Embracing Yourself: A Journey Without Costly Trainings and Positive Affirmations

“Accept yourself, because if you don’t, no one else will, not even you,” dictates a successful Instagram influencer. Pondering these words might lead you to the window, feeling a sense of wasted years. Psychologist Yulia Dorofeeva explains how to cultivate self-confidence, self-love, and a sense of self-worth.

Understanding Acceptance

What does the average person think when they hear about the need to accept someone or something? Admittedly, when we talk about “acceptance,” it’s not about things or people that are easy and pleasant to be around. In such cases, there are no questions asked. However, it’s a different story when we encounter qualities that are not easily acceptable, including our own.

There are various ways to perceive these “peculiarities”:

• “Well, that’s just who I am, what can I do?” – This resembles resignation.
• “Yes, I don’t like these traits, but I’ll get used to them since I was born this way” – This is an example of cultivating patience towards one’s unpleasant traits.
• “There are aspects of me that aren’t so bad; I’ll consider them my unique features” – This is how we learn to smile at what we don’t actually accept.
• “Yes, these traits are part of me, but I don’t like them, and I will fight against them” – This is the fourth and most common approach. Often, this position is contrasted with the first three: “I’m not just sitting idle; I’m trying to do something!” There can be many variations, but the fact remains: none of this has anything to do with self-acceptance.

Why Am I Not Myself?

A logical question arises: Why does a situation occur where a person cannot accept certain traits in themselves, whether physiological or psychological? Dislike can be directed towards body shape, nose shape, hair color, inability to cook well, lack of entrepreneurial spirit, impulsiveness, sharp tongue, or shyness. Clearly or secretly, certain qualities dissatisfy a person, and most often, this indicates that they do not accept themselves in some way. A crucial point: why shouldn’t we accept ourselves? Where does the conclusion come from that a particular quality is not suitable for us? A person is not born with this knowledge but learns it during upbringing and development. How does it happen that, being born with a unique set of qualities, we come to the conclusion at a certain age that something is wrong with us?

The roots often lie in two areas: innate personality traits and nuances of relationships with significant people. A person can be naturally sensitive and emotional. This is influenced by intrauterine development, the specifics of childbirth, the first months of life, and individual qualities of the nervous system. Such a person will acutely react to comments, categorical statements of others, and situations, readily accepting them as truth. However, even a sufficiently stable personality can be deformed when in an environment where differences are aggressively not accepted. This environment can be both family and the society surrounding the person. Usually, there is a prescribed “correctness” of appearance, behavior, and activity, deviation from which is subject to discussion and condemnation. And this external interpretation of one’s peculiarities has to be accepted as a given. Moreover, this interpretation is most often negative.

There is a whole bouquet of definitions and epithets that help smooth out individual traits and suppress a person’s desire to express themselves. Tall height – you’re a beanpole, short – you’ll be a shrimp, big eyes are called “bug-eyed,” small ones are “piggy,” a modest person is labeled a mumble, an initiative one is a smart aleck, the ability to earn money is called greed, and the lack of money is characterized as poverty. In this case, the presence of the quality is not important, but the ability to depersonalize and belittle a person with its help. This provides ample opportunities for manipulation, and consequently, a person will be manageable and will not stand out from the crowd. Thus, a good, likable child with many useful talents grows into a person with a mass of imaginary flaws. Is it easy to coexist with such a person? And how to accept all this, especially if society has carefully drawn before your eyes the image of a mythical beautiful person with a number of strictly regulated qualities. You must be like this – and that’s it! And if you’re not like that – then that’s it, your life hasn’t worked out. Thus, other people’s voices in our souls control our lives.

Do I Have the Right to Be Myself?

This is one of the first questions a person asks when deciding to take a step towards their true self. The voices of significant people sound in the subconscious quite strictly. And this is not an easy task – to recognize these voices, agree that they can be wrong, and allow oneself their own point of view.

Firstly, this point of view must be found somewhere. Secondly, when a person grows up in externally imposed conditions, they often cannot go beyond their limits and live within them, like an underground dweller who cannot imagine that there is a world full of light on the surface. Thirdly, we often simply lack the criteria for choice.

People raised in rigid settings perceive the world in contrast, in the format of “good – bad, black – white,” and do not see the nuances. Being thin is good, being fat is bad, having a programmer’s profession is cool, being a librarian is lame. There are so many such polarities in life? The problem is that contrasts are only good for early education because the immature brain of a child finds it difficult to perceive nuances. The education system should be built in such a way as to gradually open up a world full of colors, nuances, and shades to the child. But such education is a heavy and painstaking task, requiring effort and time from parents and teachers. How many today are ready to invest in children in this way? Therefore, a huge number of people grow up with a childish, fairy-tale perception of the world, where there are bad and good people, day is opposed to night, and an evil stepmother is opposed to a good fairy.

Building a path to oneself, unique and unlike anyone else, in such guidelines is almost impossible. One has to either admit that they are bad or the people responsible for their upbringing and development are bad, or, conversely, the world is evil, and they are all in white. It’s no wonder that lately it has become fashionable to manipulate the image of a white coat. But if you step back a bit from the situation, it turns out to be the same: a person does not have their own Self, but a set of other people’s opinions.

Unfortunately, the path to finding the Self cannot be short. This is indeed work, often unpleasant and painful, but justified by one indisputable statement: no one will live your own life for you. Whether your mother, grandmother, husband, or neighbor from the first floor likes it or not, life belongs solely and exclusively to the person themselves. The final point of choice and action remains with them. It is your step, your word, your deed that becomes decisive in what your life and your world will be like. No matter whose words, thoughts, and opinions stand behind them.

A Step Towards Your Own Life

Let’s return to the question of acceptance. What does “accepting yourself” mean?

If we go by a simple definition, acceptance is the process of appropriating something. This means not just agreeing that it exists, but performing a series of actions as a result of which this “something” becomes yours. Resignation, patience, struggle, or protest have nothing to do with it. This is precisely a process, similar to the acceptance of food. In this case, it is important to remember that not all food can be eaten and digested. Just as we cannot eat leaves, branches, or wool, we are not able to fully digest what is alien to us.