UNCONDITIONAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE

Any time you look at yourself in the mirror and see a physical characteristic that you don’t like, it is because you have made an agreement, such as “that’s not pretty” or “that’s not acceptable.” According to your agreement, this characteristic is preventing you from looking the way you think you’re “supposed” to look.

An extreme example of this is someone who is anorexic or bulimic; an agreement has been made that says being thin and being beautiful are equivalents. Even if this person is already fifteen pounds underweight, the agreement is so strong that it greatly distorts what he or she sees in the mirror.

This example is helpful because we can clearly see the detrimental nature of the agreement. But for many of us, our negative self-judgement regarding our physical appearance is harder to spot; sometimes because we’re so used to it that we take it for granted - we have accepted our own self-judgements as fact!

Practice

Look at yourself in the mirror. If you hear the voices of self-judgement about some characteristic of your physical appearance, know that the way to peace and happiness is not through any physical feature, but rather through changing your agreements. You are perfect exactly the way you are at this moment. Every single characteristic of you divine.

Look into the mirror and say the word, “I love you. You are beautiful exactly the way you are.”

Living a Life of Awareness

~ Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.