Self Acceptance
Feb 11, 2020
Today I want you to walk away realizing that self acceptance and self love are very much different. Acceptance is not a free ticket to be lazy and if you focus on acceptance first then authenticity and vulnerability will follow. And with these three things - life can be very different.You don’t have to LOVE yourself or your body to ACCEPT it. Acceptance is not a ticket for laziness or self sabotage. It’s actually just the opposite. I’m super excited to talk to you today about acceptance, authenticity and vulnerability and why these three things can jack your life in ways you can’t imagine.
YOU CAN ACCEPT YOURSELF, BE AUTHENTIC AND VULNERABLE EVEN IF YOU’RE UNHAPPY WITH WHERE YOUR LIFE IS AT RIGHT NOW.
ACCEPTANCE IS NOT LOVE.
Let’s dive in. In a perfect world, we would all love ourselves, right? I mean, as a baby we know no other way. Unfortunately in today’s world that is far from the truth. We have become a society that is super critical of ourselves and have fallen deep into the comparison game.
But this wasn’t always the case.
You were not born critical of yourself. Or others. Think of a child - and I do this often being a mom of two young girls. My oldest is four and youngest, two. They do not know how to judge themselves or other people. My older daughter notices differences amongst people and she is curious but she doesn’t associate them with good or bad.
She doesn’t see overweight and think gross.
She doesn’t look at candy and think this will make me fat.
She doesn’t look at herself in the mirror and think she can’t leave the house because she is not as pretty as her friends. Or as thin as her friends.
She simply is LIVING life on purpose.
She spends her day living as she only knows how with pure curiosity and innocence - well most of the time - she IS four!
Funny story - she told me the other day that my arm was chumpy. Haha. What she meant was chubby as she pinched the under part of my arm.
I said yours is too. And I gently pinched hers back.
She said my arm is perfect. So I replied - yes, it is. It’s perfect for your body just like my arm is perfect for my body.
And the day kept moving.
Imagine if we, as adults could move through the day like that?
And same goes for my two year old - she doesn’t know any other way than to love and get mad that she isn’t getting her way. Welcome terrible two’s.
So at some point, the world hardens us.
Society becomes quick sand in our thoughts - we can drown if we allow ourselves to.
We begin to notice that our body doesn’t look like the cover models on magazines or the actresses on tv. We have rolls but the girls on IG or FB don’t.
There are a million and one ads telling is exactly how to fix ourselves -
Want to lose weight? Great - you can do that by cutting out carbs and eating more fat OR only eat this many calories OR count your macros OR try fasting OR drink this tea!
Want to get rid of your cellulite? Great - buy this lotion or target your trouble area by doing this!
Have dark circles? Try this new cream.
We are always being told how to fix ourselves … the problem is
WE ARE NOT BROKEN!!!
We LEARN how to be critical of ourselves.
We LEARN how to compare ourselves to others.
It’s learned behavior and just as we can learn it, we have the power to un-learn too. We can re-learn how to be kind.
So let’s talk about SELF ACCEPTANCE.
I have struggled with this for a very very long time. I can remember back to grade school comparing how I looked to others. I can vividly remember thinking that my body was much bigger than so and so’s. I pray that my daughters never have to go through that!
Anyway, the older I got the worse it was. And at the beginning of 2019, I committed to finding love for myself so that I could guide my daughters the best way I knew how. How could I hate my body but tell them to love theirs, right? So I embarked on the self love journey.
Wayy harder than I anticipated.
I felt like I was a fraud at points in time for telling people the importance of it while I sat back and would beat myself up over the smallest thing. And other times I felt so liberated by it.
One thing I kept getting hung up on though was how could I love myself if I wanted to be thinner and stronger? How could I love myself when I look in the mirror and hate my stomach area? Or don’t feel confident in how I look after getting dressed? I just didn’t feel good about myself. Period.
