Unconditional Acceptance Of… Yourself
Starting well before the years you can mentally recall your parents, siblings, friends and family were impacting your self-acceptance. As you grow older the primary driver of self-acceptance shifts to how positively you feel you, your style and your beliefs are accepted, by not only your parents, siblings, friends and family, but your boss, co-workers and other important people in your life as well.
Your own level of self-acceptance is determined largely by how well you feel you are accepted by the important people in your life. It is affected even more so by those attitudes you BELIEVE these important people have towards you. If you believe these key people in your life harbor poor or negative attitudes towards you then your self-esteem and self-acceptance is impacted negatively. If, however, your beliefs are that these key people in your life think highly of you and have a positive attitude towards you and your part in their life, then your self esteem and self acceptance is on the rise empowered by this belief.
This simple fact brings to light a simple truth; the cornerstone to building a solid healthy personality hinges on understanding yourself and your feelings. For you to genuinely stop being haunted by those ‘skeletons in your closet’ or those ghosts of the past, you must be able to unveil them to at least one person. This exercise of self- disclosure can enable you to get those ghosts, skeletons and nagging thoughts off your chest and out of your head – free that space between your ears to be focused on more productive and certainly far more enjoyable tasks. Now realize that you must only share these personal thoughts, experiences and feels with someone you trust implicitly. Some that will not make you feel uncomfortable, ashamed or guilty.
The next step in this acceptance exercise can only happen once you have taken the previously mentioned first step of self-disclosure. Zig Ziglar says “I have found in 100% of the cases, no exceptions, that people who will not take step number one… never take step number two.” So do not think you can skip the hard stuff to get to the easy steps and gain all the insight to a better life, love or business. Only when you share what your truly thinking and feeling to trusted person can you even hope
(more…)