Part 2 : The art of radical self acceptance

A lot of us are living life on a diluted down version of our true selves.

Why? Because our society favours conformity. It’s not ‘safe’ to step outside the lines and be something different. Back in our tribal times this could have resulted in ostracisation and death. We still carry this fear in our DNA. It’s a valid fear.

So we’re living our lives every day but we are a character of ourselves - we’ve toned ourselves down, we’ve toned down our … sense of humour, preferred sense of dress, opinions, how we interact and ultimately our self expression.

This happened on a very gradual incremental scale from the day we were born. In our early childhood, we may have been told ‘you’re too…. [fill in the blank] or ‘you talk too much’ or ‘you’re very bossy’.

Ultimately, this is shaming. As a child, we take this on quite deeply and the message gets cemented in - who you are is not okay.
We sense that if we don’t conform, things will get tricky and we won’t get our needs met. And our child minds can’t fully grasp this, so we quickly step into line.

When we reach adulthood we’ve got a personality that is quite different from who we are at our core. We’ve got many adaptations of behaviour and how we interact with other people. We’re wearing a mask. We’ve worn it for so long it just feels normal. Familiar.

Familiarity = safety.

So what does all this mean?

A lot of us carry shame about our authentic selves.

Shame is an interesting emotion. In terms of energetic vibration, it is one of the lowest on the scale. So it’s quite detrimental.
Shame implies a sense of ‘I’m wrong’ or even ‘I’m bad’.
We can be walking around with this energy inside us, without knowing it.

One way to emerge from the cocoon of our false self is to start being okay with who we are WITHIN OURSELVES first, as a starting point.

Perhaps write a list of all the messages you received about yourself early in life that negated your personhood.
What meaning did you make of this?
What beliefs did you take on back then, that you are still carrying today?

What would it take to turn this around and make empowered meaning from it?

Wouldn’t the world be a much more vibrant, colourful place if everybody got to unapologetically shine their true selves?

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You can read part 1 of The art of radical self acceptance here: https://steemit.com/life/@toolanm/the-art-of-radical-self-acceptance

[image credits: canva]