Dear Daughter - Learn To Love and Accept Yourself
Dear Daughter - Learn To Love and Accept Yourself
You need to love and accept yourself first, if you want others to love and accept you. There is no skipping this step!
Dear daughter,
Relationships are complicated, but none is more complex than your relationship with yourself.
How do you see yourself?
Do you like what you see in the mirror?
Do you accept all your self-perceived flaws?
Can you honestly say that you completely love and accept yourself as you are right now?
A positive answer to these questions is essential in determining your love life. I know it sounds weird, but it’s true. How can you expect others to like, love, and accept you if you can’t do it yourself?
There are many layers to this self-image question.
Here’s another point to think about - if you judge yourself harshly, chances are overwhelming that you judge others just as, if not more, harshly.
This judging of others attracts other people who have a habit of nonacceptance and judging, and you get tangled into a neverending mess of failed relationships—one after another, seemingly without cause. I’ve been there. I know it first hand.
I can tell you from personal experience that I couldn’t accept certain parts of myself for the longest time. I felt ashamed. I felt less for being a certain way. Most boys and men weren’t like me. I perceived them as better looking. It was a natural thing. There is nothing permanent one can do about it. There is only one choice - to accept and learn to love it yourself.
For the longest time, I detested that part of me, and I attracted women into my life who found it unattractive. I kept on pretending to be someone I was not to please them. I felt terrible about myself. I hid. I managed. I masked. And yet, I was never good enough. These women were never going to like the whole me. I attracted the wrong kind of partners into my life.
One day, I realized that this is no way to live.
I was fed up with pretending to be something and someone I was not. I was tired of always trying to please someone else by changing myself. It felt fake. It was exhausting. I hated it, and I hated myself.
So I said to myself - NO MORE! I’m done with that.
I’ve decided, and it was a conscious decision, to love and accept myself - the whole self - just as I am. I have also decided that the next woman in my life will not only accept this part of me but like it. Not just like it - love it!
I have written it all down. I made a list of how I wanted my next partner to make me feel. I wrote down specifics about her. What I wanted her to be like, and what I wanted her to love about me. I have firmly decided that I am done playing these games. Either I find someone who will love and accept me for who and what I am, or I will be alone.
Something changed as I made this decision.
I could feel it. It was tangible. I felt strong, attractive, and powerful. I felt free from my self-opression. I felt that I had finally accepted myself and learned to love myself for who and what I am.
Most of the time, these changes don’t happen overnight. You have to work on your self-love. But for me, that decision did the trick. The build-up to it was long and painful, but after I had decided enough was enough, I felt an instant change. I was transformed.
Can you guess what happened next?
In a matter of weeks, there she was. The woman who not only accepted that side of me but liked it, craved it, loved it! My next girlfriend adored me like none before her. The thing that bothered the girls before was the thing she loved most about me. Truly. Honestly. It’s funny how that works.
You might have some bodily features you’re not too proud of. Most of us do. We are our own worst critics. Other people tend to see us more favorably than we see ourselves, with a few rare cocky exceptions out there. It’s because we focus on the flaws, not the good parts. It’s all perfectly normal and ridiculous at the same time.
It’s a good thing that we are all so very different.
It also means we have vastly different tastes. Beauty and attraction are hardly universal, my darling. We all like other things about people, and there is someone out there for each and every one of us.
The question is not whether that is possible or whether they exist. It’s whether we are able to love and accept ourselves, believe they will find us, and open ourselves to love.
How do you know if you love and accept yourself?
How do you know if you are open to being loved? An answer to these three questions will tell you all you need to know:
Do you have people in your life who love and accept you?
Can you look yourself in the mirror and honestly say you like, love, and accept every part of yourself?
Do you find yourself judging other people and their looks?
Here are a few facts for you, my darling:
We are all different. While some may be more universally attractive and accepted as beautiful, we can all be someone’s special person.
You only ever need one person to like and accept you for who you are. Well, two. Yourself and one more. Just one, among billions of possible candidates. They’re out there. You can bet on that.
If you don’t love and accept yourself, you cannot expect others to love and accept you. It doesn’t work that way. Always start with yourself! The rest will take care of itself.
You attract what you expect and believe into your life. This is especially true for relationships. If you expect to be disliked and mistreated, you will be. If you expect and demand to be loved and adored, you will be. You’re the determining factor, not the other person.
You have to open yourself up to new people and new relationships if you want to experience them. Many people are completely closed off, and even if their ideal partner comes, they won’t give them a chance. They wouldn’t even notice their affection.
Make a decision that you are ready to be loved. Choose to love and accept yourself. Stop judging other people and give them a chance. Give love to receive love. And the same goes for acceptance and openness.
Visualize what you want from a relationship - focus on how you want to feel. If you’re single, list everything important to you in your partner and relationship. Skip the superficial parts. They don’t matter. Focus on how they will make you feel and how it will feel to be with your ideal mate. See it, feel it, touch it, smell it in your mind, and it will show up in your life.
Take good care of yourself
My darling, I've been telling you to love and accept yourself as you are. Now, I’m going to encourage you to get yourself in better shape. Begin working out, eat better, and form some healthy habits. You will feel and look even better. Take good care of yourself: your mind and your body.
For health reasons first, but there is no denying that being healthier, fitter, and sexier will feel good. And when you feel good, you attract more people, things, and situations that feel good into your life. The more attractive you feel, therefore, the more you like and accept yourself, the more others will find you attractive. It starts with you, and the simplest way to feel good about your body is to work it.
I love and accept you as you are, my darling.
Always have. Always will. I just wished that you could see yourself from my eyes. You would love yourself immensely in the blink of an eye.
Remember - you deserve to be loved. You deserve to be adored. You deserve to be accepted as you are. You, my darling girl, deserve the best and only the best. And only you can give that to yourself.
Love, Dad.
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