The 3 Levels of Self-Acceptance

"Without self-acceptance, self-esteem is impossible", writes Dr. Nathaniel Branden in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.

Self-acceptance is something so many people struggle with. A strong inner critical voice is a sure sign that you may be struggling with it yourself. What does the voice in your head say? Is it understanding, curious, and compassionate, or judgmental, harsh, and demeaning? Self-talk tends to be quite negative when self-acceptance is lacking. And if self-acceptance is lacking, as Nathaniel Branden said, self-esteem is impossible.

So what is self-esteem and why does it matter?

Self-esteem is the way in which one experiences themselves.  A person with healthy self-esteem experiences themselves as capable of handling life's basic challenges and as being worthy of love and happiness.  A person with unhealthy self-esteem experiences themselves as being incapable of handling life's difficulties and as being unworthy of joy and love.

Self-esteem matters because how you experience yourself will affect your success in every area of your life.  It determines the goals your set for yourself, the partner you choose, the risks you are willing to take, how well you care for your own health and well-being, and so much more. Good self-esteem is also a prerequisite for true self-love. Self-esteem is so critical to a high quality of life, and yet there are so many false definitions of self-esteem being spread around, even by well-meaning professionals. As a result, this critical centerpiece of a life well-lived has been deemed unnecessary of considering or fostering.

"It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior." - Nathaniel Branden

For example, self-esteem is too often described as believing yourself to be better than others or as seeing yourself as "special" in comparison to others.  This is nonsense. Sure there are people who go about self-esteem wrongly, and try to foster it by being better than other people.  This does not mean that self-esteem is about being better than other people any more than people following fad diets that are restrictive and ultimately harmful in the name of being healthy means that health is about restrictive fad diets that make people unwell.  

Anyone who has ever suffered from debilitatingly low self-esteem, as I have, knows that the goal is to finally get to a place where you can live your life as a person with a deep inner sense that you are as able and as worthy as those around you, not more capable or more worthy.  I can remember just wanting to feel like it was okay to claim space in the world. Like I had a right to be here, too. I wanted so badly to believe that I, as much as anybody else, deserved to be happy and to succeed. There was no part of me that felt a need to diminish others in order to uplift myself. I just wanted to feel equally worthy and adequate.

It’s absolutely exhausting to doubt yourself all the time. There’s an uneasiness that is with you always. The quest for external signals that you are acceptable, that you are enough, that you matter is never-ending with unhealthy self-esteem because nothing and no one outside of you can cure the uncertainty that you perpetually feel about yourself and your own worth. It’s something that needs to be unearthed from the inside. It’s an inner, not an outer, connection that needs to be made. It requires self-validation and affirmation. Nothing else will do.

Now that I have healthy self-esteem and I go out in the world confident that I belong, that I have something to contribute, and that I am worthy of all that I am pursuing, I never find myself feeling superior to others or looking down on anyone. I am just so pleased to be able to meet other people eye-to-eye, shoulder-to-shoulder, and with my head held high and as we all navigate the roller coaster of the his human experience together. To have developed a healthy self-esteem means that now I can view myself as my own friend. It’s about my relationship to myself, not about my views of other people.

So it is crucial that we understand what self-esteem actually is so that we can value it properly. And when we do, we can take great care in nurturing it. So where you do being if you want to foster your own healthy self-esteem? You begin by practicing self-acceptance because this is the basis of a positive self-experience.

There are 3 levels to complete self-acceptance:

"Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself." -The 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem

1. To be for yourself; to be on your own side. To be for yourself-to be on your own side-is a primal internal interest in the self. It is a sense of mattering that stems from the fact that you are alive and conscious. It is your birthright. It is the voice of your inner life force that says "I deserve to exist". It is this voice that will keep you going when you feel like giving up, that will lift you out of your deepest moments of despair, that will encourage your to call for help when you can't find your own strength. It is from this position as your own advocate that you will choose to treat yourself with respect and to value yourself.  One must possess this basic attitude of self-affirmation in order to practice essential self-love and develop self-esteem.

2. To willingly accept (rather than disown) and experience the full reality of yourself . To fully accept the reality of yourself is to be willing to see and experience yourself as your truly are. It is the refusal to disown any part of yourself- your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your behavior, your dreams. You accept all of it.  As you feel, think, do, respond, you are willing to see and accept these as an expression of yourself, regardless of whether you like or dislike what you observe.  You do not try to deny, rationalize or explain any of it away. You remain present with what is happening.  You practice respect for reality as it applies to the self.  It is when you can accept that the thoughts, feelings, reactions you have are yours that you are free to learn from them and grow and improve. You cannot learn from an expression of yourself that you deny you have. You cannot forgive yourself for an action you do not acknowledge having taken. To begin to live more consciously, for instance, is to accept that we sometimes live unconsciously.

3. To be a friend to yourself; to practice self-compassion. Since self-acceptance does not deny reality, it requires that we acknowledge when something we have done is not all right. But that doesn't mean that we judge ourselves harshly and engage in self-criticism. We also acknowledge the fact that we are imperfect and will make mistakes. Therefore, when we make a mistake we extend compassion to ourselves by trying to understand what prompted this behavior. We extend the same gentleness to ourselves that we would a dear friend who has erred in some way.  You can condemn an action but still have a compassionate interest in why it occurred. Being self-compassionate is not the same as eschewing responsibility.  It is after you take responsibility for an action that you can go deeper and learn from it without any self-rejection or repudiation.  

Essentially, self-acceptance requires that you affirm your innate worth and right to exist, that you accept and willingly experience your whole self without denial or rejection, and that you act as a gentle, compassionate friend to yourself whenever you make a mistake or find yourself struggling. Does that sound like the kind of relationship you would like to have with yourself? I hope your answer is ‘yes’!

There’s truly nothing more transformative that you can do for yourself than to embrace the full reality of who and what you are. So how do you begin to get to know yourself better in a loving and compassionate way? You begin with expanding your self-awareness. Self-knowledge is where it all begins. Most people believe they know themselves, but few actually do. If you would like to begin getting to know yourself more deeply, consider working with me in one-on-one online coaching sessions. I would love to be your guide into a deeper, healthier and more satisfying self-relationship.

How are you at practicing self-acceptance?  What parts of your being might you embrace more willingly? How can you be more compassionate to yourself in your life? Share your experience with self-acceptance in the comments below!

XO