Quotes About Self-acceptance

I don't need any outside enemies. I have a perfectly good one residing right between my ears.

I can't expand to my highest potential because I'd be an even bigger burden than I am now.

Many people think there are two faucets, marked GOOD FEELINGS and BAD FEELINGS. They think you can turn on the good one and leave the bad shut off. There is only one faucet, however, and it is marked FEELINGS. YOU turn it on, take what you get, and after a while it becomes mostly positive.

we're learning to let ourselves enjoy love, abundance, and other forms of positive energy without sabotaging ourselves.

Group nudity could also be personally beneficial, according to psychologist Abraham M. Maslow, who believed that nudist camps or parks might be places where people can emerge from hiding behind their clothes and armor, and become more self-accepting, revealing, and honest.

This is myself, baby. All of my selves. I own each and every one of them. I know who I'm pretending to be and who I am." The look he gives me is withering. "Do you?

Amazing things happen when you stop hiding behind that hulking beast.

Not fat, just not anorexic. She's soft in all the right places.

But we all must be true to our own nature. Acting as anyone other than yourself merely brings you pain and makes you appear ashamed of who and what you are. Others will feed off that shame, and soon it will be all that you are.

Devyn: "But what can I say? I'm irresistible." Bride: "No, you're a ho, but the good news is I'm ok with that!

If happiness is dependent on outside variables, it can't last. Variables always change. Real happiness has to come from within.

What I've learned over the years is that people shouldn't be defined by a single mistake. Everyone messes up," she said. "You have to forgive yourself and move one.

I'm fascinated with myself and love hearing the sound of my own voice. I'd like to hear what I have to say. A lot of people don't like being alone because they truly don't like themselves, but I love me.

That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin.

You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won't discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself. (p. 84)

compulsive eating is basically a refusal to be fully alive. No matter what we weigh, those of us who are compulsive eaters have anorexia of the soul. We refuse to take in what sustains us. We live lives of deprivation. And when we can't stand it any longer, we binge. The way we are able to accomplish all of this is by the simple act of bolting -- of leaving ourselves -- hundreds of times a day.

It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale. We are unrepeatable beings of light and space and water who need these physical vehicles to get around. When we start defining ourselves by that which can be measured or weighed, something deep within us rebels. We don't want to EAT hot fudge sundaes as much as we want our lives to BE hot fudge sundaes. We want to come home to ourselves. (p. 174-5)

When we give up dieting, we take back something we were often too young to know we had given away: our own voice. Our ability to make decisions about what to eat and when. Our belief in ourselves. Our right to decide what goes into our mouths. Unlike the diets that appear monthly in magazines or the thermal pants that sweat off pounds, unlike a lover or a friend or a car, your body is reliable. It doesn't go away, get lost, stolen. If you will listen, it will speak.

If we think our job here on earth is to fix ourselves, we will keep looking for the broken places. If we believe our job is to be kind, we will keep lavishing love on ourselves.

Weight loss does not make people happy. Or peaceful. Being thin does not address the emptiness that has no shape or weight or name. Even a wildly successful diet is a colossal failure because inside the new body is the same sinking heart.

Compulsive eating is only the symptom; believing that you are not worth your own love is the problem. Go for the love. You will never be sorry.

If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.

I'm not ashamed of my human or my lynx form. I wear clothes because people force me to. I don't need to put on a costume every morning to feel better about myself. -Jack

There comes a point where you have to stop trying to repair yourself and accept the fact that you're broken.