How do I learn to like myself

Self-Acceptance Does Not Mean You Will Like All Your Parts

Often when people identify as struggling with anxiety and depression, it is because they believe there is an alternative way they should live and, thus, alternative feelings as a result. We are also living in times where if we feel a certain way, some of it is because we were made to believe we failed in some way. Notice what you believe about yourself when you start to feel anxious or depressed. Notice what thoughts perpetuate those identified feelings and ask yourself questions about what your body and mind are telling you, which you turn into good or bad. 

Self-acceptance work is tricky because it is upheld by the belief that you need to like all parts of yourself or deny the bad ones in order to finally be better. Here's a thought, acknowledge all parts of you and move throughout your day with this awareness that you have multiple parts, not all of them you will like. For example, there is a part of you that gets sad. Sadness is necessary for life; for some reason, we feel sad and withdraw from life. This is self-preservation. Often, we find our reliance on this part of ourselves a bit too much. The mind takes one part of us and chooses to rely on it, and then we form a habit of letting the sad part take control. 

So, we have established that there are beliefs about what we "should" do with anxious or depressed feelings and that there are many parts to us. Now notice that you as a person have thoughts and judgments about yourself and the world around you. Judgments are a way to summarize something as good or bad. When people struggle with depression, a real clinically measurable thing, where we lack in either a neurotransmitter or receptor or anxiety, the same thing, we judge that we have a feeling. Also, judgment is from our mind habit of saying "good" or "bad." I am proposing today, on the road to liking oneself, to notice that your mind judges, and thus you judge yourself. 

Here is an example of progress. You make a mistake at work or say something silly. Your mind then says, "that was dumb." You believe that what you said was dumb and then make every decision after that from this place of you are the kind of person who says dumb and unproductive things. Oh, what a miserable and less than place to live if you think that you are the person (all or nothing) that makes dumb and unproductive decisions. You, then, are a bad person, and why should you like yourself? You are bad. Instead of believing and living according to the thought that something was good or bad, first notice the judgment, take a step back, shrug your shoulders and say to your thoughts, "maybe." 

Live in the grey where you can see both sides and allow yourself to see that you made a decision, you said or did something, and maybe it wasn't as efficient as it could have been. Acknowledge that your choice may not be the best, accept that you did the best you could with the information you had at the time, and go forth. Thoughts are like leaves on a stream; they are allowed to pass. Your main problem is that you attach yourself to certain thoughts and then make decisions and judgments about yourself from those thoughts. 

Acknowledge the various parts of you, even the "bad" ones, and remember, thoughts are allowed to pass without you attaching to them. These things will help you acknowledge and therefore accept yourself, a step towards self-love.