Accepting Yourself

Accepting yourself is at the foundation of physical and mental health and well being. It's about loving and being at peace with yourself regardless of your perceived flaws and short-comings.

Self acceptance feels good. It's the basis of self love and esteem. When you genuinely accept yourself, warts and all, you naturally extend this acceptance to others.

This is not about being egotistical (which is usually just a cover up for feeling inadequate and unworthy) or going into denial about yourself. It's not an excuse to ignore bad health and behaviors.

On the contrary, truly accepting yourself offers a 'soft place' for examining yourself.

From this place you make wise and healthy decisions about change and self growth, or not. You evaluate your needs and goals in love and empowerment instead of stress and self loathing.

The Emotional Freedom Technique basic set up statement uses the words, "Even though I have this problem, I deeply and completely love and accept myself."

These words acknowledge your true nature and feelings about yourself on a divine level. Loving and accepting yourself and others is your true spiritual nature.

They remind you consciously and even unconsciously of higher level truth. As you literally tap in these words, sabotaging resistance can be switched off long enough to let you tap into the shifts you want.

Why is it so hard to accept yourself?

Your self concept begins to form from birth and even earlier. Along with your inherited genetic make up, what you were told about yourself and your world shaped your beliefs and who you are at a cellular level.

How you and the people you identified with were treated also shaped your beliefs and your sense of self worth. For better or worse it these factors influence your beliefs today.

For example, many of us have been programmed by the media to look a certain way. We compare ourselves physically with unrealistic 'touched up' body images. We may compare ourselves spiritually with religious figures or mentally with the class genius.

Generally, these comparisons leave us feeling less than good about ourselves and stressing over some perceived flaw or shortcoming. We end up judging and rejecting ourselves in whole or part.

Unfortunately, because of the way we are wired, negative messages tend to carry more weight than positive ones. We tend to discredit the good things we hear and see about ourselves and focus on the negative things.

Bad experiences bear more weight than good ones. Because of all these factors, most of us believe to some extent, "I'm not important" and "I'm not good enough".

Why is accepting yourself important to health?

Some people experience miraculous healing when they free themselves or others of judgment through forgiveness.

When you look in the mirror and express hate about some part of yourself, that is a stressful, discouraging thought. Stress creates tension and chemical changes in the mind and body that are not conducive to wellness.

You really gain nothing positive when you put yourself down. You end up feeling worse about yourself. You can be sure this message makes its way to your cells. Why should your mind and body take care of someone you reject?

Sometimes lack of self acceptance shows up in sneakier ways.

For example, you might say, "I'm fighting depression (or cancer)". Does that feel self accepting and peaceful? This statement may be positive when your body is literally fighting an invading virus. (although fighting may mean stress to you so check in with how it feels)

But conditions like these are all you. To fight them means to fight yourself. Try an affirmation like this instead, "I'm thankful for what this illness is teaching me about myself and I'm cooperating with my mind and body to get well."

What if instead of saying, "I hate my fat thighs," you said, "I am so thankful for how my legs let me walk and go where I want, even though I've put extra weight on them. What wonderful legs they are."?

Notice how different the statements sound and feel.Which statements inspire you to love yourself and take positive steps to wellness?

When you accept yourself, you are aligned with your true nature. This allows you to free up energy for healing instead of stress. It opens you up to your intuition and guidance so you can make empowered decisions and take appropriate action.

When you truly love and accept yourself it's natural to want to take good care of yourself. Your decisions and goals will naturally be aligned with what is truly in your best interest. It's more likely that you will follow through with life affirming habits. And it certainly feels better than the alternative.

Continue to How to accept yourself.

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