Self Acceptance Is Self Love In The First Degree!

Self acceptance is quite simply accepting oneself as is and accepting oneself as is not. What does this mean?

I am 5 ft 11 inches in height. I accept that. I agree with that, I believe in that. I also accept that I am not 6ft 4 inches in height.

Accepting oneself as one is and as one is not, clearly defines what’s so about oneself. It looks at the issue of self acceptance from both sides. There is no room for error here as it gives a more well rounded definition of self acceptance.

Agreeing and believing in are synonymous with self acceptance. To accept oneself is to approve of oneself.

To accept oneself is to be okay with oneself. It is a giving permission to oneself that one is okay.   

---

Self Acceptance Is A Great Place To Be At!

It says I am okay just the way I am and just the way I am not. The just the way I am not means one is okay not being somehow different from one is.

When we get caught up in the more, different and better syndrome what we are really saying is I will accept myself when I am more, different and better. Unfortunately this can be an endless cycle and we never reach our ultimate goal.

This goal is somewhat akin to the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is an illusion, happiness is the way. In other words, be happy now. In other words, accept oneself now.

---

What Happens When We Don't Accept Ourselves?

When we don’t accept ourselves we are not okay with ourselves. Something is wrong with us and we need to fix it.

When we don’t accept ourselves we can spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find ways to heal, to fix, and to resolve.

For example:

Let’s say a person is overweight. He has tried all kinds of diets and nothing seems to work. He needs a mental diet not just a physical one. What does this mean? He needs to accept himself as he is and as he is not. What the heck does that mean? If he is 40 pounds overweight he needs to accept himself as 40 pounds overweight and not 20 pounds overweight. If he can do that the weight will fall off.

How does one do a mental diet? I thought you’d never ask.  One does a mental diet using self esteem affirmations.

Self esteem affirmations are positive in the present moment statements designed to change one’s consciousness. Using the above example of the overweight person, here is a typical affirmation that he could use: I (first name) am now at my perfect weight for me.

He would write out the affirmation 30 times a day on a piece of paper leaving enough room on the right side of the paper for his ego minds response. The ego minds response is usually the 1st thought one has when writing out the positive affirmation and is usually negative.

After 5 or 6 days of writing the affirmation, notice if any of the ego minds responses repeat themselves. Pick the one that repeats the most and flip it around into a positive affirmation. For example:

Say after 5 days he notices an ego minds response that has repeated itself the most, You don’t deserve to lose weight. He then takes that negative statement and changes it to, I (first name) am deserving.

He keeps up this process until all or most of his ego minds responses are neutral and or positive. This is how he will know that he has done the mental diet.

---

Self acceptance is key to being happy, healthy and successful and to having high self esteem.

Subscribe to my Up The Love Newsletter (you'll also receive 2 free e-book gifts)!