Unconditional Love and Acceptance (Of Yourself)
Usually, when we hear the phrase “unconditional love,” we see it as a reminder for loving others unconditionally (always forgive, not judge, see the best in others).
While that most certainly is very important, I want to speak about unconditional love and acceptance of yourself.
I believe that profoundly affects the way how we can love others. To love others well, we need to learn how to love ourselves. And not only that. Loving and accepting yourself unconditionally can be crucial for your success and growth too.
Firstly, why we don’t love ourselves?
With all the demands that society has these days, we live in a world of comparisons, perfectionism, and “never enough.” We are always thinking that we need to arrive at a particular destination and achieve a specific goal to be “good enough.”
While it is essential to set goals, work hard for them, and achieve them, it can’t define who we are.
From my experience, if we limit our identity with whether or not we reach a specific goal, we set ourselves up for failure. The goal becomes something we are always chasing, and it keeps running away from us.
To achieve goals, we need to be in peace with ourselves; we need to be happy and loving ourselves regardless of the outcome. If we can’t be happy and love ourselves here and now, we never will be satisfied and love ourselves. Even when we reach what we want.
It is not the goal, the status, financial success, material possessions, connections we have, or even our past success that defines who we are and gives us identity.
It is who we are each as a unique individual with unique experiences, thought processes, looks, worldviews, talents, and characteristics that set us apart from the rest of the crowd.
There has never been anyone just like you and never will be.
You have worth by being the human being you are — unique and with an unseen potential designed to be fulfilled.
I know you would certainly agree about this when talking about other people. But yourself… you know all your weaknesses, all your failures, all your bad characteristics, everything you don’t know, can’t, won’t, etc.
And in moments when you are afraid of how other people will perceive you, you humbly let them know what you are not good at before they can point it out. It is easier to reject ourselves than let others reject us.
But the truth is that you most likely are the only one seeing all your faults. You notice everything about yourself. And somehow, our mind’s default version is to pay attention more to the negative things.
I am trying to say — stop noticing everything you do wrong and start catching yourself doing things right! Start seeing your good characteristics. And complimenting yourself, just like you would compliment others.
We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, talents, and things we are not good at. If you are not good at something, then there is something else you are better than others at! Even if you don’t have your own talent yet, you can work on it. Start working today and praise yourself for the daily effort you make!
“You have worth by being the human being you are — unique and with an unseen potential designed to be fulfilled.”
Stop noticing everything you do wrong and start catching yourself doing things right!
Another common reason people don’t love themselves is that they rely so much on what other people say about them. If you ever have had a close friend/relative say something terrible to you, then those words might have stuck in your soul for much longer than you wanted to.
If somebody else is always pointing out only the bad in you, then the problem is not you; the problem is them!
You need to realize that what they said was their problem, not yours. People only speak to each other bad things either out of their own lack of self-esteem, anger, or jealousy. Neither of these things can define you and your worth because they result from other person’s struggle with identity and control of emotions.
I think a healthy attitude towards others should involve noticing others’ good sides and pointing out those.
What Unconditional Love And Acceptance Of Yourself Mean?
Now let’s get to what unconditional love and acceptance mean. Some of the synonyms of the word “unconditional” are “complete,” “total,” “unlimited,” and “unrestricted.”
When we speak about unconditional love and acceptance, it is a positive thing at its highest value.
It means “without borders,” “without limits,” “without exceptions,” “without excuses,” and “without ceasing.”
It means loving and accepting yourself regardless of circumstances, completely and totally. It means forgiving yourself for the mistakes.
It means not letting yourself say negative things to yourself.
Stopping those negative thought patterns that you have about yourself.
It means treating yourself kindly.
It means doing something because you want it and think it is right, not to fulfill others’ expectations.
It means seeing that your value is not defined by your past, your achievements or failures, your possessions, or lack of it. And also not by your family and friends, and their opinion about you.
It means accepting that you have value only by being yourself, by being the unique human being you are. Your worth and value were given to you already when you were in your mother’s womb. And it can’t be taken away by anyone ever.
Why Is Unconditional Love And Acceptance Necessary?
Why is unconditional love important? Why can’t we simply love ourselves?
We can. But I believe there is beauty in unconditional love. Actually, true love can only be unconditional.
It is a love that stays constant regardless of what is going on around, inside, all over, etc.
Love can be proved only by staying faithful through challenging situations. Through moments when we don’t feel like we love or want to love. When we want to judge, be angry, blame, complain, turn away from others and ourselves. If “love” turns away when there are obstacles, issues, challenging situations, it was not really love.
You can say that you love yourself, but what do you do when you make that silly mistake again, when it feels like “I never learn, and I always make that mistake.”
I know what I have done many times: I have gotten into that circle of judging myself, looking at my faults, and blaming myself for how I could have achieved that and that if I would have learned.
While we must learn from our mistakes, judging ourselves won’t help us move forward. We will stay stuck, and our self-esteem and confidence will be hurt until we forgive ourselves and move on. I have had to pay attention to my attitude consciously to notice that I am judging myself and make a conscious decision to stop doing that. Until it becomes a habit to notice that toxic pattern.
Unconditional is accepting when it does not make sense. When a voice somewhere in our head says: “I am not worthy, I am not good enough” because somebody either told us so, or we made a story inside our minds based on past failures.
I have had to pay attention to my attitude consciously to notice that I am judging myself and make a conscious decision to stop doing that. Until it becomes a habit to notice that toxic pattern.
Unconditional is respecting our own goals, dreams, wishes, wants, likes when we want to put others’ expectations and desires ahead. Suppose we do good to others because our primary motivation is to please them (that they would say good things about us, praise us). In that case, it is a selfish motivation.
When we do good because it aligns with our vision of doing good, helping, loving others, we will always do the right thing. Regardless, if people around us praise us and criticize us.
Unconditional is treating yourself kindly when you want to be judging about yourself.
Unconditional is allowing yourself rest, as for a good sleeping schedule and time off from everything.
Unconditional is forgiving yourself for not being yet where you want to be.
Unconditional trust is trusting the process and trusting that there are purpose and meaning behind everything — roadblocks, problems, failures, unmet expectations, and missed opportunities.
How Can This One Principle Change Your Life?
How can this one principle of loving and accepting yourself unconditionally change your life?
• When you love yourself, you allow yourself to grow. If you are always rejecting yourself, then you always stay stuck in that same position. It is kind of like you are declining your growth. And you are not letting yourself move forward, get out of your comfort zone, and try new things and ways.
• When you love yourself, you can love others better. By learning to forgive ourselves, we will also learn to forgive others and love them well. When others fail your expectations (it will undoubtedly happen at some point), then you will not reject them and turn away. Still, you will forgive, understand, and have empathy. On the other hand, that can positively impact their lives that will mutually build more trust, friendship, love, and intimacy.
• You will become whole as a person, and that will reflect in having more confidence, joy, peace, energy, inspiration, and productivity.
• You will approach new endeavors, challenges, and assignments with more belief in positive outcomes. Once you believe in a positive outcome, you highly increase the possibility of having the desired results.
• You will be more inspiring for others. You will be able to lift others up when they are feeling down.
• You will regain joy and peace that constant comparison had stolen from you.
