Last week I was conducting a healing session with one of my clients when a very surprising download came through for her:
“I have Creator’s perspective, understanding, and truth of the importance of being imperfect.”
As I heard those words for her, I did a mental jaw-drop and made a note to come back and explore this idea further.
“The importance of being imperfect.” Sit with those words for a moment…. … …
Aren’t they the exact opposite of what we’re taught to strive for? Raise your hand if you’re a perfectionist!
My hand is up. I’ve worked on the issue a lot, but I still need to put my hand up.
Why do we strive for perfection if it turns out that imperfection is what’s important? It’s one of those subconscious limitations of the ego that I frequently refer to. In the experience of your many lifetimes, you’ve made many mistakes that have led to a traumatic experience for yourself or someone else.
(Note that when I say trauma, it could range from a slap on the wrist to an individual’s death to whole continents being lost to the ocean. Even those slaps on the wrist can have traumatic emotional impact.)
Because the main job of your ego is to protect you from repeating that traumatic experience, it develops a rule that says “If I just don’t make any mistakes ever again, no one will get hurt.” Your intellect may grasp the impracticality of that rule, but the ego is the realm of emotion, not practicality.
Meanwhile, focusing so hard on perfection can cause you to overlook the beauty of imperfection. From Creator’s perspective, and from the perspective of your Higher Self, you came to this life to have experiences. One of the most powerful human experiences is an epiphany – to move from Not Knowing into Knowing. From the level of your Higher Self, which exists in a perpetual state of Knowing, this was the experience you desired the most!
You came into this life Not Knowing a whole lot – or as your ego might call it, being very imperfect. Can you see now how many powerful epiphanies that set you up to experience? Your Higher Self is gleeful about that!
From the higher perspective where you exist without pain and trauma, the potential for so much learning is delicious. How can you get your earthly self to be more comfortable with the process? Here some guidance for that:
1 – Clear your vows of perfection
The rule that says “If I don’t make any mistakes, no one will get hurt” – get rid of it. It assumes a great deal of responsibility over things you can’t control.
You might be able to clear it by making an affirmation such as, “I now release all vows of perfection from every level of my being.” Or it might take the help of a healer.
I find vows of perfection and related curses of imperfection in almost every client I work with. If it’s not 100% of them, it’s probably 99%. Sometimes they have to be cleared multiple times along your journey; each time it happens at a deeper level.
2 – Look for the gift of the moment
When you’re having a moment of uncomfortable imperfection – that is, when you’ve made a mistake or you’re not being your best self – the best thing you can do is look for the gift in it. “What am I going to learn from this?”
Getting that level of awareness when you’re in the thick of a situation can be challenging, but it is doable. It gets easier as you practice getting centered in every moment, both perfect and imperfect. It also gets easier as you clear the attachments to past situations that color your perception of the present.
3 – Forgive yourself
For those times when you get caught up in the emotions of a moment, you’ll still have the benefit of hindsight. This is the time to ask yourself, “What did I learn from this?” or “What am I learning from this?” (because maybe the situation’s not over). Forgiveness is a state of being and it’s also a conscious act. Gift yourself with these words: “I let this situation go and receive the lessons in its place.”
Forgiving yourself often takes some inner work and healing, along with an awareness that many of the mistakes you need to forgive weren’t even made in this lifetime. In my own personal journey, forgiving myself has required as much as deep, intuitive, energetic digging into the issue or as little as saying, “Whatever it is, I let it go.”
4 – Get comfortable with Not Knowing
This one could probably be a separate article itself. What we call “imperfection” might be Not Knowing (Yet), or it might be the mistakes that we make when we try to force the process of Knowing too fast – which never works.
As you practice 1-3, you move closer to a sweet spot of being comfortable with Not Knowing. It’s a state of trusting yourself, trusting Creator, and trusting in the intentions you set for this life – that Not Knowing eventually leads to Knowing, and it can unfold in the most beautiful way when you let it.
Your turn
What was the biggest “aha” that you got while reading this article?
Can you share a time when something that seemed incredibly imperfect created a perfect result?