Josh Bartok
365 Buddhist Inspirations
Accepting Ourselves
This means accepting yourself as you are, the good and the bad. It is the ability to value yourself in spite of your weaknesses or deficiencies. Think of it as the ultimate positive regard for self.
Why is this so important?
Because our self happiness, well-being, and peace of mind depend on it. Learning to accept ourselves completely is a prerequisite to loving ourselves right and treating ourselves well.
Not loving and accepting ourselves enough is at the root of much of our unhappiness and personal struggles.
Consider this, can anyone attain happiness with themselves if they are preoccupied with feelings of inadequacy? The answer is NO. Having a self-loathing mindset does not allow for a satisfying life. Period.
We all want to feel good. But how can we possibly feel good if we are continually turning up the critical inner voice and listening to it. Giving this undermining voice inside your head airtime is a powerful obstacle to self-acceptance. Keep this in mind: the more airtime you give it, the stronger it becomes, the longer it stays, and the worse you will feel about yourself. The inner critic speaks to all of us, but we can tell it to quiet down because we're good and we got this.
There is no doubt that liking ourselves more is the way to go for a healthy and fulfilling life.
This is what you get to experience when you sign up for accepting all of you: healthy self-esteem, self-kindness, self-regard, self-value, self-respect, self-love, and so on. It's a fact, that all of this good stuff stems from self-acceptance.
Accepting ourselves = Accepting what is and letting go of what we cannot change or control. Here's how it works: self-acceptance stops the fight within you, breaks down the wall of denial, and ends the resistance we put up against change and growth. We can then begin to focus on what we wish to improve on.
Remember these two things:
1-Accepting ourselves and making efforts to learn, heal, and grow are not mutually exclusive. This dynamic process can occur simultaneously with each one reinforcing the other for positive change.
2-We are more likely to make positive changes from a place of self-love and acceptance, then from a place of negative self-judgments and rejection.
And now, let's talk about what self-acceptance is not. All too often, people confuse the principle of accepting ourselves to mean resignation, settling, or doing nothing about something that bothers them, etc. This could not be further from the truth. On the contrary, self-acceptance brings freedom to move ahead and work on being our personal best. There is nothing wrong in wanting and making the effort to be your best self.
Now, the way to do this, is to stop criticizing, judging, and putting yourself down. Working on self-improvement is positive as long as it is not coming from a place of lack, or inadequacy within yourself.
If you, like so many, are struggling with self-acceptance, the good news is that, this is more of a skill that you can learn if you are willing to put certain principles into practice.
Practicing Self-acceptance
1- Seek to learn and understand all facets of who you are and make sure to bring compassion to the process.
2- Stop trying to be like everyone else, look like everyone else, and do what everyone else is doing. Just be you.
3- Count your blessings for all that you have within and around you. Keep this awareness at the forefront of your mind.
4- Change what you can, and if you can't change something, the only thing left for you to do is, accept it as it is.
5- Understand failures and unhappiness as part of life. It's ok, because we are more resilient than we think and are able to live with our flaws without having to kill them off.
6- Be kind to yourself. No one judges you more harshly than yourself. Stop it.
7- Be patient with yourself. All change is a process and none of it is ever nicely packaged.
8- Keep your support network close by. Surround yourself with good people, seek healing spaces, and do things that feed your spirit.
9- Be around love and acceptance as much as possible.
10- Give up the illusion of perfection and appreciate the humanness of imperfection.
11- Keep saying to yourself, good is good enough.
12- Forgive. We can't grow without forgiveness. Let go of past mistakes you think you made. Reconcile with yourself about not being the idealized self you pictured yourself to be someday. Mourn the parts of you that you miss so that you can then focus on being the best you today.
13- Don't give up. Keep at it. Because how you feel about yourself impacts so much your entire life.
As the saying goes, you are already whole and complete just as you are. If you don't know this, it is not too late to learn and cultivate this beautiful point of view of yourself.
Thank you for reading!
