Self-Acceptance

An easy enough concept. When we are born it would be nice if we could just come into this world appreciating ourselves and being happy for who we are. I'm sure it would make life a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable.

I think that comes early on from our environment and nurturing. If it comes at all. Unfortunately we aren't all lucky enough to be born into nurturing environments.
In that case then you have to work it out on your own. Not an easy thing to do.

That's the best idea I've heard since cold fusion! No, really!

(I'm no angel either ) It's funny...I did have some nurturing so I can't blame it all on my parents. But I was taught odd ways of thinking. So in turn I have odd thoughts.

I'm on the road to self-acceptance but right now the journey looks so long and hard it makes me wanna take a a nap.

Unfotunately even the best and most loving of parents miss in their nurturing attempts. They try to raise us, mold us, adapt us to society, they rarely even know what it would look like to support their child naturalness.

From the earliest age we are basically told that the way we are is unacceptable, that in order to have our parents love we must stop being how we are and be some other way.

Any wonder we have no self-awareness and no self-acceptance? Many of us, many considered perfectly sane by the society, go through their entire life pretending to be someone else, totally immersed in the false self. We base our self-esteem on level of compliance. You can read and here how people base their self-esteem on ability to meet those social/parental expectations. "When I lose weight I have better self-esteem." "When I dress up nice I have a better self-esteem." "When I finish my education I have a better self-esteem." "When I get praise my self-esteem improves" "When I get criticised my self-esteem plummets"

The self-esteem has to be found within, not without.

All you say is true. But we live with others and the acceptance of the group is necessary for survival at least to a certain extent. Some people are accepted by the group and still are filled with self-loathing.

Perhaps a world without media and mirrors would be a more satisfying one?

Indeed! That was my experience with low self-esteem. Group's acceptance meant nothing. If someone told me I am intelligent they just identified themselves as beyond stupid, if someone told me I am not revoltingly fat, they were deluded or weird.

I kept hearing from people that the only thing I need to do is to accept myself, and then I would be happy, and I thought there were just being cruel or insane. "Accept "THIS"?! Never! I'd rather die."

A world without mirrors.... intriguing. To only have the mirror of our peers and those who love us.
Oh, and media and the glossy magazines and the sellers of clothes and cosmetics...

star-dusted said (among other things): "All you say is true. But we live with others and the acceptance of the group is necessary for survival at least to a certain extent."

It's a question of timing. First, you accept yourself as you are, warts and all, as you really are. THEN you find a group that accepts you as you have found you really are. NOT the other way around. Any group that rejects you as you really are is no group you really want to be part of, however much you admire them and long to be one of them.

It's true that usually one finds the group first, and then tries to fit in with their opinions and standards. But that's just a guarantee of pain and misery. Have the guts to find out what you yourself really like, prefer, choose, want, dream of. Not based on other people's preferences or choices or wants. It takes a while, but you'll be a lot happier when you find a group to fit you rather than trying to fit in with any old group.

The opposite is also true: some people are ostracized yet are able to have a healthy sense of self.

At the end of the day, an individual has to live with him/herself. Loved, hated, or in between, it doesn't matter all that much so long as the person likes who she/he is.

It is much more likely to happen if you can find parents who have learned to feel the same way about themselves. Even then, we really don't show up as a blank slate.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/48239
http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/1752
http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/21307
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relati...ly-you-part-1/
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relati...-authenticity/
http://www.redbookmag.com/print-this...imist?page=all