The Secrets to Self-Acceptance

"The world is a beautiful place to live, but even more so if we can learn to truly live with and love ourselves."

Straight off the bat I would like to disclaim firstly that I am no expert in this field, but I felt inclined to share a few things I have discovered over the past few months, as it might help someone else. Secondly, as a Christian, I believe that self-love comes from knowing your Father and realising that you are loved infinitely by the One who created you and that you are forgiven if you want to be by a gracious God. That is one of the primary things I have come to realise in a much stronger way recently and thus I suppose is the first "secret" to self-love; realising and accepting not only who you are, but whose you are.

I am very aware that not everyone who reads my blog will relate to that first "secret" but it is an important one to me and so deserved its place here. The remaining "secrets" I share are a mix of physical, emotional, intellectual and social practices which I have found to be beneficial. What I should declare at this stage is that acting upon these tips once will not change much, if anything at all. I imagine if you are here and reading this then you, like me, have struggled or still struggle with this idea of self-love, self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem...the list goes on (anything to do with the self; me, myself and I, and you likely squirm at the thought of anything being specifically focused upon you). Well if that is that case, you might be here looking some answers, or perhaps a quick-fix. I feel it's important that you know now that there is no such things as a quick-fix when it comes to this and so what I'm trying to say is, acting upon these tips once will not flip your life 180 degrees and cause you to suddenly be radiating self-love left, right and centre (I'd love it to and I'm here for that, but I feel like it's realistic to say that won't happen). Learning to love yourself and what you have to offer requires primarily three things; dedication to nurturing a new way of thinking, patience with yourself as you adapt to a new way of living, and perseverance to push through any challenges you might face along the way. So if you feel like you fit the bill, this next part is for you.

Decide you want a change

If you're reading this then I'm going to assume you have already made the decision that you want to change something. Maybe how you feel about your body, how you talk to yourself or how you really nourish and care for yourself. It really does make me so happy if you've done that and want to move from thinking critically to positively. I previously settled myself to be "content" with having a miserable life, feeling miserable, doing miserable things and just generally being extra miserable (do you get my point?). I really do use the word "content" loosely because that couldn't be further from how I was really feeling (Did I mention "miserable" enough?) Anyway, what I'm saying (in the most rambley way, soz) is that a change of mind can't be forced upon you. You have to want it for yourself and come prepared with that dedication, patience and perseverance I talked about before.

Go with the flow

As I have mentioned, this "self-love" thing won't happen overnight. This is going to require you to be in it for the long-haul, but I don't believe there really is a specific destination. You can't say to yourself, "in 3 months, 4 days, 2 hours and 48 minutes I'm going to have peaked and will finally love myself", that isn't realistic. Loving yourself really is a journey. There will be days you wake up and really feel the progress you have made. You will breathe deeply and appreciate every little moment, you will be thankful, hopeful and optimistic, you will want to seize every minute the day offers and you will be smiling from ear to ear with a warm glow burning in your chest. But there will also be days mixed in with that where you wake up and feel as if you're back at square one (you won't be, but it might just feel like that), you might want the ground to swallow you whole or to just be able to crawl under a rock for a few days, weeks or months, and you'll potentially feel drained, hopeless and pessimistic. This is life. But this is exactly when that perseverance will come in handy. Prepare yourself for the random cocktail of emotions you're likely to feel. With knowledge comes power and with that in mind, knowing there will be down days will encourage you to have the perseverance to power through them if or when they come.

Count your blessings

With that being said, try not to hold onto the down days or to even wait for them in so much anticipation that you end up creating your own bubble of prolonged negativity. A good place to start each day is by counting your blessings. What are you thankful for? What opportunities do you have ahead of you that day? What glimmer of positivity do you have that can help you through the day or to overcome negative thoughts? It's really important to check in with yourself and to really know how blessed you are to have what you have. A grateful mind maintains a happy heart.

Be a friend to yourself

How you talk to yourself matters. You wouldn't (or I'd like to think you wouldn't) put your friends down 24/7 or speak negatively to them, so why do it to yourself? There is no one in this lifetime that you will speak to more than yourself so it's vitally important that you learn how to do that wisely. There is a time for self-correction yes, and for adjusting the sails to maneuver the direction of your ship, but you were not created to live a life of self-doubt and personal persecution. Try to talk to yourself gently and give yourself a break. Life is hard, you don't need to make it harder by beating yourself up all the time (this one was a hard pill for me to swallow).

Embrace the highly unnatural feeling

It will feel incredibly unnatural to suddenly be trying to be kind to yourself, but any form of growth will not happen inside your comfort zone and naturally, when you step outside of that, it's going to feel a little spiky. I have by no means mastered this one because even writing this post has me squirming all over the place at the thought of what people will think about me ("Wow, how vain is Charis?" But I'll come onto this point next). But yes, it is going to feel uncomfortable for a while. I'm hoping eventually it will become second nature and will feel like a brand new comfort zone. But as I say, I'm still waiting for a moment where I will randomly realise that it suddenly feels comfortable to be kind to myself. I felt quite sad writing that, like why does it not feel nice to be nice to ourselves? *insert major sigh* But I suppose that's what we are working on.

