I still find myself afraid to make a mistake. I don’t like looking foolish or weak in the eyes of others and in the end I find myself lost in a forest of perfection, feeling small, insignificant and unworthy as I look at people who have their act together. For so long the message of the world has been that doing everything right will make you happy and that true happiness lies in doing and saying the right thing all the time.  As Koren Motekaitis says, “Chasing perfection is exhausting” because we think the approval of others will make us feel better about ourselves. It won’t, because we can never be perfect. The opposite is what happens though, shame shows up when we make a mistake and fall short of our hopes to be truly loved and accepted. It puts us under pressure to be someone we are not. We work so hard at not being judged by others and end up feeling worse instead of better as we fall short again and again. We …