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Greater self-acceptance improves

emotional well-being
May 16, 2016

By Srini Pillay, MD, Contributor

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ARCHIVED CONTENT: As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides

access to our library of archived content. Please note the date each article was posted or
last reviewed. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a
substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

Follow me at @srinipillay

Self-acceptance is defined as “an individual’s acceptance of all of his/her attributes,

positive or negative.” It includes body acceptance, self-protection from negative
criticism, and believing in one’s capacities.

Many people have low self-acceptance. There can be many reasons for this, but one
widely accepted theory is that because we develop our self-esteem, in part, from others
appreciating us, people with low self-acceptance may have had parents who lacked
empathy during their childhood. Consequently, in their adult lives, they may need much
stronger affirmation from others than most people do. In other words, ordinary levels of
approval do not “move the needle” on their self-esteem.

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Some people with low self-acceptance try to bolster it by accomplishing great things. But
this only helps your self-esteem for a while. That’s because achievement is a poor
substitute for intimacy. In addition, these people are often under the impression that
“taking it” when suffering is the main reflection of their value. It’s hard for them to
believe in genuine caring, and when it does come their way, they are suspicious of it.

Of course, self-acceptance (or lack thereof) does not exist in a vacuum — it actually has
profound effects on your physical and psychological health For that reason it is worth
profound effects on your physical and psychological health. For that reason, it is worth
understanding what these effects are, and what you can do about it.

The emotional and physical consequences of low

self-acceptance 7:47

Without self-acceptance, your psychological well-being can suffer, and often, beneficial
interventions are less helpful for you than for others with higher self-acceptance.

For example, practicing mindfulness can help many people reduce the impact of stress.
But when you cannot accept yourself, it becomes less effective. Also, if you have a
physical illness such as rheumatoid arthritis, not accepting yourself can make you more
anxious about your body. In this context, your automatic negative thoughts increase.

In addition, if you feel negatively about yourself, the brain regions that help you control
emotions and stress have less gray matter than someone with a greater degree of self-
acceptance — that is, these regions actually have less tissue to “work with.” This lack of
gray matter may also appear in regions of the brainstem that process stress and anxiety.
Stress signals from these latter regions, in turn, disrupt the emotional control regions. So,
poor self-acceptance may disrupt emotional control in two ways: directly, by disrupting
the brain regions that control it, and also indirectly, by increasing stress signals in your
brain that subsequently disrupt these regions.

How to bolster your self-acceptance

There are three ways to increase self-acceptance:

1. self-regulation

2. self-awareness

3. self-transcendence.

Self-regulation involves suppressing negative emotions such as self-hatred, refocusing

on the positive aspects of yourself, and reframing negative situations so that you see the
opportunities in them. For example, looking for ways in which negative criticism can
help you grow constitutes reframing.

However, self-control may be less powerful than we think. The lack of self-acceptance
b d l i h i i i l lb d i l
can be deeply unconscious — that is, it can exist at a level beyond our conscious control.
Also, when you do not accept or forgive yourself, “you” are still split from “yourself” — you
do not feel “together.” Both of these parts — the one that needs to forgive, and the one that
needs to be forgiven — are at odds with each other. In this situation, self-transcendence
can be helpful. 7:47

When you are “self-transcendent,” you rely less on things outside of yourself to define
you. Instead, you turn to an unforced sense of connectedness with the world. You can
achieve this by contributing to work, family, or the community at large. The goal is to
seek unity with some system in a way that is heartfelt and authentic. Any of the
methods I’ve described in this post may also contribute to self-transcendence.

Fortunately, just like self-acceptance, self-transcendence also engenders physical

changes in the brain. It has been associated with increased serotonin transporter
availability in the brainstem. As mentioned earlier, this same region impacts self-
acceptance. Transcendental meditation is another potential tool to consider for self-
transcendence. It decreases cortisol and reduces your stress response.

Meditation as a path to self-acceptance

Self-acceptance can also be achieved by two other kinds of meditation: mindfulness
meditation and loving-kindness meditation.

Mindful attention to emotions involves not “judging,” but observing, your emotions when
they arise. This can lower your brain’s emotional response to anxiety and distress. It
effectively “calms down” your amygdala.

Having more compassion toward yourself appears to be helpful in increasing self-

acceptance. Loving-kindness meditation can help you achieve this state by changing the
activity in regions of the brain that perceive and process emotions. For example, people
previously numb to praise may be able to become more accepting of it. It is also
associated with greater connectivity within the brain. This makes sense, as lack of self-
acceptance has been associated with excessive right-hemisphere activity in the brain.
Loving-kindness meditation provides a potential way to correct this imbalance.

Find the ways to self-acceptance that work for you

Not all of these methods work for everyone. And while double-blind placebo-controlled
trials remain the scientific gold standard to assess whether each intervention “works,”
they are limited too. They tell us little about what will work for an individual — an
individual is, by definition, uniquely different from everyone, including study
participants. So, it is most important to do what works for you. Self-acceptance is key to 7:47
a healthy emotional and psychological life. Start exploring what works for you today.

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Disclaimer:

As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of
archived content. Please note the date of last review or update on all articles. No content
on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical
advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

Comments

Jeanine Joy June 13, 2016

I am shocked that they tell us suppression of negative emotion is a way to deal with low self-esteem
given all the research demonstrating that suppression leads to both physical and mental health
problems. Reappraisal is a much better solution than suppression with significant research backing
up its benefits. With use it can become the automatic response so that it occurs before conscious
cognition. Meditation is a helpful practice for nearly everyone, but it is still dose-dependent.
Reappraisal is not dose-dependent because once something painful is reappraised the emotional
response to situations that trigger the same memory are better than they were prior to reappraisal.

Zach at NuSups.com June 10, 2016

I’ve meditated quite a bit in the past. The reflection period, I find to be extremely helpful, but often
times concentration is my downfall. I’ve combined Meditation daily with Noopept right before I sit
down. I find the cognitive enhancements I get from NuSups have helped me go to another level. Do
you have any thoughts on Nootropics and meditation being combined?

mikaylalassetter June 5, 2016

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Thomas May 31, 2016

I agree with your words… Meditation is good for health and it controls your feelings. And also its
helpful for self acceptance. 7:47
Azurite May 31, 2016
Excellent post!!! I agree with your words that meditation is the best process for self acceptance. I’d like
to say thanks for sharing this with us. Keep up blogging.

HelenM May 21, 2016

Elizabeth, we all have within us a particular person and you can be loving and kind out of
compassion and empathy without having total acceptance of self. If we apply that kindness towards
our self, we can experience changes that will not necessarily change how we project ourselves. And
how others see you has more to do with their perception and possibly nothing to do with that needy
person inside

Michael A. Rubin May 18, 2016

I once had a discussion with a Buddhist and realized that our ways are different, but perhaps equally
effective, and yet they are separated just by the juxtaposition of just a few letters: “You meditate for
mindfulness; I medicate (cannabis) for mindlessness.”

Dynamin Supplements May 25, 2016

Meditate, meditate, & meditate. this is the key to emotional well being. This will help a lot,
many scholars or yogi gave their speech on advantages of meditation. Moreover many
people have experienced the same.

frey May 18, 2016

how can you distinguish between healthy self-acceptance and resistance to self-assessment — or
even narcissism?

Elizabeth May 16, 2016

Is it common for a person with low self-acceptance to come across as someone with overly high self-
acceptance?

Vera May 21, 2016

It may be.

In order to overcompensate, that is.

Commenting has been closed for this post.

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