Why you become happier when you accept yourself

These days, it’s easy to feel like we aren’t enough as we are.

Just a quick scroll on social media shows people who seem to have it all—flawless makeup, designer outfits, fame, and followers. It’s no wonder we start feeling like we’re falling short, like there is a checklist of things we need to measure up to.

So we turn to external solutions in order to “fix” ourselves:
Like getting plastic surgery to fit conventional beauty standards,
Or changing how we speak or express ourselves to gain more “likes”,
Or diving into endless personal development books, hoping to become “better.”

And maybe, to some extent, these efforts may have brought you some success. Perhaps you’ve seen changes in your relationships, wealth, or career. Maybe it even feels like you’ve “made it.”

But deep down, there might still be this lingering feeling that it’s not enough.
That you’re not enough.
That you don’t have enough.

So, the cycle continues. Doing more. Achieving more. Striving to be more. Yet beneath it all, there’s an unease—a quiet restlessness, a sense of dissatisfaction and wanting of “more.”.

I understand this inner struggle because I’ve been there too. For sensitive souls like us, this constant striving can feel exhausting, unfulfilling, and deeply tiring.

But what I want to offer you today, my love, is what has changed my life—and the lives of my clients—for the better, from the inside out.

And I don’t just mean that as in saying “You will finally have a million followers, the private jets, the celebrity endorsements” and all that. (Because these things will still feel empty if they are not true to us).

But truly, to wake up every day with gratitude for simply being alive.
To feel thankful for everything that YOU are (instead of trying to be someone else).
To feel deep appreciation to God/the Divine for your existence.

With a kind of peace where you wouldn’t choose to be anyone but yourself..

It’s the greatest gift that you can ever give yourself.
And that is the medicine of self-acceptance. 

Why it’s hard to accept yourself

I know that when I mention the word self-acceptance, it might stir some alarm bells in your mind, at first.
With thoughts like:

• “If I accept my failures, I’ll become content and lose my drive to improve.”

• “If I accept my awkwardness, I’ll just become more awkward, and people will reject me.”

This fear is natural. The mind, programmed by years of socialization and survival instincts, often resists the idea of self-acceptance. It’s used to operating from fear, worry, frustration (and not accepting yourself) to get things done.

If you grew up in an environment where you were pushed to excel—perhaps to avoid accepting being “average” or to meet someone else’s expectations—this resistance can feel even stronger. (I deeply relate to this. Growing up in an environment shaped by my Asian parents’ fear of mediocrity, I absorbed those same pressures and fears myself.)

But here’s the truth, my love: our programmed mind is skilled at surviving, but it doesn’t know how to thrive. It knows how to achieve, hustle, and fight out of fear, but it doesn’t understand the path to being fulfilled, being fully alive.

Not accepting ourselves is like holding our breath. In the short term, it might give us a burst of energy to push through challenges and excel. But eventually, we’re left gasping for air, depleted, and unable to trudge onward.

Self-acceptance, on the other hand, is like finally letting ourselves breathe. It’s a gentle “yes” to life, a “yes” to ourselves, a “yes” to love. 

It’s an act of softly opening the door of our hearts so that you can finally be one with all. Because with self-acceptance, you are accepting the life force that makes you YOU, just like how this life force makes the forests, the flowers, the sun, the birds, the trees. 

You are letting yourself see that you are not a separate personal identity that is flawed and requires “fixing”, but are one with every wonder and beauty that ever exists and will ever exist. You are seeing the Unity underneath it all, which is the essence of ever-present joy, serenity, and bliss.

Not only that, self acceptance is also the medicine that allows you to experience how freeing and liberating it is to live. As in:

The gift of self acceptance

1). No longer needing validation from others

When we haven’t accepted ourselves, it’s common to feel like there is a dire “need” for people to accept us– which means for them to see us, like us, approve us. So with anything we do, we tend to question what other people would want from us, rather than what we truly want and deeply desire.

So in terms of business/career, this craving for validation can look like overcommitting and overextending yourself to projects/responsibilities so that other people can see your “value.” But deep down, these responsibilities and chore may feel like a “chore” rather than something that lights up your soul. So in essence, when we need outside validation, we say yes to things that don’t truly align to us, therein leading to burnout, exhaustion, and/or being unfulfilled by the work we do.

Similarly, when we need validation from others in relationships (because we haven’t accepted ourselves), this can look like committing to a marriage/a situationship that may not actually be the highest to our soul. We end up ignoring our own needs just to keep a dwindling relationship going, at the expense of our own happiness. 

OR it can look like being afraid of commitment because we are afraid others may end up seeing our flaws and imperfections. Either way, our relationships feel like something we have to control/manage to make it “right” instead of letting ourselves be loved for who we are. And we can only begin the experience of unconditional love, first through accepting ourselves. 

2). No longer judging yourself

Another thing is, whenever there are parts of us that we still don’t like/accept ourselves about ourselves, it can feel like there is a loudspeaker in your head that’s constantly judging us. 

I used to have this constant mental chatter about how I’m not “good enough” too in the past. Turns out, it was because I hadn’t accepted parts of myself that were a “failure,” “unpopular,” and “average.” Because they were never accepted by my parents growing up, these parts (i.e. the shadow aspects of me) continued to torture me mentally inside, one of which is through our own worst self-critics. 

