Self-Acceptance – The Ultimate Seduction – The Ultimate Victory

By Dr. Raymond Comeau

“A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” – Oscar Wilde

photo courtesy of ♥serendipity

We are both our greatest friend and worst enemy. We are the creator of most of our joys and the source of most our pains. We are the first to auto-criticize and believe that we are near paragons of virtue. We don’t like to be left in our own company yet secretly believe that we are one of the most interesting person that we know.

In one word, we are walking talking paradoxes. We can’t see the incongruity of our personal beliefs, especially the beliefs that we have about ourselves. We believe that we know who we are yet we are constantly in search of our identity. All that is what makes it so difficult to accept and love ourselves.

Self-acceptance and self-love has been called the ultimate seduction. So called because it is the hardest and most difficult of all seductions. How can a best friend who also happens to be the worst enemy can ever find acceptance and love?

It is not an easy task but not an impossible one either. Many fail at it because they don’t know how and others fail because they don’t even try. Let’s hope that what follows will be a beacon that shows some of the way.

Self-acceptance begins with accepting the fact that we are work in progress. We all made mistakes and have done things that we regret. That’s how we learn and grow. It is human to err and it is divine to forgive, especially when we are the objects of our own forgiveness.

We all have shortcomings. These are not character flaws, they are opportunities to expand and grow. There is nothing perfect in nature. That’s what makes it so beautiful. We are not perfect, that’s what makes us interesting. If we were already all that we could be life would have no meaning and no sense. Where could one go after reaching the ultimate destination?

photo courtesy of eflon

Frustration has played a major role in our life. In many cases, those frustrations have been seen as evidences of lack of self-worth. In the best-case scenario, that belief is completely false and in its best light it’s counterproductive stinking thinking.

The reason that we suffered from frustration is not due to a lack of self-worth but due to a lack of experience. Frustration is nothing but a call to acquire more knowledge. It’s another reminder that we are still a work in progress.

Another roadblock to self-acceptance is our dependence on social proof. That is, we tend to look to others and their opinion to establish the level of our self-worth. Bad idea. Others don’t base their judgment on who we are but on who they are. We are the mirrors into which they see themselves and accept that reflection as an indication of who we are. Not a very reliable point of reference.

We are work in progress, pure potential on its way to actualization. At any one stage of growth, we are already perfectly imperfect. We must accept that and learn to appreciate it. There is no one exactly like us but each of us is exactly what he should be in the grand scheme of things.

Self-acceptance and self-love depends on accepting the nature of who we are, work in progress. We may not be perfect but we are not expected to be. We are expected to be humans who do the best with what they have. So long as we do that, we deserve, merit and should have total self-acceptance and self-love.

Dr. Raymond Comeau aka Shamou is the Author of ShamouBlog and Owner Administrator of Personal Development for Personal Success Forums.

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