I’m sure you have come across an article or a video on how to practice or incorporate more self-love into your life. More and more this topic is being discussed. Self-love is important as it affects how you portray yourself, not just to yourself but to others as well. But recently, I have learned that you need to accept you for you in order to have love for yourself. You cannot have one without the other, otherwise, you would be living a lie.
Okay, so why is self acceptance so important? Well, like I said, self acceptance is key to self-love. It is the direct link to self love. We are conditioned to always point out flaws about ourselves. Think about it, we weren’t born looking in the mirror as a baby and thinking and pointing out our flaws. We didn’t say to ourselves as a toddler, “I’m so chunky, I have fat arms or a fat stomach”, that would just sound crazy and would never happen. As adults, even as a young adult, teens, we look at ourselves and point out our flaws all the time, sometimes without even realizing it! So being self critical and not accepting who we are as a person is learned.
How can we develop self acceptance?
First and most important thing we must do is examine how we speak to ourselves. How’s your self-talk? When you look in the mirror everyday the person you see is YOU. Something to remember is that similar to the fact that no one shares the same fingerprint as you, no knows YOU. No one really knows or understands what it is truly like to be YOU. Why? Because you are you and you are the only person that can be you. Here’s an exercise: Everyday when you wake up, look directly into the mirror at yourself and say one nice thing you like about yourself. And it can be anything. Just one thing you like about yourself. When you start your day with positive self-talk, there are higher chances that that positivity will transfer into the rest of your day.
Is there another way that we can develop self acceptance?
BE YOURSELF. This is something that we’ve been told so often, that it can almost sound overplayed. When you’re starting a new grade in school or moving schools and finding it hard to make friends, what do the adults tell you usually? Don’t worry just be yourself. You’re a little older and you’re super nervous about going on your first date, what do people usually say? Honestly, best thing to do is be yourself. Which is good advice, but what does it even mean? When you hear it so often and at different points in your life, it can start to feel like something people say because it feels right.
For one to be themselves, they need to stop scrolling on social media and comparing their life and circumstances to those of others, think they’re life is better. Sure, maybe in some ways these people may seem as though they are living their best life. But, instead of wasting time focusing on what you don’t have, get to work. Get up, drop the pity, and get the life that you want in life. And while you start redirecting your focus on what YOU want in life, you will need to shut out other people’s opinion. Remember this, when you start focusing on yourself, expect to have some haters, who will have their opinions about decision that you are making. If you find yourself defending or trying to explain the reason behind certain decisions you’ve made you’re already showing that you are letting their opinions get to you. What can you do? Acknowledge their feelings or opinions, and remember that they are allowed to have them and move on. Use their criticisms and opinions as a driving force to reach your fullest potential and in turn, live your best life.
Self acceptance can be developed also by putting emphasis on your mental health. Mental health is very important as it affects you in all aspects of your life. Some ways that you can put some importance on your mental health is by expressing your feelings. It’s ok to say to yourself that you’re sad or depressed. What’s not okay though, is apologizing for those feelings or apologizing for how your body reacts to these feelings. Another way to put your mental health at the forefront of your life is to say something. Don’t let something bother you for more than 48 hours. If something is still bothering you after 24 hours that’s already an indication that something needs to be said. If you hold in how you feel and eventually suppress you will be carrying around excess baggage that doesn’t need to be there. One other thing that you can do for your mental health is acknowledge when you need help, ask for it.
These are the few things that you can start doing to develop self acceptance which will result in an abundance of self-love.
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