Discover the transformative power of self-acceptance

Self-acceptance is a key transformative factor in personal growth. Embracing every part of your being — the good, the bad, and everything in-between — can lead to profound changes in your life. This focus on self-acceptance can build confidence, increase self-esteem, and foster a healthier relationship with oneself, ultimately leading to a less judgmental and more compassionate view of oneself.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

• Stand in front of a mirror and find three things to compliment about yourself. Embrace those qualities and appreciate them.
• Journal one thing you are grateful for about yourself every day. Focus on how you handled a situation, how you showed up, or what you did.
• Practice affirmations to promote self-acceptance.
• Repeat statements like I am enough just as I am today or Every part of me is worthy of love and acceptance.
• Try Tapping exercises to break negative thought patterns and promote self-acceptance. Use phrases like Even though I struggle with loving all of my body all of the time, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
• Break free from societal norms and embrace your own unique qualities and characteristics.
• Recognize that self-acceptance is essential for personal growth and making positive changes in your life.
• Listen to the Samantha Leith podcast for more inspiration and guidance on self-acceptance and personal development.
• Explore the How to Be Extraordinary program by Samantha Leith, which includes modules on confidence and the twelve core pieces of the confidence stack.
• Consider incorporating Tapping into your self-acceptance journey by researching and practicing Tapping exercises

Timestamped summary of this episode:

00:00:03 – Welcome to the Samantha Leith podcast. With me, Samantha Leith. I have a passion for exploring anything and everything that can help us to be extraordinary. Each week I’m going to dive into a topic and explore it extensively. Because if there’s something that makes for a better life, I want to learn about it and more importantly, share it.

00:00:23 – And hey, you may just get the OD song thrown in. There’ll be deep conversations, fun and frivolity helpful tools for you to add to your life straight away. Random musings about anything from coffee

00:00:43 – It’s personal development, but not as you know it.

00:00:50 – Welcome to episode 36 of the Samantha Leith podcast. We’re talking about self acceptance. We’re going to get into it. So there’s many things that help us build what I call and what many people call our confidence muscle. Small daily steps.

00:01:09 – Huge actions. Our thoughts. Our beliefs. Nature. Nurture.

00:01:12 – Genetics. Family. What happened today, the weather, what we’re wearing, the way someone looked at us on the street. So many things. And when I first put together the how to Be Extraordinary program in one of the modules on confidence, I came up with what I believe to be the twelve core pieces of the confidence stack.

00:01:36 – And I’m pretty sure no, I’m going to say I’m going to own it and say if you master these twelve pieces of the confidence stack, the world can just crumble around you and you’ll be okay. And if you master these twelve and you yourself start kind of failing in one or having a bit of a moment, you’ll still be okay because they support you. All of those pieces support that most confident you. Now I know earlier on in the Spencer podcast we did take the episodes of the show that spoke about the confidence stack and turned it into a podcast episode. But there was quite kind of I didn’t go into too much depth on each one.

00:02:17 – So for twelve weeks we will be doing the pieces of the confidence stack. Now, I’m not sure I want to mix it up a little bit, so I’m not going to do them twelve weeks in a row, but we will pop them in and out so you can get all of them. Okay? So today, as I said, it is all about self acceptance. We’re going to dive deep.

00:02:38 – We’ll take a deeper dive into self acceptance from the confidence stack. Now, I’ve struggled with my self acceptance over the years. Hoya, we all have. We’re human with what we do, okay? Which is why having all twelve of them secure means you’re going to be okay if something happens.

00:02:57 – But it’s not. A self acceptance is one of those funny things. Everything’s funny in life, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter who you are or what you think you are or how worthy you are or what you’ve done wrong or any of those things. Self acceptance is the same for someone who’s a doctor, to someone who’s a thief, to someone who’s an actor.

00:03:28 – We all need to accept ourselves. It’s what we have to do to get on with our lives. It’s what we have to do to grow. It’s what we have to do to make changes. If we are accepting of ourselves and go, well, I accept it however I think, or I accept it, and I would like to improve it.

