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Posts tagged with “self acceptance”

Where My Depression Really Came From and What Helped Me Heal

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“How you do one thing is how you do everything.” ~Unknown

One afternoon, during a particularly low slump, I was getting out of the shower. Quickly reaching for something on the sink, I knocked an old glass off the counter, shattering it onto the floor.

In most cases, one might experience stress, frustration, or sadness upon accidentally breaking an object that belongs to them. They might feel agitation on top of their already poor mood. But in the moment the glass shattered, I felt instant relief.

It was an old item I’d gotten at a thrift store, and the image …

On Those Hard Days When You Feel Like Nothing You Do Matters

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“Just a reminder in case your mind is playing tricks on you today: You matter. You’re important. You’re loved. Your presence on this earth makes a difference whether you see it or not.” ~Unknown

Today I woke up feeling like nothing I do matters. I didn’t want to wake up feeling like this, but I did.

I got myself out of bed, brushed my teeth, and went through the motions until things inside my mind started to feel unbearable.

The first thing I did was try to reason with myself, tell myself that, of course I matter. I tell everyone …

Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

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“No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” ~Robert Holden

In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with the newest and best things to improve ourselves and/or our quality of life. Unfortunately, this leads to the belief that we need to obtain some sort of thing before we could accept ourselves as we are.

When I was a child, I constantly battled with my weight. By the age of fourteen, I was 225 pounds (mind you, I am 5’2,” on a good day).

Fortunately for me, a doctor pointed out the concern of childhood obesity. …

Lessons from a Life Lost Too Soon: Don’t Let Your Inner Critic Destroy You

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“What you tell yourself every day will lift you up or tear you down. Choose wisely.” ~Unknown

It was a story I just couldn’t get out of my head. A young teen had died in a town not far from where I live, a town where I used to live. I knew people who had kids who knew this girl.

I heard she was a swimmer, bright and popular. At first the talk was about how she’d died. I heard someone surmise that she was killed. Someone else said it was a horrible accident, and of course, there were murmurings …

A Simple Practice to Help You Appreciate How Wonderful You Are

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“Stop criticizing yourself for everything you aren’t and start appreciating yourself for everything you are.” ~Unknown

Are you your own best friend, your own worst critic, or somewhere in between? Do you tend to focus on what you see as your flaws, mistakes, and imperfections, comparing yourself to others you think are better than you? Sometimes, do you even wish you were someone else?

It’s easy to get trapped in that way of thinking, especially in today’s consumer culture. From magazine ads to TV commercials, we are trained to compare ourselves to others and are subtly told we are not …

What My Dog Taught Me About Self-Acceptance

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“Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.” ~Lao Tzu

We all have recorded messages playing in our heads, from long ago.

Listen to parents talking to young children. Often the message is less than approving.

“Don’t put that in your mouth!”

“Go wash your face right now.”

“If you keep acting like that nobody will like you.”

“Look at Cindy, how well she’s doing. If you worked harder you could do as well as her.”

Those examples are kind compared to what many people will have heard growing up.

Many of these messages enter our brains …

Accept Yourself Unconditionally (Even When You’re Struggling)

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“Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.” ~Nathaniel Branden

Have you ever thought that you accepted yourself fully, only to realize there were conditions placed upon that acceptance?

There was a point in my life when I realized I had stopped making tangible progress with my emotions, self-esteem, and habits. I’d made some profoundly positive shifts that remained with me, like eating healthier, practicing yoga, and phasing out negative friends. You could say I was “cleaning house” in a sense—getting clear on what I wanted my life to look like and discarding the rest.

I …

Self-Love Means Never Saying “You Complete Me”

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“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

A popular topic in the glossy magazines, learning to “love yourself” always seemed to me to be a self-indulgent first-world pastime.

It seemed obvious that the commonly-repeated mantra “love yourself first” was just a sign of the times in a world where something like half of all marriages end in divorce. …

The Truth Behind Judging Others and Why We Do It

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“Judging is preventing us from understanding a new truth. Free yourself from the rules of old judgments and create the space for new understanding.” ~Steve Maraboli

For a long time, I was a judgmental person. I would look at other people walking along the street—who had no idea I was even paying them any attention—and make all kinds of comments based on their appearance, their dress sense, the way they talk, walk, their weight—anything that took my fancy.

“She shouldn’t be wearing that skirt—it’s too short.”

“She should focus on losing weight, not scarfing down that bar of chocolate.”

“Her …

How to Start Loving the Parts of Yourself You Don’t Like

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“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

The sun was breaking into my living room as I was sitting at my dining table, viewing a video that I had just recorded for my Facebook group. It was the first one I took, two minutes long, and there were ten more waiting to be recorded.

I had just pressed the play button to see how I look and sounded, and boy, was I in for a surprise.

