Hi ,
I believe that self-love and self-acceptance are the foundations of change and growth and that in order to be successful at weight loss or recover from binge or emotional eating, you need to be compassionate, loving, and accepting of yourself as you struggle through the process of making long term changes.
These changes are challenging and involve numerous relapses, bad days, and setbacks as a natural part of the learning curve. If you’re harsh and critical with yourself, it’s just too easy to quit or get real down on yourself which leads you right back to the food.
Someone on my Facebook page asked me what the difference was between self-acceptance, self-love, and self-compassion. I thought this was an excellent question and so I’ve included the definitions below.
Self-Acceptance
“According to Shepard (1979), self-acceptance is an individual's satisfaction or happiness with oneself, and is thought to be necessary for good mental health. Self-acceptance involves self-understanding, a realistic, albeit subjective, awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses.”
~ Wikipedia
If you’re too focused on your weaknesses, you can’t see what you’re doing right. You will feel like a failure, no matter how well you’re doing. You also won’t be able to acknowledge the little victories that will lead you to your larger success.
If you only focus on your strengths, your weaknesses can bring about your failure as you won’t be able to see how they’re affecting you and you won’t make the necessary adjustments when called for. So, if you don’t acknowledge them, your weaknesses can actually sabotage your success. You can feel overconfident and may become complacent which can bring about your failure.
