Letting Go of Perfection

Really? Yup, it's true.

Seriously, I do appreciate her candor. The fact is, it's hard not to feel a little deficient when one doesn't emerge from pregnancy looking like one is ready to strut down the catwalk in skimpy lingerie. But with the celebrity baby bump obsession running at full throttle these days, few newish moms can resist aspiring (no matter how unrealistic) to look like preening Hollywood goddesses when they walk out of the hospital.

So, with Heidi in mind, here's a little pep talk for my peeps -- those women who are healthy and strong and still don't wear a designer sample size. Let it go! All of this pressure to be perfect takes a lot of the joy out of this new phase of our lives. Frankly, it's not just the happy moments we're missing while we pore over tabloids promising to reveal the post-baby diet secrets of the likes of Christina Aguilera and Denise Richards. All this focus takes a heck of a lot of energy -- energy we need just to make it through a typical day of mothering.

I'm not saying this is easy to do. You can't walk into the supermarket without all of those headlines screaming at you about who in Tinseltown is thin or fat these days. And let's be honest, it is a guilty pleasure to kick back and page through the photos (Stars... they're just like us. Not!) But fun aside, we can try to be a bit more mindful of setting realistic goals and turning our attention to what's really important -- being healthy and centered for our families. Letting go of perfection (or the tabloids' image of perfection) can really go a long way.

Of course, the push for perfection transcends fitness and body image. There are women who believe they have to put a hot, home-cooked meal on the table every night, or women who feel that, unless they make partner and manage to get to toddler class once a week, they are "bad mothers." We all have our hang ups about what it means to be supermom. But as the authors of Mothers Need Time Outs, Too advise, we need to take stock of what is really important and go a little bit easier on ourselves. They share some tips in this week's issue of The Well Mom, including my new favorite: "Accept imperfection, perhaps even revel in it."