The Art of Self-Acceptance

When dealing with difficult people, an important question we need to ask ourselves is,are they really that difficult? Often, labeling other people as “difficult” is another way of saying “they are different than I am.”

Essentially, in order to communicate more effectively with others, we need to learn to accept other people and to stop trying to change them. But before we can accept others, we must be able to accept ourselves.

If we don’t accept ourselves just the way we are, if we identify qualities and traits in ourselves that we feel uncomfortable with and dislike, how can we learn to accept the same qualities in others? Indeed, more often than not, the traits we dislike in other people are the very same traits that we dislike about ourselves.

Before we can stop trying to change others, we need to stop trying to change ourselves. We need to gain that inner peace, the inner confidence that we are okay just the way we are right now. We may still try to improve ourselves and our relationships, but we need to accept that we are going to make many mistakes along the way.

Very few of us manage to “do the right thing” and to act “the right way” all the time. We all make mistakes, small mistakes and big mistakes, and it’s important to give ourselves a break whenever we make those mistakes, to forgive ourselves, and then continue on our journey of self-improvement.