What is self-acceptance?

I am starting this thread in order to clarify what we all believe self-acceptance to be. I want everyone who may participate, to be completely honest about what they think makes, or will make them, a secure and confidant individual, even if others have said completely different things.

What is your idea of self-acceptance?

For myself, I believe self-acceptance means genuinely loving myself enough to always adhere to communicating with honesty and logic, with anyone whom I communicate with. I aim to always do this, even when it scares the hell out of me and do not want to because it will wreck some (or all) of a dream world that I have possibly built around myself. Even when it makes me feel incredibly weak and vulnerable.

In my eyes, a characteristic of someone who truly wants to love themselves, as well as others, is that they will willingly accept others valid criticisms of them if those criticisms are founded on solid logic. They will do this even if it makes them feel ashamed and wrong about whatever they have done, because their ultimate aim is to understand and love themselves and others, completely.

They will not avoid answering logical questions, or debating logical deductions that have been presented to them, even if in their answer, they must necessarily profess that they are incorrect. They will understand that to avoid doing so is to reject facing their fears and instead, is a sign of giving into insecurity.

Ultimately, I elevate my soul/spirit above that of my body, my looks, my possessions. It is the idea that without the material world and my body, I am still completely myself, still unique and beautiful as a bare soul. As every other soul out there is.

This is what I personally believe true self-acceptance is.

To me, this necessarily follows that anyone who uses their worldly possessions, their own aesthetic qualities and their I.Q, as traits to put forward that they are a secure and confidant individual, has a negative and false belief of what self-acceptance is.

Someone I was talking to recently about this, felt that I hadn't expanded on my points as fully as they could have been expanded upon, but he did say something which I think is a rather good summary of all that I am trying to say:

"Self-acceptance is when you are no longer stopped by personal feelings, from experiencing and learning from the world"

To me, it is most probable that the main feelings that stop this learning from happening for many people, are the ones of fear and insecurity that originate from false beliefs that have been injected into them by their surroundings.

I think that false beliefs are ones that, by their nature, separate us from finding our true souls/spirits and from truly loving ourselves and one another.

I believe that currently, majority of humanity holds these false beliefs, making these beliefs the most comfortable ones to adopt and live by, though they are inherently destructive for us.

I think identifying these false beliefs are one of the first steps to overcoming them.

But what is the very first step?

quote:

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It is the idea that without the material world and my body, I am still completely myself, still unique and beautiful as a bare soul. As every other soul out there is.

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By this do you mean that your soul is unique to another soul, as in all souls are different and separate from each other? Like each soul has a unique marker that is theirs so to speak?

Yes I do feel that my soul is unique to another soul, as in every soul has a distinct quality that seperates them from others. But even in saying that, I do feel that we are the same in terms of being a collective....spirit?

I mean I can't prove any of that, but that's what I have always felt, like an instinctual feeling almost.

But now you've made me think. Maybe the idea of being unique only serves to seperate us from one another?
When I think about it that way though, I can't get rid of the feeling like that is an incorrect direction to go in - thinking that there is no such thing as uniqueness. The concept of us all being the same soul, just doesn't seem right to me somehow....

self acceptance is like self actualization. You feel comfortable in your own skin, understand what makes you tick and accept yourself without regard to societal norms. I don't think anyone can become totally accepting of themselves until the time of their death because we are always moving forward, always chasing goals and always improving. Only when we are at death's door do we accept ourselves because we understand we can make no changes at that time.

I feel that personal acceptance (to me) is when you can do what you want without feeling remorse for it in any way, and loving yourself conditionally no matter what any jackoff may call you or do to you.

Seeing clearly who you are and loving yourself anyway.

Keep in mind that what you see yourself as, what others see you as being, and what you are -- are three completely different things.