I just came back from BlogHer 2011, a conference I’d been eagerly awaiting for some time.  Five days in San Diego never sounded like a bad idea in the first place.  It’s a stunning city, one that I love going back to and still need to explore.  I love its scenery, weather and as a bonus, one of my best friends lives there.

I had such plans for this BlogHer.  Having blogged for more than a year now, I knew what I needed to learn and who I wanted to meet in the world of my favorite bloggers.  I felt confident that this would be my best BlogHer yet (it was my second).

I went armed with a schedule, a list of contacts to look out for and a plan.  I was also representing my company, so I had that very much in mind. Last year I wasn’t invited to many private functions and sat in many of the sessions.  Meeting 3,000 other bloggers at a time when I had only been blogging for half a year was over-whelming, to say the least.  I didn’t know how to talk to the brands.  I didn’t know what I wanted out of the conference and actually didn’t gain much from the sessions.  This year would be different, or so I thought.

This year I received a lot of private invitations to events that were outside the convention center.  These were private events hosted by brands that I somehow had a connection to.  I was honored to be invited to them, and as I made my schedule, I included them wrapped around all the wonderful BlogHer sessions I intended to go to.  I had every intention to do both, while representing my web site you’re reading now, and the company that I work for.  I’m a doer, why couldn’t I do it all?

When all was said and done, and the conference ended yesterday, I realized that I had somehow left many of the sessions off my schedule.  I hadn’t heard so many of the fabulous women I had come to hear.  While I did enjoy meeting some of the most amazing women ever, I had somehow skipped several sessions they were speaking on stage at.  CecilyK stated this very thing so well in her article on Babble Crunch today, which you should read.  She stated, “The private parties and events may offer fun opportunities and swag, delicious food and entertainment, but they do not offer the thing that I find the most valuable over the long term when it comes to blogging: COMMUNITY.”

She is so right.  I did benefit greatly from the Geek Bar sessions where I learned valuable information on analytics and social media platforms and I loved the session with the ladies from The Huffington Post where parenting coach Susan Stiffelman talked about the work at home moms and the importance of being fully present for your kids and I got to hear and see one of my heroes, Lisa Belkin from Motherlode get up and comment. I went to a few other miscellaneous sessions on blog design with my heroine, Jill Smokler from Scary Mommy and others that revolved around changing the world.  However, I felt like I was being pulled in a million impressions and before I knew it, the conference had ended.  How had I missed the sessions that I had specifically carved out in my mind that I would not miss?  Why did I choose to go from party to party instead of the sessions that mattered most?  I won’t tell you which they were, but they were clearly later in the day.

Hint: keynotes.   I was invited to a Dreamworks screening of the film “The Help“. Don’t get me wrong – I did love it and wept to no end, but I could have seen it upon release.  While it felt good to sit down for a few hours in complete darkness, I was missing out on a powerful keynote about “Women Creating Media” with Ricki Lake.  While I was chugging down margaritas at one party another night and everyone was jumping in pedicabs to hit another party, I somehow didn’t make it back for another evening event which was part of my whole purpose for being at BlogHer.  Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it.

Cecily is right.  Last year, I wondered what kind of impression I could make before a brand when 3600 other attendees were barking up the same tree.  This year, I went to the parties because several people I knew were going and I thought it was a privilege to be invited.  And while some of them were marvelous, particularly the Clever Girls Collective party, where I had the cartoon portrait drawn that you are staring at and wondering if I really looks anything like me (I actually do), I now realize that would have been enough for me.  I didn’t need to go any other parties. I needed the sessions.  Live and learn, as they say.

Thankfully, there were a few private events that were stunning and very educational.  The event hosted by my friends from the Blogging Angels was empowering.  It was called “Enough About Us.  What About you?” and was a good 101 course on growing your brand.  The message was that top brands rock it by cultivating an image at every turn, and I took home a lot of useful notes to grow the ones I’m working on.  I also spent the day before BlogHer started at another conference called Women Create Media where I heard from the brilliant Brene Brown on courage and one of my long-time heroes, Aliza Sherman.  I was a member of her organization Web Girls long ago and she, herself, taught me HTML.  I really listened when she said to write with passion, and then money will follow.  She told us to write what’s important to us.  Content is everything.

I also went to a fantastic event hosted by The Big Toy Book  called “Sweet Suite” with my good friends from KidsVuz.  I loved seeing all the hottest products coming out in the toy market and catching up my friends at Hasbro, who co-branded my company’s latest app, Chuck and Friends.  I had a ball playing on the Kinect for XBox 360 for the first time with my friends, dancing like there’s no tomorrow.

I had amazing, long conversations with the most brilliant women, including Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project who encouraged me to get more sleep.  I picked up her book immediately at the airport on the way out of town and am figuring out small ways to make improve my life through her beautifully written words, #1 requiring more sleep. Together, Gretchen and I witnessed the premiere of an ABC news segment featuring my amazing friends from The Motherhood.  They’ve just arrived back from a week in Kenya where they met HIV-positive mothers testing their children for the virus, saw the dramatic difference a malaria vaccine could make in the lives of Kenyan women and children and met health care workers who bike, or walk, miles to reach their patients.  It moved me so much that I officially became a One Moms Partner and I, too, am hoping to make a change in a mother or child’s life one day.

I also had a long, personal conversation with Barbara Field, a communications consultant and a brilliant writer.  We talked about life-changing moments, detours, being a mom and what’s most important to us.  That conversation will stay with me for some time to come.

I have to end my post on a not so serious note.  Despite the fact that I was torn about what to do and who to hear, I gave myself time to have a bit of a laugh which is portrayed in the photos below.  .

Meeting Scary Mommy - I acted like I'd known her my whole life. I think I scared her.

