Spiritual Wisdom:

"To be capable of joy only if you accept imperfection, and to be capable of growth only if you accept your own imperfection seems paradoxical. But if you really think about it, you will see that this is so. The task sounds easy to accomplish, but in practice it is often difficult because you are so unaware of your reactions and feelings."
 
"Again, the reality, or truth, of your world is imperfection. And the reality, or truth, of your personal state of soul is non-acceptance of imperfection. You will not have a sound foundation from which to proceed, unless you face the reality of both truths — one in the world and the other in your soul." (PL #97)

"Strange as this may seem, the more you accept imperfection, the more joy you will give and receive. Your capacity for happiness depends on your capacity to accept imperfection — not in words or theories, but in your emotional experience."

"Only in accepting, let us say, an imperfect relationship .. will you derive and give joy in the relationship. Only through accepting your own imperfection can you begin to grow and experience the joy that comes from your own individuality." (PL #97)

"Verify how you despise yourself for not living up to perfection; how you do not accept and like yourself because unsuspected negative trends exist in you. Instead of trying to whisk away such emotions, learn to accept yourself in spite of them. Learn to see your real values in spite of your destructive trends. It is the only way. Your attempt to do away magically with what still exists in you leads to repression and therefore to a false self-image. It leads not only to self-deception, but to alienation from your real self by borrowing ready-made rules." (PL #90)

"Nonacceptance of yourself as you still are induces you to hide what you disapprove of and causes you to have a stringent, rigid, moralizing attitude about yourself whenever a crisis brings the negative out.

"It is one thing to know that you are far from perfect. It is another to forbid yourself to feel what you cannot help feeling at any given time and then dislike all of yourself for it, as you so often do, even though you may not be conscious of it." (PL #90)

"The first thing to learn on this path now is the ability to accept not only your fallibility but that you often do not know the answer. If you learn this and at the same time still like yourself, then slowly but surely your emotions will mature and your reactions will change, and a healthy trust in yourself, in your natural, spontaneous reactions, will follow. You will become more lenient with yourself and will no longer need perfection as the only basis for respect." (PL #90)

"You must accept yourself and experience yourself as you are now even if it means to go through pain, fear, anger. This experience cannot be avoided. Only by learning to do this can you come to your life center. By this very act of self-acceptance do the unwelcome emotions and attitudes begin to gradually dissolve. Even before this, all strife ends when you discover self-acceptance." (PL #167)

"To face life's reality means to be able to face yourself as you are, with all your imperfections. Without doing this first, you can never develop. And all existing systems that try to teach man a way to jump over this hurdle can never really be successful." (PL #25)