Hi, everyone. My name is Ashlyn and I’m a recovering a perfectionist. Funny, right? The idea of a perfectionist having to recover but trying to achieve perfection caused me to have some pretty nasty migraines, anxiety attacks, a slight coffee addiction, and the inability to trust people.

For 20 years I have learned how to people-please and appear that I have it all together. I grew up in a great Christian home, and though I knew I could never be perfect (girlish hair flip), I would still pretend to be little Ms. Perfect who could take on the world and smile through all the crap. It wasn't until the fall of my junior year I realized what a broken human I really am. During that semester at the Worthy Now conference, I saw that I put my value in my ability to do something, which is why I needed to achieve perfection. So for 20 years I developed these habits of perfectionism and people pleasing.

During my junior year, while processing this imperfection and brokenness, proverbs like "as iron sharpens iron" really shattered my Little Miss Perfect world because they challenged me to evaluate how I saw myself and the woman I want to become. I thought I should be able to do everything all on my own and be everything to everyone, and I found a lot of my value there.

To need sharpening suggests imperfection, and that this process is not easy -- it might even hurt. To invite sharpening would demand vulnerability, ouch, and require me to not only ask for help, ouch, but also allow people to help me, ouch. And that is the absolute worst! The little perfectionist chip needed to prove that I could do this on my own, but obviously, that was out of the question.

This journey to overcoming my independent attitude and perfectionism required me to rely on mentors, friends, boyfriend, a counselor, and even God. I had to invite them into my life, which meant letting them see and experience some raw emotions, true fears, and major insecurities, but these people loved me too much to allow me to remain in my destructive perfectionism.

And I'm really glad they loved me enough to sharpen me.

This process by no means was simple, and every day is still a constant choice to be honest with these people and allow them to see me as I am. I am still learning not find my value in my abilities, but rather in the fact that I exist as a human, who is beautifully flawed.