00:03:52 – See, if we don’t accept ourselves and we go into the office, the world’s worst, terrible part of me going into that negative spiral, and that kind of self rejection will make you feel actually worse, we don’t want to do that. Okay. I would say over my lifetime, the things that have been hardest for me to accept about myself would be the struggles with my weight over the years, struggles financially over the years, changes in relationships, work, that kind of thing. And it’s interesting. The things that I’ve struggled with self acceptance wise are also probably those things that there’s a bit of a societal thing, kind of a societal norm, which I’ll dive into a little bit later about that part of myself or ourselves.

00:04:47 – Okay. It’s really quite interesting. So first, let’s define self acceptance, shall we? It’s loving and appreciating yourself wholly without picking and choosing. I really love this bit.

00:04:59 – The state is complete acceptance of oneself. True self acceptance is embracing who you are without any qualifications, conditions, or expectations. Seltzer said that in 2008. So it’s about your successes, your failures, your faults, your positive things, your lumps, your bumps, your talents, that funny hair that grows out of your eyebrow or the one that you got to pluck out of your chin at the traffic lights. Yes, I see you, my friends.

00:05:26 – It’s about all of you. If you’ve got that funny toe that you really don’t like people seeing, you got to accept that toad because it’s part of you. All right, maybe go get a pedicure as well. We still got to accept it. And accepting or addressing societal pressures that demand perfection and conformity and kind of say how we should be or who we should be or that you should value this and don’t value that, those kind of things can often knock our self acceptance to the side.

00:06:03 – Okay? So we want to not do that now. Our self acceptance has lots of layers to it, as I said, the ones I struggled with weight, money, work, to name a few and I’m not perfect now. I can honestly say I’m accepting of myself now, and I really do believe I’ve got self acceptance. Okay?

00:06:24 – And the things that I want to do aren’t about not accepting everything about myself. They’re about making changes and doing things because I want to make improvements and see things where I think it’s possible I don’t have to do it. I’m not any less because of those things. They’re things I want to add. I do still accept myself.

00:06:46 – Watts and all. Shouldn’t I say what’s and all because I don’t have any warts. So it’s a funny thing to say. So I set my goals based on things I want to achieve, not accepting myself. Does that make sense?

00:07:00 – I really, really hope that makes sense because it’s not just about your self acceptance. The fact that you accept yourself impacts so many things in your life, like a domino effect of if you accept yourself, then you’re going to blossom, you’re going to bloom, you’re going to radiate authenticity and confidence. And that can transform our lives in so many ways. You’re going to show up more charismatically. You’ll probably have more clarity about who you are and what you want to do in life.

00:07:37 – I’ll give you a couple of stats, okay? 80% of people over the age of 40 express regret over how they’ve treated themselves in the past. They’ve had those Judgy Mcjudge pants on about themselves, probably about other people as well. But 80% of people and I’ve got my hand up for that. Do you have your hand up for that?

00:08:02 – It’s crazy. We only get one of us.

00:08:08 – Unless anybody comes back to me with some scientific data saying, no, we get a couple of us. Yes, we change all ourselves over the years, technically, blah, blah, we can go down that argument as well. But we really are our only one person. So don’t regret how you treat yourself. Accept who you are.

00:08:32 – And people that have self acceptance, practice self acceptance that really do get who they are and they’re okay with it, have a much higher likelihood of achieving their goals. You kiddo. I think it’s about a 40% can’t remember where I read it higher likelihood of actually achieving their goals. Now, there’s lots of ways we can work on our self acceptance. I’m going to go through a few different things for you, but there’s a couple of really simple ones that I’ve mentioned before, but I’m going to mention again and just three exercises that you could do that will help you practice for self acceptance.

00:09:15 – So one of them is the mirror exercise. And that is where I want you to stand looking in the mirror. Like, really look at yourself. Don’t do the eyes darting around thinking, oh, I really don’t want to look at myself. If you want to stand there naked, go for it.

00:09:27 – If you want to be dressed, go for it. If you want to be in towel, doesn’t matter. But I want you to look at yourself in the mirror and and find three things to complement. Okay? I want you to embrace them.

00:09:40 – And again, I encourage you not to think you’ve got to stand in front of the mirror absolutely starkers and go, love every single part of my body because chances are. You might not be able to do that. Most people, when starting this kind of work, can’t do that. But you can look in the mirror and go, wow, I love my eyes. I really love my eyes.

