Accept Yourself the Way You Are!

By Manoj J Lekhi

Accepting yourself the way you are or in simple words Self-Acceptance, is one of the key determinants of happiness and can have an effect on every aspect of life.

However, it can be one of the most difficult challenges faced at the individual level.

We all have been through this phase in our life where we find ourselves into a complexity of accepting ourselves the the way we are. May be it is easier to say than practically doing it. You might expect the entire world to accept you for being Your Self but are you ready to accept Your Self the way you are?

Do you approve and love Your Self the way you are?  

Imagine if the entire world lives in a paradigm of Self-Acceptance and Self-Love, the entire planet will be a beautiful place. It will be a garden full of love, compassion and empathy.

Why do people hate others?

Why does one criticize another?

Why is there so much violence and anxiety around us?

Why is there so much of disturbances outside and why is it difficult to forgive others?

Because we are so pre-occupied judging and accepting ourselves that we cannot rise above and look beyond all this. Our outer action and behaviour is a result of our inner self.

Most of the time we are critical judges of our selves.

We can’t forgive others because we haven’t forgiven ourselves within.

We hate others because we hate ourselves somewhere deep down.

We fight with others because we are fighting inside.

We want to hit others because of aggression within ourselves.

All our outer expression is the manifestation of our inner state.

What we think, what we feel and what we believe will affect our behaviour towards others. It is only when we accept ourselves the way we are completely and we embrace our uniqueness that we find true self-happiness.

Unfortunately, we have been forced to be good human beings since our growing years, and are not taught to love our self the way we are. We are put in a bubble of idealism and vision of being good and when we fail the expectations of parents/ society of fulfilling these ideologies, we are crushed and we fall in our own eyes. Our self-image and self-esteem drops. This leads to further feeling of guilt, jealousy, frustration and dropping to low vibration levels. We fail to measure up to our own standards.

The ideology of being good, truthful, selfless and compassionate fades in front of us. If we think or do something against the so called “Values” of the society  we feel terrible and guilty. We judge ourselves as inadequate, find fault with ourselves and believe our self-critical inner voices.

We keep on judging and blaming the other person that it is his fault or her mistake, “he did this to me or – she landed me into this” which further leads to hatred and animosity among each other. These are the core reasons behind breaking up of relationships, be it friendship or a newly married couple.

When asked one of them, why don’t you “let go” things and forgive and move on?

Why don’t you forgive each other?

It becomes difficult because we have not forgiven our own selves , we cannot forgive others. We view people just as we view ourselves. We ourselves have not matched up to our own  ideals, should be’s, must be’s and are unable to come out of it. We have not accepted ourselves internally, as we have failed our own expectations and are living in a bubble of ideology.

 

A Super Leader accepts himself the way s/he is, with all the imperfections; s/he accepts with all the mistakes she/he has made; s/he accepts just the way s/he is. Gandhiji was one such example who could see himself just the way he was, accepted himself and moved on and on and on to become the father of India.

If there are few words that personally I could delete from the English language is “should be this way or it shouldn’t be this way ” or “this is right and  this is wrong” or “must be’s and must not be”and so on  as these words have commanded our life and have pushed ourselves into guilt, jealousy, emptiness, anger and anxiety.

Such approaches and situations make us feel resentful and raises self-doubts and low thoughts unto ourself.

How should we solve this and how does one live his or her life? This is what all our sages and saints have preached and this is how they have lived their lives. Be it Mahavir or Buddha or Jesus or Rama or even our Master Shree Rishi Prabhakarji. When we go beyond right and wrong or good or bad it is called the state of SAMADHI.

Samadhi is the state of being non-judgemental, being in  OKness with all happenings and accepting every thing the way it is: accepting the outside world as well as accepting  our Self ( inner self and outer self) the way we are.  

SAMA means EQUANIMOUS and DHI means INTELLECT; where the intellect does not take sides and is beyond the dualities. This has been beautifully taught by Guruji – when one meditates one goes beyond judgement and is in the state of equanimity.

God has given every creature a different body and in it has gifted a divine soul. Every heart is pure every mind is clean. Nobody is identical. Always accept this andlet us accept ourselves the way we are. Rise beyond self-judgement and self-criticism.

When we start to Accept our Self the way we are….

We start to accept people the way they are!

We start to accept situations the way they are!

We start to accept events the way they are!

We start to accept the world the way it is!

We start to accept life the way it is!

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!

OPEN YOURSELF TOWARDS LIFE!

LIFE OPENS ITSELF TO YOU!