A lack of self-acceptance limits your capacity for happiness. It also affects your psychological and emotional well-being. It keeps you focused on the negative aspects of yourself, and these negative thoughts create negative emotions.
Ironically, when we don't accept ourselves, we often behave in ways we find even less acceptable. A lot of us have harsh inner critics that tell us we're bad and wrong, that we should have done this and we shouldn't have done that. It's hard to feel very good when we spend a lot of our time criticizing ourselves.
Self-acceptance doesn't come naturally to all of us. If you've been exposed to messages that say you're unworthy or inferior, you might find it harder to accept every aspect of yourself. However, it's possible to nurture your self-acceptance and learn to meet yourself with compassion and care.
Self-acceptance enables you to understand and be honest about your strengths and weaknesses. By accepting yourself, you open the door to self-care and a much more positive attitude towards who you really are. This will create the opportunity to develop and improve yourself and your life.
When you love yourself, you will feel less stressed or uncomfortable when going through difficult events or situations. You won't compete with or compare yourself to others. You'll embrace your hardships. You'll become an optimistic thinker, and you'll be willing to get creative and try new things.
So, when you don't love yourself, you'll have doubts. You lose sight of your strengths and talents and question your skills and abilities. In short, you question your own credibility. Because of that, you may try to avoid certain situations wherein you may face challenges that will help you grow as a person.
Here are three positive actions that people can take to increase their levels of self-acceptance: Be as kind to yourself as you are to others. See your mistakes as opportunities to learn. Notice things you do well, however small.
Reasons for Lack of Acceptance
Some people have a hard time accepting situations because they feel as though acceptance is the same thing as being in agreement with what happened or saying that it is OK. In other cases, people don't want to acknowledge the pain that would come with acceptance.
Low self-esteem may stem from experiences in early childhood. If you didn't fit in at school, had difficulty meeting your parents' expectations or were neglected or abused, this can lead a person to have negative core beliefs about themselves. These are ingrained beliefs a person has about themselves.
Self-rejection is a form of self-sabotage people often resort to in order to achieve a sense of perfection. People who self-reject themselves often believe that they are not good enough or are not deserving of the things they have.
Self love deficit disorder is a medically unrecognized syndrome in which a person normalizes abuse in intimate relationships. People suffering from this condition tend to negate 'self-love' and neglect their own needs in the process of caring for their narcissistic and abusive partners.
This mindset moves us away from often harsh judgement of ourselves and allows us to break away from thoughts of guilt or unfairness. Practicing acceptance can be especially helpful for individuals living with mental illness.
So what does accepting anxiety actually mean? It means recognizing that in this present moment we are experiencing a feeling of anxiety. As uncomfortable as it might be, we aren't going to try to push it away and we aren't going to avoid it.
Here are some examples of what self-acceptance might look like for a variety of people: A man going through a divorce who feels like a failure because of it might experience self-acceptance as acknowledging that he made some mistakes and that his marriage failed, but that does not make him a failure.
As introverts, we need to start giving ourselves permission to go deeper into our own nature. If building legos, reading books, or watching birds gives us joy, that's what we should be doing instead of going along with what other people think is fun.