The Path to Self-Love and Acceptance

There is a popular belief that we should ignore self-doubt and the negative thoughts inside our head in order to love and accept ourselves. This is not true. True self compassion comes from the understanding that we are imperfect, and at times, we will experience self criticism and self-doubt. It comes from acceptance of all of our parts, and forgiveness of ourselves for the ways we fall short.

The Shadow Side Exercise

We are conditioned to believe we should be all good. We should be 100% good. But the truth is, inside each of us are things that we don’t like. Things that we don’t broadcast to the world, that we even hide from. Life is 50/50 and so are we and we all have these things. These traits are those that we turn away, hide from, and in turn, never learn to understand.

This is a very powerful exercise.

Write down three things that you believe to be true about you that you don’t want anyone to know, including you.

1

2

3

I want to offer that you consider these things not as problems but as useful in your life.

For each of the above points, ask yourself: How has this served me in my life? When you accept them, it all becomes less of a problem and more of an asset.

1

2

3

So, while we can continue to work through these things, it is so important to also understand that we all have human traits that we believe are unacceptable. And they’re not. It’s all just humanness.

The ultimate challenge in confidence is develop the capacity and to make the decision to love and accept yourself the way you are. When you see the things you don’t like –turn towards them and say to yourself, YEAH of course, this is PART of it.

We don’t have to be 100% good. Yet we are still loveable and worthy.

We all have shame; we have all have things we don’t love about ourselves. And this is just part of you and your human journey.