Self-Acceptance
The key to discovering your authenticity.
“Sometimes the very things we’re looking for is the one thing we cannot see. We can’t see it because we don’t believe it. We don’t believe it because we won’t accept it.”
In 2018, I began the journey to discover who I truly was. The term “Authenticity” was a new concept to me and up until this point in my life, I had never given any thought to who I was, or for that matter, who I wasn’t. As far as I was concerned, I just “was”. I was existing. I had never spent any time questioning who I was or if I was “authentic”. I had never invested any time trying to figure out who I was. Yes, I had fleeting moments of existential crisis, and I pondered my death, but I never slowed down long enough to investigate the essence of my being.
Who am I? Once this seed had been planted, I nourished it by asking myself, “how do you find your authenticity if you don’t know what it was to begin with”? I was racking my brain to understand who I was, and more importantly whether the parts I could identify were authentic. This question sprang from my belief that in the beginning, I had been born as “something authentic” and throughout my years I had somehow managed to misplace, destroy or burry this authenticity. As I began to go through my life inventory, I realized that the parts of me that remained couldn’t possibly be authentic, because I surely didn’t like some aspects of who I had become. What’s interesting is that I didn’t begin to see my authentic self until I started inspecting the parts of me that I didn't like.
“That which we resist, persists.”
I realized that the parts of me that I had avoided, suppressed, and locked-away, were as much a part of me as the fictitious ones I had created to protect and prop myself up in the world. With an open mind, curiosity, courage, and rigorous honesty, I began to painfully examine each of the things that I didn’t like about myself.
There were the regrettable things that I had done that created a serious amount of guilt…
There were things that happened to me that caused a great amount of shame…
There were aspects of my character that lacked integrity and required a new perspective and some discipline…
I was too trusting, I lacked boundaries…
I was perpetually disappointed because I believed people would treat me the way I treated them…..
And on, and on, it went……
In retrospect, this introspective journey was the first self-loving behavior I had done for myself in many years. I can now testify that good things happen once you become grounded in loving yourself. As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, we become open to examining, and reappraising the conditions and circumstances that we have created in our life. With compassion, we recognize how these conditions have restricted us from living life to its fullest. This single self-realization has the ability to shift us to a new liberated reality and a new image of our potential and possibilities.
By reconstructing and deconstruct the events that lead to my false beliefs, I was able to come to new insights and realizations about the thoughts and beliefs around these events. These insights and realizations were powerful because they were the prelude to changing my beliefs. Realizations and insights worked for me because they were intrinsic, they came from within me, and they were energetically authentic. As I probed and poked at the things I didn’t like about myself, it became clear to me that I lacked self-acceptance.
My true epiphany in this experience was: if I never accept the things that happened to me, or that I didn't like about myself, then I would never discover my true self.
Along this authentic journey, it became clear to me that a lack of self-acceptance is the primary reason why most people struggle to identify their authenticity. Self-acceptance is the cornerstone of our authenticity and ensures that we are working with, not against life. A lack of self-acceptance separates us from our authenticity. This separation darkens the image of ourselves. If we are denying the things that we don't like about ourselves, or things that have happened to us, or the things we have done, then we are not in self-acceptance and therefore not operating as our authentic self.
The beautiful part about discovering your authenticity through self-acceptance is that you don’t necessarily need to “fix” anything. Identifying your authentic self through self-acceptance is an “alignment process”. It is the process of aligning your beliefs and behaviors with your true values. In order to understand who you are, and ultimately define your authenticity, you’ll need to find conviction in what you truly believe and why you believe it. In order to truly accept anything, you must first believe it.
