Part I: [ Who is your friend?]
Throughout my entire existence here on Earth, I can say my younger self didn’t really pay attention in understanding myself in a much deeper level. Not until I reach the age of 16, I get to have a clear insight about what did I do wrong during the past years of my teenage life. If COVID didn’t emerged and we people weren’t isolated and we weren’t restricted from going out but to stay in the comforts of our own homes, I wouldn’t have the chance to think deeply about life. During the months of my isolation, I learned a lot. Have lots of clouded thoughts in realizing that I take myself for granted. That I wasn’t spending hours or even minutes to be attentive of my own inner thoughts, that I neglect myself in exchange for paying my attention to other people. And with spending the months alone, without socialization I get to spent a lot of months understanding my own self. Understanding yourself wasn’t that really easy. There are times when you feel a lot of overwhelming emotions advancing rapidly inside you, such as worries and frustrations. Asking yourself the why’s and the what. Why I am like this? Why can’t I do this? What could possibly go wrong with my actions that I get to feel this way? And with that you assume things, that will affect your mental state later. That happened to me. Constantly blaming myself because I did not do well, been affected with the judgements of other people on how I deal with my own life. It came to a point were betrayal happened. I didn’t saw it coming, I was blinded with the happiness I felt every time I was with them. They are an integral part of my childhood they are my friends for a long a time, we share a lot of nice experiences together. And with what happened I was shocked that I cannot believe that I am experiencing the kind of situation that I didn’t thought I’ll be able to experience . I was betrayed not just by a random person but I was betrayed by my own friends, the people who are close to my heart. My first friend was my childhood friends, we’ve been friends since grade school. I was with her during her darkest times. She was with me during my happiest moments. I always got her back, consoled her when she’s having her mental breakdown. She shares her deepest secrets with me and until now it is still sealed. People in our school say a lot of rude things to her and I myself wasn’t affected with that. I didn’t mind all of their bad comments about her. Even though a lot of people bad mouthed her, I stayed with her. Some asked me these “ Why are you still friends with her, don’t you know she did a lot of bad things to us?”, “ You should now stop being friends with her.” “Don’t be foolish just end your friendship with her right away, you’re also a victim of her backstabbing.” Guess what I did? Instead of listening to the statements of other people, I ignored it. I was aware that I wasn’t excluded from her wrong doings, I ignored the red flags and there’s too many of them. You can say I am dumb, but back then I cannot cut her off my life. That friend was so dear to me, I treasured my friendship with her a lot. When she did me wrong, she’ll say her apologies and I always forgive her. Not until we reached high school and things went worse. During our 7th grade, we were still classmates. Both of us were happy that time because we are still together. We do the stuffs we used to do and hang out every day. Not until one day, an acquaintance told me this “You don’t know the rumors?” I told her what is it and then she answered me this; “The older students from this section were laughing at you because your shoes were too big, your headband doesn’t look great on you and it made you look like you’re childish. A lot of students from that section knew of this already, I was telling you so you can do something now.” You can tell that I was deeply hurt of what she said to me. And I started to tell myself, “This should now end.” And I took the courage to asked the other girl from that grade level, to have some confirmation if it is really true after all. I chatted with her privately and I was too angry for what is happening and ended up blowing her dms. She answered it back and that’s when I knew my dear friend was behind it all. She sent me screenshots filled with their conversation and by reading it I was furious and hurt at the same time because I cannot accept that this one was the worst of all she had done to me. I served as a laughingstock for those people given to the fact that she said a lot of lies about me to them. I badly wanted to confront her right away but I calmed myself. And I now realized that I cannot stay friends with her anymore. I thought about this “I can cut ties with her this time because this time I have these evidences.” The next day, I was with this friend of mine, who’s persona will be revealed later. He gave me some advices and this time I listened. She arrived and that’s when I stood up opened my tablet and walked towards her. I told her these; “See these? These were