The Journey to Achieving Higher Levels of Love and Acceptance for Yourself

 

I believe that one of the most unhealthy goals that you can set is one that doesn’t resonate with your true self.

Many people face enormous pressure to meet expectations set by loved ones and peers to achieve goals that were never aligned with them in the first place. 

We are told what to do and who to be, instead of being asked what we want to do or how we want to dress or who we want to love. As pressure builds and beliefs are established, we become conditioned to believe the things that are outside of ourselves. They hold us hostage. And when I say us, I mean the real us. The ‘us’ that wants to be loved and accepted, no matter the decisions that we make for ourselves.

This desire to be loved by the people who mean the most to us can create resistance toward being our true selves.

And a big reason why is that during this process, we lose things along the way.

Here are a few of the losses that may be experienced by someone who chooses to stay silent: 

• Loss after loss of your authentic self if you don’t try to gain back the real parts of you.
• Loss of the chance to rebuild a life that feels most aligned to you.
• Loss of the opportunity to create new connections in your life.
• Loss of a never ending cycle of pain and frustration for not being true to yourself.

Here are a few of the losses that may be experienced by someone who chooses to speak up: 

• Loss of connection with loved ones. When the people in your life choose not to accept or listen to try and understand.
• Loss of old physical, mental and emotional identities, even when that identity was not you. You still to some degree identify with it, whether you wanted to or not.
• Loss of the ability to control your life in a way that feels right for society and others.

I want to emphasize that just because you chose to honor yourself, it doesn’t mean that you won’t go through loss during transformation. I mention this for when times are challenging and you want to go back to what was comfortable. But remember, it was never comfortable if it wasn’t really you.

It is so important to honor each loss and take the proper time to grieve. Each loss that we go through holds weight and space within us that needs releasing. When we can heal from the losses, a lot of acceptance will begin to surface.

The bigger challenge often lies in accepting ourselves. For wanting a change, but even more than that, for needing it. For fighting to stay in a world that wants nothing more than for people to blend in and quiet their voice.

And the more time you spend moving away from your true self, the longer it takes to come back to it.

When you resist parts of yourself, you create turmoil within you. So would you rather create tension in the outside world or have to live with yourself knowing that your inside world isn’t you?

I hope you choose the first option; I know I did. What I’ve found is, no matter how loud or negative my surroundings are, I focus on staying happy, content, and whole all on my own. That is full acceptance of accepting yourself.

But this takes consistent practice, in order to make it a habit in your life.

So how can we achieve a higher level of love and acceptance for ourselves?

• Find time to be alone. Make sure that the time is productive and intentional. Stay away from overthinking during this time.
• While you’re alone, pose questions for yourself that may help you come to your own conclusions and solutions.
• Simply ask yourself, does this make me happy? Without harming others, is this what I want for my life? Is this what I need? If the answer is yes then there is no other answer from anyone else that should be considered.
• When we spend time alone, we remove the chatter from others. We get to rediscover and choose. And as a result, we find fulfillment and self-love.

It isn’t so much about learning to love ourselves, but rather unlearning all of the reasons why we’ve rejected love toward ourselves.

When we express love this way, it becomes automatic and it removes resistance.

We love ourselves in a deeper way when we choose to walk our own path and make our own decisions for what works for us and what does not.

We are the only ones that should be defining ourselves.

To get in touch with Macy, please send her an email or send a message through her official website or Instagram.