Shame: What Curse Have I Placed on Myself?

“It’s not the power of the curse.

It’s the power you give the curse.”

Billy, Penelope (2007)

   The 2007 film Penelope is a wonderful lesson in self-acceptance and the self-love that grows from accepting yourself just the way you are. Too many of us have walked through life cursing ourselves with every possible form of self-condemnation. We’ve criticized ourselves because we thought our noses were too big, or our bellies were too fat, or our teeth was too stained. We’ve beat ourselves up because we thought we weren’t nice enough, or smart enough or cool enough.

   As a result, many of us turned to self-improvement. We joined gyms and aerobicized. We read books on how to become better people. We invested in the latest fashions, music and trends to make ourselves feel socially acceptable. We did everything but look in the mirror and say “I love and accept you just the way you are.”

    In his book Be Happy, Robert Holden says “No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” Self-acceptance is the doorway into self-love. And self-acceptance means that we choose to accept everything about ourselves that is inherently true. We can’t change who we inherently are. So we have a choice: We can go through life loathing what we don’t like, but cannot change, about ourselves; or we can choose to accept all those things about us that we have forever found to be unacceptable. If we choose the former, we guarantee ourselves a life of misery. If we choose the latter, we open a brand new doorway to peace, contentment and happiness.

   Let’s face it: Unlike Penelope, none of us were born with pig snouts and none of us have curly pig tales attached to our back ends. If Penelope could come to accept herself just the way she was, and if she could develop a healthy self-love for herself, then so can we.

   It’s time that we all reached that point of self acceptance where we can proclaim “I don’t want a whole new me. I like myself the way I am.”

   In order to do so, however, we will need to begin to analyze the curses we have placed on ourselves over the years. This may require that we make a list of all of the things we don’t like about ourselves. We need to be completely honest. Some of the things we find unacceptable about ourselves will immediately come to mind; others won’t. So we need to first right down all of the things we dislike about us on a piece of paper. Then we need to become aware of the other more subtle things that we criticize about ourselves. So it will be important to listen to our self-talk. Anything we criticize ourselves about is important to write down. A criticism is the opposite of acceptance.

   Of course there are healthy forms of criticism that help to motivate us to do better, but a healthy criticism should not make us feel bad about ourselves. Use your feelings as a guidepost.

    Developing self-acceptance means we stop blaming ourselves, or parts of ourselves when things go wrong. We need to stop making assumptions and then proclaiming “If I just had a smaller nose, he’d be willing to date me,” or “If I just had some charm or personality, I’d probably have gotten that job.” These are negative ASSUMPTIONS that we build around those things about ourselves that we haven’t been willing to accept. They aren’t reality.

   If we stopped worrying about the size of our nose or about how personable we are, we’d grow more comfortable in our skin, and we’d take a giant step toward accepting what we cannot change about ourselves. The more we like ourselves, the more we naturally project  positive feelings about ourselves to the world around us, and the more that other people pick-up on these positive vibes.

   People view us primarily in the same way we view ourselves. When we dislike ourselves, we project that self-loathing to everyone we meet. They sense our self-loathing and treat us in the same manner we treat ourselves. So let’s loosen our grip on shame, and open our palms to self-compassion and self-acceptance. We will start to love ourselves better and we will project this new-found self-satisfaction to others.

   Dear Lord, help me to start believing I am good enough just the way I am. I am equal to everyone. I forgive myself for not being the person I falsely believed I should be and I set myself free of all resistance to self-acceptance and self-love. Please help me to shine, Lord, with the natural beauty You have blessed me with. Amen.