True Self-Acceptance: "I Like Myself Just the Way I AM!"

   There can be no self-love without self-acceptance. The two are directly linked and self-acceptance— complete and unconditional— must come first. It’s our ability to accept ourselves 100%, just the way we are, that produces a healthy self-love. This fact is presented beautifully in the 2007 film Penelope, in which Christina Ricci plays a character, Penelope, born with the facial features of a pig. 

   From the day Penelope is born, her parents refuse to accept her as she is. As a result, she learns to reject herself over her facial features as well. By doing so, she has accepted a curse that has been placed on her and she has given the curse total power over her by refusing to accept and love herself as she is. The curse is only broken when she finally decides she's happy with herself despite having the facial features of a pig. Self-acceptance is the key that can break any curse we have placed on ourselves as well.

   So what are you refusing to accept about yourself? Is it your face, your hair, your body size? Is it your personality, especially if you are often uncomfortable around others? Is it your level of intelligence? Is it your perceived lack of creativity or talent? Is it the color of your skin, or your gender or your sexual orientation? Is it social status? Is it your past or current behavior?

   Whatever you choose to dislike or even hate about yourself blocks your self-acceptance. And prevents you from loving yourself just the way God created you.

   My self-acceptance was never based in my “self” from childhood forward. It was always based in what other people told me about myself: “Your too fat,” “your too thin,” “you’re so dumb sometimes,” “you’re an attractive person, but you’re not handsome,” etc. Whatever negative thing anyone chose to tell me about myself, I believed. No wonder I never developed a good, healthy self-Love: My self-acceptance was based on what everyone else thought of me.

   Years of recovery have taught me that I am the only person who makes me unhappy. And I do so when I give my personal power away to others. When I accept and cling to what others think about me, I become their prisoner. I give them control over how I see, think and feel about myself.

   Well, I’m done with that mistake. I only need the approval of two beings in this life: God’s and mine. And the same is true for all of us.

   We already have God’s approval— God created us just the way we are and placed his stamp of approval on us at birth. Now, we need to give ourselves the gift of our own stamp of approval. We’re able to give ourselves that approval when we stop comparing ourselves to others, stop believing what other people think, and come to believe we lack nothing God’s grace can’t give us.

   All we have to do is to finally accept the things about ourselves that we cannot change, allow ourselves to become comfortable with whatever unchangeable things we have disliked about ourselves, and finally, truthfully say "I like myself just the way I am." We have the power to break the curse, to love ourselves just as we are and to be happy in this life.