Self-acceptance: What you gain, when you show yourself as you really are - and what you stand to lose

Most of my yearsI wanted to be someone else. If I only change two or three things about myself,thenI will meet true love. If I just try a little harder,thenI'll finally be the type of mother I've read about everywhere. If I just seemed a little more entertaining,thenwill these or those people finally like me. As a result, I adapted for years, for my manyand thoughts ashamed and often uncomfortable in and with myself.

Today I am 34 years old and it took almost as long until I was finally able to be the person that I always had inside me - and above all: the person I am today. What I find fundamental on the journey to more self-acceptance and what you can lose (and gain!) if you show yourself as you really are:

Accepting yourself does not mean liking everything and every quality about yourself. Rather, it means that you accept yourself in your entirety and everything that goes with it. You can accept yourself and still change things again and again and work with and on yourself. And: Accepting yourself is not a one-time decision, but rather a journey. There will always be days when you don't feel good about yourself. That's life and anyone who says otherwise is not being honest in my opinion.

Self-acceptance is like a muscle that you train and it gets stronger and stronger over time. The best thing about it for me personally is that you constantly learn more about yourself and understand yourself better.

“I maintain that it is the greatest and most fervent wish of every human being to be seen and loved - exactly as you are. With all the scars and old injuries, with all the shadows and ghosts of the past. And at the same time, and this is the dilemma, this is exactly what we are all so terribly afraid of. “We are afraid of being rejected and rejected if we show ourselves as we really are,” says presenter and author Kathie Kleff, opening episode 175 “Of Visibility and Vulnerability” of her podcast “Get Happy!”. For me, this sums up wonderfully why we often hide behind protective walls and behavioral patterns.

In order not to judge yourself for the fact that at times you may not show yourself with all that you are: every behavior you have has arisen for a specific reason and basically wants to protect us. In order to be able to change behavior that no longer serves you, at least based on everything I have learned about psychology in the past few years, there is no way around accepting your previous actions and trying to understand them. “I believe that the topics that are put in our path are there to be unpacked,” says Lotta Katharina Laabs, coach and mentor, in this context in a podcast conversation with Kathie Kleff.

You can and should make your own vulnerability visible exactly when you are ready for it. It's not about putting yourself underor sees showing yourself as a challenge. “It takes maturity, grounding and the right moment to stand up for yourself and accept yourself,” says Lotta Katharina Laabs.

What can you lose if you no longer hide but show what you are - with all the dark and sunny sides? People who don't want or can't deal with this visibility and the feelings associated with it. Interpreting vulnerability, for whatever personal reasons, as inadequacy. The loss of these people can hurt. But it is also liberating because it was often the very people in front of whom one did not want to show oneself authentically, for example for fear of being judged. You may also initially feel disorientated on your journey. “Before the new comes, there first comes the heavy, dark, where you don’t know where you belong,” says Lotta Katharina Laabs in the podcast.

“If you open something and show it, people can resonate,” says Laabs. “A big pain in my life was that I thought I was a penguin and I couldn’t find the other penguins,” she continues. By showing yourself, you have the opportunity to exchange ideas with people who have also set out on a path. Who are also there or have started to show themselves. All of themwant to have in life. And don't judge you for everything you are.

Maybe this leads to the circle of people you surround yourself with becoming smaller. In my opinion, enduring this is also part of the journey to yourself - especially if you have lived outside rather than inside for a long time. But sometimes the company of one person who really and truly sees is so much more fulfilling than a room full of people who close their eyes.

Being visible does not mean telling everyone your story down to the smallest detail. It also doesn't mean that you want to make a name for yourself with your experience or make yourself the center of attention. It simply means accepting who you are. Not to hide as much as possible. Largely because it's never about perfection, but about the process.

“Everything in me and about me is allowed to be. This is a form of honesty with yourself,” says Lotta Katharina Laabs. So you open your heart. For a long time I thought that this made you vulnerable. Maybe that's the case, but what matters most to me is that you open the door to people who have different stories, but who feel very similar to yourself. The support, depth and connection that can arise from this is for me, which makes relationships with others, and somehow life, infinitely valuable and real.