Self-compassion and self-acceptance are essential if we are to return to love. Have you ever wondered why some people just seem to be happy and content in their own skin most of the time? Do you know people who are miserable and pessimistic day in and day out? How about you? What are your predominant feelings toward life? Do you like yourself? Feel worthy? Struggle with confidence?
I’d like to delve into the world of self-acceptance and self-compassion today. From the time we are children, it seems that many have lived a life of some sort of emotional abandonment, leaving them living a life with their mental script less than optimal and oftentimes quite negative. They’re hard on themselves and that harshness tends to affect every area of their lives.
Emotional abandonment
Emotional abandonment means that one tends to run from fulfilling emotional needs instead of embracing the fact that they need self-love and self-acceptance. Even young children can begin to think the thoughts, “I don’t like myself” and “ I’m not worthy” and unfortunately, carry those thoughts throughout their lives.
Maybe all of your emotional needs were not met as a child and as a result, you grew up with low self-esteem and low self-worth. This is actually a very common scenario in our society. For one reason or another, babies and children begin believing that they are not worth much. They go through life stuffing the pain associated with such and/or try to cover up that pain with addictions, people, success, or material possessions. This poses a huge problem because going through life like this makes for a miserable existence and leads to things like depression, severe anxiety, mental health disorders, and tremendous pain.
The antidote
The good news is that this is very common and plenty of people have faced their inner struggles with low self-worth and lack of self-compassion and have learned how to love themselves wholeheartedly. They’ve become vulnerable and faced their insecurities, disappointments, pain, and so much more in order to learn the art of self-compassion and acceptance. In fact, part of an adult’s life journey oftentimes leads them in a direction where they will have to face the darkness in order to walk more fully in the light. Sometimes growth requires walking through pain in order to find the rainbow.
Healing inner wounds
Everyone encounters some pain on their life journey. It begins in childhood and continues throughout life. What people do with inner wounds that come from pain will determine their attitude and actions throughout life. Inner wounds cause some people to persecute themselves. They think “I must deserve this” or “ I’ll never be good enough” and that type of thinking tends to keep them in a state of unworthiness.
The truth is that people tend to be so hard on themselves and they don’t realise that they can learn to adore who they are despite their pasts and their pain. Learning self-love and self-compassion is possible and it begins with coming to that understanding.
You do matter. You’re worthy in and of yourself. You can love yourself and treat yourself with compassion. It’s wonderful to treat others with compassion, but do you treat yourself that way? Do you delight in yourself? Pamper yourself? Cut you some slack? Believe in yourself?
Begin with looking in the mirror and see yourself as beautiful and worthy. Declare that you are worthy of love. Take time to delight and pamper yourself consistently. Accept you for who you are: your flaws and your assets. No one is perfect and you’re no exception. Embrace all of you and as you learn to love yourself, you’ll notice love oozing out of you into all those you come into contact with. Life will make more sense because you will be in tune with your authentic self, which is at the core – LOVE.
