Self-Acceptance in Recovery When You Can’t Muster Self-Love

Self-acceptance in recovery and self-love in recovery are both great goals to strive for, but for people like me, with deep-seated self-loathing issues, self-love oftentimes feels far out of reach. That's why I'm learning to turn to self-acceptance in recovery.

How Is Self-Acceptance in Recovery Different from Self-Love?

Self-acceptance in recovery is different from self-love. Self-love is defined by actively loving yourself. It involves loving and appreciating who you are. You aren't always going to be perfect, but you will always be lovable, and you can find things about yourself that you love even when you know you've messed up. To practice self-love, you might say something to yourself like "I love how caring and empathetic I am," or "I see that I'm hurting, and I feel loving compassion for myself."

Self-acceptance in recovery is like a stepping stone to self-love where you learn to accept yourself as you are, even if you don't really like who you are all that much. Instead of focusing on your flaws and failures, self-acceptance encourages you to see yourself as an acceptable human being. You may not be able to feel full-on love for yourself yet, but you are actively fighting feeling disdain or disgust toward yourself. To practice self-acceptance, you might say something to yourself like, "I messed up, and that is a human thing to do," or "I am no better or worse than anyone else."

I am on my way to self-love, but in the meantime, I've found that self-acceptance in recovery is crucial to reducing my anxiety and internalized shame.

Have you worked on self-acceptance in your recovery journey? If so, please share in the comments, and to learn more about self-acceptance, check out the video below.