Practice Self-Acceptance to Fulfill Your Dream

May 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Acceptance of Self

When you fulfill your dream, the urgings of your heart, you are practicing self-acceptance. Why is that, you may ask?

Your dream is a part of who you are, a part of your make-up. When you say yes to it, when you follow those urgings of your heart, you are expressing that part of you that is God-given, the part of you that is your purpose in life.

You see, your purpose in life is relayed to you in the dream you hold in your heart. To embrace it is to practice self-acceptance.

You have looked at yourself through the self-appraisal you completed. In that appraisal, you will have identified your strong points, and one of them was most likely about your dream.

If not, re-work that part of your self-appraisal to include all the things about yourself to which you aspire, and then identify the strengths you possess that will aid in you reaching those aspirations.

Practicing self-acceptance is a very spiritual place to be. It is a place of deep knowingness that you are okay, that you are perfect just where you are in life and the way you are in life.

You are open to seeing areas where you would like to improve yourself, and you work on those. You will use all the keys we have discussed thus-far, such as willingness, surrender, trust, and courage. 

With your practice, you are moving forward in the path to a deep peace about yourself and your life. When you make the commitment to follow your dream and take action, you will be softly and gently veiled with grace and wonder about all that falls into place for you.

I have recently had that experience. It has been happening for the last 3 months. I had decided to expand my speaking, and suddenly, I was introduced to several workshops about just that – how to become a dynamic speaker.

When I think about why I am speaking, I get a calm sense of knowingness that it is my intended purpose in life. What I am speaking about is the 3 Secrets to Making Peace with Your Life. I feel there are people out there who are experiencing bitterness and misery. Heck, I speak to enough of them! That’s what I experienced for 53 years of my life.

But it changed, and it can change for you, too. Life can become full of great joy and peace. That’s why I blog about the topics in the book – because they go through the process I discovered that led the way to peace. I want to share that with the world.

Today, consider your dream, the tuggings of your heart. Think about how you would feel if that came true. Keep that vision in your heart, and accept that dream, that vision, as a part of who you are. Practice self-acceptance. 

 

 

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Acceptance Leads to Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem

March 5, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Acceptance of Self

Now that we have learned to forgive others and ourselves, we are ready to accept ourselves, which boots our self-confidence and self-esteem. We are traveling on the path of acceptance of self.

We have completed our performance appraisal, our self-appraisal, and we are now ready to make right any wrongs we have done. We want to do this so we can feel self-confidence, self-esteem. This will help us stay sober and get to emotional peace.

Along the path of accepting ourselves so that we may experience self-confidence and esteem, we may reflect upon who we were in our early days, when we had confidence, had a positive esteem. We may have been children then; I was. At least, I glean from my pictures of the era that I was a happy child when I was about three.

And I ask you, “Have we really changed throughout the years, or do we merely hold within our heart and mind and soul the essence of who we are, while our physical form changes? Can we recapture the delightful being we have always been, as we allow and celebrate our strengths, our flaws, and our spirit?”

What if the only change we’ve experienced throughout the years is an assault on our being by others, and then by ourselves, so much so that the self-confidence and esteem we had as a child have eroded away? And what if our being is waiting for us to reclaim who we are, with great self-confidence and self-esteem? 

So, how can we begin to fulfill the wishes of our being, to stop playing small, to step into who we are at our core? We just take action. We look at what is behind our playing small, our lack of confidence and esteem. If it is old messages that denigrate us, we know that those were lies, said by a spiritually sick person. We can think differently now about those disparaging remarks.

Then we practice honesty, and look at all our traits, both positive and negative. In other words, we do a performance appraisal. We apply compassion to the negative traits, and then set them aside, knowing that we have displayed our humanness. We focus on our positive traits, and we become humble, thanking Source for all the gifts which have been bestowed upon us.

And we begin to believe that Source gave us those gifts with the intention that we share them with the world around us. That means playing small no longer will work, and we must step into our full being, with confidence and esteem. We don’t want to flaunt, and practicing humility will counter that tendency.

All we want to do is to celebrate the talents and gifts we have been given and humbly present them to the world around us. When we do this, our self-confidence and esteem will rise. Staying sober will become easier and more desirable. We will become more accepting of ourselves. We will be that much closer to emotional peace and serenity.

