Empowering Forces by Ima Ortega

September 2010

SELF-ACCEPTANCE VS PERSONAL GROWTH

One of the most important aspects to personal growth is acceptance of self.
Without the acceptance of self, we are unable to truly understand and appreciate all of the wonderful characteristics that make up who we truly have become.

I really believe that when we accept the way we are in the present moment, we are able to understand our short comings and our strengths, as well as their origins. We are then able to stop and re-think certain personality traits or characteristics that have been working against our personal growth. When we accept this reality, we become vulnerable, forgiving, understanding and more compassionate with ourselves and by extension to others. Judgments, self-imposed pressure, and comparing ourselves to others only cloud the reality we created.

Within this paradigm it is only natural that the conflict between self-acceptance and growth would arise.  When you start understanding and analyzing some of your most important character traits, then you have the key to real personal growth. During this analysis, ask yourself these questions:  How does your current reality compare with the life you always wanted?  What would you change? Do you want more wealth?  Can you be happier?  How is your health? And finally and most profoundly, why haven’t you achieved these goals?

Now you have to decide how much you want to push things to improve in as you progress through life.  You can accept your current position as adequate and opt to simply maintain it, or you can strive to achieve something greater.  You can also adopt the belief that your life is largely out of your control, in which case your best bet would be to learn to accept whatever outcomes you experience, regardless of how you might rate their level of quality.

When we are in the process of accepting who we are, we cannot let our self-esteem and our identity be defined by external outcomes.  The solution is in the process… to avoid failure, it’s important to keep your self-identity and social position, separate. The more you understand and accept that your current reality as self created, the more motivation there is to grow, without your ego getting in the way.

We all experience setbacks and failure, if you’re trying hard enough, it’s only a matter of time.  So if your self-esteem is tied to your social position, then it would only make sense that if your position was to decline, then your self-esteem would follow. When you maintain these two separately and not dependant upon one another, and a decline happens in one or the other, you can understand it better and take the steps to correct it. And in this process, be able to pull yourself out of the decline with compassion and understanding, and even though you may end up being driven at times and complacent at others, the more you push yourself towards personal growth, the less satisfaction you derive from your current position.

What’s most important is to find your inner peace and give yourself every chance to be who you want to be.

With love
Ima

www.ortega.ca