From Self-Acceptance to Self-Love
How to get from mere acceptance to falling in love with yourself
***Apologies for the lateness of this Self-Love Sunday missive!
I know I originally said I was moving these to the 3rd Sunday of the month, but clearly I meant the 4th Monday. Just kidding. I do think I’m going to move them to the 1st Sunday. That’s just gonna be easier to remember.
So back to our regularly scheduled programming.
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Last week friend, author, and guest of the podcast Rena Martine made a reel about how self-acceptance is not the same as self-love. Here it is in all its glory:
In case you can’t see the video, Rena’s point is that you can do better than simply accepting yourself. Because there’s a whole lot of things in this world we’ll merely accept but don’t actually love. Like our country’s two-party political system. Or her example: a 7-11 ham sandwich if we’re starving.
Because reels are only 1 minute long, she didn’t go very far on the subject here. But in her book The Sex You Want, she dedicates an entire chapter to falling in love with yourself. I highly recommend it! She talks about boundaries and expectations.
Related reading:
So when it comes to YOU, are you merely accepting yourself? Or are you in love with yourself?
Lots of us are stuck at merely accepting ourselves, or maybe we’re not even there yet. So what’s something we can do to move the needle from barely being okay with ourselves to being fully in love?
Baby Steps to Loving Yourself
If I asked you to give me a list of all the things you don’t like about yourself, you’d probably throw that together without much thought. We humans are really good at pointing out the negative—it’s unfortunately how we’re naturally wired. So I’m not going to ask you to do the easy thing.
Instead what are 3 things you like about yourself? This can be anything. I’ll start:
I like my hair, I like my outgoing nature, and I like that I’m physically strong.
If finding things you like about yourself is harder than expected, let’s take baby steps. Start by just stating some facts about yourself, like:
I have hair
I have a personality
I have <insert trait>
The next step is stating more facts about what these aspects of you that are also true but move in a positive direction.
The best example I’ve seen of this is about learning to love your body specifically. It goes:
Fact: I have two arms.
Positive facts: These arms help me wash my hair, carry groceries, wave hello and good-bye, reach for things above my head, pet dogs, give hugs.
Notice how each fact is increasingly positive. We moved from simply being aware of our arms, to arms that can do tasks, to tasks that (hopefully) bring joy, like petting dogs and giving hugs.
By adding the abilities your arms can do, you’ll start to see all the ways your arms are pretty amazing. As you begin to recognize all the ways this part of your body is integral to your daily life and maybe a lot of things you’ve taken for granted, you’ll start to grow fonder of them. You’ll start being grateful for them.
Gratitude: I like having arms and I won’t take them for granted anymore.
How do we get from grateful to love? Keep showing gratitude for all the ways this trait or aspect of yours is present in your life, and how it makes your life easier.
Conversely, imagine how much harder your life would be without it.
Overcoming Hate and Growing Towards Love
I’ve mentioned before how in the first 25-ish years of my life, I absolutely hated my hair. That’s the entire first half of my life and then some!! I hated it so much, thought it was ugly, and despised that I was stuck with it forever.
Yet now I love it. How did that happen?
I did things to this hair I really wish I hadn’t. I ironed (and burnt) it. I brushed it. 😖
I even straightened it, and to this day I hate how that looks, too. So that wasn’t even a great alternative.
The relationship we have with our hair is complicated. There’s such a thing in our culture as “good hair” and I simply never had it. But I got really tired of fighting this uphill battle. It’s my hair. I didn’t want to hate it, I just didn’t know what to do with it.
I had to get out of my head (lol, pun) and look at myself objectively. I received so many compliments about my hair from straight-haired people, but I couldn’t accept them. I even grew up in the 80s when massive curly hair was IN.
Turns out I just didn’t have the right tools to work with the hair I have.
I finally found someone who taught me how to care for it properly. For the first time ever, I saw a diffuser in action. I understood how much gel or mousse or whatever product I actually needed. I began to see my hair as a thing of beauty instead of misery.
It was revolutionary for me. A true revelation and turned a part of me that I had hated so intensely into one I’m grateful for.
It was definitely a process of trial and error. A labor of love, if you will. (To this day I still have to hunt for the right products sometimes. Hormonal changes are fun that way.)
20+ years later, I have a head full of what I lovingly refer to as my mop of curls. Not everyone likes curly hair. Some claim it’s messy, or unprofessional—back to that complicated relationship we have with natural hair.
Oof, there’s lots of negative messaging about natural curls out there. So to take back the power and double down in delight for this mass of curls is nothing short of an act of rebellion.
Remember that the patriarchy loves it when you hate yourself. Any steps you take towards changing that narrative is one less shackles it has one you.
If love is your ultimate goal, cut out the noise. Focus on you and not the negatives coming at you. Start with the facts. Find the tools you need. Reframe how you see these parts of yourself. Ask for help.
If that last one gives you pause, because in your mind asking for help equates to weakness, please listen to Rena’s episode again. She’ll tell you where to shove that bullshit.
And that’s a burrito!🌯🌯🌯
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