Today, practice stepping into all that you are. Accept who you are at your very core. Apply compassion for being human. Identify your special gifts and talents, and celebrate them with your world. Bring back that self-confidence and esteem that have been absent from your life for so long… Accept yourself at a deep level of knowingness…

 

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Filed Under: Healing Emotional Pain, Inspirational Quotes About Life, Inspirational Sayings, Joyous emotions, Principle of living, Self Improvement, Sober Living Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Acceptance of Ourselves As We Are

January 11, 2012 by 2 Comments

We continue to move on in my book Opening the Gates of the Heart: A Journey of Healing, as we work our way to sobriety and inner peace.

Acceptance of Self

Acceptance of Self

We have come to Acceptance of Self. “Have we really changed throughout the years, or do we merely hold within our heart and mind and soul the essence of who we are, while our physical form changes?

“Can we recapture the delightful being we have always been, as we allow and celebrate our strengths, our flaws, and our spirit?”

I firmly believe that each of us has a truly delightful soul that has often become over-ridden by the hurt and pain we have endured throughout the course of our lives. Our response to these experiences is to close up, to protect ourselves, sometimes treating others or ourselves badly.

In the process of doing that, we forget that we have that delightful soul and spirit that awaits our recognition. Or, perhaps, we focus on our flaws and, so, see ourselves as “less than,” or unworthy.

At some point, we have to just give up, surrender, our negative thoughts about ourselves and celebrate our humanness – celebrate who we are in our soul. We have to gain acceptance of who we are. For in our soul is a good being, if only we can recognize this.

Our efforts need to be focused on our positive points. That is not to say we ignore our flaws, which we all have because we’re human. But we have in place a method for dealing with the hurts we cause others and ourselves through our flaws. It is the self-appraaisal which we discussed a few blogs back. We need to practice doing an appraisal and amends, as appropriate, on a daily basis.

Once we are clean with others, we turn our attention to ourselves. We forgive ourselves for our transgressions, and we just accept ourselves as we are. I say that like it’s easy, but it is not. The key is willingness to let go of our negative beliefs and treatment of ourselves, allowing that delightful spirit to emerge. We surrender to who we are at our core.

When we do these things, we will find a deep and abiding peace, and we will be that much more able to stay sober.

For today, allow your spirit, your soul, to emerge. Clean up ragged relationships with others and yourself. Then, just give up and accept yourself as you are, knowing that, in your soul, you are a valuable human being.

 

 

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How to Cultivate Differences in Others

April 21, 2010 by 8 Comments

Cultivation of Differences

differences“We ask, require, demand that those around us be like us, share our attributes, our beliefs. And in so doing, we compare… one to another. In that process, do we not squash the spirit of one who is different then us – one whose thoughts and drerams and talents lie in a different place?

We are like the gates. Although similar in design, what thrives in one spot does not grow in another. On one, there is rust or corrosion or patina, while on the other is mellowed brass.

One is not more beautiful than another. Each has beauty in its own right, if we will only look… if we will only see.”

I wrote the first and third stanzas of this prose in my journal early in my sobriety, when I began to deal with my feelings of having been compared to my siblings and was expected to have their talents and attributes. Then, two years later, I photographed this gate. It took a few months to match the prose with it.

This is an example of why I believe this book to be Divinely inspired. Not only did I find this prose which described this image, I found better than half of the prose for this book in my journals, written before I ever saw the gate it describes.

As I was typing in the prose above, I was struck by the line about how we squash the spirit of another when we compare them to others. I know today that my spirit was squashed and it was through the creation of this book that I have been able to free my spirit and let it soar.

My experience has led me to be sensitive to the ways in which I compare people. I have only been able to identify my participation in character assassination by taking a good hard look at who I am, a self-appraisal, if you will, of my assets and liabilities. Through that process, I was able to see the ways in which I compare others. I was also able to see that I, in fact, had my own talents and skills and strengths. I had not been acknowledging them during my life.

Once I looked at myself, I then had to accept who I was, including my assets. My spirit began to heal. I felt hope. I began to be able to express gratitude for things around me, people around me. Now, I specifically focus on another’s differences, their strong points, and offer acknowledgment when I am able. My spirit has soared  throughout this process of cultivating differences.

How do you cultivate the differences of those around you?

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