How to accept your shortcomings and love yourself? Three-step meditation In the modern world, personal growth and spiritual development are in the foreground. From everywhere they shout “Love yourself, and the whole world will love you!” This phrase sounds optimistic and easy. However, what does “love yourself” mean? What is self-love? And how can we achieve it if, as it seems to us, we consist exclusively of shortcomings? Let's figure it out in order. What is the connection between self-esteem and self-love? Self-esteem is how a person evaluates himself and how he feels about his strengths and weaknesses. It is closely related to self-love. This is why adequate self-esteem is impossible without self-love. Self-love is often confused with narcissism and selfishness. And in vain! They have nothing in common. Narcissism is open narcissism, a demonstration of one’s ego to others for the sake of satisfying one’s own vanity, selfishness is unauthorized self-worship, and self-love is the acceptance of all one’s emotions and fears, the ability to hear one’s true desires, respect for one’s needs. True self-love is a natural and humble sense of self. It gives lightness, harmony with oneself and confidence in oneself and one’s abilities. A person who loves himself, respects and respects other people's boundaries, does not manipulate others, focuses on his strengths and knows how to notice others. People around him are drawn to such a person because he radiates love, warmth and kindness. Why is it important to accept yourself? It is difficult for a person who does not love himself enough or does not love himself at all to live to the fullest. Low self-esteem, like iron shackles, binds him hand and foot and limits his movements. He does not dare to send a resume for a good job because he doubts his success, has difficulty meeting others because of his embarrassment, denies himself his true desires because he considers himself unworthy of fulfilling his cherished desires. Precisely in order to meet with a smile every day, to achieve your goals, to meet people with ease, you need to accept and love the most dear person - yourself. If it so happens that you don’t love yourself, then this can be corrected. And even necessary. The following three-step meditation will help you with this. Step one. Revision Make a list of everything you don’t like about yourself. Habits, body parts, character traits - include in the list everything that you are not happy with about yourself. Do you like to bite your nails and can't stop this habit? Write. Are you embarrassed by your ears being too big or too small? Write. Do you feel shy in the company of unfamiliar people? Write too. If you can't make a list, then turn to your past. Remember the times for which you were ashamed of yourself. How did you behave? What words were spoken? What qualities did you show? Write down every little detail. Then, when you're done, look carefully at your list. Answer honestly: what emotions do you experience when looking at your shortcomings? Anger? Sadness? Disgust? Whatever you feel, it is precisely this state that you increase in yourself when you think about yourself in a negative way. As soon as you finish with the first step, proceed to the second. Step two. Ships of Emotions Take any item from the list. For example, you don't like the shape of your nose. Sit up straight, completely relax, close your eyes and mentally see yourself from the outside. Take a close look at your nose. What emotions are you experiencing? Remember each one. Then imagine yourself on the seashore, along which ships are sailing. Imagine that each ship is one emotion that you feel when you see your nose in the mirror. Don’t think about where they are coming from and where they are sailing, what they have in their hold and who their captain is. Let every sea vessel pass you by. Follow them with your gaze, imagine how the negative emotion it “carries” floats away along with each ship. To consolidate the effect, do this exercise with all the items on your list and move on to!