*“All negative reactions are not caused from outside; it’s how we choose. The way to become bulletproof is to own anything that seems a fault. The way to overcome the ego’s reaction to that is to say, “I’m stupid and ugly. It doesn’t matter; God loves me.”* 
-David R. Hawkins

![andreas-wagner-435993.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVzzN3L3otiZ3HDimeY3HQNhuDqhHQoe5uV14hbeX3XaF/andreas-wagner-435993.jpg)
<center>*Photo by Andreas Wagner on Unsplash*</center>

It can be a difficult thing to own oneself, every flaw, mistake, and embarrassing moment we have. 

I know I struggled with it for years, I was insecure in my own shoes, I didn't fully own my life. Instead I hid away the parts of myself I didn't like from myself. I'd make excuses for myself, lie to myself, and criticize myself instead of accepting everything. This turned out to be the source of most all of my problems in life. It's still the source of all the problems in my life.

You always hear people say "Just be yourself," and everything will turn out. Then the rest of society turns around and tells you how you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to be doing, it's like we don't even have a chance to be ourselves. There's conflict there, it's counterproductive and confusing. We're told what we *need* to do, and how we *need* to act in order to please society: Go to school, don't act out in public, don't embarrass others, don't find your passion, just find what pays, go to college, don't offend people, be politically correct, don't take chances. 

We have these thoughts in our heads that if we don't meet others expectations they will disown us in some way. It makes us afraid to express ourselves, or at least it made me afraid to. I was embarrassed of myself! Too afraid of not being good or messing up to try something new or to just goof off, even when I was alone. It made me apathetic towards life, and I buried myself in video games, books, tv, and movies. I still love those things, but I don't use them to hide from myself anymore.

It took a while to stop taking myself so seriously, to not worry if someone would laugh at me, to actually thrive off awkwardness. I had to put myself through some uncomfortable situations, and find out that failure, while rarely enjoyable, is where a lot of growth and maturity take place. Before, I was too afraid to fail to even try a lot of things, so I never really changed. Once I figured out failing wasn't the end of the world, that it was actually a great way to learn, life really started getting fun. That's when I really started to become who I wanted to be.

It's once we own ourselves that we can really start to make changes, because if we don't accept ourselves as we are right now, then changes can never really take place. Because right now is all there is, otherwise we're just dreaming, either remembering who we used to be, or imagining who we wish we were. There's no credit being given to ourselves then, to who we are right now.

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My challenge for myself and to you, is to take stock of every part of me, the good parts and the bad, strengths and weaknesses.  To root out the the parts of ourselves we hide from or ignore, and own them. To not delude ourselves and make excuses, but instead to embrace the faults and be aware of them. I want to get to the point where I can be unapologetically me and feel comfortable and excited to be expressing that to the world. That, to me, is the ultimate freedom.

It's easy to hide from ourselves, it's much more challenging to confront our own weaknesses. But allowing ourselves to be vulnerable opens us to love.

**Talk to me about your experiences in accepting yourself, or someone in your life, in the comments below, and if you take up my challenge don't forget to love yourself :)**