all the things you’ve said about me and was the reason why I was bullied by the older students. “You know I always try my best to understand you right. Because I know your experiences weren’t that great. I was always been there for you when you needed someone to lean on, I was there for you when nobody else is. But you did this to me. I was humiliated by other people, I was bullied by them. I thought that maybe they were like that, but I was slapped by the cold harsh truth that you are behind it all along. This will be the last time that I will be your friend. Now I have these, to show it to you so that you can’t lie to me anymore because you always lie to me. When I asked you if you say this thing you denied it. But now the truth is out, I will not serve as your best friend anymore.” You can tell she was shocked by my words, she didn’t even try to deny it or defend herself in front of me. She was astonished and unable to come up with her own words. I went back to my seat and my other friends try to distract me from the ruckus that happened. A while later, my other friend came up to me. Saying that she wanted to talk to me. I went to outside and walked up to her, she looked teary eyed and sadness was evident on her face. I thought she will deny it and then she explained the things to me. She ended up crying while explaining that she was insecure and jealous of me all along. I told her I cannot forgive her that fast and it may take a lot of time for me to process what happened and I ended up walking away. I started to distance myself from her and stayed with my other friends. After a good amount of time, I came to a certain point when I already forgive her. Throughout the entire year we still talk, but this time a barrier was set by me to avoid getting caught up with that kind of situation again. When the school year ended she bid her goodbyes and said her gratitude even after the things. She said that she was thankful because from all those things she did I choose to forgive her. She moved in to another place since it is her parents decisions. And with that I learned to let go and forgive. To not hold a grudge for too long because it can be suffocating, I also learned to not be too nice to other people, to not ignore the signs showing up as red flags. And from every circumstances in life, from every people you get to befriend with. A lesson was always given. The betrayal never stops there, it continued. My other friends also turned their backs against me because there is a situation that happened which cannot be labeled as a good experience to me and to them also. I considered them as my friends and in the end I’ve learned that they weren’t really my friends. I remember crying myself to sleep, asking God why they did that to me or if I did them wrong that’s why their acting that way. I hated myself due to the fact that I thought that there is something wrong to my actions. blamed myself, because I am experiencing this, that I just let it all pass, turned a blind eye from of all the suspicion I felt and ended up ignoring it. I resented my own self a lot. That’s when I got a realization that there’s nothing wrong with me. And I can’t change people, that I cannot stopped them from doing things and acting that way. They do have a free will. And was thankful because if it didn’t happen to me I wouldn’t know who among them are genuine and who is fake. If I didn’t get to experienced it, their pretentious actions towards me will continue. I also learned that my best friend Khyle have my back all the time. Perhaps you remember that a friend that I will reveal, that person is him. I always forget him when I am with those other people whom I considered as friends. When we had a fight and we did each other wrong. He never said anything bad to me or tell my secrets to other people. Nor backstab me. When everyone was against me because of something I didn’t do, he stood u[ for me. Then I realized that he is indeed a great friend. I never appreciate his efforts back when we were still very young but right now, I am glad that during those times that I felt that I was alone and I don’t have friends, I forgot that there is still one person who is always been the real one/ the real genuine friend that I failed to appreciate. That it is never too late for someone to realize the truth and do something about it.
To my best friend Khyle, you are the best friend I have ever got. I never realized how precious you are to me not until I learned from my mistakes. I am extremely thankful to the Lord Almighty for giving me the chance to know you. I am rooting for your happiness. Let us fly high, chase our dreams, and turn it into our own reality. We may take our separate ways, but somehow let’s go back to those great memories of ours as best friends. I LOVE YOU.
Part II: [ What are emotions?]
Emotions is defined as any positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of a psychological activity. It produces different physiological, behavioral, and cognitive changes.