Stop giving a damn what people think

Ooh this one has already touched a nerve hasn't it? This was absolutely one of the hardest things about this process but it's also one of the most liberating. Let me tell you this, absolutely no one, NO ONE, has it all worked out. Instagram is a MASSIVE LIE. The picture perfect lifestyle DOES NOT EXIST. No one is happy all of the time. And lastly (my favourite part); what people think of you is not your problem, it's theirs. It is incredibly hard in this day and age to just blissfully let go of what other people think about you and the way you live your life. But in order to access real contentment within yourself you are going to have to let go of the opinions of others and realise that you only get one chance to live YOUR life so you have to stop living for other people. If people want to spend their time critiquing your looks, actions, and whatever else, let them. They are only manifesting a toxic mindset fueled by comparison and it is not a road that leads to happiness, believe me. The opinion of others only becomes your problem when you allow it to take residency somewhere it doesn't belong; front and centre of your mindset. Set that negativity out on the roadside to be collected with the rubbish because it does not have a place here.

Stop comparing your life to the highlights you see on social media

As I've mentioned, Instagram is a LIE and to add to that, so is Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and whatever else you use to fuel your social networking cravings. The sooner you realise the fake filter that is (sometimes literally) placed over reality on these sites, the better. Angles, lightening, cropping, digital reconstructing, filters and editing (to name a few) are entirely misleading and do not represent reality. This is crucial if you want to stop living a life of comparison and competition through rose-tinted glasses. Nothing is as glossy as you see online, so do not strive to live an Instagram-worthy lifestyle 24/7 because such a thing does not exist and you will only drive yourself mad trying to achieve the unreachable.

Learn to love where you are right now

Right now, stop for a minute. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. On opening your eyes tell yourself this; I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Stop scrambling. There is nothing to keep up with. Get out of the toxic invisible competition to be better, do better, earn more, show more. The best way to slow down is to step off the treadmill. You don't have to rush through life, wishing it away in a bid to hit every milestone but never quite been satisfied with every point you check off. Living, really living, starts now, right here where you are, as you are. Happiness is a journey, not a destination, and that journey begins when you decide to step into it. You don't need more. You don't need to get married, have kids, change jobs, get a new car, buy new clothes or whatever else your consumerist mindset will tell you in order to be happy. Happiness is not external but is within. You can unlock it at anytime, simply by opening yourself up to the prospect of feeling content with where you are at.

Learn to love who you are right now

You are you. You can't be your best friend, the person you sit beside in History, that girl at the till with the "unreal figure", that man on the bus with the "unreal job". You can only be you. Self-love comes from stopping yourself from comparing yourself to everyone else around you. You can only be you, no one else can do that. So why not spend your time nourishing that and trying to do that job as best as you can instead of failing at it by comparing yourself to others? This fact remains, you will always think the grass is greener on the other side, but really the grass is greenest where you water it. Yes the girl at the till might have an "unreal figure" (what does that mean?) and the man on the bus might have an "unreal job" (again, perspective is everything - what is good for one person won't be for the next, but that's beside the point here), but are they truly happy? That girl might be struggling with her finances and the man on the bus might be under excruciating pressure from work that he's actually only back to work after being off on stress leave. You will never know what someone else is facing, so believe me when I say this; your time is much better spent nourishing, appreciating and accepting who you really are.

Stop hating on your body

Honestly I've written some of these secrets and I've thought to myself "flip Charis, way to make it sound like a walk in the park" and I really don't mean to be doing that because I really do know that it isn't as easy as just "being nice to yourself" or "stopping hating on your body". This is what I meant when I said patience and perseverance with yourself is crucial to this process. I know it isn't easy to just stop being nasty about your body, but with daily dedication to positivity surrounding your body image, you can learn to love the skin you're in. Let go of the idea that there is a "perfect body shape". It doesn't exist. But what does exist is the perfect body. Before you freak out, you already have it. No need to work for it or change anything about yourself because the perfect body exists and you've got it. Despite what you may have been told, the perfect body is not made up of (currently) a thin waist, thick thighs with a thigh gap (like really, is that possible to have both?) long hair, freckles and big lips. I've added "currently" in there because as I've mentioned in my blog post about body dysmorphia, the idea of what the ideal body is like is constantly changing. The goal posts are forever moving so you will literally be spending your life under construction if you devote yourself to a life of chasing what's popular and social acceptable. But to get back to my point, the perfect body really is this; one that keeps you alive. That's all. Personally I think that's very universal and is something that will never go out of style and will last for years to come. Learn to love the skin you're in by accepting that. Your body does so much for you. It keeps you alive, allows you to move freely, to breath in fresh air, to procreate, to think independently and intelligently (that's mad when you really think about it) and yet many of us, myself included, get caught up on the fact we do (or don't, depending on current trends(!)) have freckles, that are thighs are too big or too small, that we're too tall or too short, and whatever else we get sucked in by, when really we should be absolutely mind-blown by the intelligence our bodies show on the daily. Your body is amazing. Speak that over yourself every day, counting the good things about yourself that there is and just wait for the change to come in time. You will be surprised at how much you will learn to love yourself and to celebrate your body instead of punish it.

