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5 – The Power of Acceptance

Self-Acceptance

You don’t have to change what you are or what you have to be happy, but instead change the emotion you are expressing. If you are expressing
anger then you will feel angry. If you express jealousy or guilt, then you will feel jealousy and guilt. If you are expressing love then you are likely
to experience happiness and fulfilment. Think back to different times in your life and make a note of what you were expressing. We often associate
feeling happy with who we were with what we had, or what we were doing. Those external things and people were not making us happy. It was the
love we were expressing at the time that fulfilled us.

Studies show that people who are happy are spending time doing the things they love, with people they love, and working on things they are
passionate about. The common element is not the things they achieve, or what they are doing. The common element that creates happiness is that
they are expressing love in all those instances. They are expressing love to who they are with or for what they are doing.

Self acceptance is the first step toward expressing love for yourself. If trying to “be something different” creates an expression of self rejection, then the
solution is to create an expression of self acceptance. Saying this in words is simple, but doing this is not necessarily easy.

Self acceptance is being loving and happy with who you are NOW. Some call it self-esteem, others self-love, but whatever you call it, you'll know
when your accepting yourself cause it feels great. Its an agreement with yourself to appreciate, validate, accept and support who you are at this very
moment, even those parts you’d like to eventually change. This is important...even those parts you'd eventually like to change. Yes, you can accept (be
okay with) those parts of yourself you want to change some day.

If acceptance is so beneficial, why do we resist it?

If acceptance feels so good and is so good for us, then why don’t we accept ourselves? The answer is motivation. We use our lack of acceptance (punishment
because it feels bad) as motivation to get us to do, not do, be, and not be what we think we should. Many people believe that if they accepted themselves as
they are, they wouldn’t change or that they wouldn’t work on becoming more of who they want to be.

Typically, we judge ourselves unfavourably with the hope it will motivate us to change. We hope if we feel bad enough about ourselves, that maybe that will
motivate us to change. Does this work? Sometimes, but only short term. Most times all it does is cause us to feel bad which saps the energy you might have
used to make changes. It can be a vicious cycle. It works exactly counter to what you wanted to do.
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“Acceptance allows change. The 'acceptance mode' includes everything, even my judgments. It allows me to be okay now, even before I reach my goals.”