Hi everyone,
My name is Alyssa and today I would like to talk about self-acceptance.
And the reason that I would like to speak about self-acceptance today is because I feel like this is something that I've had a hard time with in my life.
And I would like to share my experiences and my obstacles on this journey of self-acceptance.
And see if this can relate to anyone else or if this can help anyone else on their journey.
So,
One of the first things that I would like to speak about about self-acceptance is the influence of society,
Culture,
Family.
And where this really all began.
So.
.
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I feel like when we are born into this world that we have the influence.
The influences around us that we're born into.
Of society,
Culture,
The family we're born into.
And from an early age we're being told who we should or shouldn't be,
What we should or shouldn't like.
What we should act like,
What we should be doing.
Different things like this so.
It's hard to accept ourselves for who we truly are when we're being told to change who we are from our natural light,
Our natural uniqueness.
And this can be in a variety of settings when we're at school.
When we're in our families,
When we're out in society.
We're constantly being shaped to change who we are based on the situation,
Based on the person.
And we get so used to changing who we are and rearranging who we are based on what the situation is.
Whether we're in school.
Or out at an event,
In public,
Or at the grocery store,
Or wherever it is,
We're always being told to be a certain way.
I think sometimes it has its place,
But other times it can be suppressing of our true light and our true uniqueness.
That's what I've experienced a lot in my life.
So.
.
.
I feel like for me,
I got really good at changing who I was based on who was around me.
And,
For example,
In a social setting.
Maybe I was with a group of friends.
I tried to.
.
.
Conform to what everybody else was doing or pretend to like what everybody else was doing just because that's what they liked and I wanted to be accepted and I wanted to belong and And that is a need that we have,
Is acceptance and belonging.
And sometimes it is easier to be more motivated,
To want to be accepted and want to belong.
Make the choices to be accepted and to belong somewhere Even if it means suppressing our trueness or suppressing our true light because we would rather have that acceptance or belonging.
So that's something I feel like has been something that I've done in my life for a long time.
And Now as time goes on,
I'm realizing that I would rather take the risk to be my true self,
To say how I feel,
Say what I need.
And.
.
.
Accept the consequences that come with that.
Accept the outcome that comes with that.
And some people,
Places,
And situations in my life may fall away because I made that choice to be my true self and to be who I am.
And that's okay.
And I'm realizing more in my adult life how to take care of myself and love myself,
And I have more freedom to be able to do this now,
And I have more understanding now.
And.
I feel like whenever we're growing up.
We don't have as much of a.
Choice when we just start making these decisions because everything's automatic Like we're on autopilot is what it feels like we're just on autopilot trying to get our needs met and As I've gotten older,
I've realized how much stress and anxiety it causes me to not be my true self,
To suppress my true self,
To not say how I really feel.
And I realized,
Well,
That's how I've been my whole life.
Now I'm realizing it's actually more of a problem in my life.
To live like that.
For example,
I may be in a situation with another person and there's something that I really need to say and if I just don't say it and I continue to get more and more uncomfortable with what's happening and I just don't say anything,
Then I feel like I'm the one who's suffering on the inside because I'm not speaking up.
And I'm starting to realize in my life now,
I can speak up.
And I am safe,
And nothing is going to happen to me if I speak up.
As my own sovereign being in the here and now in my adult life that I can say what I need to say.
I can say what my needs are.
And know that I have the authority over my own self to be able to take care of my needs that I know that I have.
And it's taken me a long time to understand that I do have needs.
Um.
.
.
It's easy to get used to.
People-pleasing Always putting yourself in the role to make sure other people are happy,
Even if that's at the cost of your own suffering.
And that's how I've lived most of my life.
I just,
You know,
That was my normal.
Um.
.
.
Especially when you don't want to have conflict,
You want to keep the peace.
You just want everybody else to be happy.
That does come at a cost,
And at the time,
That was necessary for what I needed for my survival.
That was necessary at one point in time.
That was the best.
Choice that I could make at that point in time in my life.
And now that.
I'm learning more about self-love and self-care.
Now that I'm an adult.
And.
.
.
Can learn more about who I am and be in this free and open space.
Now I can start to make decisions that are more aligned with me.
And not having to compromise my mental health and well-being just to be accepted or to be safe or to make everything easier for everybody else because That's going to be easier for me.
So I'm really grateful that.
I don't have to suffer in silence anymore.
And I know what that feels like to suffer in silence.
And I think a lot of us know what that feels like to suffer in silence,
And that becomes When we when we grow up.
Suffering in silence than it just translates to everything else in our life.
We just continue on like that.
And until we realize that it's too much to carry,
Until we realize,
Hey,
I have a voice,
How come I'm not speaking up?
And so I've been doing a lot of healing work around that with myself of,
You know,
Not speaking up and practicing speaking up with people,
Having uncomfortable conversations.
Saying what I need to say,
Even if someone else gets upset,
And being able to accept I may say something that makes someone else upset.
But I know that what I said was.
Something that was taking care of myself,
It wasn't.
Anything malicious or rude,
It was just what I needed to say to take care of myself.
That's something else too that I'm understanding is that I can speak up for myself and say what I need.
