Self-Love & Acceptance

A friend of mine asked me the other day how she could love herself. She was frustrated as every self-help book she read kept pointing out that her biggest problem was lack of self-love, but there were no instructions on how to do it. I guess there are a lot of people out there having the same problem, as since that conversation, I had several other people asked me that same exact question.

Everyone tells you to love yourself, but no one teaches you how to do it!

No worries, I’ll explain how it all works.

The truth is that loving yourself is the simplest thing you will ever do, actually you don’t even have to do anything.

Loving yourself is accepting yourself. All of yourself.

It’s not about accepting the parts that you like and rejecting the ones you don’t like; it’s about accepting every single bit of yourself.

And yes, I know what you‘re thinking, “how can I accept myself if I don’t even like me?!”

Well, love has nothing to do with liking, but it has all to do with accepting.

I might not like how I look in a bikini, but I can accept that I look the way I look when I wear said bikini.

Look, I’m not going to pretend it’s easy. I know, I’ve been there, and it was freaking hard to start the process of accepting something you dislike or even hate… but with willingness and perseverance you can get there, just the way I did.

You start accepting the little things, the way you feel in the moment, the way you react, the things you say. Remember, you don’t have like them, you just have to accept them as they are without beating yourself out, without judgment.

Instead of calling yourself a horrible name, just breathe deeply and accept that what happened, happened, it is what it is. Then you can give yourself a side note to try and change that behaviour the next time around, but for now it just is. Be gentle with yourself and accept.

After a few tries it becomes easier, you start developing this warm feeling for yourself. You become more compassionate with yourself, more patient and tolerant. And unexpectedly one day, you notice how much love you actually do feel for yourself.