without perfect bodies are still lovable. At the current rate of clearing, Laos has another 150 years of dealing with UXO (unexploded ordnances – bombs and shells) from the USA/Vietnam war 1962-75, so there will be many more thousands losing limbs, eyes and lives over that time. COPE is about education, rehabilitation and hope. To add your support and save a life visit www.copelaos.org
Looking at the legless toys took me back to a conversation with a client in the throes of packing up her household for their move to her husband’s next posting. She’d told me about sorting out all the toys, and encouraging her girls to choose some to give away. She’d selected those in the best condition to keep, but her daughters clung to their most loved and cherished ‘friends’, even though a leg was missing or the hair had been chopped off playing hairdressers. Children don’t have that ‘perfection filter’ that we as adults have all too often. They see and feel love beyond the physical, until taught otherwise.
Even legless Barbie is of value in Laos
How much pressure have you put on yourself, and others, over the years, by demanding perfection and withholding love, from yourself and others, until the impossible is achieved. How much disappointment, pain and guilt have you felt? Forgetting we are humans, not gods, so perfection is out of our reach. Absolutely our purpose is to strive to be the very best we can be, while acknowledging we are all on our own journeys, growing and evolving as we go. There will never be a point where we can say, “There, done it! I’m perfect in every way now.”
Aim for progress rather than perfection. A healthy rather than perfect body. Know you are lovable, warts ‘n all. Notice the difference in how that feels, and how much happier your home becomes as a result of that mindset shift.
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