And then I would take it a step further thinking that if I loved myself then I would just be giving myself a ticket to be lazy and an excuse to look the way I do.
Ugh! It’s so saddens me to even share this but I know how common it is. And it shows how far I’ve come.
I need to tell you a couple things on how toxic my thoughts were …
Loving who you are is not a ticket to anything negative. Loving who you are means you take care of yourself in whatever capacity that means to YOU. It doesn’t mean you let yourself go.
As simple as that sounds, it took me a while to realize it.
I would keep asking how can I find be neutral in my thinking - like what does that even mean?
And self love is very different than self acceptance. I had to start in a place of self acceptance. It was the neutral spot for me.
Know this … self acceptance does not mean you LOVE who you are. It means you are OK with who you are. You are neither negative or joyous about it. You realize it is what it is - as much as I have grown to dislike that term.
It’s a way to be OK with your body and who you are while you work to become who you want to be.
Think of it this way … when you accept something or a situation - you are being ok with what it is. It doesn’t mean you love it but you just accept it. Same thing with self acceptance. Become neutral in your thinking.
Think - you have A body.
It’s just A body.
It’s a way for you to move through life.
It’s neither good or bad.
When you do this … you allow yourself the freedom to step into your authenticity. You can LIVE for exactly who you are without trying to be anyone or anything else. Are you following me here?
Side note: When I ask people what my superpower or great strength is - about 80% of people come back with how authentic and vulnerable I am. It was actually surprising to me but I believe it all comes back to the amount of work I invested in myself this past year so that is why I’m sharing it with you now. I want you to take this podcast and run with it this year!
Authenticity can be described (by Brene Brown who is the queen of authenticity and shame - go read her books or follow her on social media!). She says “authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
I love that!
When we can let the world see who we really are - oh man, magic happens!
The right people stay.
The others will slowly make their way out.
And you’ll find great purpose in the world.
We aren’t all meant to be the same and it’s time we all believe in who we are.
So with authenticity can come vulnerability.
Vulnerability is kinda scary to people.
We open ourselves in a way that others can judge us but we also can gain way more than people casting their opinions.
When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we allow deeper connection in our lives.
Vulnerability is hard!
There is no two ways about it.
But it’s necessary for human connection which we all need.
When I am speaking with clients or running my club online - I always tell my community to live with the “BE THE ONE” mindset. Be the one who shares how you’re feeling, no matter how scary it feels. And when you do, it silently gives others permission to do the same. It’s like a domino effect.
And that’s how I live my life. Which has helped me to accept who I am, live as authentically as I can and be vulnerable each step of the way.
I want to tie all this up with giving you one thing you can take with you and implement today because I believe it’s with action that things will change. And the simpler you keep, the easier it is to implement. Ready?
TODAY - I want you to pay attention when you’re on social media. When you scroll past someone you follow or are friends with, what kind of feelings do you get from them?
And it’s important to note that the way you feel - may not be this person’s intent.
If you feel any kind of negative about yourself or that person - you need to delete or unfollow them.
I’ll give you an example of this for me … when I was doing Beachbody coaching, I started following a lot of fitness accounts on IG.
What I never realized until I started paying attention was that these accounts would make me feel horrible about my body. I would see these women post morning selfies with 6 pack abs - which is totally FINE! But it would make me feel more insecure about my body that looked more like a beer ball than a six pack.
But I’ll have you know, these accounts were posting to inspire and motivate. They weren’t doing it with ill intent to make me feel a negative kind of way - but I did so I stopped following and wouldn’t you know - things shifted for me.
So do yourself the same favor.
Use the unfollow button and see how liberating it will be.
Ok, that is it for today. Thank you SO much for tuning in. Be sure to catch me on IG at heatherfcooper or on FB at iamheathercooper.
And if you feel inclined to - I would love for you to leave me a review! To me, it’s like an old fashion love note that makes my heart so happy! Thank you again and chat with you next week. From my heart to yours.