Accept yourself completely, if you want other people to accept the complete you.
A tough lesson about self-acceptance, finally learned.
I have had such a tough time trying to write about the lessons I have learnt about self-acceptance. And that’s because, I am still healing from years and years of rejecting my identity and dismissing my thoughts as ‘not good enough’. I am healing from the pain of not accepting my true self, my voice, my body and my mind. And I am healing from avoiding the acknowledgement of my true self until the day I did not have a choice to not anymore.
Self acceptance was perhaps the toughest lesson I have had to experience and learn from. After being proven, again and again, not good enough, for a long period of time, it was extremely triggering for me to even consider that I was worthy.
Five years ago, I received a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia and that was confirmation for me that I was lacking as a human. That I was not perfect. And that I was not worthy of true love and success. Being diagnosed with an auto-immune disease meant that I would never be healthy again or have the life I dreamed about. It also meant that I would always need to struggle to receive anything I desired. This was the final confirmation of my unworthiness. The message from the universe was loud and clear. (You can read about my tryst with Fibromyalgia in this post.)
That is what I believed. Until I didn’t.
And then one day, everything changed. I had, had enough. I wanted freedom from the struggle. I had struggled in all my relationships, my career and now, my health. And the moment I decided to NOT struggle anymore, I opened up the door to a brand new way of being.
I chose a new life, full of possibilities. A life that would be free from any kind of drama and doubt.
And so it began. My journey to self-acceptance.
What does it mean to accept yourself ?
Self-Acceptance is all about finding the strength within to be okay with what IS. Accepting yourself means to understand and acknowledge your past and your present. When you accept yourself completely, you do not judge yourself or criticize yourself. In stead you feel a sense of calm, inspite of whatever story you carry with you. Psychology Today suggests that our level of self- acceptance is dependant on whether we were accepted for who we were, as children.
When you stop blaming yourself and others, for everything that’s gone wrong in your life and your relationships, you are on the path to self-acceptance. You can achieve self-acceptance in this moment and also be open to change in the same moment.
Self acceptance is being content and satisfied with what is. It is the feeling of being with your circumstances and even your conditioning. It is having complete self-awareness.
It is imperative that you know that self-acceptance does not take away from your desires for the future.
When you accept yourself, you speak your mind, you feel without, what you feel within and you start to understand your true self. However, the first step to self acceptance is self awareness. Let’s discuss that further.
Do you accept yourself completely ?
We often expect other people to accept us the way we are, before we even start to accept who we are. That is quite unfair. We cannot expect our parents, siblings, friends and other loved ones to truly accept us if we do not do the same first. I understand that now.
If I lack the awareness of who I am, I would end up reacting to every situation in my life. However, if I understood myself and why I am the way I am, I would start to respond to situations. Basically, its impossible to accept ME without knowing ME.
So let me ask you this… do you have a practice of ‘getting to know yourself’ ? If not, you cannot expect to have complete self acceptance. But if you do practice self awareness, you are on your path to accepting the way your life is and feeling good about it.
Another way to find out if you accept yourself is to ask yourself if you are happy with how things in your life are. Are you present in the moment ? Or do you think about all the things you have to do, while say eating, watching TV, relaxing… ? People that accept themselves, do not obsess over what they do not have. They stay present with what they have.
So now you are able decide where you fall on the scale for self – acceptance.
Here's how you can start to accept yourself a little more everyday.
The only way to begin to accept yourself is by getting to know yourself. So let’s start there.
My two favourite “getting to know you” practices are:
1) Journaling
and
2) Meditation
I would pick one practice and start there. I choose to journal every single day. In fact I write 3-4 pages as soon as I wake up. And I do not start journaling with a topic in mind. I just write. My morning journaling practice is basically a brain dump. So whatever is on “top of mind”gets dumped into those sheets of paper. What I write about tells me what I am ready to work on. Here is a link to a gratitude journal and colouring book that I created.
My meditation practice enables me to just be. I can sit for as long as I want and let my thoughts flow in and out. Observing my thoughts is the greatest benefit of my meditation practice. My thoughts signal which aspect of my programming (aka conditioning) I need to clear away. If you would like to learn more about why every family needs a meditation practice you can read my post titled: 21 reasons, for families everywhere, to consider making daily meditations a priority.
After a little while, you will begin to get to know yourself. And once you do, you will start to create boundaries for what is acceptable and what is not. People that are close to you will either accept those boundaries or risk losing your support in their lives. That is how the practice of self-awareness goes down.
The more time you spend getting to know you, the more you can come into a state of self-acceptance.
This process works well for learning to accept yourself. Once you do, your life will transform.
What can you expect after you start the process of self acceptance ?
Self-acceptance will transform your life in ways you can’t imagine. I know because my life has changed dramatically. In the beginning of my self-acceptance journey, I was angry at the way my life had turned out. I decided to make one last attempt to change my life before I gave up for good. I let the anger fuel me, gained control back and made some tough decisions. Then, I decided to accept myself even though not many people cared to accept me the way I was. I decided to treat myself better. Even if the people around me did not.
Three years after I made that decision to change my life, I can confidently say that accepting myself was the toughest change I have had to go through. There are days, even now, when I look at myself wanting to change something about my life. But now, I do it with love. Not with spite and not in anger.
If you want to start this journey to accept yourself the way you are, know that it will take time. It will be challenging and you will notice a lot of roadblocks, the biggest being your mind. But if you stay commited and on the path to healing yourself, you will find YOU. Buried under all those layers of patterns (that do not belong to you), is YOU. You are love and you are worthy of love.
So take the leap to your own journey to self and know the net of love will catch you. When you choose to accept yourself, you choose love. The purest kind.
You can learn more about my healing journey here.
Connect with me!
I would love to connect with you and learn about your journey to self – so far. If you need any help in creating your own healing process and self awareness practice, you can reach out to me by joining my private facebook group. Looking forward to connecting !
