Self Acceptance and Self Approval
How do you see yourself? What is your self worth based upon?
In this world, it can be so easy to lose our sense of self. We judge ourselves, and put ourselves down because we see ourselves as inadequate. We look outside ourselves for approval and never fully happy about ourselves from within. But I’ve always told myself that we create our own reality. In recent weeks I forgot this and fell into the trap in thinking that my current state and point in life wasn’t in my control. This is the biggest universal lie. Our circumstances can always change and our perspective and attitude can always change. When we become conscious of this creative power within us, we realise that our life, our future, our current state is a product of our creation. The way we think, the things we think about, the way we choose to interpret things and situations and how we choose to feel create our experiences. It creates what we call our life.
We so easily compare ourselves to others and hence sometimes we feel inadequate. We feel that we are not good enough, compared to the next person. We devalue ourselves so easily. Our self worth is then based on the external. It is based on how we are compared to others. Or even how people feel about us or the things they say about us. One of the biggest lessons I realised, is to trust yourself, to know yourself better than anyone else and not to be swayed when others say things that aim to put you down.
I feel like anything I want to create for myself, any experience, I can make it happen. Anything that I want to do or express, I can do, without the fear of it being considered “wrong” or not fitting in the norm. Instead I have full faith in myself and in all the endeavours I wish to take on. Reaching this point, is like freedom. Freedom to be and freedom to express without fear of judgement. I’ve learnt that the world is your mirror. Living in complete confidence and feeling whole from within.
In this world we live in, our self worth is based on the career we’re in, the clothes we wear, the body shape we have, the aesthetics, the car we drive, how many friends we have on Facebook, the amount of likes we get for our photos or statuses, the amount of YouTube views we get, the marks we get in school and Uni and the digits in our bank account. We base our value on the external. How many and how much people like us. How we look compared to another person. What we have in terms of material compared to the person next to us. We’re conditioned to believe it is what we do and what we have that makes us who we are. So it becomes so easy to lose ourself, to feel bad, to feel worthless when things don’t appear to be going our way. Our self love and sense of self becomes dependent on the external and how people see us.
I’ve learnt that when we don’t value ourself, the external tends to not value us. Then we spiral down. It is a mirror world. It all is from within. It all starts with ourselves. I believe it is so important to see our own worth. To see what is best in ourselves, to be gentle to ourselves. To be a friend to ourself. We’re taught to compete with others at school, Uni, work and sport. We’re not taught to embrace our uniqueness, our unique ideas and our unique ways of expressing ourself.
There is a magic in understanding yourself and completely accepting yourself. There is a beauty in standing for who you are, your beliefs and your ideas even if it means standing alone.
-Wendy La
