"You are Perfect Just the Way You Are" is Dangerous. #12
The devil rarely attacks you to your face. He prefers you do the dirty work against your own self.
This video is about a crafty, cunning way you are tempted to freely act against your own best interests. It can mess up your nutrition, your exercise habit, your sleep habit, and other determinants of health.
You may have heard, “you’re perfect just the way you are.” There are two ways to view this. One is from the mystical reference frame, but that’s not what I talk about below. The other perspective is commonplace and day-to-day. It’s the one that leads you out of compliance with your best self.
In the video below, I connect “you are perfect,” victimhood, oppression, temptation, and evil. Chances for healing are optimized when you eschew victimhood mentality and instead keep attention on what you can choose and control.
video content timeline
“You want to oppress someone? Tell them they are perfect just the way they are.” [0:00]
This is practical to health and wellness even though the explanation seems theoretical: it directly connects to habits and choices about nutrition, sleep, exercise, and social circles. [0:15]
It’s okay if you don’t understand or disagree with the mechanics of this. This grows out of natural law. You can disagree with the law of gravity and it will still reliably work upon you. Same with the laws of healing. [1:07]
The progression: [1:37]
“I’m perfect just the way I am.” (Which leads to…)
“My thoughts, words, actions are faultless.” (And that leads to…)
“My life has a mess in it (bad financial situation, health situation, relationship situation, etc). But I’m perfect. So whoever did all this is responsible, not me. It’s not me who must self-correct and grow.”
“That person or thing has the power to make a mess of my life. It was done to me. Perfect me had no role.”
“Making a mess of my life against my will means it was forced on me. I am powerless against it.”
The capacity to force something on another is a power imbalance.
A power imbalance makes oppression from the powerful possible. The powerful have the option of using power for harm.
We are now at the real possibility of oppression after starting at the fantasy of perfection.
Something cunning has taken place. You set yourself up for being oppressed. The set-up flows from your new self-image of being perfect the way you are. Notice nobody came with pitchforks and torches; it was just a voluntary shift in self-image. You did this all to yourself after a seed was planted. [3:38]
You might think this doesn’t apply to you because you are a well-adjusted human who admits imperfection and self-corrects. But there are times in everyone’s life when we are tempted to go this way. It’s tempting because there is an odd comfort in not changing or growing. [4:03]
You can expect this kind of temptation to come knocking at your door. [4:43]
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” [5:20]
Victims believe they are entitled to two things. One is restitution extracted from someone else by force. The other is retribution exacted upon someone else by force. (Even in natural disasters people will shake their fists at the heavens and demand an explanation why: “Why do you do this to me?!”) [6:00]
“Evil has already been defined most simply as the use of political power to destroy others for the purpose of defending or preserving the integrity of one’s sick self.” (from book below) [7:30]
If you don’t believe evil exists, then try the definition above. We might be using different definitions. [9:25]
A law of healing: you can optimize your chances for healing by keeping attention on what you control and can choose. You lower or block that chance by keeping attention on what you don’t control. [10:14]
RESOURCES
Forgiveness is the antidote. I speak about that in this video, “Forgiveness is a Declaration of Authority.”
CITATIONS
People of the Lie by Scott Peck. Page 241. “Evil has already been defined most simply as the use of political power to destroy others for the purpose of defending or preserving the integrity of one’s sick self.’”
“You want to oppress somebody? Tell them they are perfect just the way they are.” https://twitter.com/DrKashey/status/1557912163989209088