Loving yourself and accepting yourself require courage because a lot of people keep complaining about their weaknesses and flaws. However, knowing your inner strength and accepting your flaws give real benefits. Hence, one should learn to practice self-love and self-acceptance, instead of counting imperfections.
There are many people out there who follow their idol – which is good! However, comparing yourself with someone else’s life is not acceptable. Everyone is blessed with life; some are happy while some are not able to accept what they have got. Your inner critic makes you so judgemental about yourself due to which you don’t even feel satisfied even with the qualities you are blessed with.
Remember, every person has a different way of living – everyone has strengths and weaknesses. But it is you who need to accept every flaw and improve yourself in different areas of life. Develop a sense of self-love and self-acceptance. As soon as you understand and accept yourself, it promotes happiness and you live a content life.
Self-Acceptance Meaning
As the term suggests, the idea of self-acceptance is to accept oneself. Everybody is ready to accept the positive side of themselves, however, when it comes to noticing the negative side, people tend to avoid it.
Self-acceptance meaning also reflects the idea of embracing every part of yourself. Be it positive or negative traits, just embrace every side of yours. Treating yourself with respect and allowing yourself to be realistic is all that defines your unconditional self-acceptance.
The Power of Acceptance
When you love yourself, accept yourself, and be the real You, it gives you immense pleasure. Accepting yourself provides a sense of self-confidence. There are a number of benefits of self-acceptance you should also be aware of:
- Accepting oneself regulates the mood.
- With the power of self-acceptance, one can easily decrease the fear of failure, desire to get validation from others, and self-criticism.
- People who practice self-acceptance can develop a sense of freedom, autonomy, self-esteem, positive emotions, and self-worth.
How to Practice Self-Acceptance?
In order to accept the real you, you need to stop being hard on yourself. Admit that you are imperfect and it is totally fine to hold imperfections. Allow yourself to express these imperfections and don’t forget to embrace the real you. Let’s find out how you can easily practice self-acceptance by using eight easy tips:
1. Recognize Yourself
Before you take a step to accept yourself, first you need to become aware of yourself. Recognize your pains, thoughts, and feelings. By doing so, you can set an intention that you are ready to accept all the positive and negative traits in you.
Positivity can be embraced by anyone but accepting your imperfections is something only you can do for yourself. Start loving and accepting yourself in every aspect.
2. Calm Your Inner Critic
The power of acceptance of your true self can be snatched if you don’t calm down your inner critic. A human can be the greatest enemy of himself. If you keep comparing yourself with others who are living a good lifestyle, this will only make you judgemental for yourself.
Even if you want to become like your idol, work hard to reach there. Bring out your talents and skills to become the best version of yourself. But, don’t let your inner critic affect you. Rather, learn to accept yourself as you are.
3. Forgiveness is the Key
In the race of life, we make a lot of mistakes and learn so many lessons. It’s a part of every human’s life. However, some people keep regretting about past that they start even having suicidal thoughts. If you have been on a guilt trip or regretting the incidents that happened in the past, stop right there. Let those bad thoughts pass by.
Instead of whining about your mistakes, you should collect the lessons you learned from certain events. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made and move on to peacefully living a life.
4. Think About Your Strengths
Everyone has some kind of strength which you should celebrate. Try to make a list of achievements and all the positive traits for which people compliment you. Remember your talents and know your skills. This will make you feel good about yourself.
Instead of counting a number of negative thoughts, focus on the positive ones and embrace them. This will not only develop self-love but also help you to remain positive when you lose your self-esteem in life.
5. Share Humanity
When you keep focusing on the bad in you, it lowers your self-confidence. People also tend to lose their worth in their own eyes. As a result, it creates a distance between you and other people because, with low confidence, you don’t show courage to meet people. Also, you start believing that other people are performing better than you.
Instead of believing this, you should practice the sense of shared humanity and boost your self-confidence. You should understand the idea that we all are one and the same. Everybody has some sort of weakness and imperfection which is totally ok to have. Thus, you should consider your surroundings and meet people with kindness. Feel better about yourself and encourage others to do the same.
6. Self-Talk
When you go through tough times, try to talk to yourself when alone. This helps you to express your thoughts and bring out all the negativity on the table. The main benefit of self-talk is that you will be aware there is no one to judge you. Consequently, you make yourself feel better by removing all the negativity inside you.
Furthermore, when you feel low, try to use positive affirmations. As you speak positive statements to yourself, it develops a sense of positivity and you start feeling better. If possible, practice meditation. Listen to the inner voice that shows empathy, love, and compassion for you and others.
7. Find a Support System
Many of you might be having supported friends and family members. However, you don’t have a good bond with each and every one. Thus, you should surround yourself with the ones who believe in you, support you, and motivate you to move forward.
The ones who keep bragging or criticizing you will only demotivate you. This may harm you on an emotional level. Staying around with the people you admire or those who admire you will develop a power of acceptance in you.
8. Act of Charity
According to the research, people who are involved in charitable acts experience a positive life. As you try to make a positive difference in the life of needful people, it expresses your kindness. This act of kindness promotes good health for your mental and physical levels.
Final Note on Self-Acceptance
Although it is not easy to practice self-acceptance. One has to bear a lot throughout the journey of low-esteem. There can be times when past experiences and current circumstances make it hard to accept yourself. But, you have to remember that you are a strong and talented person. If it causes too much stress, try to seek help from professionals.