I was hanging out with the wonderful Holly Pavlika and got dragged into this group of men promoting cereal bars. We gave back the hats.

It's not the real stoop, but how cool is this? Shame my kids could care less about Elmo now.

One of my new friends from BlogHerYentas, a Jewish meet up I invented, Montreal Mom.

My roommate, Ilana, from Mommy Shorts, who is apparently happy I didn't use the hair dryer. Does she not understand the world of curly hair?

My two BFF's at BlogHer, Gina from TheTwinCoach.com and Monique from MoTravels.com

Oh, and next year, I’ll see you at all the key notes and the only party I might be going to is the one I might be throwing myself.  Amen.

Disclosure: All experiences expressed are my own.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.

~Leonard Cohen

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” ~ Anna Quindlen

Where did we come up with the idea that we needed to be perfect?  At what point in our lives did this idea take hold so fiercely that even the most brilliant among us still can find something about him- or her self to criticize?  Why is it that we constantly compare ourselves to others, not to marvel in each other’s uniqueness, but to either pump ourselves up for being “better than” or to tear ourselves down for “not being enough”?

Catherine McCord of Weelicious.com

When I used to see clients in my healing practice, one of the exercises I frequently used to help determine where people were losing power in their lives was kinesiology, or muscle testing.  A sure fire way to deplete yourself was to simply think the words “I am not enough”.  I am not pretty enough. I am not smart enough.  I am not a good enough mother.

I notice that my own perfectionist tendencies come out in full force now and then (my husband will tell you they are out more often than not).  I have had full-fledged meltdowns over not being able to find the right bedding for my children’s new bedroom or not having the appropriate wrapping paper for a 3-year old’s birthday gift.  I have looked at the beautifully prepared, incredibly healthy and diverse lunches Catherine McCord of Weelicious.com makes and wept over the sad salami, cheese and crackers lunch that my daughter insists on eating at school every day.  And while we’re at it, I look at the impossibly beautiful Catherine McCord and wonder why my hair doesn’t blow in the wind like hers and why I can’t look quite so fabulous in a simple pink sweater 4 years after birthing twins.  I used to not let people into my house except on days the housekeeper had been here; I still feel the need to apologize for its messiness even though I do know I have two 4-year olds, a huge dog and a cat….life is messy, yet there is a part of me that thinks I should be able to rise above it.  And don’t get me started on my parenting.  Hardly a day goes by that I don’t beat myself up over a harsh tone or a frustrated sarcastic remark or the wish that school would be 7 days a week instead of 5.  Bad, bad mom.

So let me take a breath and think about what I am really saying to myself: if I were really a good mother, my children’s bedroom would look as though it was straight out of Ohdeedoh, my food preparation and personal grooming would be a constant glamour shot and my house would be straight out of Martha Stewart Living.  Oh, and my parenting?  I can come up with any number of parenting experts that have all the great tips and tricks that I should know and should be able to use effectively with every given scenario.  Realistic?  Or crazy making?  Talk about losing my power.

How I usually feel

Nathan M. McTague, the author of the blog “A Beautiful Place Of The World”, wrote recently about this idea of perfection:

“Of course, our children are of absolutely paramount importance, and the drive to be the best that we can be for them is not the worst thing we can have as a parent.  But we would do well to remember — we are just as much “works in progress” as are our developing children.  And if the drive to be at our best gets to the point of interfering with being our best, then (even by perfectionist standards) it has to go.”

It’s fairly easy to look at my 4-year old twins and remember that they aren’t perfect, that they are still learning, that they have the right to screw up.  Why is it so hard to give myself the same gift of understanding?  I would never teach our children that they need to be perfect in order to be wonderful people, why do I think that way about myself?

The idea of being a perfect mother has been around for a long time.  I am sure that even before the 1950′s TV moms there were women who felt that they didn’t quite live up to some set standard.  We compare ourselves in every possible way. I read a terrific post the other day on the blog Feast After Famine in which the author, suffering severe mood swings due to early menopause, wrote a tirade against judgmental comments made regarding women who used hormone replacement therapy:

“I remember a moment in my early 20′s when I realized people didn’t grow out of their catty, judgmental teen selves.  They just became catty, judgmental adults. T hat was a brutal gut punch. I suffered a similar letdown recently when I realized the Perfect Police will dog me into old age.  The hypercritical folks who find fault with my decisions to work or stay home with my children, nurse or formula feed, use cloth diapers or clog the landfill with disposables aren’t going to stop once I become an older Mum.  They’re just going to change their focus.  Apparently, the people who do things the “right way” want to tell me how to experience menopause. “

For me, this is the crux of the matter. Our own insecurities about being less than perfect drive us to find fault with others.  For many, the need to be right is more powerful than the need to be real.  Does it really make us feel better to try and take away someone else’s power?  Is perfection really an attainable or desirable goal?  What are we trying to achieve by being perfect parents? Perfect children? Nathan M. McTague again:

An early incarnation of the perfect mom

“…when our perspective on parenting, and our own parenting specifically, is too narrowly focused on perfection. Any deviation from the ideal is seen, not as part of the process, but as an affront to it.”

I think back to a recent post of my own about being mindful about my parenting, and realize that in my push to be this perfect mom, I am creating so much stress in my life (and therefore in my children’s lives).  Is the push toward being perfect really what I want my kids to learn? Or do I want to remind them, as those Leonard Cohen lyrics say, that it is through our imperfections that our true beauty and our true selves shine through.

Gina Osher is a former holistic healer turned parenting coach and SAHM to boy/girl twins. She is also the author of the popular blog, The Twin Coach (http://www.thetwincoach.blogspot.com) where she chronicles her journey to be a more joyful parent and offers insightful advice on handling the daily struggles of parenting two young children. Gina can also be found spending too much time on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/thetwincoach) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/thetwincoach)!