Self-Acceptance and Loving Kindness

The more you nurture a feeling of loving kindness, the happier and calmer you will be.

Sounds simple, and indeed the above quotation from the Dalai Lama is spot on. Yet why is it such a challenge for many of us?

We are born, ‘trailing clouds of glory’ in the words of William Wordsworth, yet as we grow through childhood, we often enter the territory of self-doubt and self-judgement despite the best efforts of caregivers. Pervasive narratives of being unworthy, or unloved, or broken, gather credence, further conditioned by religious, family, and educational influences. Such narratives, alongside other experiences of suffering, undermine our sense of ease and well-being.

Hence, as mature adults, there is such value in cultivating a consistent sense of self-acceptance; one that allows us to mitigate the inner demons or conflicts that try to keep us in old habitual ways of being. None of us are perfect in these manifest human forms. We all have our idiosyncrasies but nevertheless we can open to the recognition that we too, like all other beings, deserve the healing gifts of acceptance and loving kindness. No doubt, this recognition can feel tenuous and fragile at times, and hence needs ongoing sustenance and patience.

Sustained yoga practice is invaluable in this regard. Again and again, coming back to the yoga mat or cushion, finding a sense of refuge there, and offering ourselves into our practice. Engaging in asana, pranayama, yoga nidra or meditation practice with a kindness and respect to self, even when the old narratives seek to undermine our self-esteem once again. Such ongoing practice can give us a little space from these habitual narratives and help to foster the inner springs of kindness and appreciation for self.  

The Buddhist practice of metta, or loving kindness, is one such practice – May I/you be filled with loving kindness, may I/you be well, may I/you be peaceful and at ease. There are other versions of the metta lines that can be just as valid, conveying the spirit of loving kindness both for ourselves, and for others equally.

Self-acceptance however does not mean giving up on our aspirations to grow into a fuller version of who we can be. Self-acceptance pertains to the present, being more at peace rather than in conflict with our present moment experience. Aspirations may start in the present but extend into the future. We can keep cultivating these aspirations while at the same time, guard against the self-undermining narratives in the present.

It is also important to state that self-acceptance is not about fighting or trying to ‘fix’ these narratives, but about patiently turning towards them with kindness, and trying to understand them more clearly. The journey towards loving kindness for self is one that willingly turns towards our suffering, endeavouring to learn from it, and open to ways of accepting, healing, or resolving it. In the words of Naomi Shihab Nye, from her poem Kindness:

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak it till your voice,

Catches the thread of all sorrows,

And you see the size of the cloth.

All of us, as humans, are bound to experience sorrow, loss, grief, and suffering in our lives. Often the tendency is to turn away from these aspects of our humanity, to find distractions or to close down in self-pity. Yet there is always a more compassionate option patiently awaiting us. With appropriate levels of support, we can learn to meet and even welcome our suffering, in the recognition that all living beings also experience suffering. We are not alone, and the more we can accept the whole of our personal story, the more a fertile soil is planted in which our self-kindness can grow.

The more we can enrich this inner soil of loving kindness through sustained practice, the more the following words of the Buddha can resonate within us:

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.