However, when you accept these parts of you as you, the mental chatter finally comes to a halt. You feel a sense of ease, because now you can just BE, and exist peacefully, without your mind beating you up 24/7 on how you are not doing things “right.” It’s the foundation of lasting joy and fulfillment because rather than having your head be filled with judgements about you, you are seeing life in its whole vastness, depth, and totality.

3). No longer getting triggered

Whenever we haven’t accepted ourselves, I’ve also found that it’s easy for us to be easily triggered by other people around us. This is even more so for sensitive souls who naturally tend to pick up the negative intentions/energies of other people. These triggers can therefore disrupt our sense of peace as they can look like: 

• Feeling personally “attacked” by people who judge/comment/give us feedback

• Feeling overwhelmed by potential conflict or anger from others

• Feeling that others are too harsh and are insensitive to our needs/desires

• Feeling like other people don’t like us/ understand us

And if you ever experience things like such, know that accepting yourself (including how you feel and what you didn’t like about others) may be the first step to healing– so you can experience inner peace and fulfillment, my dear. 

In fact, even me, after years and years of spiritual work, felt this recently when I found myself resisting myself to exude a bold, sharp, direct masculine energy in my business. And I found that it was because I once felt hurt/ not felt seen/understood (i.e. triggered) by the wounded masculine energy in my past business coaches. This trigger I had toward masculine energy, then translated to me being vague and elusive in my own marketing, and therefore inconsistent sales. 

The point is to say, only through self acceptance (through also accepting the shadow aspect in others) did I find unconditional peace within me, that exists no matter how I show up in the world– that is, whether I exude the firmness of masculine or softness of feminine energy.

4). No longer hiding yourself

Kind of related to my earlier point (i.e. on showing up as who we are) is that self-acceptance also means no longer repressing who we actually are. 

That is because whenever we are not accepting ourselves, it means we feel unsafe to express an aspect of us. We feel like other people may judge us, criticize us, or shut us down. But the thing though, my love, is that as long as we are not accepting that part of ourselves (because we are afraid of how other people would respond to us), we are also missing out on the gift that that specific “part” has to offer. 

For example, if you believe that being “messy” is a bad thing, you will try to be extra polished in everything you do and be a perfectionist. But this tendency to only show this “perfect” side of you to others can end up creating a one-sidedness in you where you experience the shadow aspects (meaning the darkness) of being perfect while missing out on the beauty of being “messy.” 

For instance, it can look like feeling overly stressed out and worried– because you are afraid of not being “perfect” while not experiencing the creativity, the spontaneity, the joy, the flow of “messiness.” Similarly, if you are afraid of being seen as “too much” you may end up trying to filter yourself to be like others, while missing out on the gift of “too muchness” – such as connecting with others deeply and impacting others deeply. All of that is to say, every aspect we don’t accept in ourselves becomes the gift we therefore end up not expressing.

5). Finding joy in present moment

Lastly, with self acceptance, you will find yourself experiencing more ease to stay in the present.
That means, you no longer feel like you’re “missing out” on things or feeling like you need to be somewhere in the future in order to be happy. You experience less of the “lack”-- i.e. the feeling like this moment is “inferior” or does not “have everything.”

All of this inner fullness happens now because you are no longer resisting and fighting against what is. The more you accept yourself, the more you are able to see that underneath the veil of the mind not “liking” things, there is actually a gift that lies IN everything. 

So that means you don’t just see beauty in a Chanel bag or a million dollar mansion anymore, rather you see beauty in ALL things– even in a shed amidst the quiet meadows or the flowing water down a creek. That means your mind isn’t limited to seeing black and white in reality– e.g. the future=good, the present=not enough.

Rather, you experience this multidimensional, ever illuminating perfection of I AM (the Divine) in all creations and things. And it’s brimming forth in no where else other than where you are, in this greatest present of the present Now moment– and you don’t wish for anywhere else to be.

In fact, it’s no surprise that whenever clients work with me, I would often hear words like “after working with you, I feel so much more free” (and therefore happy). 

And it’s not even because they are traveling around the world or never need to work again. But it’s because their souls now finally have accepted all of themselves– and so become ever-in flow, ever-free. It’s like finally realizing that you can BE so much more than the limitations, the beliefs, and identities you thought you were. And to many women, they told me that it’s like finally fulfilling their purpose– the Self that they came here to be.

To you, this experience of inner freedom (through self allowing/ self acceptance) may be different, but regardless, you will find yourself becoming more in awe of the magic and miracle that YOU are with everything little thing you accept about yourself. You will see that you are actually not “lacking” nor “missing” anything. In fact, it was only the self judgement that couldn’t see.

To the little girl in you, the act of self-acceptance is like finally giving permission to her that she can just play/exist/Be. It’s like you are giving a room and space for her to be her, without needing outside validation and approval. It’s you letting the little girl, when you were three or seven, know that she doesn’t have to distort, mold, or change herself just to fit in with outside demands. 

To your Soul, it’s a deep relief, an exhale, and a nourishment. In return she also has gifts that have been hidden underneath what you thought were your imperfections. The only question is, will you accept her in ALL that she is?