How do you feel when someone says, “You have to love yourself before you can love somebody else?”
Or in the words of RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen?”
It can be a great reminder to prioritize your own needs before taking on other people’s problems or making your problems theirs but there’s a bit more to it.
If you can’t love yourself, how will you recognize healthy love from anyone else?
If you can’t see value in yourself, how will you know when other people see value in you?
If you don’t feel confident in yourself, how will you react to confidence in someone else?
if you can’t be kind to yourself, how will you perceive kindness from anyone else?
If you don’t take care of yourself, how will you receive offers of support from someone else?
If you can’t accept yourself, how will you know when other people are willing to accept you for who you are?
The truth is it’s easy to give other people the love, care, compassion, or kindness we don’t give ourselves when we think they’re more deserving of it.
But it’s also easy to think if we don’t deserve those things, neither do they.
This is where self-acceptance comes in!
What is Self-Acceptance?
Self-acceptance is the process of liking who you are, as you are, in this present moment.
It’s a path to self-love.
It’s a great way to improve your self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence.
And it makes it easier to recognize the value of acts of self-care.
As someone who deals with anxiety, is a former busybody, and whose biggest life goal has become slowing down, I’ve changed what self-acceptance means for me since I started Love U Too a decade ago.
For me, self-acceptance has meant detaching my worth from my accomplishments and productivity.
Spending more time being present rather than ruminating on the past or anticipating the future.
Learning I don’t have to “earn” my rest or push myself toward exhaustion to reach my goals.
Recognizing that I deserve more compassion and kindness from myself.
Seeking more opportunities to take care of myself.
Doing things that make me feel good about myself—and eliminating or limiting things that don’t.
Self-acceptance is not an excuse to give up on yourself or your goals—unless something brings you no real value and does more harm than good.
Instead, it can
💕 be a welcome escape from perfectionism,
💕 make it easier to celebrate your small wins,
💕 give you space to seek joy and happiness,
💕 release you from the weight of other people’s expectations,
💕 help you see the good in yourself, your abilities, and your effort,
💕 and motivate you to seek out people who treat you how you want to be treated.
How I Practice Self-Acceptance
I prefer to talk about practicing self-acceptance over achieving it because practice isn’t about reaching perfection or a. endpoint—it’s about making a little progress every single day.
A big piece of my self-acceptance story is also my career story.
For years, I believed my story was unique and that everyone else’s issues with how they felt about themselves stemmed from other areas of their lives.
But in my many conversations about self-acceptance, I’ve learned that no matter how different our lives are, we struggle most with our bodies, our voices, and our careers.
We work to change our bodies. We work to please other people. We work to prove our value. We work hard for everyone else but stop short of working hard to take care of ourselves.
Working hard doesn’t mean you have to be hard on yourself.
No matter how far you’ve come or how far you have to go, there are 4 things we all have to do to progress through our self-acceptance journey.
Be aware.
Pay attention to how you feel and how you speak to (or about) yourself. Give yourself permission to feel your feelings.
Make time to reflect on your thoughts, beliefs, motivations, or desires. Take note of all the character traits that make you who you are. Think about how you show up in the world.
Work on figuring out what might be holding you back from feeling good about yourself.
(You may want to do this with a licensed professional.)
Sometimes we are our biggest critics and the meanest people we know.
We force ourselves to keep pushing no matter what’s going on around us. We ignore signs that something may not be working because we’ve already invested too much effort into it.
Unfortunately, we can’t just snap our fingers to forget all the experiences and messages that have taught us to view ourselves in a negative light.
But we can pay attention to how we’ve internalized those messages.
How can you be more self-aware?
What can you do to see yourself more clearly and objectively?
How can you make more time for introspection?
Be forgiving.
Quit beating yourself up. Stop searching for reasons to torture yourself. Let go of the idea that there’s only one way to reach a goal or that your life has to look a certain way for you to be successful.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
Sometimes we make mistakes. Other times we assume we’ve made a mistake because things aren’t going the way we expected.
While reflecting on the experience can help us move differently in the future, torturing ourselves by reliving the past won’t move us forward.
When we can’t forgive ourselves, we get stuck in place.
We may even convince ourselves that negative outcomes are the consequences of our actions and that any positive outcomes are a fluke.
We have to start forgiving ourselves.
How can you be more forgiving toward yourself?
What can you do to learn from your past experiences?
How can you stop beating yourself up?
Be compassionate.
Show yourself empathy. Treat yourself with kindness. Be soft and gentle with yourself. Give yourself the care and consideration you deserve.
Be the safe space you always needed.
It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you’re focusing on what you
- can’t do,
- don’t have,
- haven’t accomplished,
- and who you want to be.
Focusing on all the things we “would’ve, could’ve”, or should’ve” done keeps us too distracted to realize there’s more within our reach than we think.
When we are compassionate with ourselves, we’re less likely to be stubborn and rigid with our self-imposed rules and timelines.
We’re more likely to see ourselves as deserving of things that relieve stress and make our lives easier.
We’re also more likely to invest time, money, or effort into things that help us reach our goals without sacrificing our physical, mental, and emotional health.
How can you be more compassionate with yourself?
What can you do to be less strict with yourself?
How can you be more flexible?
Be present.
Stop obsessing over the future. Free yourself from the past. Focus on the present.
Every big accomplishment is filled with a collection of tiny, daily accomplishments.
Every big transformation is filled with tiny epiphanies and subtle changes in our daily routines.
Give yourself permission to focus on
💕 what you can do right now,
💕 what you do have right now,
💕 who you are right now,
💕 what brings you joy right now.
And celebrate what you have accomplished up to this point in time—no matter how big or small.
How can you be more present?
What can you do to refocus your energy?
How can you reframe what growth looks like in your life?
Self-acceptance isn’t something we can do overnight.
Instead, it’s a journey with many stops along the way. Each one of those stops is an opportunity for us to learn a little more about ourselves and what we need to feel good about ourselves.
Remember, self-acceptance is the best form of self-care—and it takes practice.
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