Self Acceptance
“When you like yourself, you will gravitate toward people who like you…” Nido R. Qubein
Depending on how you were raised, you may struggle with who you are, what you are, or in reality how you see and believe yourself to be. How you see yourself is of the greatest importance as it determines how you will react or respond to that which happens to you. It will determine the way your life will turn out because when you do not like yourself, you will not properly respond to what is going on around you. You will believe everything and everyone is out to get you. You will believe life is unfair. You can even get to where you believe life is not worth living.
This is very common in those that do not believe in, like, or accept themselves. Somehow, during their life, either due to something someone said, something someone did, an influence they came under during their formative years from family or friends, or the way they were raised, they develop an unhealthy view of life. This view leads them down a road of emptiness, heading often to self-destruction. It has nowhere else to go simply due to the fact they don’t see themselves as worthy. When one does not see them self as worthy, more often than not they wind up pushing away those trying to love them. On the flip side when one likes, loves, and accepts them self, they will attract those they need. They will gravitate toward people that will accept and love them as they accept and love them self.
Now this all sounds good, but for those that do not accept who they are due to the fact they are unable to like them self, simply deciding to like them self is not going to make that happen. It isn’t that easy. That which has been planted in them has grown to a place of taking on a life of its own. It is now producing a continuous crop/harvest of demeaning and belittling the very person in whom this crop has been planted, which is those of us struggling with a poor self-image. It will continue until that crop is no longer being watered, cultivated, and fed. It needs to be cut off while at the same time planting a new crop to replace the old. With the new crop getting the attention by being watered and cultivated, the old crop will eventually be starved out along with the harvest it has been producing. The harvest is that of feeling inferior, less than, not as good as, etc., in other words one with a poor self-image.
What worked for me was to first forgive those I thought had wronged me. Second, I started listening to anything that would help with my philosophy of life. It took tenacity to develop a veracious appetite in hopes this could in some way help me like who I was as well as accept what had happened. I hoped to be able to move forward without any baggage holding me to a past filled with self-deprecation, self-loathing, and depression. What I did was turn off any and all TV. I did not listen to the radio. What I did was listen to cassette tapes and did so with a cassette player for which I had a belt carrier made. This cassette player had a white cord with an earplug that hurt my ear after a short period of time. I didn’t quit though, I kept at it until the hurting stopped because I took it everywhere whether in or out of the car. Any time I was driving it was an opportunity to educate myself. By listening to hours and hours and hours of tapes, it helped me to reprogram my heart and fill it with a different narrative. A narrative that built me up rather than one that tore me down. As a matter of fact, listening to these tapes took an immense amount of discipline. I say this because after listening to a single subject for five, seven, ten, or twelve times, I found the tapes became difficult to listen to and even found myself not wanting to hear them again.
Instead, I put them back in the player and played them until the words took on life. This may often take three times, five times, ten times and even more. Something inside me said keep listening while something else also said this is going nowhere so stop listening. Instead of stopping, I continued to listen and as I did my hardened heart, the one hardened into believing I was not worthy of anyone loving me or me loving myself, began to change. It changed into a heart that was full of self-acceptance.
If you are struggling with a poor self-image, I ask you to please follow the above steps. The good thing is today they have better listening devices and you don’t have to listen to cassette tapes. You can download an MP3 or use some of the many other ways to hear that which can help you enjoy a much better life.
Best of LUCK as you
Labor Under Correct Knowledge…
Respectfully,
Rick Cox