Imperfectly Perfect: Life Stories About Awakening

By Nancy Shelton

Sometimes heart breaking, sometimes laugh out loud funny, these life stories chronical the author’s pursuit of perfectionism and awakening in spite of her trials with addiction and depression. She falls down over and over—and gets up again and again. Nancy struggles with her brokenness while having mystical experiences. Her insights about self-acceptance and self-love provide a guide for living life on life’s terms and waking up to a higher consciousness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Feb 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781982243616

Nancy Shelton

She has been certified as an alcoholism and drug counselor, life coach, high school English teacher, organizational trainer and consultant, rebirth facilitator, and Reiki Master. With a master’s degree in crafting theatre scripts, she brings creativity to her writing balancing candor, quirkiness, and spiritual wisdom. Nancy is a remarkable storyteller who will not disappoint.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

My Birth

Perfection cannot be defined or seen. It can only be found in your heart.

— Kelly Miller

N ot many people remember their births, but I recalled my harrowing trauma. A technique called rebirthing miraculously allowed the memory of my entry into this world. In my journey to achieve perfection, I sought out spiritual experiences, teachings, books, and workshops like an archeologist digging for dinosaur bones. I was anxious to rebuild my ramshackle life so that I could attain the status of sainthood. A friend and I attended a New Age workshop, and she insisted the insights would be the source of our psychic breakthrough. Off we went to Dallas, Texas, fascinated with the idea that we would change our lives by recollecting our birth experiences.

When we arrived early at our destination in the outskirts of Dallas, Carol and I shuffled down the path crowded with trees and tangled vines. The autumn air was filled with the decay of leaves and damp earth. I smiled tentatively at the jean-clad men and women arranging pillows in a circle in the colossal front room of the sprawling country house. When all participants arrived embarrassed, I assumed for taking part in this strange endeavor, a regal, tall woman entered and took a seat facing us. She explained that she channeled a disembodied entity called Oma. After moments of silence, a presence resonated from her.

Her demeanor changed, I perceived, from a graceful woman to the Hulk. A baritone voice resonated as Oma spoke through his host and explained rebirthing. This technique required deep breathing over time, driving against the dam of resistance to allow memories to flow. The force of the breath or intake of energy collapsed the barrier, freeing long-held remembrances. With this recollection of our births, we could let go of past traumas and heal. I sat wide-eyed, brows furrowed with arms folded over my chest, wary of the process described by someone from a different realm.

Cautiously I lay down on a pallet with a trained assistant at my side. Like a smithy’s bellow drawing in huge gusts of air, I began hyperventilating, feeling light-headed and dizzy. The rebirth facilitator talked me through my birth as if it was happening in the present, saying:

Where are you now? How does it feel? What are you thinking about as this soon-to-be-born infant? Can you recall your connection with your mother? What is happening with your body? Any feelings coming up for you?

Dreamily, the birth memories came to me as bodily sensations of being cramped and unable to move. I felt pressure bearing down and muscular spasms slamming into me. My body felt crushed downward, like a sausage forced into a shell casing. Suddenly the hold that squeezed my tiny, delicate body relaxed, and nothing happened. Stillness. Discomfort. Uncertainty. Fear. My infant mind might have whispered:

What is happening? Why do I feel bruised and battered? Trapped in this place and cannot get out, I feel smothered by this tightness around my body. Why is someone not helping me? Mom, where are you?

Later, when I asked my mother about my birth, she explained that in the early ’50s, it was a regular procedure to put women in labor to sleep. The delivery happened without her conscious participation during the event. She added that I was pulled out of the birth canal using forceps. I was relieved the pinching on my small head was not a part of my memory. After my delivery, my mother continued, I was whisked away to be cleaned up and tested. Only later did I cuddle in her arms.

After this jolting recollection, the rebirthing assistants continued with a different focus. It was time to experience my birth in the present, feeling accepted and loved. I was taken to a darkened room, reminding me of a haunted house on Halloween. As I lay bundled in a light blanket, people gathered around me and whispered ghost-like assurances that I was perfect and safe.

Then I was assisted into a circular, covered, child-size slide like you might see in a Chuck E. Cheese fun room. I crammed into a long black tunnel, crawling hand over hand as if attempting to escape after being swallowed by an anaconda. Suddenly, I shot out into the dim light as gentle hands caught me. Swaddled in a quilt, I settled on a soft, downy sleeping bag and was given a baby bottle full of milk to suck on. I soothed myself with the warm liquid.

