“Self-awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.” – Debbie Ford
“Take an honest look at yourself!” There’s a lot to unpack here, this statement could be loaded with a lot of judgement. Have these words ever been spoken at you, or have you perhaps said this to someone else?
Are you able to take an honest look at yourself and not fall into the trap of self judgement? In Buddhism it’s called “naked awareness”, the ability to just observe, just see, like a video camera that is switched on and just records. Naked awareness without looking away, without making right or wrong.
What is practical about this naked awareness…?
“When you invoke the agent of change called acceptance, you must accept all that you are, all that you’ve been, and all that you will be in the future.” – Debbie Ford
“The agent of change called acceptance…” she says that acceptance is something that creates change…
From naked awareness without judgement there comes acceptance. Acceptance of every part of you, the pretty and the ugly. How is this acceptance an agent of change?
Have you ever tried to force yourself to change by constantly judging and rejecting parts of you? Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work. In fact, it creates a war within, keeping you trapped in a cycle of fear and self-abandonment. But what if there was another way? A path to transformation paved not with judgement, but with radical self-acceptance?
How would acceptance create change? Let’s be really practical, ask yourself this question, “who am I being while I can look at myself with love for all of me, the pretty as well as the ugly?”
The answer is simple. You’re not being your fearful self, you’re not being your reactive self, you’re not being the part of you who might be scared of the opinions of the world. You’re being the STRONGEST version of you and in that moment you have CHANGED! – Acceptance as the agent of change.
The paradox is, when you truly accept yourself, you change instantly. You step out of fear and into your best self. Like a caterpillar accepting its cocoon, you transform from within.
You certainly don’t have to take only my word for this, you’ve got Debbie Ford’s opinion on this same page as well but I’ll add even one more, renowned German psychiatrist Fritz Perls:
“Nothing changes until it becomes what it is.” – Fritz Perls
Or to put it in different words – You will completely change when you become exactly who you are.
This journey of self-discovery takes time and courage, and you are well on your way! If this radical self-acceptance is something you haven’t quite wrapped your head around yet just know… it’s coming for your heart.
Start your journey today with these mantras:
- I see every part of me clearly, without judgment.
- Embracing my true self unlocks my greatest potential.
- I am ready to let go of war and embrace peace within.
- I am changing by simply being who I am.
Today’s meditation helps us practice naked awareness – the ability to see and have acceptance for what you’re seeing.
– pierre –
Today’s LIVE meditation is: I am the mountain.