To Build Self Acceptance
Acceptance; more specifically self acceptance; it’s a subject we could talk or write about forever, and still not come to an ending conclusion. It’s a topic that just about everybody can relate to on some levels. Many of us, have quite the difficult time accepting ourselves. Yet, we are able to swiftly accept other people, at the drop of a hat. The reasoning seems complicated. It seems so often to be a struggle to come up with concluding reasoning.
We beat ourselves down a lot, and much of it probably comes from our own negative self talk, in a type of internal scolding. Are we angry at ourselves? Or do we truly not accept who we are? It’s likely a combination, and if it is only a matter of not accepting, we can try to work on increasing self acceptance in many ways, one way to start, is our own thinking and self thoughts.
While there’s a possibility that some of our negative thoughts might hold some truth, there is also a possibility that those thoughts we attack our self with, are exaggerated or they’re half truths. The things that we may come down hard on ourselves about, we might be much kinder and positive if the same action that made us angry was done by somebody else.
We connect mistakes, and bad deeds to who we are as a person. We seem to have reality blurred, and not realize that we are not the mistakes or the errors that we make. We instead, are the person who makes those mistakes and errors.
As humans, to be perfect is impossible. Just like, as humans, to be all wrong, all bad, all mistakes is impossible. The things we do, are not the people we are. In all honesty, I feel that my mistakes in life, have been the things that ended up being the very best teacher of life lessons that I’ve ever had.
Even self reprimanding is something that is perfectly reasonable. However, it really is best to reprimand the behavior, and not the self (me).
It is important to take an inventory of ourselves, and be able to hold ourselves accountable for the things that we do wrong. But like punishing a child, the punishment is a must, but, the punishment isn’t dwelled on and relived for days and days or weeks and weeks.
As much as it is important to be accountable, it is equally important to move forward, and take things as learning lessons. Take accountability, and then forgive yourself.
Doing good things, succeeding, making a lot of money, and giving a lot of gifts, does not make us better people. The famous quote that kinds to my mind is, “do the right things, even when nobody’s looking.” I could not have thought of a better phrase than that. It is so easy to put on incredible performances these days. After all, the world nowadays is full of millions of Facebook Fakes.
Accept ourselves for who we really are. To waste energy on pretending to be greater than who we are does nothing constructive for our development. If we are self conscious about how we are looking to the world, we really are not progressing or evolving in any way.
Find acceptance, and if we are bothered by certain defects, then the best things to do for our own self consciousness, is to correct what we want fixed. Accept the defects we can’t change. And live each day, where we are able to lay our head down each night knowing, that we lived the best day we could.
