Accepting ourselves as we are is a controversial topic and we have all felt the pain of what it is like to disapprove of and not accept ourselves. The experience is one of low self-worth, self-doubt, talking down to ourselves which affects quite literally everything else in our lives.
I say accepting ourselves as we are is controversial because most of us think that in order to be able to accept ourselves, we have to work hard at improving the parts of us that we deem less than loveable or acceptable.
And yet, wouldn’t learning to love and accept yourself as you are include ALL of you? Even the parts that you deem less than loveable and acceptable?
Accepting yourself as you are means being your own source of approval in each and every moment. It means accepting yourself when you are cranky, feeling down, feeling not like yourself, when you slip up, over-eat, miss a workout, do a lousy job on a presentation, at a job interview, fail at a business, indulge in a bad habit you told yourself you were done with, and whatever else would have you disapprove of and come down on yourself hard.
There is a common misconception that if we were to accept ourselves just as we are, ‘faults’ and all, that we would lose motivation to work on ourselves. That we would stop trying. “What is the point of changing if I’ve already reached self-acceptance?” Right? Therefor most people believe, consciously or unconsciously, that they NEED to be hard on themselves or they would stop working on themselves and wouldn’t move forward.
Not only is it not the case (and we will break down why) but thinking you can’t accept all of you in order to improve yourself is counterproductive. It makes your experience one of frustration, suffering and affects every single area of your life.
Accepting all of you, even the parts that you currently disapprove of doesn’t mean that you stop trying. Au contraire, it means that you are able to evolve and change the parts of you that you wish to change from a place of self-love as opposed to self-hate.
Trauma and ego
Let’s make something clear – You having a hard time accepting everything that you are isn’t unique to you. More than 99% of the population is right there with you and it is by no fault of you own… The message that you aren’t good enough and need to be fixed is RAMPID in our society and day and age. It is passed down from societal conditioning, familial conditioning, the school system, the media, your peers, you name it! It is through un-healed generational trauma being passed down generation after generation that this phenomenon occurs.
Un-healed trauma means an over-active ego. An over-active ego tells you that you, as you are, isn’t enough. That you need to be, do, or have something in order to be worthy of love and acceptance. That you have to overcompensate for your short-comings and faults. (If you would like a more in-depth article about trauma and ego, click here.) In truth, there are no short-comings and faults. Only unconscious conditioning and warning bells.
What do I mean by that?
Think about how your body works with you to let you know when something needs healing… When you get a cut, your body will warn you with pain. That is one way that it works with you in letting you know that there is something that has taken you out of a healthy state and equilibrium. When you have arthritis or any kind of inflammation, your body will give you warning bells in the form of discomfort and pain to let you know that something isn’t right or running as smoothly as it should, so YOU can do something about it.
When it comes to ‘faults’ and ‘shortcomings’, all they are is simply unconscious conditioning. The reason they do not feel right to you is because they are your mind’s way of telling you that something has taken you out of a state of well-being and equilibrium. It tells you through mental pain and suffering, which then gets manifested into your life. It is your mind and body’s way of telling you that you are believing something about yourself and the world that is no longer true and that needs to be looked at.
What would you do if you got a cut? You would probably clean the wound and put a band aid on it. You would have learned where not to step or put your hand in order to not get a cut like that again.
What you wouldn’t do is make it mean that it happened because you’re not good enough and there is something fundamentally wrong with you as a human being!
And yet that is how we treat our mental and emotional suffering.
Again, you are not alone in this. We are not taught how to deal with trauma, how to recognize it in ourselves and how to get to know ourselves deeply. We are not taught how to deal with probably the most fundamentally transformative source of all: Our psyche.
The epidemy of self-improvement
In our society today, we have an epidemy of self-improvers, self-helpers, people wanting to better themselves! The personal development industry has been growing astronomically over the past decade.
As mentioned above, we also have a society that is plagued by generations of un-healed trauma. Unhealed trauma means that you have ego at your side to protect you until you can open yourself up to resolve what needs to be resolved within you. Ego tells you to be on your guard and that you need to be, do, or have something in order to be good enough and loveable. That you, as you are, isn’t good enough! These are deep beliefs residing in the subconscious mind that you do not hear clearly on a daily basis, but which reside in the foundation of your psyche and afflicts your conscious thoughts and behaviors.
