Accepting yourself is not loving yourself (Part 1)

Written by Coach Kim

Edited by Kristine Sultmanis

As human we spend so much time working on our relationship with others but little time working on ourselves. We open our heart and accept our peers as they are, but we never seem satisfied with who we are. Some people will spend their entire life looking for peer recognition because they are not capable to recognize their value and achievements themselves. Self Love is a trending term that we see everywhere, but what does it really mean? Self love is by definition the regard for one's own well-being and happiness[1]. I often tell my clients that self love is like a pyramid: the foundation is the acceptance of ourselves and the top is the love we have for ourselves. This image reflects very well how some people may be very comfortable in their own self but never reach a level of self love. This theory also applies to relationship you develop with others: you may accept some people but may never love them.

Accepting yourself is the basis of self love because it requires you to be okay with who you are. You need to fully accomplish the acceptance level in order to reach the higher level of loving yourself. Here are few major points to help you work on accepting yourself:

1-Recognize the strength within you. A lot of people struggle giving themselves compliments and praises. Write down your strengths, if you are having difficulties ask people that knows you well to help you. Remember this exercise is about how you see yourself, only use what resonate with how you feel. Some clients prefer to do this exercise over a certain period of time, such as writing down 2 positive statements about themselves per day for 1 week. Example: I am a loving person. I am creative in my hobby and life. etc

2-What have you accomplish in your life? Make a list. Accomplishments don’t always have to be huge undertaking. Learn to celebrate all your accomplishments no matter the size. This is an excellent way for you to be reminded of how far you have come and inspire you to go much further. Sometimes just ending the day with a smile when everything went wrong is the most powerful accomplishment you could have done. In coaching we often talk about journaling. Journaling is a great way to read about your everyday accomplishment and create a nice summary of how you are evolving through life experience: which is the ultimate life accomplishment.

3-Judgement toward ourselves is a powerful source of auto-destruction. You are daily judging yourself without even noticing. Each time you catch yourself judging your look, your abilities to succeed or your personality, stop and reword your statement into a motivational and positive one. Example:

I have too many stretch marks. I gave birth to 2 amazing girls and these are my mama tiger marks.

These simple changes are turning negative judgement into celebration of who you are.

4-Be aware of how other people comments impact the vision you have of yourself. If you grew up with your family telling you that you would never do something, you may have acquired that thoughts as well. Do you find yourself looking for approval from others to believe in yourself? These are deep questions that you should explore. It takes time to discover a pattern or even see what impact others opinion may have had on us on long term. Then don’t be afraid to challenge these thoughts. If you were told you are a terrible cook, take a cooking class or try new recipes at home. In most case you will find that these thoughts are not valid, and you are capable of so much more than you thought.

5-Understand that you can’t be good at everything. No one can do it all, but everyone can try it all. You are not expecting others to be perfect in everything so why do you expect this from yourself? I am terrible at anything that requires spatial awareness or sense of direction. It doesn’t stop me to visit maze with my kids, go on road trip or try science project in my dining room but I don’t dwell myself on not being the best or getting lost. I learn from others that are much stronger in these areas than me. I surround myself with people and tools that helps me get where I need to be. By accepting that I have no sense of direction, this has become a running joke with my friends and family and I am fine with it. The greatest road trips I ever went on always included getting out of the way and discovering something new.

6-Work on your self-acceptance first before working on your self-improvement. This is common these days with all the great programs of self-improvement available, for people to want to work on their self-improvement even if they don’t accept who they are. I often compare the process to fixing a painting: would you work to improve a painting that isn’t completed yet? Probably not, the improvement would occur when you have a full picture and you have identified what you want to improve. Self-acceptance is accepting yourself just how you are in the present. Self-improvement focuses on changes that need to be made in order to accept the self in the future.

7-Stop asking to much from yourself. We expect way more from ourselves that we do from others. When you set unrealistic expectations for yourself, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. This will, in turn, make it hard to accept yourself. I always tell clients: do your best, act with love, and understand that you are growing by experiencing bumps on the road. Spoiler alert, if you are a mom, you don’t have to be perfect as long as you do your best with love. No one ever regretted to have done something with love and gave their best, even if it didn’t end up being a success.

8- Have compassion for yourself. Be gentle with yourself. If a friend was showing up at your door crying, would you tell them to stop crying and be though? I hope no. So why do we see crying as a weakness for ourselves? Why do we take care of everyone’s health issues but when we get sick we push ourself instead of resting? Show yourself the same comparison as you would for others.

9-Practice self-derision. Life is short, we all make silly mistakes: laugh about it. I noticed that as we get older, we tend to have the ability to laugh of our mistakes and move on easier than when we were young. Maybe this is impacted by the facts that we have done mistakes in the past and learned to live with it or just because we don’t care as much about what others think. I used to get very self-conscious when I would fall in public. Well after 36 years of tripping in my own feet’s, I have now acquired some very smooth ways to fall and learned to look somewhat gracious while doing it.

10-Use daily affirmations. You are your thoughts so if you want to live a happy life, create happy thoughts. Affirmations are positive sentences that helps you create positive thoughts and motivational statement. You don’t need training to make personal affirmation. Create sentence that resonate with you and make you want to be your best self. After a while you will start rewiring your brain to turn negative thoughts into positives thoughts. Example: I am strong and there is nothing I can’t accomplish.

These are only few ways you can work on your self acceptance. Some people choose to work with a therapist or a coach to guide them through it as well. This can be a short or a lengthy process. This is a personal journey that requires the ability and the desire to do introspection. It can be an emotional journey, so be patient with yourself and remember that you are amazing. Stay tune for next month’s article which will be the part two of Loving yourself. Meanwhile share with us your thoughts in the comment section below and for more free resources join our Reborn & Stronger Facebook group.

[1] Oxford Dictionary