“I am human and imperfect and that’s OK”
Learning Self-Acceptance
No-one is perfect, and what a boring world it would be if we were! Learning to adapt and own our own imperfections can at times be challenging, but in doing so we are really stepping into the ultimate Self-Compassion.
This week we are going to look at parts of ourselves that we don’t particularly like (or at things we have done). If you think this may be to difficult for you, feel free to skip this week.
One of the most important things to remember all week as we do this is:
“This is just a Thought”
Just mindfully observe anything that is coming up for you, and when you experience a thought, notice it and label the thought as such - again “This is just a thought”. Remembering thoughts only have the power we give to them.
The goal of this is learning to be less self critical. We are living in extremely difficult times, we are facing challenges we have not had to before, and some that we feel extremely underprepared to tackle. Often we can start to be critical of the way we are handling ourselves, this meditation to to help with these unique challenges.
If you are struggling with identifying thoughts and emotions, use the ‘Leaves on a Stream,’ 3x this week and the below Acceptance Meditation 3x.
Meditation Practice
Practice 6 x this week
Journaling Practice
Daily
Hands down, this is my absolute favourite style of journaling. Whenever I need to work through a situation, or am feeling I need some help processing my thoughts this is my go to.
You are going to use this technique to help you work through this acceptance meditation and then some, diving deeper into your full thought process.
Every day (preferably first thing in the morning) you are going to write 3 full pages of anything. Unfiltered thoughts. You are not going to go back and read them (unless you really want to) so you do not have to make them pretty. You are writing honestly, not worrying about it ever being read, even by your future self. So let it all flow out.
At times you may think you have run out of things to write - and you think “I have nothing to write” - and that is exactly what you will write. Get every single thought that is in your mind onto that paper, no matter how strange, embarrassing or irrelevant.
We are not looking for poetic, for mind-blowing, enlightened writing, we are looking for honest thoughts.