I remember when I was a kid being asked what my favorite number was and I just blurted out, “Ten!”. I think I might have been ten years old at the time. That was either a sign of self-focus or I just really liked the number 10! While growing up I did have this need for things I did to be perfect to whatever degree perfect was to a part of me. Whether it was perfect scores on tests or doing some art, perfection was a pervasive overlord in my life.

Somehow ‘perfect’ was a way to avoid failure or need for improvement. The antidote to an inner criticism of myself and, in the Shadow, the criticism of others. So much need in my subconscious and soul at the time to bear witness to, or to be, Perfection. I feel it was both nature and nature. I came into this world with it and was supported in its cultivation through my conditioning.

It came out as wanting to be the perfect student, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect son, the perfect husband. I found myself in a prison made by the Tyranny of Perfection. Being perfect was to be seen as Good or Righteous in the eyes of God in my Metasoul that I had come to realize during my early inner healing journey. It was quite the burden to bear as a young boy and my poor parents were at a loss to know how to deal with it. What resulted would be punishment for ‘unacceptable’ behavior.

When we come to Earth, we may view our caregivers as representatives of the Divine Perfection from which we are sourced. When they prove to be otherwise at a very early age, a Holy Shit moment may occur and we realize we are not in Heaven anymore only to don a new set of eyes from which to view the world with some deeper existential questions. ‘If they aren’t perfect and I come from perfection, where does that leave me? Where the hell am I? How do I navigate this place?”.

A protection forms that can also be comprised of a punishing layer whose intention it is to protect, but not necessarily in the most loving or effective way. It is trying to form a self that is acceptable to this imperfect world out seeking the perfection from which it came. A bit of a hot mess scenario but here we are! It is what we came here to work and to shift for ourselves and for the collective for we are inextricably connected.

Coming to terms with our imperfections, our ‘faults’, and our ‘missing of the mark’, are all portals back to the perfection from which we were sourced from and continue to be held by. We can all look forward to a higher timeline that may be different than the one we live in now, either inside or out. That is a deeply inherited part of our nature. We want and need bigger, better, and brighter. We don’t need to build any of those back, we just need to love our way back.

Today, let’s love the parts or aspects of us that feel imperfect, unworthy, or not ‘good’ enough to have, or be, it all. That is not to say it is okay to stay there, but it is okay to feel that way as long as we are feeling it and loving it and not just setting it aside when it comes up. It has been an ongoing process for me to keep loving and moving these parts of me into a position of feeling perfectly imperfect. That all the ‘dings and dents’ are a part of the larger tapestry that make me who I am. They are the fruits of what have healed and the seeds of what have yet to be watered.

Ten is a powerful number. It can be a reminder, a goal, or a tyrant, all depending from which direction you are looking at it. Today, it can just be a number and you can just be human. It’s okay. It’s all perfect. It’s all Love even when it doesn’t feel that way.

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Gabriel Amara is a SoulFullHeart Facilitator for men.  Visit https://www.soulfullheart.org for more information about sessions, group calls/events, videos, community, etc.