Accept Who You Are

Self-acceptance is your individual happiness and satisfaction with yourself. If you accept yourself, you are likely to be kind to yourself, be proud of your individuality and acknowledge your uniqueness. Self-acceptance is one of the vital ingredients to live a more content and happier life. Today, I’ll be talking more about why you need this ingredient in your life along with a few tips to accept yourself fully and wholeheartedly.

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This deep quote by Lao Tzu has very well described one major reason why you need to nurture self-acceptance. Accepting yourself is rudimentary if you want to be accepted by the rest of the world. When you’re harsh to yourself, it is likely you belittle yourself in front of others, indirectly encouraging them to do the same with you. However, when you’re more accepting towards your own self, you start respecting yourself more. Naturally, when you respect yourself in front of others, you let them know that you expect the same from them. While joking in friends is fine, you don’t allow even your friends to humiliate you in any way.

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Self-Acceptance Gives You Wings to Fly

In addition, when you value yourself and accept your individuality, you don’t shy away from it in front of others; instead you feel proud of it and own it happily.I had a friend once who hadn’t accepted himself fully. He had a passion for comedy but since being a comedian in my society was considered as something bad at that time, he never opened up fully about his passion, interest and talent. Instead of accepting himself, he used to make fun of comedians in front of others too but deep down he used to cringe. He then moved to another city and we lost touch. About 5 years later when we met, I found out he was severely depressed and somehow he opened up to me and told me it was mainly because he couldn’t pursue the career he wanted to because he didn’t value himself and his interests and beliefs much. That experience taught me a lot about the importance of self-acceptance and ever since, I have tried to be more accepting towards myself, my ideas and my individuality.

By accepting yourself, it is meant that you stop practicing self-sabotaging behavior. Instead of following the norms set by the society and doing what everyone else is doing, you figure out your own true self, needs and wants and pay attention to what you want. For instance, I came across someone who enjoys stripping and did it to earn a living for quite some time. Instead of hiding that fact about her, she embraced her true self and is proud of what she enjoys doing. Yes, I’m referring to @pretzelgirlsandy. You’re quite inspirational to be so accepting towards yourself.

When you start to accept yourself, you become more open to your needs and start to understand yourself better. You gain better insight into who you are and this helps you figure out your aspirations, hopes and dreams better too. Moreover, self-acceptance gives a big boost to your self-esteem and self-confidence. When you acknowledge yourself, your opinion of yourself and your ability to do what matters to you increases too.

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Self-Acceptance is Not Encouraging Yourself to be a Monster

That being said, there are two sides to this phenomenon. While self-acceptance is great and must be a part of your life, you must also understand any of your traits and tendencies that may be harming towards other people in the society and try to improve on them. For instance, if you feel you have psychopathic tendencies, accept it and instead of criticizing yourself for thinking and feeling like that, find out ways to assuage those feelings and improve. Self-acceptance is all about loving yourself, being kind to yourself, accepting yourself and then improving yourself to become a better version of yourself.

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How to Accept Yourself

To nurture self-acceptance, start with being more open to how you feel and think about yourself. Pay some quality time with yourself and focus on how you think, feel and the things you need in life. If you experience self-harming thoughts often, find out why you feel that way and then accept your problem to resolve it. Just start being there for yourself and instead of pushing your thoughts down and accepting what the world has decided for you, be brave enough to know what you want.

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Just try being patient with your thoughts and dig deeper into yourself. As you do that, try to be kind to yourself at all times. Rephrase the negative thoughts into more realistic and positive ones and use their help to slowly accept yourself. I’m sure you can do that. You’re a wonderful person and deserve all your love.

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Good luck on the journey to self-acceptance. Thank you for taking out the time to read this post and if it benefitted you in any way, do upvote it and follow me.