Tell me, if you knew that you were perfect, whole, and complete exactly as you are… Would there be a need to ‘improve’ yourself? To ‘better’ yourself?
The simple need to better yourself comes from, and can only come from, the premise that you aren’t good enough to begin with. That you are broken. That something needs to be fixed before you can fully be worthy of love and acceptance.
Here is the truth: You are perfect, whole, and complete exactly as you are. You are not broken. There is nothing to fix and there is nowhere you need to get to.
Read this sentence again and notice the internal reaction that you get to it. Is there annoyance? Unease? Even as you read this, do you feel a part of you that is telling you that you cannot be perfect, whole, and complete UNTIL you work on this or that, or lose that weight, or build that business and make that money?
A lot of people in the self-improvement industry are in it to perfect their ego-self. To perfect who and what they think they out to be in the world in order to be worthy, loveable, and acceptable, because they believe that they aren’t good enough as they are.
If that is you, I want to reiterate that you aren’t alone, and this isn’t your fault. Ego isn’t bad or wrong but a natural consequence of unhealed trauma.
I am here to tell you it doesn’t have to be this way.
Debunking Misconceptions
Coming from a deep knowing that you are perfect, whole, and complete does not inhibit you from moving forward and evolving the parts of you that you would like to work on. In fact, you can change and evolve much faster and much more efficiently when you aren’t making yourself wrong for who you are on a fundamental level.
The parts of you that are bringing and causing you mental and emotional suffering simply become a warning bell that your conditioning is getting in the way of you experiencing the full range of who you truly are. Just like a cut, you would investigate where the cause of the mental and emotional pain is coming from. Clean it, put a band-aid on it and give it the time that it needs to heal.
A lot of people think that their life circumstances is what is bringing them pain and suffering. “My marriage is what is causing all this confusion and suffering!” Or “My boss is a jerk! If I had a better boss, I wouldn’t be in such a mess every day!” Or “The economy is the reason why money is so scarce lately. If only my business was thriving, I wouldn’t have such headaches.”
But the truth is, your life circumstances that bring you headaches, confusion, pain or suffering are only the result of mental and emotional pain left uncheck. It is a natural expression of your internal state being manifested and are yet another way that life warns you that something isn’t aligned for you mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.
One might argue that you don’t cause another person to act a certain way and cannot control what other people do, to which I would agree. But your internal reaction to it is yours entirely and yet another way that your mind communicates with you! The point isn’t to control your internal reactions to your surroundings, but to be open to looking at it clearly! To question it! “Why is this bringing such internal turmoil? Why am I putting up with something that brings me headaches and confusion every single day?” Your freedom lies in the answers to these questions. Which you can never get if you skip over this part and go straight to trying to “control” your thoughts and internal experience. Your mind and thoughts is nothing you have to fight against or control, but your biggest ally and ticket to true mental and emotional freedom. They are the key to getting to know yourself and getting to the magnificence of who you truly are, underneath the thick layers of conditioning acquired over the years.
Accepting and loving a part of you that you previously thought made you unworthy of acceptance doesn’t mean that you are choosing to keep it. It means that you are choosing to see and love everything that you are anyway! Because you know that this part of you doesn’t mean anything about who you are on a fundamental level.
Then change doesn’t come from a place of desperate necessity ‘or else I won’t be loved’ but from a place of self-love. Change becomes clean, smooth, and simple. There is no need for ‘motivation’ and accountability from that place. There is no need to force.
1. Love and compassion for your inner child
Understanding that our non-self-acceptance comes from unhealed trauma can help bring us peace because we can start to see that there, in fact, is nothing with us on a fundamental level.
In fact, each traits and parts of you that you haven’t been able to accept are actually parts that your child-self has trauma around. Inside of you, you carry your inner child, always. And the parts of you that you have a hard time accepting are the parts that your inner child-self is begging you to look at. They are the parts that are needing your love and attention the most.
What we do instead of listening to our inner child, is we shut them out, we discard them, and we make them wrong. We think they are inconveniences that need to be fixed and the reason why we aren’t able to get what we want most in this life.
