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Monday, June 2, 2008

Self-Acceptance - What Is It?

We hear so much about self-acceptance from people who follow or teach personal growth and spiritual growth. What is self-acceptance? Does it mean accepting your weaknesses or negative habits and doing nothing about them? Does this mean accepting your behavior, attitude and life style, and doing nothing to change and improve? This can be an easy way to give in to laziness, and to having good excuses for leaving everything as it is.

This kind of self-acceptance might make you feel a little better and alleviate feelings of guilt, but it is not enough to contribute to real progress and improvement.

Self-acceptance seems to be not well explained and well understood. Accepting yourself as you are is only the first step. It helps you realize your good and not so good points. It could help you stop the war inside you, and alleviate the lack of satisfaction and the sense of unhappiness. It could develop some inner detachment that will prevent you from sinking into self-pity, negative thinking and other negative states of mind.

Self-acceptance does not mean that you accept what you are and do nothing to change and improve. It does not mean accepting your fate and loving it.

Becoming aware and acknowledging your behavior, habits and your type of personality, and not being afraid to look at yourself as you are is the first step to self-acceptance.

When you accept yourself as you are, you put yourself in a better position to begin improving yourself. It is not an excuse for saying, "This is what I am. I accept myself as I am. I accept my character, my failings and my fate, and this how it is. I can do nothing about it."

After you acknowledging yourself as you are, look forward to improving yourself and your life. When you better understand your character and habits, stop feeling bad or guilty, stop comparing yourself and your achievements to others, and accept your abilities or lack of abilities, you will experience some sort of inner peace, lightness and happiness, like getting rid if a burden.

Accepting yourself, your character traits and how you look can alleviate feelings of dissatisfaction, anger, resentment or unhappiness, but it is not an excuse for staying as you are. As I said earlier, it is only the first step. It helps you to see your good and bad points, and let you know what to change and improve, and what to enhance and strengthen.

At this point, I would like to remind you that beyond body, character, habits, behavior and personality, is the power that makes them work and manifest. It is the spirit - soul - consciousness or inner I, which is the real you, and which is an inseparable part of the Universal Consciousness - Universal Mind - God.

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