At times we feel happiness, at other times anger, you may feel bored or may feel a sense of excitement. And that thing is an emotion. But there are times were the emotions that we feel was so extreme. It may help you or it may cause severe damage to your way of thinking and how you perform your actions. I sometimes had a feeling of resentment for myself for being overly emotional. I was disgusted by how I easily felt the sadness and then after that bawled my eyes because of my cries. I felt anger and sometimes it gets out of my grip; it is uncontrollable. I act too impulsive because I was affected by my own emotions. I made promises because there is too much euphoria. I tried to control my emotions since I don’t want it to rule over me. I cannot let it just succumb me and with that I came up with an idea of trying to control on how I deal with my emotions and suppressing it. I think it is a better way. When I talked to other people I just act logically and try not to show any signs of emotional empathy towards them. When I was angry, I held it in. I didn’t voice it our since I don’t want to show others and myself that I was easily affected by anger. I tried to hold those unwanted emotions for too long but failed. I had a talk with my mom back then and when I opened up about the topic of suppressing emotions, she disapproved. She told me the importance of emotions, she said if you are happy show them that you’re happy and if you are angry towards someone or something express your anger. Don’t try to keep it inside of you, time will come that all the suppressed emotions will all come out at once because it overwhelms you that you blasted it all. At worst, you blurted it out to a wrong place and to the person who isn’t at fault. Just don’t ever try to hide it again, it may cost unwanted experiences later on. With that I started to remind myself that whenever I feel too overwhelmed by the situation and having mixed emotions; I need to take a deep breath, calm myself and relax.It is okay to let things out, there are times that you can’t control yourself from the overall emotions you feel at a certain moment. Uncontrolled emotions cannot be eliminated but you can lessen the effects of it to yourself. At certain times, at any hour of the day you had asked yourself with these questions; “Why I am feeling this?” or “I am not supposed to feel this.” Remember that, people are humans and they recognized human emotions and pain. Emotions will always be a part of being a human. Part III: [ Dealing with unwanted thoughts, situations and people]
Have been stressed with a lot of happenings that it affects your well being? Or you felt a great raged towards someone that you are starting to have ill thoughts about them? Do you feel the guilt because you knew that what you are thinking and saying is bad? Or your assumptions are wrong and you just jump in concluding ideas that weren’t right? We all experience that. And we can say how we deal with real life situations weren’t great at times. Looking back to my past experiences I can tell that I made poor decisions and acted inappropriately. I had destructive thoughts, that made me paranoid and distrustful towards people even with my own family. I remember I had spent lots of hours engaging myself to it and put it into actions just because I wanted them to experience what I had experienced because I was hurt. I was vengeful and wanted to hurt them back badly. When I did all of it, I thought I will have my own satisfaction but I ended up hurting myself even more. It is because of the guilt. I ignored the thought at the back of my head that is stopping me for doing it because it isn’t me. I am not bad nor I can say that me myself is an angel but deep down inside my heart I know that I am not used to these kinds of thoughts and I am not accustomed into putting those into action. During my younger years I blamed people, I blame them for hurting me. When a become more mature that’s when I realized that blaming others won’t bring you no good. You need to have a balance thought about what is happening, and to why are they doing that. You need to slow down your assumptions and try not to be caught up by it badly. When you caught yourself thinking about unwanted thoughts be reminded that your thoughts are not you. You can choose to liberate yourself from it and change your actions that will contribute yourself into goodness. If you are in a situation with the person you hated so badly and things start to get heated. Always be inclined with calmness. Don’t get to carried away by what you are feeling instead try a nice approached towards that person. If he/she shouts at you don’t shout back. Say your comeback in a more subtle manner and smile. That will make them feel bad or it may anger them more. But you handle the situation gracefully and you know you did the right thing. You will get worried whether you throw a lot of harshness towards that person that may make you feel guilty. Instead you will be satisfied with what you did and be able to do other things smoothly. Stop the paranoia and try to understand what could possible be wrong with a situation or with people.
You can say I learned life lessons the hard way. I had my fair share of uncertainties and doubts. Been hurt for a couple of times. Those statements above served as my motivation to keep going. It taught me how to understand myself more, to not hate myself. To raise a self- awareness. Understanding yourself may be hard at times and you may just want to give up but if you take a look at life and your experiences into a deeper level you will learn something from it that may help you to improve your level of understanding yourself. As much as I wanted to elaborate more worst scenarios in my life, it will take me too long to finished it all. It may bore you or you will start nagging because it took you to read a lot of words to finally reach my advices on how to practice self -love. Without further ado, I will now show you a lot of ways that helped me to fully love my own self.