00:10:04 – Maybe give a reason. I love my eyes because of the window out of my soul. I love my eyes because I get to look at beautiful moons that were like the ones that were out last. The ones don’t have more than one moon, do we? The one that was out last night.

00:10:19 – Okay, just find three things about your body and complement them. Okay, again, when you’re journaling, write one thing that you’re grateful about yourself for every day. So what’s one thing? Because often when we’re writing our gratitude, we’re thanking or thinking about being grateful for external things. Yes, sometimes I write things like, I’m really grateful for the coffee.

00:10:47 – But find three things that you’re grateful for about yourself. How you handled a situation, how you showed up, what you did. Maybe you’ll only be able to come up with one every day, maybe you’ll only come up with one a week. But start the practice. And if you can get more than one, awesome.

00:11:05 – Okay, but try for one. Just go and try for one. And I want you to practice some affirmations. And whether you’re into Affirmations or into Tapping, you can kind of do either. Okay?

00:11:17 – You practice an Affirmation, something like I am enough just as I am today. You could say something like every part of me is worthy of love and acceptance. Or just start with Every part of me is worthy I accept every part of me. Play around and have a bit of a tweak with what you want to actually say with that affirmation. And a bonus if you’re into Tapping.

00:11:45 – And I’ve been getting a little more into Tapping recently, so I might actually do a whole podcast about Tapping. And if you obviously this is an audio postcode podcast, so I can’t show you what I’m doing, but you can Google and have a look on YouTube about how to do Tapping exercises. And you could do something like even though I’m struggling to accept my stretch marks, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. Even though I struggle with loving all of my body all of the time, I deeply and completely love and accept myself. You could do something like that if you’re finding a part of who you are, whether it be physical or something you’re actually doing and tap on, that adding the part I deeply and completely love and accept myself as a really good way to break those little loops of what you’re thinking and to get into that acceptance.

00:12:47 – So give it a go. And yes, I will definitely do a podcast about Tapping. So the other thing I mentioned earlier was that breaking free of societal norms for self acceptance because often when we see something in ourselves or about ourselves that we don’t like it’s because we’re mirroring something that’s actually outside us. So let’s play with a fun example, shall we?

00:13:21 – I always liked making my daughter’s school lunches. Now she’s graduated, I’m like, oh, my gosh, I’m not making school lunches anymore. Now, can I tell you the number of times people said to me, it’s ridiculous that you make her school lunches. She should be made to make her own school lunches. What’s she going to do when she moves out of home?

00:13:43 – She won’t be able to make her own lunch. Now, none of that’s true. My daughter’s actually a very good cook. She’ll be able to make anything. But one of my high values was getting to be a kid, having breakfast with her, making her school lunch, having conversations about it.

00:14:01 – And I accepted that’s what I wanted to do, regardless of the fact that I copped a lot of flack from that, from people about that, from people a lot. And you might be listening to go to this and thinking, that’s just ridiculous. Samantha, why would you have ever thought not accepted yourself because of school lunches? Well, I can tell you I did. There were moments where I was like, am I being stupid?

00:14:27 – Am I just mothering her too much? Am I not giving her enough? Maybe I should be, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, it’s really high on my values to be doing this. So I’m breaking free of that, quote, unquote, what everyone thinks is normal by not making lunch, and I am going to do it.

00:14:46 – So I want you to really listen when you’re looking at one of the things about yourself and going, no, I don’t really accept that. I want you to reflect on your desire for that part of you, your want what you think is right for you in that not society’s expectations. And this is going to be a bigger podcast again on the list about breaking free from societal norms. But I’m just going to give you a couple of ways that you can help yourself in this. So the first one is really be self reflective.

00:15:21 – Like, what do you genuinely desire about this? What are you kind of like buying into that you don’t want to be? Maybe you need to educate yourself a little more. Maybe you need to surround yourself with positive people, like minded people in that particular area that you’re having a topsy turvy thought pattern with practice assertiveness in that area. That’s a biggie for areas that we don’t accept about ourselves, is practicing assertiveness in that area.

