A Recipe for Self-Acceptance

1. Recognize your flaws as beautiful.

Your weaknesses, or vulnerabilities, when seen through another lens, are part of the gifts you bring to the world. 

Read the parable: The Cracked Pot 

2. Observe your self-critic.

Take a step back from the words you use when you speak negatively about yourself to yourself. When do you tend to criticize yourself? How often throughout the day? What is your mood before and after you berate yourself? Next time you begin to have these thoughts, what words can you replace them with? 

For example, try replacing something like: “I am a jerk” to “I am having the thought that ‘I am a jerk.’” This is a subtle adjustment in language that can lead to a significant mental and emotional shift. 

3. Self-compassion

This is about embracing our experience, especially difficult emotions, rather than rejecting them. We often blame ourselves or others when we’re feeling pain, or avoid and distract from anxiety and emotions. Self-compassion is when we turn towards ourselves the way we would to a best friend -- paying attention and listening to them, often with a tender heart. Self-compassion allows you to stay connected to yourself even when going through emotional discomfort. 

“It's like a mother, when the baby is crying, she picks up the baby and she holds the baby tenderly in her arms. Your pain, your anxiety is your baby. You have to take care of it. You have to go back to yourself, to recognize the suffering in you, embrace the suffering, and you get a relief."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

4. Forgive yourself.

What is something that you haven’t forgiven yourself for? What is something that perhaps you are holding onto right now, which blocks you from feeling able to fully accept and love yourself? What would a friend or a therapist say to you in response to the above?

Read the poem: Antilamentation by Dorianne Laux 

5. Reclaim yourself.

We all have parts of ourselves, often a child part of us, that we’ve cast aside, neglected, or rarely give attention to – but that is part of our beautiful and fully alive self. What part is that for you? How can you re-own it? Additionally, sometimes we spend a lot of time wondering why someone won’t love us, accept us, or be our friend. Can you take that focus, time, and energy back? How can you give yourself what you need to nurture yourself? 

Read the poem: Love after love by Derek Walcott