Part IV: [ Self - Awareness]
Do you know self- awareness is very important for an individual, before we proceed about what did self- awareness do to help me to fully accept my authenticity and learned to love myself for just as I am. First let us know what self-awareness is. Self-awareness involves being aware of the different aspects of the self- including traits, behavior, and feelings. It is a psychological state in which oneself becomes the focus or attention. Self- awareness is one of the first components of the self-concept to emerge. While self-awareness is something that is central to who you are, it is not something that you are acutely focused on every moment of your everyday life. Being self-aware can be difficult in some instances because we tend to forget to be aware of ourselves, for the reason of the lack of attention in ourselves. During the phases of my transformation I can tell the I myself failed to jilt an awareness. In life we encounter a lot of circumstances, focus our entire attention to it that the thought of focusing on what we are feeling at the moment whether it is stress or indignation slips out of our minds thus unsuccessfully spread an awareness into our own system. Back then I just neglect the fact that I needed to pay my deepest observation to myself. I failed to recognize that my mental and physical health is slowly getting worse. I was exhausted from all the school works, peer pressure, family problem and other causes that I just didn’t take my time to look at my own self. I kept on thinking about any possible answers to solve my life’s problem that I failed to take good care of myself. There was a time that I had the worst breakdown. Curled up in my bed, and my hopes started to fade away. But after that, started fixing my problems again. Failure in eating on time and at times skips eating just to do the things I supposed to do. Even forget to drink water or sleep on time. That’s when I notice the effect of all the exhausting work I do. My body’s energy is deteriorating that I lost the will to get up. Then procrastinating starts to take over me. I eat then go back to my bed. Didn’t care about my surrounding environment. It went for weeks, then suddenly a thought came into my bed. I am the problem, I take it all through me that I forget to pamper myself, to pay my fullest attention to myself. There is no one to blame and it is all my responsibility. I take my time to refreshed my energy. Started to do the things I enjoy doing. Eat the right amount of food, drink enough water followed by my medication, exercise, skin care. The entire month spent for myself. I didn’t have any regrets then started to regain my energy and do the important tasks again. That my sweeties, I realize that self-awareness is essential to our lives. Stresses can affect a person’s peace of mind and it’s physical health that may cause burn out. But take your time to freshen up, to relax. Don’t force yourself too much to solve it all, instead take it one at a time. With that you can take care of your mental, emotional, and physical health better.
Part V: [Insecurities]
Everyone feels a little unsure at times. As humans, we constantly think, and some of our thoughts can be filled with doubt. This can lead to thoughts of insecurity.
What is insecurity?
Insecurity is a feeling of inadequacy (not being good enough) and uncertainty. It produces anxiety about your goals, relationships, and ability to handle certain situations. Everybody deals with insecurity from time to time. It can appear in all areas of life and come from a variety of causes. It might stem from a traumatic event, patterns of previous experience, social conditioning (learning rules by observing others), or local environments such as schools, work, or home. It can also stem from a general instability. People who experience unpredictable upsets in daily life are more likely to feel insecure about ordinary resources and routines. On the other hand, insecurity can have no definite, external cause. Instead, it can appear as a quirk of personality or brain chemistry. Understanding the nature of insecurities can help you manage your own and offer others the support they need. There are different types of insecurity, limitless. In my case some of the types of insecurity appears to me frequently.
The first one is Relationship Insecurity;
It is one of the most common kind of insecurity that concerns about relationship or attachments. Attachment Theory originated out of desire to connect the attachment patterns of early childhood to later relationship pattern and expectation. Relationship or attachment insecurities don’t begin in early childhood. They can arise whenever previous experience or personal insecurity undermines someone’s security in their closest friendships.
