Despite the fact that we all want to be loved and accepted for who we are, some of us struggle when it comes to accepting ourselves. We can be much more critical of ourselves than we are other people. Often we have an inner voice that berates us, criticises our behaviour and complains we could have done it better or differently. In fact, if anyone else spoke to us the way we speak to ourselves, we would have stopped talking to them years ago!
Some of you reading this will have been taught EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) by me and will know that I often ask you to use statements that include phrases such as “I completely love and accept myself”. For some people, this is the hardest part of the entire process. The idea that they could completely love themselves, let alone say it out loud, is terrifying. Despite being compassionate and understanding towards others, they are unable to show themselves the same level of acceptance.
Part of the reason is that some of us don’t even like ourselves much, let alone feel able to accept ourselves! Perhaps we don’t feel deserving of love or perfect enough to be accepted. Perhaps we feel we are too much a work in progress and to accept ourself will somehow imply we think we are perfect already. We feel we are not good enough, perfect enough or loveable enough right now.
The trouble is that we live in a world of reflections, everything we give out comes reflected back to us. For example, when we feel good and smile at everyone, people smile back, when we frown and complain people are short with us, things seem to go wrong and we find we have more to complain about. When it comes to love, in order to fully love someone else we have to accept them as they are. Love can’t exist at the same time as negative emotion such as anger. If we want to experience more love (and who wouldn’t?) we need to give out more love, including towards ourselves.
So I ask you to consider this, just as you would you love, accept and forgive a child who made a mistake, accept that you too make mistakes and are still deserving of love and acceptance. We all have failures and struggles, we all mess things up from time to time, say or do the wrong thing, we even have moments of hate or spitefulness – all of which merely shows that we are human, fallible, vulnerable.
Everyone is on their own path, going at their own speed, learning, growing and transforming on a continual basis. Wherever we are on this journey each of us is doing the best he or she can right now. No one intentionally messes up. So my challenge to you this month is to accept that wherever you are on your path is exactly where you need to be. You are the best version of you that you can be right now, so love, accept and if necessary, forgive yourself.
Those who love you do so because they see the authentic, beautiful, inner you – so celebrate that and realise that you are deserving of love. Become your own best friend, quiet that critical inner voice and tell it you will only listen to positive messages from now on. Treat yourself with love and kindness and look after yourself. The more comfortable you are being you, the less you will care what others think and the more confidence and freedom you will experience as a result.
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As always, if there is something you would like to discuss, or you would like more information on any of the subjects raised, just give me a call, I’d be happy to help.