Self-Acceptance: The Underrated but Important Concept

^{“Self-acceptance is such an underrated concept”}

_{“I am a growing human being realizing how my ego to validate myself is still high, but that’s okay. I know what I want, and today I’m going to keep on maintaining my ego and slowly let it die, one by one, until I can make room for another human being…”}

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In the past few weeks, the two quotes sourced from Twitter above had introduced and triggered the author to discover more about self-acceptance, which might be related to the struggle faced by most young adult individuals. Self-acceptance, in brief, could be defined as acceptance by an individual towards all of his/her attributes, both positive and negative. The term includes the entire concept of body acceptance, self-protection from negative criticism, and believing in his/her capacities and capabilities. Most people might not recognize the importance of self-acceptance – or even not realize the term itself, whereas it has a crucial role in someone’s mental health particularly during the transition from adolescence into adulthood and hence it is imperative to practice self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is important for some reasons. Self-acceptance brings several pivotal benefits to individuals. Self-acceptance would help individuals calm and manage themselves more effectively by validating their thoughts and emotions. The self-validation that initiates self-acceptance would further help individuals accept and better understand themselves, which links to a stronger identity and better self-control and confidence. Self-validation could also enable individuals to find wisdom and meaning in their mundane activities.

Individuals who have high self-acceptance are typically open with others and generally have positive feelings and thoughts about themselves, which in turn allow them to be successful – accomplish their plausible target in life, as well as lead them to feel fully functioning and contribute to society. Arguably, once individuals have high self-acceptance, it is easier to live their life to the fullest – knowing what they want and their self-potential in accordance to their capacities and capabilities as well as to find the meaning of their life and existence which further prevent them from having life or existential crisis.

Moreover, Neff et al. (2007) suggest that self-compassion – which has similar attributes to the term self-acceptance – might lessen the impact of anxiety when being confronted with an ego threat in a laboratory setting. Furthermore, it is found that rises in self-compassion occurring over a one-month interval are associated with higher psychological well-being. They show that a high level of self-acceptance could decline an individual’s focus on negative self aspects and encourage them to a higher possibility of involvement in acts of self-love.

As opposed to the benefit of having high self-acceptance, individuals with low self-acceptance might be more susceptible to getting overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, self-doubting, or low self-esteem, and to feel isolated, unsatisfied, and insufficient regardless of having everything that most people want and need. Moreover, they might easily get tempted to compare themselves with others’ achievements. This evokes the irony of them not realizing that they compare their shadow selves with others’ highlights. These conditions eventually may lead individuals’ psychological and mental well-being to suffer, impede their self-development in many aspects and hinder them from living their life to the fullest potential.

Furthermore, self-acceptance plausibly underlies the growth of several psychological aspects such as self-esteem, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-functioning, etc. The development of these aspects in individuals’ psychological state might determine their behaviors, attitudes, and responses toward their external world, life satisfaction, and existence as human-being. Thus, it is necessary to put attention and effort to obtain self-acceptance as it could further direct individuals to achieve a peaceful state of mind and true happiness sourced from their inner selves.

In conclusion, it should be emphasized that self-acceptance is important for the state of individuals’ mental and psychology as well as their growth and development as human-being. It is prudent to put more concern and attempt to have high self-acceptance.

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References
Harvard Health Blog
Huff Post
Neff, K. et al. (2007). Self-compassion and adaptive psychological functioning. Journal of Research in Personality 41, 139–154
Psychology Today

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