I always been a people pleaser. If they asked me to do stuffs or if they needed my assistance in their task, I always helped them to accomplished it. There was a time were all of my classmates wanted my help to their school works, I can tell you it is tiring for me. I didn’t mind it since I wanted to help them, without expecting in return. For me, that is the only way I can offer my help. But there came a time when there was a misunderstanding between my part and to my other classmates. I learned that when it was me who is in a miserable situation, they wouldn’t stood up for me. Instead, they tried to helped to hurt me even more. I pitied myself, that I was pathetic. I lend them my help always but when that scene happened I become aware that those people only used me because I am capable of the tasks handed by every teachers in our school. It affected me, I silently cried at night due to the fact that I cannot bare the pain it caused me. Then an insecurity developed through me. I stopped socializing because I am afraid that what happened will happen to me again. The thought that I don’t want to be used again and that I should stop making friends to spare myself from heartaches caused by my past failed friendships. But, of course Khyle was there, he was the only one who stayed until the very end of my high school life. That is when I made a notion to stop forcing myself it may be in a situation or friendship. I made a lot of understanding about what are flaws of my past friendship. The main problem is the toxicity. I was the only one helping them out always, but when it was my turn to ask for help they just left me out to figure how to do things. When they needed emotional support I was there for them, but when I have my problems I went to ask for any advice on how to lessen the pain and stress of it they simply laughed over me. They said that I am too dramatic and emotional and that will actually pass for a period of time. Of course the worst they did me wrong but me left me to deal with all the agony by myself, never even tried to take responsibility for their actions. We didn’t talk for months, I was eager to approach them because I don’t want to deal with the pressure I felt whenever I see them inside our class, but they all act snobbish and gave me their cold shoulders. I had my fair share of blaming myself back then. Then stand on my ground again because of the realization of stopping to force anything between my relationship with them. I said to myself that if they don’t want to be friends with me then I will stop. I respect their decisions and I have to mind my own business after that. I do my own thing, focus on my set goals for my academic excellence, stopped myself from thinking that I didn’t deserve to interact with other because they will just end up wounding me, instead evolve my way of thinking that doesn’t mean they are like that others will be like them also. There are lots of amazing people out there who will bring back the positive energy that you give them. And I can I was right. I’ve met the right kind of people, our circle was small but there are lots of positivity in our friendship. I learned my lesson that it is better to be in a small circle of friends rather be in a large group of people that filled with toxicity. I am in a much better relationship with my friends right now, we got each other’s back. My friendship with Khyle remains the same, we don’t talk too much because he was busy in his own but when both of us got our scheduled cleared we used that time to to talk about things. My mindset towards making friends have change. People will not always be the kind that radiates goodness in them, but if you take the courage to look for the right kind of people you wanted to be with is a big game changer. Surround yourself with the right set of friends so that both of you can learn from each other, grow together and have fun together.
Body Insecurity
Most people feel insecure about the way they look and question whether they measure up to am ideal and I am no exemption to that. It is one of the main problem that I faced back then, being self - conscious of how I look. My face was filled with pimples. I tried all sorts of skin care products but it didn’t work out for me. I was ashamed because whenever I walk, people will look at me scrutinizing my entire face. In worse cases, I became a victim of bullying because of my physical appearance. You can tell I lose confidence and engage in self - pity. It came up to the point where I was anxious whenever I talked to other people, and tried to put concealers and other sort of stuffs just to cover up my pimples. Then I remembered that is it just my hormones, that I am still a teenager and pimples are normal. I started to consult a dermatologist, learned about my skin type, the proper way of taking care of my not just my face but my body as well, bought products that are appropriate for my skin type. Overall it revolves around taking care of my skin. I got the expected result, and I was a lot happier when I saw the good effect of the products I applied. In regards in my insecurities towards my body type, I started my fitness journey by doing yoga and meditation. Complaining wouldn’t help you. Start planning for your well-being and do it. Don’t get affected by the opinions of others, and start focusing on yourself. Don’t be discourage, use the criticisms as your motivation to keep on going. Trust yourself and build your confidence. By being confident, you’ll shine. Embrace your flaws and imperfections, accept it all. Because it is what makes you unique. When you are truly happy, you’re glowing differently.
