Love Yourself / Acceptance

We constantly strive to gain acceptance in this world. Starting from our parents and siblings to our peers and partners.

Society tells us that material things help us gain acceptance (bigger salary, fancy car, name brands etc). Our parents sometimes make it clear that our accomplishments gain us acceptance (good grades, helping around the household, winning trophies etc). Our partners sometimes give us the feeling that we need to please them to gain acceptance (abide by their rules, gifts, be selfless even when they are not.) Our peers can pressure us into doing things that we may not like and we take part just to gain that sense of social acceptance.

These are just a few of the different ways we strive for acceptance.

The secret to taking control of this emotion is to learn to accept yourself. The first step is to love yourself. Be true to who you are and if you don’t like something about yourself then get up and change it, but make changes that make you happy.

I lost myself at times in my last long term relationship. I was so busy trying not to upset my partner in hopes that the relationship would be filled with happiness, so I would agree to whatever she wanted to eat, watch, do etc. But eventually I stopped having an opinion, stopped expressing my emotions because I was too concerned with hers. I avoided confrontation at all costs but didn’t really realize what I was doing. By losing myself I took away my identity and left my partner with no one to accept, no one to respect, no one to love. Which I only later realized that it was my own fault, not hers, that I lost her full acceptance.

I constantly remind myself never to lose myself trying to gain acceptance. Once I realized my own worth and reassured myself that I was worth acceptance, my life changed. How can someone love me if I didn’t love myself? If I don’t have my own opinions, my own beliefs, my own preferences then I have no identity. Without an identity we cannot gain love or acceptance.

So please make decisions with your own happiness in mind as well as those around you. Please remember that we are all worth love. I accept each and everyone of you for who u are but I hope this reminds you to do the same. Just be real, do good, live love and Stay Beautyful. These simple concepts can gain you some of the most fulfilling forms of acceptance on this earth!

#love yourself

#staybeautyful