00:15:52 – And I want you to really, when you’re doing this kind of thing, be really self compassionate. Okay? The opposite, obviously, of self acceptance is self judgment. And when we do slip into that, it can be really heartbreaking for ourselves and it can set us back so far on our personal development journey. Or look, it can just set us back so far in anything.

00:16:24 – So I want you to really love yourself during those thoughts and practice a lot of self compassion, okay? Because breaking free from what is expected, what is the norm in those areas, and being able to accept yourself, lumps, bumps, warts, all bad things you did, good things you did, all that kind of stuff is really brave. And having the cajones to actually do that and really accept yourself and pave your own path against what other people are doing is a game changer and is really, really going to strengthen your confidence muscle, and it’s going to make that self acceptance part of your confidence sack so freaking strong. Because you know what? When we do judge ourselves based on society, what’s going on, trends, fashions, the latest poll on X, Y, or Z or even just your friends that are saying you really want to think about that, all those things are always changing.

00:17:35 – Those things are always changing, like the wind or the current or popping a metaphor of your own choosing. But when you’re really authentic to who you are and accepting of who you are, that remains strong. That’s like that cement pole holding up a phone line. When there’s a little bit of wind, it’s going to stay strong. Sure, a hurricane might come along and it might couple a little bit, but nine times out of ten, you’re going to remain strong.

00:18:06 – Okay? It will take a lot to push you off kilter when your self acceptance is really strong because it’s authentic. I feel like I just rang in a marathon talking about that.

00:18:23 – I’ve shared a couple of things with you that I on this podcast often, things that I’ve struggled with about myself. And I would really love to hear from you guys what you have struggled with either now or in the past, about your own self acceptance, what’s been part of that journey for you. And if one of these exercises has resonated with you and you’re taking it on and you’re standing in front of that mirror every day, I’d really love to hear about it. I really would. So tag me in a post or send me an email if you want to keep it private.

00:18:59 – Sharing that kind of stuff is important. Hearing other people’s stories about how they’ve done things, why they’ve done things, what the impact of those changes were, and it’s not just helpful for yourself, can help others. Like, it’s awesome. Really awesome. So do some of the exercises really question why you’re going into that judgment thing versus the acceptance of who you are now?

00:19:29 – You may want to I’ll give you a little bonus one here. And I did this exercise a few years ago. I wrote a list of all of the things about myself that not necessarily didn’t like, but that had a kind of a negative kind of taste in my mouth. Some of the things I’d done. Some of the things I hadn’t done.

00:19:54 – Some of them were physical. Some of them were things I’d said. There was a whole lot of stuff. And I wrote the list, and I didn’t sit down and go, I’ve got to get this list done in ten minutes. I kind of came and went and came and went and came and went.

00:20:07 – It probably took me ten days, I think, to actually do this exercise just because it was quite heavy. It was a really heavy heady list of looking at negative things about myself, and I didn’t want to get bogged down by that heaviness, so I chose to pop in and out of it. You may choose differently. And then with that list, I flipped for every negative thing. I made myself come up

00:20:46 – And by the time I’d finished, I don’t know, actually, to be honest, I cannot remember how many things I had on the list, and I tore the list up and burnt it when I finished it, so I can’t even go back and look. But for every negative thing, like I’d hurt somebody, I came up with something where I’d really helped somebody. Okay, that’s a great thing to do, because you start coming up with those positive things, and you think of more of them, and you’re like, oh, yeah, that’s really cool. Really encourage you to do that. If you want to go down that road, go for it.

00:21:25 – Take strength and courage, and I believe you can do it. I believe in you. Okay, so we leave you with a quote. And this is from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Why I couldn’t say that is beyond me when it’s written down in front of me.

00:21:44 – And the quote is, to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. And I’m going to add to that quote that it really, really is. The greatest gift you can give yourself is to be you and to really accept who you are. So have an extraordinary week, my friends. I will see you next week on the Samantha Leith podcast.

00:22:16 – Bye. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of The Samantha Leith Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the world of personal development and what’s possible for you, then I’d love to invite you to join the club. It’s my monthly membership, designed to guide and support you with the tools and the coaching you need to be extraordinary. Head on over to Samanthaleith.com theclub for more information.

00:22:42 – I’d love to see you on the inside.