My intention is to be authentic with you. So I’m not going to continue to encourage you to love and accept yourself without being transparent. In reality, we should all love and accept ourselves, however it’s something most of us, including myself, can struggle with on occasion. But that’s okay. You’re not always going to be perfect. You’re not always going to get it right. And you won’t always be all love and light. But the truth is, accepting and bridging your darkness and light is the only way to create harmony between them. Embracing all sides of yourself, is how you find the sense of balance within you that enables you to live in a way that feels whole, true, and complete. Here are 9 authentic tips that I use, to help you embrace all sides of yourself, and reclaim your personal power.
1. Stop Rejecting Yourself
When you reject parts of yourself, you fragment yourself. This fragmentation forces you to live in one extreme or the other. It creates the sense that something is missing. Because rather than accept these parts of yourself, you reject and project what you are unwilling to face. These are typically the traits of other people that you either worship, or abhor; because you dissociated with those same energies within yourself.
2. Accept What You Project
Pay attention to how you feel and react around other people. If there’s a quality within someone else that you’re jealous of or absolutely love, that’s a part of you longing to be acknowledged and integrated. Similarly, if you see a quality in someone that you absolutely cannot stand, that’s also a part of you that needs to be acknowledged and accepted. Chances are, you’re rejecting those same traits within yourself, so you project them outwards and reject them when you confront them within others. Or, you might project it and want to possess it, which is typically what happens when you love or envy qualities in other people. That’s another way a shadow within you is pushing you to see it and integrate it. People typically can’t accept qualities in others that they accept within themselves.
3. Accept Imbalance
No, you’re not always going to be in balance between your darkness and light. Part of life is learning to accept and embrace the imbalance as a part of human nature. So instead, strive to create balance where there is none, and create space for all that exists within.
4. Be Compassionate With Yourself
Part of being human is experiencing a whole range of emotions, not just a select and pleasant few. So how can you hold space to accept both parts of yourself and express them in a healthy way? I think the key is primarily acceptance, expression, and compassion. Compassion enables you to approach the darker parts of you with curiosity, and a desire to understand. You can open yourself up to understand, when you let yourself be vulnerable in a safe space. This gives you the chance to accept yourself, and express those parts of you as valid and acceptable, without shame. Because the truth is we all have parts of ourselves or our past that we struggle with, but it doesn’t have to be a struggle if you allow yourself to let go of resistance. Resistance and rejection is what creates disharmony within you. So try to release that, and let things flow.
5. Feel It to Heal It
This can be an extremely healing and transformative process, because most of us internalize and reject the aspects of us that we were taught are not okay. However, this stage of acceptance and self validation is so important, because it allows our emotions to flow in an uninhibited way. This relieves the internal distress and back pressure you create by repressing what you feel. And if you ain’t feeling, you ain’t healing. So it’s important, because that pressure builds up overtime. And inevitably, it causes you to snap and express the things you needed to express, but typically in less pleasant or unhealthy ways. Because now, rather than you controlling it, it’s controlling you. That’s when you can get hurt, or hurt others unintentionally. Don’t let the wounded parts of you drive your behavior and create your reality.
6. Don’t Let Your Wounds Control You
Quite frankly, this is when shit goes south. When your fears control you, they typically look for situations that keep you in the “safe” zone that’s familiar. Your fear based self is most comfortable confronting what it already knows whether it’s good for you or not. So whether you feel most “safe” by lashing out at others in order to project rather than face your emotions, that’s what your wounded self is gonna do. If you feel most “safe” using food, drugs, or alcohol to numb or “cope” with feelings and trauma, then this is what your fear based self is gonna do. Regardless, it creates a toxic cycle of self undoing that gets you nowhere, unless you decide to break the cycle.
7. Be Real With Yourself
You have to be honest with yourself. Be honest about how you feel, and be bold enough to face, accept, and love the dark parts of you as much as the light. Work with these energies in a healthy and conducive way. Express them in a way that allows you to process those feelings, or possibly create positive change and solutions. Self love doesn’t just mean loving the fun parts of you on good days. It means loving all of you, and being willing to show up for the parts that need extra healing. Don’t just shit on them and turn the other way. Darkness can be fertile, it doesn’t have to be toxic.
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
Rumi
8. Reclaim Your Power
Plenty of people that learned to accept and transform from their pain or trauma, have gone on to do incredible things in the world. For instance, Oprah, Albert Einstein, and Kris Carr. But they did this after deciding to use their challenges as catalysts for growth. You are more than just your experiences, and you don’t have to be limited by your pain. Power lies in recognizing and embracing your truth, not denying it. That’s when the freedom and healing can begin. Because until you stop allowing your wounds to control you, you allow yourself to remain shackled by them. But that is a choice.
I’m not saying it’s easy. However, you do not have to live a disempowered life. That is not how you have to stay, and that is not the only way you can function. It might be the only way you knew how for a while, but that’s not how you have to continue to move forward. There is always another way and another option. Whether that shift start with you just having a willingness to recognize this might not be the best way, or the willingness to accept the trauma as a part of your story. This can be the mental shift that changes your life for the better.
9. Make A Decision
So you decide, what relationship do you want to have with your darkness? Will you let this continue to limit you or will this be transformed into a catalyst for your greatest freedom and strength? You decide. But I encourage you to choose the latter, because learning how to live and grow from your pain, can be the change that transforms your life for the better and potentially the lives of many more.
Journal Prompts
- Where are you now with your relationship to your dark side?
- Are you approaching it with compassion and a desire to heal?
- Or are you giving your power away and letting it call the shots and control your behavior?
You decide, but you always have the power to make a change. Own it.
Love, Simone.
