Perfectly Imperfect came out of a session with one of my KidLinks private clients. So often, as a music therapist, I see clients with perfectionist tendencies. Over the past 10 years I've seen varying degrees of perfectionism in the clients that I serve. Perfectionism has been linked to low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and can often produce self defeating thoughts and behaviors especially if things go wrong. The American Psychological Association has a helpful article called “The many faces of perfectionism.”

One night as I began falling asleep, I kept hearing the phase “perfectly, perfectly, perfectly, imperfect” singing through my mind. That was how the song began in the zone between being awake and falling asleep. If you are anything like me, there are times when it's hard for me to turn my brain off. Anyway, I'm sometimes tasked with finding ways to break down negative beliefs and replace them with a more positive view that can promote self-esteem.

The purpose of Perfectly Imperfect is to allow the listener to begin to understand that we all have faults and nobody's perfect. Everyone I know has bad days and sometimes, well, life is just plain hard. My hope is that music therapists can use this song with their clients and families can open up a dialogue with their children about the positive effect of seeing yourself as Perfectly Imperfect.