Learning to fully accept yourself is an important step not to skip when working toward feeling better about yourself. If there are things about yourself that you do not accept, it would be very hard to accept good things that may come your way. You may end up wondering if you truly deserve to be happy or feel like an impostor.

Here are some obstacles that may be preventing you from self-acceptance:

– Comparisons: You tend to compare yourself to others, compare yourself to how you used to be, compare yourself to social expectations, or compare yourself to your own unrealistically high standards.You may notice a lot of thoughts of “should” or “should not”.

– Perfectionism: You may believe that accepting yourself as is would prevent you from reaching your full potential or would limit your effort in pursuing your goals. You may incorrectly believe that striving for perfection is what would help you feel better about yourself. However, the impossible pursuit of perfection would likely result is more harsh judgments toward yourself.

– Beliefs from childhood: When you were a child, your understanding of people, life, and what is normal was limited to what you experienced with the people who surrounded you. You learned about what is and is not acceptable and those beliefs can really feel like the truth. You may carry those beliefs into adulthood without truly questioning them. It may be difficult to allow “unacceptable” parts to exist.

– Shame: Shame can be a powerful feeling that prevents your from truly looking at yourself. It may lead to avoidance or defensiveness. You may end up distracting yourself to not have to acknowledge aspects of yourself that you do not like

– Experiences of invalidation: You may have had experiences in life that were invalidated by others or society. For example, you may have had a traumatic experience that others minimized or denied. You may end up invalidating yourself by not trusting how you actually feel or think, and believing that the traumatic experience was no big deal.

– Systemic oppression: Experiencing systemic oppression such as racism, sexism, ableism, fat phobia, or trans phobia for example could lead you to develop survival skills. To survive, you may feel the need to hide who you truly are, strive to be someone you are not, or just disconnect from yourself.

How to build self-acceptance?

A helpful strategy to build self-acceptance is to explore who you are, and develop a more in depth, nuanced, and expansive sense of self. You can start by gaining more understanding of the blocks to self-acceptance and develop more self-compassion.

Imagine your self-identity is a little cloud in the sky. To explore who you are, you can zoom in to see more details. See the cloud as a three dimensional object. Look at how the edges are not quite as clearly defined as what you thought at first glance. Look at how some parts of the cloud are more dense and some are see-through thin. Observe how the cloud moves and transforms over time. You too have some parts of you that feel quite solid and some that may be less important. For example, your identity as a mother may be quite prominent, but your identity as a coffee drinker is much less significant. The coffee drinker part is still a part of you even if it is really small. Allow aspects of yourself that are contradictory or exceptions to exist as well. Use curiosity to really examine everything. Allow your self-identity to be much bigger than what you were told or believed about yourself to include everything, especially the parts that are disliked, rejected, silly, taboo, or useless. Do not forget to acknowledge the positive aspects of yourself that may have been ignored, dismissed, or minimized because you were not safe enough to accept them. They all make up who you are.

Practice this process of self-exploration over and over. Take notice of times when you have a strong reaction to being judged a certain way by others or when you criticize yourself harshly. This hard work will hopefully create a path to live a more authentic and healthy life.

If you’re working toward greater self-acceptance and would like support along the way, the counselors at Star Meadow Counseling are here to help. We provide compassionate, affirming counseling to help you better understand yourself, challenge self-criticism, and build a more authentic relationship with who you are. Reach out today to schedule an appointment and take the next step toward embracing yourself with greater confidence and care.

Sometimes people come to therapy with a narrow definition of who they are as a person. Sometimes it is because they over-identify with their mental health diagnosis, sometimes it is due to cultural influences, sometimes it is because of messages they heard from their family or people in position of power, or sometimes simply because it has not been safe to fully explore who they are.

One of the goals of narrative therapy is to help people develop a very rich description of themselves, see themselves as three dimensional individuals with a complex and deep inner world, and have a vision of themselves that is hopeful and empowering allowing space to grow.

I want to introduce you to a writing activity that can help you learn more about yourself and encourage flexibility in how you define yourself. When you are better able to accept all that you are, with all your complexities, contradictions, and parts that you don’t like, you will be better equipped to face reality and navigate it more effectively.

First, divide a paper into two columns. On the left, write a list of qualities that describe you. Include roles, cultural identities, strengths, weaknesses, likes or dislikes, interests, or groups that you belong to. On the right, write down the opposite of what you wrote on the left. It does not necessarily need to be the exact opposite as there may be multiple words that could fit. For example, for “plays piano”, you could write “does not play piano” or “plays guitar” or “dislikes classical music” or “unskilled at musical instruments”. There is not necessarily a correct answer.

Example:

Write a name for your opposite self. Then, write a paragraph about that character (3- 6 sentences). You can briefly describe a moment in their day and place them in a setting that fits them.

Then, write about your encounter with them. Describe how you meet and write the dialogue between you and your opposite self (1-2 pages).

Take a moment to review what you wrote from list of descriptions to the dialogue. Did the list describe who you are consistently across different situations, times, and places? What surprised you about the two lists? What did you feel when reading the dialogue? What about the opposite self triggers you or annoys you the most? Do you have people in your life who are like that opposite self? Are there times when you are/were like your opposite self? Are their descriptions from your opposite self list that you wish could have? Have there been some identities that you have neglected or have not been able to shine as much as you would have liked? Are there some descriptions from the opposite self that you could integrate (for example, opposites that can both be true of who you are)? What else did you learn from this writing activity?