And as long as I'm not going out of my way to attack someone,
That is necessary to be able to have those boundaries to say what you need to say.
And that can look like anything.
You're in another situation where someone's doing something or saying something that's making you feel very uncomfortable.
And You feel like your anxiety is just getting worse and worse and worse because you're not saying anything.
Speak up and say what you need to say.
I'm not saying that's easy.
You know,
It takes time and it takes practice.
The more that I've been practicing that over.
Maybe the last couple years or so,
It's gotten easier.
And it's become really evident to me when I don't speak up for myself because I can feel that anxiety and stress stirring on the inside.
And I realize like,
Man,
I wish I would have just said that,
You know.
I also think it's really important to give ourselves grace.
To give ourselves a lot of grace through this about self-acceptance because There's a lot of.
Ways that we have adapted to that have kept us safe,
That have served a purpose for us,
And that's the reason why we do some of these things where we suppress ourselves or suppress our light.
There is a reason for it.
I know that.
It's important to love ourselves and care for ourselves deeply when we start to understand more like,
Hey,
I don't have to suppress myself anymore.
Why was I even doing that?
And to give ourselves grace.
When we understand,
Like,
Well,
At one point,
That's what I needed to do.
That's what kept me safe.
That's what kept things,
You know,
Peaceful.
And I was willing to take that route instead of speaking up for myself and then making things worse.
Um.
But now I'm learning that I can be my true self.
I can start to overcome these barriers that I placed.
Between me not being my true self and me being my true self.
So something that I have said to myself is,
I accept.
I accept what comes with this.
And even if I say what I need to say,
And my voice is shaking,
And I'm scared half to death that I'm about to say what I'm about to say,
Well I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna face the fear and I'm gonna do it anyway because I've went to.
.
.
Far and too long in my life of not being my true self,
Just to keep other people happy,
Just to keep other people comfortable,
And it came at a great cost.
I couldn't carry that stress and anxiety anymore to live like that.
Just because that's what I had known,
Just because that's how I grew up,
It doesn't mean that that serves me now.
And that's something that I'm learning more about with self-acceptance.
Yeah,
So I think this might actually cover what I wanted to say today about self-acceptance,
Because I feel like I just shared a lot about self-acceptance.
And It's really important that we accept ourselves for who we truly are because You are the one who's the most important person in your life and what you need.
So you accepting who you are is actually the most important thing.
It's not about if other people accept us,
It's about if you accept you.
And that's what I've needed my whole life is to accept myself for who I am and not feel shame or guilt about being who I am.
Just because someone else said,
Well,
You should be doing this or.
This is how you should be.
And me carrying other people's thoughts and opinions with me and feeling disempowered,
Being like,
Man,
I guess it's really not okay to be who I am because they're saying that I should be like this.
And That's another part,
That's another obstacle that I've had with my self-acceptances.
When other people are telling you,
You should be somebody else,
Then it automatically gives me this message where it's like,
Oh,
So it's not okay to be who I am.
So then that would even cause me to shy away from my true self even more because then I started to feel bad about who I was because.
Other people weren't accepting me for who I was in that moment.
For whatever I was doing,
No matter what it pertained to in my life.
So.
.
.
I think it's important that we find out what truly matters to us.
Our own life,
What we care about,
What we value,
What matters to us,
And build our life around what we truly care about because we are our own individual and we have our own interests and beliefs and way of life and what we want to do with our own free will for a reason.
So when other people try to tell you that you should be doing this,
Or you should act like this,
Or you should be this certain way,
That's their opinion,
But it doesn't mean that.
They should be trying to micromanage who you are as your own unique individual.
And I think it's important that we can.
Separate ourselves from other people's opinions,
Judgments,
Criticisms about who we are because that's not for us to carry.
And that's something that,
You know,
I'm saying to myself because I feel like I carried other people's opinions and judgments for a long time.
And I use that to form beliefs about myself,
False beliefs,
Negative beliefs.
Things that weren't true and it caused a lot of disempowerment in my life to be my true self.
And it caused a lot of sadness.
Now I'm understanding that I don't have to be disempowered and I don't have to be sad and I can embrace my true self.
It may not be what another person thinks I should be or do.
Or whatever,
But it's really not up to them.
It's really not my concern what somebody else thinks of me.
It's important how I feel about myself and what's actually true and what's actually love.
If I'm carrying beliefs about myself that negative or criticizing myself or judging myself or hurtful,
Negative self-talk,
If I'm carrying any of those beliefs with me,
I know that that's not true.
And anything less than love.
Is not true.
If those are the beliefs that I'm carrying about myself.
So that's.
Another part two that I've been working through with my healing to let go of these negative self-beliefs,
Whether they came from myself,
Came from other people,
And realizing that I can give myself love now,
And I can grow through love.
I can grow through love and grace,
Give myself grace for what I went through,
Give myself grace for where I am today.
Give myself grace for being on this healing journey and taking it step by step to accept myself.
So this is what I would like to talk about today,
About self-acceptance.
And I'm sending so much love and encouragement to every person out there on Facebook.
Their journey of self-acceptance.
You are not alone.
You are loved.
You are so worthy,
No matter what.
And Just want you to know that I'm always here.
Thank you all so much for listening.
I hope you have a great day.
