For some people one of the hardest things to do is to accept yourself exactly how you are. We have grown up in a society that puts a certain life style a certain look ahead of others. When we do this we place them on to a pedestal that in most cases we can never be. We compare ourselves to what others have and how they look.
For those that are not on that pedestal we see ourselves as being flawed. We feel we are not good looking enough. We don’t make enough money. Eventually we start telling us that we are not good enough. We slowly start to despise and hate ourselves. We find it hard to even look at ourselves in the mirror because we detest what we feel we have become.
I can speak from personal experience of looking at someone else life and wanting and dreaming of having a different life. I can even recall spending countless hours praying for something else and then feeling forsaken because of not receiving it.
Growing up my whole life I have always fought with stomach disorders. I have seen that disorder become a major part of my life as well as a major part of relationships. For some it can be hard to be in a relationship with one that is unable to do certain things. When we go through turbulent times from heart break or down on our luck it becomes natural for us to either fight it or run from it.
Growing up I always found it easier to run from it. Why address it head on? Why bring on more pain? We can always just escape our lives or our realities if we want to. What I didn’t know at the time was that no matter how hard I wanted to run and how far I wanted to go. There was nowhere to run to that was away from myself. For wherever I went I was still there. We can only ignore something for so long before it eventually catches up to us.
For me that catching up was the realization that my life was not a happy one. I had always hoped that if I ignored life then life would ignore me. Unfortunately life is going to happen regardless if we want it to or not. I had always hoped that I could change who I was and be someone else. Reality was I could only be this one person; the person who I am.
The biggest moment of peace came to me when I had the realization that this is who I am and there was no changing that. The acceptance of me as who I am as an individual was the start of inner peace and happiness.
The acceptance of ourselves as who we are does not mean we cannot become something more. Those, like myself, that do not have the best health at times. We can seek out treatment and ways to live a better life. We just have the inner peace of mind with knowing that while we do look for treatment even if we cannot find any treatment that we are great just the way we are with knowing that this is a part of us. Will it always be a part of us? Only time can tell the answer to that question.