Tell me, if a 3-, 4- or 5-year-old came up to you and said ‘I feel unseen, unheard and I think it is because I am not good enough. There is something wrong with me.’ How would you react? Would you tell them to shut up and go away because they’re an inconvenience?
My guess is you would take the time to hear them out, to console them and to tell them just how good-enough they truly are.
And yet with our own inner child we do the opposite. We send them away and by doing that, we keep reinforcing what they are most afraid of… That they aren’t good enough and don’t deserve the time of day to be looked at and held.
When you can feel yourself coming down hard on yourself for what you believe are faults, short-comings, or parts of you that you believe shouldn’t be there, take the time to slow down and take deep breaths. Find a picture of you as a child, at whatever age you wish. Look at this child-self and imagine what you would say to them if they felt exactly how you feel in that moment. Hold and treat your inner child with unconditional love and acceptance.
2. Self-forgiveness
As you begin the process of learning to accept yourself as you are, it is helpful to start a self-forgiveness practice. As hinted at above, we can be so damn hard on ourselves and downright nasty. Consciously saying out loud and/ or writing down the things that you forgive yourself for daily will start opening up a channel for self-love that had been previously shut hard.
It is important to be mindful to not do it from a place of being hard on yourself but from a place of truly wanting to love all that you are in each and every moment.
For example, instead of saying ‘I forgive myself for having that second serving of desert.’ Try saying ‘I forgive myself for thinking I need to get it right all the time.’
Instead of saying ‘I forgive myself for having over-reacted.’ Try saying ‘I forgive myself for thinking I need to overcompensate in my communication.’
Try this on for 2 weeks, every day, and notice how your internal reality starts to shift to one that is more loving, less hurried, and more peaceful. You’ll be surprised to see what you’ve been holding resentment against yourself for. Slowly, if you keep up with it, it will start to manifest in your relationships and in your life.
3. Slow down
As you practice self-forgiveness and start to pay attention to your inner child, you will begin to notice a shift within you, like an opening. You also might notice old feelings and anger, sadness or resentment come up and that is normal. And if at first it all feels mechanical, don’t worry! It may take a little while to resonate. This is where the practice of slowing down comes in. Before you do any of these practices, take the time to slow down within you, to feel your breath and your body. You can even concentrate on your heart center and send love there energetically – And THEN start the practice of self-forgiveness and being with your inner child. Hold yourself as you would anyone that you love dearly.
4. Look within
As you start to accept yourself more and more, things will start coming up to the surface. Things that you have pushed down by years of repression by trying to mold yourself into someone that you are not. Patterns and old conditioning that no longer serves you will start to make themselves available to your consciousness. Patterns and old conditioning that you will want to transform and evolve, simply because you want to and not from a place of need, which will make them much more accessible for you.
A common comment about that that I have gotten over the years is ‘I just don’t know where to start!’.
So here is a place for you to start: Journal. Start getting your thoughts and ideas out of your head and out onto paper. It could be a notebook or a file on your computer. You can even record yourself talking if that is what you would prefer. Not only does it help you clear you head but it also helps you make sense of what is trying to form and take place in your mind and heart: freedom and healing.
A beautiful tool
A beautiful tool that I have personally used and that has helped me tremendously on my own journey is The Work by Byron Katie. She has created a simple process to help you be with what and how you project onto others and the world, and it has helped me (and thousands) get real with myself. It has offered me much freedom and peace of mind. More than I thought possible from a process so simple.
If you would like an instant deep dive into her work you can also read her books. I would recommend Loving What Is and A Mind At Home With Itself.
This is a great place to get started. If you would like more book recommendations for creating your own path on how to do your own inner work, click here.
6. Ask for help
If the beautiful journey of personal development is one you are ready to deep dive in on a deeper level, do not be afraid to ask for help. There are hundreds of professionals out there who can really help you, be there for you and be your biggest ally and supporter on this path. It is important to find the right fit for you so take the time to search until you find someone that you know is a good match. Hiring a coach has personally been hands down the best move I ever could have made. It has intensified and fastened my journey by 10 folds, and I know it can do the same for you.
Be patient, gentle and kind with yourself. You are perfect, whole, and complete exactly as you are and you are in the right place and exactly where you are supposed to be at this point in your journey that I am honored to be a part of.
With Love,
Nino