February 28, 2023
“The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself”
How much do you agree with this statement?
Accepting all that you are is the key to self-love and self-acceptance.
If you do not accept and embrace each and every part of yourself, you are never going to be happy. Just the same way you accept your strengths, it is important to accept your flaws as well. We tend to forget that everyone has flaws, including the people we perceive to be perfect.
What really happens when we don’t accept our self?
We constantly criticize and judge our self and this deeply impacts our physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.
Denying who we are results in low self-esteem. If we don’t accept who we are, we will always feel like a burden. Denying who we are also means that we are ignoring our inner voice which always tells us to be true to our self.
We develop a victim mentality where we believe what other people say or think about us. At the end of the day we serve someone else’s agenda, not our own.
Failure to accept our true self will eventually lead to low confidence because we will never be able to trust our self. Soon, we will begin pitying and hating our self.
We will lack the motivation or inspiration to prioritize ourselves such as sleeping properly, eating nutritious food and exercising regularly.
Self-Love vs Self-Acceptance
Although self-love and self-acceptance are interrelated, they are not the same. While self-love means having a high regard for our own wellbeing and happiness, taking care of our own needs and not sacrificing our well-being to please others, Self-Acceptance is the complete acceptance of oneself, of both our positive and negative traits without attaching negative emotions or judgments on who we are.
Once we achieve self-acceptance, we experience other psychological benefits such as:
How to achieve self-acceptance?
Practice mindfulness: Much of our negative self-talk happens in our subconscious, which means we’re not even aware of when we reject ourselves. Take some time and listen to your thoughts and feelings, and try to understand which parts of you are difficult to accept.
Embrace all feelings, both good and bad: We need to welcome both the good and bad feelings, and not be ashamed of any.
Be authentic to our own true self: Being true to self is the key to self-acceptance. Once you’re true to yourself, you will not care about the judgment or opinion of others.
Stop comparing & Judging: True self-acceptance is unconditional and does not depend on anyone else. Your life is uniquely your own, and because of that, it will always be valuable to you.
Both Self Love and Self-Acceptance are not easy and it takes time to build up that confidence, self-esteem and realise your own self-worth.
The only way is to accept that you are human and can’t be perfect.
You will make mistakes, but the sooner you learn from your mistakes, the closer you are to the path of self-acceptance. You need to embrace the negatives just as much the positives and once you master this skill, life is going to be a beautiful journey for you. You will notice a change in your mental, spiritual, physical and emotional wellbeing.
So don’t be hide your flaws, wear them with pride.