When the party is over, the house deserted, and you are alone with yourself, how do you feel? Are you glad to be you and are not afraid of what discoveries you have uncovered about you when amidst a group of people? If so, you are relatively normal and you know you are not the greatest host or hostess in the world, but you have fulfilled an obligation and that’s what is important. You talked too much, interrupted a few conversations when you should have listened and you could have been more attentive to a few of the guests.
All in all, however, you know you did the best you could, and all your intentions were good. You are not a party person, but once in a while you must invite people in if you expect invitations from them. You are at peace with yourself and fully understand you are friendly with yourself and are accepting of who you are; while not locking any of the doors to self-discovery.
Being accepting of your self is embracing all of you while trying to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative” as the old song goes. You know you are not perfect, but you are the human being created by God, and He loves you, therefore you must. To hate yourself or wish you were someone else would be to say you disapprove of what He does, and of course you don’t. You have what you have to work with and that is that. It does no good to look back in anger and rehash over and over what has gone wrong in your life.
It is far healthier to look back only when it benefits what is happening now, today, to allow it to help you with your trials and problems tomorrow. Don’t be a person that looks back at the good old times and, in doing so, blindly bypass all the good that is yours today. Were you truly honest with yourself you would find that the good old times were not so good. Your system was designed to file away those unpleasant experiences of the past, although the traumatic parts can’t be hidden, but in time do tend to fade. This is so you can learn and grow and develop into the person you are.
Stunted emotional growth results when children grow physically without mentally accepting themselves and having correspondingly emotional healthy emotions. Instead of normal adolescents, quizzical, seeking, learning how to be adults, a bunch of disruptive children grow in years, while lagging behind emotionally. Accepting one’s flaws and learning to deal with them, while also accepting one’s creative gifts and using them wisely, is to have a healthy respect of one’s self.
This does not come easy, but it something worth working today. It makes life more pleasant for everyone around, including most of all, the person that lives with themselves day in and day out. A healthy person will not use drugs and alcohol to get away from the thoughts and truths that keep disrupting their pleasure. The will give them time and will take the trouble to admit to them, and will deal with them daily. Soon they will begin to shrink and will become less disturbing. In fact, some may become stepping stones toward self-realization.
