The Power of Acceptance

It can be so hard to learn to love and accept our flaws and weaknesses but without accepting them how can we change them?

Take some time to be with yourself and think about your flaws or perhaps things in your past you aren't proud of but just be with them. Don't judge them, but view them with compassion. Know that we all have wounds, while we don't want to be ruled by them accepting them and having compassion for them helps us to heal. Making peace with yourself before is the first step to healing.

You can't change what is in the past but you can get excited about your future and the future you. Beating yourself up will only lead to more of the old behaviours.

 If we let the inner critic go wild, we start to feel negative emotions, which leads to old familiar feelings which leads to old behaviours which then feeds the inner critic and so forth and the cycle continues.

Acceptance makes change possible. Accepting that alcohol causes most of the BS in your life. Accepting that you have a problem with alcohol and that it isn't your friend. Accepting that a relationship with alcohol for you may not lead to a future you that is living to your fullest potential.

Need a little help with acceptance? Here are a couple of exercises you can do...

Exercise 1:

Take some time out to sit for a few moments and just accept yourself as you are. Send yourself some love. Send your flaws some love. Embrace all that you know exactly where you should be in this moment. If you want to change can you do it from a place of love? Because you love you so much that you know that you deserve to be the best you can be.  

It's always better to change from a place of love than a place of guilt and shame. Guilt and shame will only keep the old cycle going.

Exercise 2:

Take a moment to reflect. When you think about future, think about what you need to do more of and what you need to do less of to become the person you want to be. Actually write it down. Trust me, it helps.