The ability to love and accept yourself determines how open your mind and heart are towards other people as well. The relationship with yourself illuminates you about how to relate to others, how to build long-lasting and meaningful connections and create the life of your dreams.
Therefore, don’t feel selfish for offering yourself support, understanding, acceptance, and love.
Seven inspiring ways of how to love and accept yourself as you are
1. Allow yourself to grieve the loss of not becoming (exactly) what you wanted.
When a baby is born, hers/his parents make plans for the future. They dream what the child will become; they aspire to a particular skill/job, location, financial situation and so on. However, once the children grow up, they choose something different for their future.
Even if that something different is positive (instead of becoming doctors, they become engineers), parents feel the loss of their dream.
It’s almost the same for you. If you had a dream about what you want to accomplish and didn’t, even if you achieved something else, you might feel pain for the loss of your dream.
Allow yourself to grieve that loss and don’t feel guilty about how you feel. Grieve your loss, let go of the past and then move on.
2. Forgive yourself.
Learn how to forgive yourself because that is your base from which you can make your life happy and fulfilled.
I can’t emphasize enough how vital is self-forgiveness for building a bright future. Whatever you want to change about yourself or your life, must start with it (self-forgiveness). Feeling guilty is like a stone tied up on your neck that drags you down, preventing you to:
- See how beautiful (in and out) you are;
- Accept yourself with the good and the not so good;
- Hear and listen to the voice of wisdom of your deeper self;
- Feel enough;
- Learn from your mistakes and then move on.
You have punished yourself enough! It’s time to forgive yourself.
Perhaps, you don’t even know what for you feel guilty, you just do.
Forgive yourself for actual or imagined faults and mistakes because both feel equally real to you. Right? Therefore, treat them the same. Treat yourself with compassion and understanding: know that you have done, always, the best you knew how.
Listen, judging your former self with the knowledge you have today is unfair! Is it not?
How to love and accept yourself as you are? Start with self-forgiveness and feeling good enough.
3. Be less self-conscious and more self-appreciative
Give yourself the chance to become the best version of you. Get there by bringing out what is positive about you; by showing the world your skills, talents, and knowledge.
If you put yourself down, nagging, and bullying yourself for what you can’t do or you’re not, life is not only hard and miserable but also feels incredibly long.
Isn’t that ironic? Most people complaining how short life is; And for you, life to feel too long and painful? No one is perfect; life is not perfect, but it can be beautiful and filled with joy and happy feelings.
Learn how to love yourself by accepting yourself as you are. Be less self-conscious and remind yourself that for every shortcoming you have, you’re compensating with other dozens of great things.
4. Build your self-esteem
Almost everything in your adult life starts with you, (starts from you); you are the one making yourself feel good or bad.
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The power to alleviate and sweeten negative feeling toward who you are lies in you!
Self-esteem is the product of your mind. Be mentally strong, see your true value, take advantage of your potential, and skills.
Remember that the person you should strive to satisfy the most is YOU!
5. Overcome feeling inferior to others
Did you notice you are much more capable than what you think? For example, before learning to ride a bike, did you believe you’ll ever do it?
Maybe that is not the best example, but you have your own examples of things you thought you would never do and exceeded all odds and expectations. Just pay attention and notice that has happened and will happen (again and again) in your life because confidence doesn’t come from the ether (from empty space), it comes from the successes you have.
Do you acknowledge it’s time to love and accept yourself as you are? Overcome feeling inferior to others.
6. Define what it means (to you) to love and accept yourself as you are
- Do you like the fact that you are, like the rest of us, not perfect? Probably not.
- Do you love the fact that you have, like the rest of us, limitations and shortcomings? Probably not.
- Do you accept the fact that some things you might want in life are out of your reach? Probably not.
- Do you accept the fact that some of your dreams turned into nightmares? Probably not.
- Do you accept and love many people even though they are not perfect and do many things you disapprove? Probably YES.
Think about that!!! You accept and love many people even though they are not perfect and do many things you disapprove. Think about the compassion you’re willing to offer to others but not to yourself (?).
Self-acceptance and love should not be conditioned by the things you can do today or by the standards of others.
Having a strong desire to improve yourself doesn’t say you’re not good enough. It says that you recognize and value your potential; that you’re willing to use what you already have to progress and create an advanced version of you.
Self-improvement is an upgrade, not a correction of errors.
How to love and accept yourself as you are? Lead your life within the boundaries of your (own) standards, values, and beliefs.
7. Make a difference
Loving and accepting yourself as you are is the first step to make a difference in the world.
Just imagine a society free from self-negative emotions and thoughts. A society where people (by loving and accepting themselves first), learn the value and how to love and accept others as well.
Know that your personal example is the best inspiration for others and contributes to a better environment for all of us.
The world doesn’t need another Einstein, another mother Teresa, another Jimi Hendrix; the world needs you as you are.
You are unique and precious, and that gives you the power to make a difference.
You’ll never know what sort of an Einstein lies within you until you give it a chance to surface. Plus, to make a difference in the world, doesn’t take another Einstein but a YOU, changing one life at the time. Start by making a difference in your life: accept and love yourself as you are!