Speak up

Something I found both surprising and empowering was chatting to other people about how I felt about myself. I learned that not only was I not alone in negative self-talk, but that I perceived myself entirely differently to the way others saw me. Firstly let me say this; negative self-talk is sadly something most people do. People just partake in such a pass-time to varying extents and also know how to handle it to varying degrees. So you are not alone. Take some comfort from that solidarity in critical thinking, but do not let that make you think that talking to yourself negatively is encouraged. Secondly, talking to the people you love and care about will allow you to gain some sort of insight into how they view you. I remember complaining to one of my friends in the past about my hair and how much it irritated me. Their response was this; "I would genuinely do anything for my hair to be the colour of yours." This isn't to blow myself up but rather to make a point; you don't see yourself truthfully. As someone who struggles with self-confidence and self-worth you will be so used to automatically seeing the negatives in yourself because that is what you have become trained and programmed to do. Speak to your loved ones and try to gain an understanding of what they see when they look at you. The comparison between that and what you have been telling yourself will surprise you, I'm sure.

Learn to take a compliment

This is another hated one. I hate doing it. It makes me feel so uncomfortable and I will automatically go into defense mode and will argue profusely that what they are trying to say is wrong. There is nothing wrong with simply saying "thank you" when someone has something nice to say about you. It does not make you vain to accept that someone has seen something in you that they appreciate. As a society we need to get over the idea that self-love, self-worth and self-confidence has anything to do with being vain or "in love with yourself" in a negative way. You should fall in love with yourself. You are the only person you will have to spend this whole lifetime with, so you might as well learn to love who you are. Part of that, is accepting when someone else sees the good in you.

Spend time alone

This made me incredibly uncomfortable when I first embarked on this journey of self-discovery (very deep, but true). I couldn't bare my own company. I always had to be with someone because otherwise I was left alone to be with my own thoughts and I couldn't deal with it. But slowly I have learned to love time alone. I used to be embarrassed to do anything by myself but now I will happily take myself off for a walk or to sit somewhere with a coffee. One of the secrets to loving yourself and what you have to offer is to actually find out what that is. Love is not an automatic thing. Love grows from time spent with someone, finding out what makes they tick, what they're into, what they enjoy doing, who they are as a person and you are no different. In order to love yourself you need to date yourself. Find out what makes you tick, discover what you're into, what you enjoy doing, and who you really are as a person. You need to know you in order to know what is worth loving and the best way to do that is to spend time by yourself.

Positive affirmations

I've mentioned the importance of speaking kindly to yourself but what I have also found helpful is to memorise and repeat positive affirmations daily. Things like "I am exactly where I am supposed to be", "breath and go slowly", "it's just a bad day, not a bad life", "the best is yet to come", "this too shall pass", "I am strong, capable, worthy..." can really help me particularly when I find myself "spiralling" as I call it. In other words, falling down a pit of negativity with no apparent way out. Essentially these phrases are the rope that I can pull myself out of that hole with. Lately I've been struggling with the simple phrase "I am not enough" but because I have been nourishing a new mindset for a period of time now, I have built up a new strength to be able to snap myself out of that darkness and for the angel who brings the positivity to eventually be louder than the devil who spouts the negativity.

I know there is a massive volume of information here but I really hope that what I have included here is of use to someone. I read so many positive quotes at the beginning of this journey and to be honest, before I made the decision that I wanted to create a new mindset for myself, they all went over my head and I thought they were a load of rubbish and highly unrealistic. But slowing down massively and just letting myself be has allowed this one to really resonate; happiness is not fulfilling every pleasure or getting every outcome you desire. Happiness is being able to enjoy life with a peaceful mind that is not constantly craving for more. It is the inner peace that comes with self-acceptance and embracing who you truly are in order to appreciate your own self-worth.

Truthfully, I don't have the magic key to complete self-satisfaction. I don't fully love myself yet or appreciate my true value. But what I do know is that I have a God standing right beside me every step of the way, constantly whispering in my ear words of reassurance of who I am in His eyes. I am trying. I have the dedication, patience and perseverance to keep plodding on with this journey, with the knowledge that I am as worthy of self-love as the next person and that I can continually remove myself from the invisible competition to succeed and from the fake virtual reality that is presently being manifested. In summary, the real secret to self-love is embracing exactly who you are and realising that whatever that is, is exactly enough. You do you, always.

All my love,

Charis x