The reconciliation or realignment of self begins by being “aware” of how we feel about our experiences, and how we deal with the emotions related to these experiences. These are the first steps to authentic discovery. “Present moment awareness” is a state of being that removes us from the reactive energies of regret and anxiety that come from fixating on either past or future transgressions. It allows us to take responsibility for our feelings. Being aware allows us to stop, pause, reflect and respond. Without present moment awareness, we will react out of habit. If our habit is to deny our uncomfortable feelings, then we must learn to break that habit and arrive at a new outcome. Unlike denial, which separates us from our authenticity, present moment awareness and taking responsibility for your feelings is a self-loving behavior that puts us back in alignment with our authenticity.
Our lack of self-acceptance is a learned behavior that stems from our inability to properly regulate our emotions. However, it is important to understand that our emotions and feelings provide immediate proof that we are experiencing life, and they are the closest connection we have to our authenticity.
Do you believe that? Can you accept that?
Maybe a quick understanding of the physiology of the body and mind may help you accept and believe…..
First — Our senses connect us to the outside world
Second — Our emotions inform us of what we are experiencing through our senses
Third — Without the skills to interpret these emotions, we will react/behave in a variety of ways that we use to protect ourselves based on how we perceive ourselves in the world
Fourth — We form thoughts (often critical self judgement) based on these reactions
Finally — we are left to deal with the feelings from this experience
We often feel a level of discomfort when our emotional reaction/behavior does not align with our values or beliefs. This discomfort shows up in the form of regret, remorse, fear, resentment, embarrassment, guilt, shame, anger, anxiety and disappointment just to name a few. These feelings are often accompanied by irrational thoughts and a critical inner dialog.
What’s important to understand is that our feelings are the most authentic part of our being!
These feelings are all normal human responses to the situations and circumstances we find ourselves in. However, if our learned behavior is to avoid these feelings because they are too painful, then we are denying our authenticity.
The denial of these feelings mean that we are being unloving to ourselves and that we are abandoning ourselves in some way. We separate ourselves from our authenticity when we deny, ignore, avoid or suppress these feelings. Learning to unconditionally accept these feelings will help you move toward your authenticity. Learn to identify and feel them all, and understand they are there to remind you that you are alive.
Instead of denying, avoiding or suppressing, we must learn how to observe, examine and reappraise these feelings. Learning to take responsibility for your feelings and emotions is a skill and it requires practice. Learning the skills of present moment awareness, observation, examination and reappraisal allow us to “respond” to our feelings and emotions instead of “habitually reacting” to them. Reaction normally equals regret.
When we learn to respond, we are using our awareness to “intentionally” pause for a moment to feel what is happening and make a clear assessment of the situation. Instead of reacting to the uncomfortable emotions, instead of reacting to the irrational thoughts, instead of reacting to the critical inner dialog, we use present moment awareness to observe what we are feeling, thinking and saying to ourselves. This allows us to respond as we choose knowing that there may be consequences, good, bad or indifferent. The more you practice, the easier and faster the process becomes. To learn more about how to do this, read “How I Journaled my way to Authenticity”
Self-Acceptance is the key that unlocks the one part that is undeniably you. As we practice the skills of taking responsibility for our feelings, we begin to see our authentic self. Through alignment we find our truth and we begin to accept the parts we previously denied. Piece by piece, our authentic self begins to materialize. Practicing this self-loving behavior creates insights that allow us to understand, believe, accept and trust our truths. These self-loving behaviors allow life to happen through us, instead of to us. With practice and consistency, we gradually reconcile our false beliefs and as a result we find acceptance for who we are. Authenticity is the empowerment of the self. With this new unlimited identity, you’ll understand what you are and what you are not. This new approach to dealing with emotions will allow you to become who you were meant to be.
Discovering your authenticity is a process of aligning your beliefs and behaviors with your true values. It is a series of small bites that requires a depth of patience, maturity, forgiveness and detachment from old feelings, and the beliefs that created those feelings. It is a process of building new habits that align and support your authentic identity. We experience great joy and empowerment when we operate from our authenticity because we are living in harmony with our natural state of being. We are not trying to be anything other than our best expression of self.
