Self-acceptance doesn’t mean you don’t want to change. Quite the contrary, it often leads to dramatic change as you give up the limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging behaviors that you’d adopted trying to be someone you’re not. The secret to finding the happiness and peace you seek in your life is not in trying to figure out what’s wrong with you; instead, your aim is to explore the truth of who you really are.
Perhaps this analogy might help. Imagine your vision is getting blurry so you go to the eye doctor and get a prescription for new pair of glasses. A mistake is made in the lab and the actual lenses you receive are far too strong; the glasses not only make your vision worse, they give you headaches. You realize the problem so you go back and get the prescription that is correct for you. With these new lenses, the world appears sharper, crisper, and more beautiful. You see the world around you more clearly.
Self-acceptance is like putting on that wonderful new pair of glasses with the perfect prescription for you. You see every action and thought you have in a new light … the way it really is rather than how you’d once imagined the world to be (the world you saw through the lenses that weren’t right for you .. the world that gave you headaches!). Little by little, you’re able to let go of past patterns … pretense falls away … you embrace the authentic you. You accept yourself, you love yourself, and your world becomes rich with a sense of peace and happiness that may have alluded you for years.