I kid you not, I felt like I …

How to Rock Your Scars (Because They Mean You’re Strong)

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“Never be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” ~Unknown

“It’s such an ugly scar, I really don’t want anyone to see it.” This is what I told my daughter about a scar on my leg from an accident I’d experienced a year earlier.

I can remember the day so clearly when I slipped and fell, while skating, breaking my ankle and tearing a ligament. It was a painful experience with a long recovery. But I also felt embarrassed because I got injured during such a simple and fun activity.

I …

If Self-Love Seems Difficult, Start with Self-Like

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“It’s not your job to like me. It’s mine.” ~Byron Katie

Self-love is a word that gets used a lot. Overused, in fact.

The pressures and associations around the phrase “self-love” are immense. At school, we actually tore apart girls who loved themselves, as if it was such a bad thing. As teenagers, we saw self-love as big headed and arrogant.

If only we knew the harm that we were doing, not just to others but most of all to ourselves.

So how about we begin with self-like?

I definitely felt that I had to try to get people …

Why We Don’t Need to Be Like Anybody Else

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“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” ~Anna Quindlen

When I first committed to becoming more spiritual, I decided that I wanted to be ‘perfect.’ I avoided red meat, cheese, alcohol, and sugar (and anything else that was considered “low vibration”), and ate organic food.

I never complained or uttered a negative word about anything or anyone. I meditated three to four times a day, when I woke up, in the afternoon, and at night before I went to sleep.

You’d never see an emotion …

How to Make Anxiety Work for You, Not Against You

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“Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.” 
~Jean Vanier

I got fired from my job, my boyfriend left me, and my father died in one day.

In reality, my career was going super well, I didn’t have a boyfriend, and my father was amazingly healthy, but what I did have was something I call an ultra amazing imagination, where I would make up fascinating stories about things that could happen and worry about them. (Or as other people call it, general anxiety disorder.)

I met my now BFF anxiety when I was about ten years old. Initially, …

If You Want to Be Happy, Do This First

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“When I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am, I found myself.” ~Paulo Coelho

Someone once asked me if I was happy.

The question confused me because it didn’t really seem like something I had a choice in.

I had two parents and wonderful siblings who loved me deeply. I was smart, a good friend, and had opportunities many people throughout the world didn’t have. I never worried about being hungry or safe. What else was there?

Unfortunately, growing up semi-privileged doesn’t prevent us from developing fears and insecurities.

Though there was laughter …

How to Change Your Habits and Your Life in 5 Steps

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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass

We all experience struggles. Some are seemingly insurmountable. Others, like mine, are comparatively small. Regardless of their scale, it’s what we learn from our struggles that counts.

Mine began while at university in London. Originally from a small town in the Welsh valleys, the move to the big city was a scary one for me.

A mum’s boy at heart, I didn’t deal well with being so far away from home. I’m also an introvert who didn’t embrace the uni lifestyle of drinking to failure, so I didn’t make …

Unlearning the Self-Loathing That’s Passed Down by Generations

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“Embrace and love your body. It is the most amazing thing you will ever own.” ~Unknown

The first time I made myself throw up to feel skinny, I was five years old. My grandmother still loves to tell this story—she thinks it’s funny.

The story goes like this: I tell my grandmother my stomach feels sick. She rubs my belly. I tell her it still hurts. She asks me if I want to try the “potion.” I say, “Yes.”

The “potion,” as I realized in an unrelated context in my early twenties, was syrup of Ipecac—a strong vomit inducer. I …

Don’t Let the Outside World Control Your Happiness

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“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” ~Eckhart Tolle

We have this strange need or conditioning to not take responsibility for our own happiness. We expect it to come from an outside source.

It can happen, but it’s fleeting. True happiness has to come from within.

True happiness comes from a connection to our true being.

Years ago my family and I took our dog to obedience school, and the trainer told us, if we have more than one dog, to never let them share …

The Key to Happiness: Accept Yourself & Stop Seeking Approval

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“Acceptance is not submission; it is acknowledgment of the facts of a situation, then deciding what you’re going to do about it.” ~Kathleen Casey Thiesen

I think many of us get caught in a vicious cycle of thinking that leads us to believe we can only be happy if we gain acceptance from others. We think to ourselves, “The only way I can ever love myself is if others do.”

This leads us down a path of self-deprecation and hopelessness. We end up making decisions purely for the sake of gaining approval and acceptance, when really we should make decisions …

What Self-Love Means: 20+ Ways to Be Good to Yourself

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“Self-love requires you to be honest about your current choices and thought patterns and undertake new practices that reflect self-worth.” ~Caroline Kirk

If one more person told me to “love myself” I was going to levitate into the air and pull one of those impossible martial arts moves from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I was sick of it!

What the heck does loving myself mean? Were they talking about bubble baths, pedicures, and cucumber masks? It turns out there is so much more to self-love than just pampering ourselves. I found this out the hard way.

About a year …