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To accept yourself means to recognize all your qualities and properties, including negative ones. And also – to forgive yourself for mistakes, change your attitude towards yourself and live in harmony with your own feelings and thoughts. Here are a few quests to help you along the way.
Self-acceptance makes us happier, but it requires a lot of inner work. In order not to drown in negative thoughts and find usefulness and meaning even in the most unpleasant features, it will take a lot of courage and enthusiasm. In addition, the support and support of a psychologist will be useful.
Psychotherapist Ekaterina Sigitova often works with this topic and talks about it in detail in the book “Recipe for Happiness” and in her free course. .
We share with you a couple of exercises from Ekaterina, which will help you get to know your features better and easier to accept them.
1. Exercise “Inner Monster”
The inner monster is the embodiment of all our unpleasant qualities and bad habits, everything that we consider unworthy and try to hide from others. This exercise will help you face your Inner Monster boldly and recognize that it is an integral part of us.
1. Write down personality traits and habits that you find difficult to accept in yourself.
2. Imagine a being that has all of these qualities. Try to draw it on paper. Is it human or not? Which one is he/she?
3. Give the creature a name. Try to compose a monologue of the Inner Monster. What could it tell about its life? What does it want? What is bad for him, what does he lack? Draw what your character is missing.
4. Go back to your list of “bad” qualities. Complete each item: write, at what point did you notice this quality in yourself? What situation or circumstance could have caused it? When did it start bothering you? Why do you think it is difficult for you to accept it?
Do not draw any conclusions from the exercise. You are just getting to know the other part of you, the part you want to hide. If at the same time you experience negative emotions, let them be, this is normal.
2. Exercise “Emotional Validation”
Validation is a way of recognizing and accepting your character traits, emotions, and behaviors. No matter how you act and no matter what you feel, there is always a specific reason that led to this. The purpose of the exercise is to find the roots of your “bad” qualities and understand that at some point they were vital to your well-being.
1. Take a list of “bad” qualities, which you created in the last exercise, and think again about how each of them appeared.
2. Write why this quality was useful in the circumstances. and necessary for you. Decide that it is okay to have it.
Examples of emotional validation:
“I am short-tempered. Any offense can piss me off. I understand that I shouldn’t swear, but I can’t stop, and then I feel guilty and apologize … But I think it’s normal to be angry. My father was also often angry. I remember how he yelled at me.
Such a manifestation of aggression was characteristic of my family. I remember it. My temper is understandable. I am quick-tempered because I myself was the victim of aggression. I accept it, and that acceptance will help me deal with anger better.”
“I am greedy. Because of this, I can not rejoice in shopping, I always feel sorry for the money. But I think it’s okay to be greedy. I didn’t have the most wonderful childhood, there were difficulties with money, so now it’s hard for me to learn how to spend with pleasure. I understand why I am like this. I will accept greed, and I will no longer be so ashamed of myself.
3. Exercise “Reformulation of negative thoughts”
Our thoughts greatly influence our behavior. If a person considers himself a failure, then he behaves accordingly – he refuses a career or a relationship just because the thought “I am unworthy” is kept in his head.
Cognitive behavioral therapists have come up with a technique to help reformulate negative thoughts and make them neutral. Every time unpleasant thoughts about yourself come into your head, you need to acknowledge their presence and write down how they sound. Then the thought should be reformulated according to the following rules:
1. The phrase should contain only a description of the behaviorand not a description of you as a person.
✘ I am terribly shy/shy.
✓ I acted modestly today.
2. Avoid overgeneralization such as “always”, “never”, “terrible”, “wild”, “always I …”.
✘ I always put in inappropriate jokes and look like a laughing stock.
✓ This time I joked / joked unsuccessfully.
3. Don’t make assumptions about what other people think of you. You cannot guess other people’s thoughts.
✘ People think I’m boring/boring.
✓ People often don’t get the chance to get to know me better because…
4. Remove negatives (particles “not”) and “castrating” verbs (“stop”, “stop”), describe an alternative action.
✘ I’m always embarrassed and nervous, it’s time to stop being stupid.
✓ Next time I will try to be calmer.
Other exercises for self-acceptance
The course of the publishing house “Alpina Publisher” are six free letters with theory and exercises that you can do on your own.
On the course, we analyze why acceptance is needed, we try to understand the reasons for our feelings and actions, and we learn to accept our negative sides. Each letter is devoted to a separate stage on the way to acceptance and harmony.
The exercises included in the course will help you get rid of harmful thoughts and change your attitude towards yourself.
Join us in social media to receive the first letter and learn how to turn into a good person without changing anything in yourself.
About the expert:
Ekaterina Sigitova – psychotherapist, author of popular articles about self-acceptance, parenting, people with special needs. He maintains an educational YouTube channel and a blog in LiveJournal.