Self-acceptance

I’m coming to realize how important self-acceptance is. I’m written before about accepting God’s timeline, accepting change, etc. but not a lot about accepting myself.

I bring this up because when I love and accept myself the way that I am, my life feels more peaceful, I’m happier and I feel so free. I can concentrate on things other than what’s “wrong” with me.

As a self-proclaimed perfectionist, there has been a belief within me before I could be loved I had to be perfect. Before I could accept myself I had to do things perfectly, look perfectly, act perfectly, etc. There was a whole lot of negative self-talk going on in my mind. A whole lot of, “Why did you do that?? Why did you say that? What’s wrong with you?!?” And it went even further. I did a lot of physical nit-picking, which unfortunately, is fairly common for women as far as I can tell. There’s a lot of feeling dissatisfied with our body/skin/hair for which we should buy a pill/cream/gel to fix.

Here’s an ad from the magazine lying on my floor: “Take your hair from flat to all-day FABULOUS with TRESemme 24 hour body.” And that’s not even the worse one I could find.

Inherent in TRESemme’s advertising copy is the idea flat hair is bad, undesirable, the opposite of fabulous. “Everyone wants full-bodied hair and now you can have it too with our product!” is the underlying message.

Personally I can say by focusing so much on my “flaws” I’ve been wasting my time and energy. So much of my mind space could be freed up for other things if I didn’t obsess about my physical appearance in a negative way, if I could love and accept myself as I am, right now. What a concept in Western society!

I may have a zit on my chin or frizzy hair but that does not diminish my beauty. I am a divine child of God no matter what. I am beautiful no matter what’s going on externally. My physical ailments are transient, brief flashes in time and space that do not require beauty products from TRESemme.

Last week I wrote about self-worth coming from within and loving myself no matter what happens. This week I can say I love and approve of myself no matter what I look like. I love and approve and accept myself just as I am, right in this moment. And I have that same wish for others.

I dream of a world where we love and approve of ourselves no matter what we’re doing and no matter what we look like. Where we accept our beauty at all times, recognizing our physical ailments are merely expressions of mental patterns that can be changed. (See “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay) Where we recognize the power of our minds to not only affect our lives but our bodies. Where we love ourselves unconditionally as God loves us. Where we accept ourselves for who and what we are, realizing all is inherently right with us. Where we realize our full potential as human beings to manifest the world we wish to see and the people we’d like to become. I dream of a world where the pervading concept is we are beautiful, we are loved, we are perfect just as we are. Where we are bombarded with the message, “There is no one else in the world like you, so cherish yourself as you are, recognizing your good and how wonderful it is you exist.” I dream of a world where we can all walk down the street feeling confident in our skin no matter what we look like, loving ourselves as we deserve to be loved.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.