Social Insecurity
Social insecurity is quite common especially to teenagers like me. The feeling of nervousness around strangers, assume that people don’t like you , struggling making friends or be in a meaningful relationships. These feeling is only a normal human experience. Everyone wants to be in a group, and sometimes we are rejected. There are different causes of social insecurity. And these are some of the well known risk factors that triggers a person having social insecurity. I will also give my very own experiences to the topic that will be discuss below.
Part VI: [Social Anxiety]
If you have social anxiety, you may struggle from the feeling of being preoccupied with what other people are thinking of you. You might obsess about certain social events and avoid some of them. You might also experience symptoms like blushing, sweaty palms, or panic attacks. Thus it is very important the exact difference between what is social anxiety and what is an insecurity. Social anxiety is more about the manifestations of anxiety symptoms in a social setting. While an insecurity is more about the feeling of being ashamed, unworthy, or inferior around others.
There was a time when I was always been chosen as a representative on our school to every competition. Whenever I saw lots of people watching every competition, I feel anxious. Sometimes my hands were shaking, and I experienced difficulty in breathing. It is always been there. Whenever I got to feel it, loads of thoughts appear inside of my head. The worst of it is fear, the fear of getting myself into an embarrassing situation because of the thought that I didn’t do well or if I acted dumb in front of others. And when it is getting out of hand. That is when I come back to my senses and have a grip of myself. I always think, that I shouldn’t let this overpower me, I shouldn’t let fear take over. Instead of cramming, I need to calm down. Stop myself from thinking about failure, and then say that I am lucky because I was given the chance to participate in a competition. That instead of being nervous that a lot of people are watching me and the fear of embarrassment can’t be eradicated. I should help myself, and do what I can do to make the most of it. Courage is what keeps me going. And it is something that helped me throughout the years of my existence. I know it may be hard for someone to fight social insecurity or even social anxiety. But, fight it. Whenever you are in a social situation and you felt the need to shy away from it, or you are afraid in interacting to other people. Take a leap of courage to do the opposite thing, I can guarantee that things will not be worst. If you feel that it is getting out of hand, and it is affecting you badly don’t be afraid to seek help to a medical professional or reach out to someone you trust. Do not let it consume you and damage your capabilities in social interaction.
Part VII: [Depression]
Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think, and how you act. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. Its symptoms can vary from mild to severe. In life we may experience the death of a loved one, loss of a job or the ending of relationship are difficult for a person to endure. The feeling of grief or sadness is normal when we respond to that certain type of situation. To those who are experiencing loss often describe themselves as being “depressed”. But being sad is not the same as having depression. The grieving process is a natural to each individual and it shares the same features of depression. Both grief and depression may involve intense sadness and withdrawal from usual activities. Depression can affect anyone, even a person who appears to be lively in any relatively ideal circumstances. Depression should not be taken lightly and people shouldn’t just laugh about the topic. Depression is a real illness, and help is always available to anyone who is going through this phase. With proper diagnosis and treatment the majority of people with depression will overcome it. If you are experiencing symptoms of depression, the first step is to go see and talk with your family or to someone you really trust. Then you can consider going to a physician. Those ways are a start to addressing your mental health needs.

Part VIII: Perfectionism
Perfectionism is often seen as a positive trait that increases someone’s chances of success. But at other times this can lead to self-defeating thoughts or behaviors that can make it harder to achieve success. Perfectionism is often defined as the need to appear to be perfect, or even believe that it is possible to achieve perfection.