I looked around the room and saw two parallel lines of men and women nursing on their bottles. The scene seemed hilarious, as if I was in an adult nursery. Despite the strange situation, at that moment I felt cherished. One facilitator stayed by my side and reassured me that my parent’s love transcended my difficulty with my delivery.

As an adult, I reflected on my real birth and understood my sense of abandonment and loneliness. I believed these feelings began when I was stuck in the birth canal, unassisted by my mother. No wonder I held tightly to the idea that I had to be in control to survive. I moved through the world managing situations and people as if I was the director of the show.

My birth recollection set the stage to learn lessons about accepting all aspects of my life, no matter how difficult. It took years for me to consider the positive aspects of any person or situation that came my way. Only as an adult did I realize my entrance into this world was imperfectly perfect.

CHAPTER 2

Growing Up

Perfection is a child of time.

— Joseph Hall

M y parents, who I assume were not using contraceptives, bore two more babies soon after my arrival. Sarah arrived two years after me, and Ben slipped in under the radar a year after daughter number two. I don’t recall my feelings, but I assume I was mightily pissed off because I was not center stage. If I was to remain in the spotlight, it seemed logical that I had to contrive a unique role.

My siblings and I vied for attention from a stressed and exhausted mother. Getting us down for a nap required diligence and patience. Feeding little ones before my dad got home from work was a complicated ballet choreography. My momma whirled and pirouetted with grace and dignity among two squalling children in highchairs and a long-suffering toddler. At an early age, I realized jockeying for her notice was the key to winning the race. Whether any of us went down in a heap or flew through the finish line, we secured her concentration. The former, as we found later, had dire consequences.

The family moved from Dayton, Florida, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where my father trained in the military. After an afternoon in our snowbound basement apartment, my mom noticed that there were no diapers or baby formula and, in a panic, left me in charge while she ran to the store. I marched around my red rocking chair singing the theme song to The Mickey Mouse Club in the television spotlight. Hearing whimpering from my sister and brother’s bedroom, I raced to quiet the infant prisoners locked in their cribs and slipped my chubby hand through the bars to pat them back to sleep.

During her errands, my mother backed into a ditch, and a compassionate man helped her negotiate the car back onto the road.

Mom rushed into the house breathless and panting. I’m so sorry, she blurted, almost in tears. The car was stuck. It took so long. After dropping her purchases, her hands flew around her pinched face like two fluttering moths.

Don’t worry, mommy, my toddler’s voice warbled. I can take care of the babies.

She melted like a snowman on a sunny winter afternoon, and tears cascaded down. She smiled as we hurried to check my charges. Mom was effusive in her praise for my babysitting skills, and to this day the story is family lore.

Not long after, I learned another critical lesson about the negative side of receiving attention. Getting two babies to sleep was like balancing on the head of a pin—tricky business. Coordinating bottles and patient soothing were necessary to calm my brother and sister. My mom, tuckered out from caregiving, cleaning, washing, and cooking, collapsed into her bed for a moment of respite when the three of us went down. I, being the oldest and in no need for a nap, decided that this was the time for mischief. Tiptoeing into the babies’ room, I not only woke the nappers but mommy as well. In my mind now, I remember a raving creature with the head of Medusa framed by a thousand snakes chasing me around the house. My impish behavior did not evoke a playful, forgiving response.

In another instance, my four-year-old sister took mom’s grocery money from her purse. While playing, Sarah stashed the cash and forgot her hiding place. Dad allocated fifty dollars a week for provisions, and my mother’s allowance was irreplaceable. Realizing the loot was plundered, she howled at us to search the room. Her focus bore down on us like Zeus with a lightning bolt about to strike. Her panicked face was strained and desperate as she tossed whatever came to hand across the room. Ben and I cowered in the corner, tears streaming, begging Sarah to recall her place of concealment. Out came the belt, falling on my sister’s legs, causing her to wail at the flashes of pain. My heart was in my throat, and it was difficult to breathe as I watched the assault. Finally, Sarah remembered stuffing the money into the couch, and we collapsed on the floor crying.

During my childhood, I learned there were two kinds of attention. When I helped my mother and acted adequately, there was praise and love for impeccable performance. On the other hand, if any of us upset the apple cart, we had to bear her wrath. Her life was already out of control, and misbehavior was the tipping point for her anger. I surmised being