During the past 6 plus years my life has been filled with all things "recovering from my accident". For the most part things have progressed along well and as expected. But the one thing that always seemed to be tugging at me was how to get my life back to the way it was pre-accident. You see I have been associating who I was, what I had, and my career to having been fulfilled and happy. While the reality was - my happiness was not do to these external things, but because of the love I was able to express through these things. You see at that point in my life I had self-acceptance. Self-acceptance equates to self-love and that results in happiness.
What I have been working on this past year is accepting the who I am now, what I have now and realizing that in life there are many other paths than a corporate career. Each step I take in creating a life and me using the foundation of who I am at this moment the closer I am getting to feeling fulfilled and feeling that happiness I thought would be forever gone.
Self-acceptance is the key to happiness as with self-acceptance we are able to feel love for our self. Being able to accept and to love yourself frees you to be able to truly care and love others. Being able to love brings happiness.
"Great Celia, so how do we get to self-acceptance?" I hear you saying. For me it's taken a long time to learn to turn off the little voice (ego) that chatters away saying that I have failed, that I'm no longer the fashionista or outgoing person I was, just to mention a couple of the self-rejecting messages that have been holding me hostage. Whenever I sense ego is starting down a self-rejecting dialogue I try to remember all the fabulous things that have happened since my accident. Mr. G coming into my life, our furbabies, our beautiful homes we are able to share with our friends and family, my strength to keep moving forward and ability to use what has happened to inspire others create their own new life! the list goes on.
Here are some steps I have used to towards my own self-acceptance:
1) changing my thoughts from negative to positive (this does not happen over night - I'm still working hard on this one). i.e. If only I looked like I did pre-accident people would like me more (this is negative) INSTEAD , when this thought tries to come through - I quickly push it away and tell myself how far I have come from looking malnourished after my accident and how healthy I look now (positive - I'm healthy).
2) enjoying the wonderful things and people in my life at this moment ~ (I often flip through my Gratitude Journal and am reminded of all the wonderful things and people I'm thankful for).
3) positive affirmations POST-IT notes ~ on the bathroom mirror to remind me each morning ~ That I am the best "ME" there could ever be; I'm blessed to have another day; today is my day!
Self-acceptance is the key to happiness as with self-acceptance we are able to feel love for our self. Being able to accept and to love yourself frees you to be able to truly care and love others. Being able to love brings happiness.
"Great Celia, so how do we get to self-acceptance?" I hear you saying. For me it's taken a long time to learn to turn off the little voice (ego) that chatters away saying that I have failed, that I'm no longer the fashionista or outgoing person I was, just to mention a couple of the self-rejecting messages that have been holding me hostage. Whenever I sense ego is starting down a self-rejecting dialogue I try to remember all the fabulous things that have happened since my accident. Mr. G coming into my life, our furbabies, our beautiful homes we are able to share with our friends and family, my strength to keep moving forward and ability to use what has happened to inspire others create their own new life! the list goes on.Here are some steps I have used to towards my own self-acceptance:
1) changing my thoughts from negative to positive (this does not happen over night - I'm still working hard on this one). i.e. If only I looked like I did pre-accident people would like me more (this is negative) INSTEAD , when this thought tries to come through - I quickly push it away and tell myself how far I have come from looking malnourished after my accident and how healthy I look now (positive - I'm healthy).
2) enjoying the wonderful things and people in my life at this moment ~ (I often flip through my Gratitude Journal and am reminded of all the wonderful things and people I'm thankful for).
3) positive affirmations POST-IT notes ~ on the bathroom mirror to remind me each morning ~ That I am the best "ME" there could ever be; I'm blessed to have another day; today is my day!
What are you doing to be in a state of Happiness?