Being a consistent honor student since grade school until now, the strive for perfection is always visible. The fact that I always aimed to always do my best in every academic activity, trying so hard to please people. Stressing myself when I don’t have the answers to my questions, spent a lot of hours studying just because of the thought of being the best and getting high grades. It came to the point that the success I received from at the top of my class doesn’t made me feel satisfied anymore. I want more, I thought that the things I am receiving isn’t enough and it didn’t make me feel happy. Constantly striving to pay attention to every little detail of the topics being discussed, the want to ace every examinations, the hunger to always win in every competition. Those were the things that I did, it didn’t went well. I did achieve of all those, but I wasn’t feeling emotions of fulfilment and joy. Here’s what happened when I want to be the perfect student;
-When I’m sick, instead of being absent. I force myself to go to school. I don’t wanna miss any class discussion because I thought that I’ll be missing important topics that I might need for future use. That being absent will lower my grades.
-Every competition, the thought of always winning is always been in my mind. There came a time when I didn’t win and I cannot accept my defeat. In fact I even blamed others.
-In every class discussion. I always want to know every topic. That I always wanted to answer every question asked by teachers. But failed to give others their chance.
- When taking my exams, spent the weeks for studying. Even when it is time for bed and I felt really sleepy I just didn’t let sleep affect my review. That I stayed up late just to study. Then the next morning woke up very early to study again. Find out later that this practice isn’t good. That sleep is very important to any individual regardless on what age he or she is. Wanting to get the perfect score all the time. Even the smallest mistake in answering it, got few wrong ones. When seeing the paper, felt drained and disappointed.
-Always complain and stress out things that I don't find myself agreeing with. Saw every flaw from every group activity done by my other groupmates. That I even ended up doing all the work since I wasn’t satisfied on how they did it. Vent my anger towards everyone, that cause disagreement to others.
-When doing projects when I did something wrong, it ended up affecting my emotions. My instant reaction to it is being angry. Destroyed what I made and starting making another one.
Those mentioned above are just few of those ways I did to achieve perfection in everything I do. The need of doing things perfectly and being not able to accept that flaws and imperfection that emerge through me affects me hardly. At some cases, ended up hurting myself and other people. Instead of being proud my progress and hard work, I constantly compare myself to the works of others and try to fix what I did just so it will be flawless. Even when I get my desired results, I still feel unsatisfied. It did cause a great impact in my life as a student and as a human. Feeling pressured to live up to my previous achievements.
But a change of behavior what the main thing I have realized to change my ways of trying to be perfect or do things perfectly. My growth and maturity affected my way of thinking about perfectionism, changed my perception about certain things in life, and started changing my actions into things I engage in every day. Change is very important and it is the first step towards creating a more easygoing nature, having inner peace, and achieving the real success that comes from overcoming perfectionism and being able to say that “almost perfect” is still a job that is very well done.
Part IX : [Acceptance]
In conclusion to this chapter, the key to being understanding to your own self is being in a state of having acceptance within you. Understand its importance and how it will help you to become a better person than you are yesterday. For me practicing acceptance requires a lot of work within yourself, a lot of effort in changing your perception and your thoughts, and putting yourself to a much more better approach of dealing life situations. You must acknowledge all of the uncomfortable parts of yourself; the parts that you viewed as your flaws, your emotions even those unwanted ones, and your past. You must accept is all. You must know that your broken parts of yourself are in need of healing. As you grow to be more accepting of yourself, you will be able to more accepting of others. When we make peace within ourselves and see the fact that everything in life are exactly the way it is supposed to be in the present moment. You can make peace on any variable in life that surrounds you, including other people. By embracing the freedom of acceptance is a freeing habit. As you find yourself being troubled, feeling upset by your day to day struggles, situations, and others, remind yourself that you have the courage to change. When you feel dissatisfied of the moments you experience in life, figure out what you can do to change about yourself to accept the situations and people from the way they are in that exact moment. After acceptance comes gratitude. The more you will see that each moment has a purpose, a lesson to teach you, a reason that things are unfolding the way it does. As you stay in the present moments and genuinely accept it all, you may work to find ways to be grateful for life on life’s terms, further strengthening your recovery and improving your quality of your day to day life.
“Accepting yourself and others is a virtue, one that is not given to you, but the one that is need of your effort in order to obtain it.”