Robert Elias Najemy

Many people believe that they must be dissatisfied with themselves, or that they must reject themselves, or feel guilt or shame in order to have a motive for self-improvement or growth. They wonder, «If I accept and love myself as I am, what motive will I have for continuing to change, grow or improve? "

Accepting ourselves, as we are, is not a deterrent to continuing our efforts to learn, grow and improve ourselves. We can easily accept ourselves and still continue to improve our character and increase our knowledge.

The First Grader

Perhaps example of children in grade school will help us to understand this. These children in first grades of grade school do not reject themselves because they are not in a higher grade, or because they do not know as much, or are not as capable as those children in higher grades. They accept themselves as they are, and are happy with themselves with their present level of abilities and knowledge.

Yet, no child would accept remaining in same grade next year or year after year.

Part 2 of a 5 part series on creating a Positive Life Outlook

Robert Elias Najemy

Love is ultimate healing energy. We lack giving and receiving love.

Our feelings of isolation and loneliness breed mistrust, misunderstandings, competition, antagonism and whole series of health destroying emotions such as fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, bitterness, resentment etc. These negative emotions build up a personality complex of their own, and grow out of control destroying our health and relationships.

Learning to accept and love ourselves and others despite our faults, weaknesses, habits and mistakes is a powerful means for healing ourselves and others.

By developing more deeply rooted feelings of security and self-worth, we enable ourselves to understand, forgive and love others and ourselves in more and more situations.

The following thoughts may help us in that process.

We are all souls in a process of evolution.

We are all controlled by our ignorance and fear, which cause us to function in less than perfect ways. Thus, it is logical to accept and love ourselves and others even though we are not perfect and make mistakes.

This can be understood more clearly through some examples.

Two broken legs

If we know someone who has two broken legs and for this reason is unable to carry out his or her responsibilities or be very productive or creative, we automatically understand that they cannot do any more, because they have two broken legs.

What we fail to understand is that many of people who we perceive as lazy, irresponsible or negative and even immoral have in fact two of their "emotional legs" broken. They have seriously impaired emotional legs of "inner security" and feelings of "self-worth".

Their insecurity and feelings of self-doubt cause them to behave in negative ways. We, too, might be such persons who have had their inner strength handicapped by negative childhood experiences. Thus we would do well to understand and love ourselves and others even when we are not able to be who we would like to be.

Accepting ourselves does not mean that we do not recognize and admit our mistakes and weakness and seek to improve ourselves and free ourselves from those obstacles so that we can manifest our inner potential on all levels.

Also, accepting others does not mean that we do not assertively explain to them types of behavior that we need from them.

Half-finished Paintings