You're Perfect Exactly as You Are

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

– Rumi, Sufi mystic and poet

You don’t need to change anything to be deserving of love, because you’re perfect exactly as you are. Sure, we all have experiences that leave us a bit tattered and torn, but we are all unique, beautiful beings.

Ella

My bio at the shelter said I had been found in a field in Broomfield (a suburb of Denver). A family had taken me in for a bit, but their older dog wasn’t a fan of my puppy energy, so they turned me into the shelter. I didn’t fit in with what they were looking for, but it didn’t mean that I wasn’t perfect exactly as I was.

Humans go through life thinking that someday they’ll get to this magical place where everything will be perfect. But the truth is you were already perfect from the day you were born. Your body contains your spirit, your innocent soul. People spend a lot of time worrying about their bodies – whether it’s thin enough, muscular enough, or if they’re tall enough. None of that matters at all. It’s what’s inside your heart that matters, and your heart is pure. You are love. Your experiences might make you forget your true nature from time to time, but that’s all part of being human. What matters is that you do your best and are kind to others.

In my lifetime, I started hearing about social media and how it made people feel “less than” because they spent a bunch of time looking at polished posts – the version of themselves they wanted others to see. That’s not reality. Life can be messy, and that’s the beauty of it. You weren’t sent here to be perfect. You were sent to a human body to screw up and learn from your mistakes, to lose your way, but to get back on track. There’s no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an illusion—just like those social media feeds, and airbrushed photos all over the internet.

Your idiosyncrasies are what make you, you. There’s no one else like you in the world, so do the world a favor and be yourself. Because if you’re not, who else is going to do it? No one else can do better at playing you than you can. The world needs the special gifts you were sent here to share. Stop worrying about what other people think. I bet your dog loves you, and that should tell you something because dogs know a thing or two about love.

Mom was always fretting about her pants getting tight. I’m here to tell you, forget about trying to fit into the same size you did in college because it doesn’t matter. All that’s important is that you are happy. Worrying about small things isn’t going to improve your mood. I didn’t worry about being perfect. I lived my life the way I wanted to and expressed who I was. It didn’t matter what the other dogs were doing, I was my own dog.

The next time you take a look in the mirror, tell yourself that you’re beautiful, because, my dear, you are! If you catch yourself thinking something negative about yourself, pause and replace that statement with a positive. The more you practice being nice to yourself the easier it will be. Most of the things you say to yourself, you’d never say to a friend. Treat yourself the way you would treat a friend. And remember, you’re perfect exactly as you are!