TEE #003 Learning to Love and Accept Myself

The Empowered Entrepreneur — by Zach Marañon
October 25, 2023

Hey bud,

Last Saturday I posted about how accepting yourself is key to achieving your goals. In this edition of The Empowered Entrepreneur, I wanted to share my own journey of self-acceptance with you.

“Am I good enough?”

“Am I capable of doing this?”

“Am I worthy of the goals I want to achieve?”

These are questions that would play in my mind not so long ago — and still sometimes does to this day.

But as I attended personal mastery seminars and workshops by I Am Plus Coaching and Training Systems here in the Philippines, and as I received coaching from their coaches, I learned how to slowly accept and love myself as I am in the present.

For so long I looked for validation, appreciation, and acceptance from others — but I realized that what I’ve been searching for for so long has always been inside of me (Basically The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho lol)

I learned that the more you love and accept yourself as you are, the easier it is to progress towards your goals.

Often it’s also all about learning how to love and accept our past selves (the past selves that made a lot of mistakes and bad decisions). Learning to do this really helps us progress towards our desired outcomes.

Now, as a forewarning, I’m going to get very personal in this letter.

I’m going to be sharing stories that involve my shame.

I’m going to risk feeling unaccepted, and I’m going to risk possibly pushing some of you away.

Why?

Because shame loves secrecy. To overcome it, I’m choosing to share it.

“Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it—it can’t survive being shared.”

Brené Brown

I acknowledge that this can be selfish. That I’m using this medium to process and overcome some unworked emotions that I hold.

If this isn’t okay with you, the unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email — no hard feelings :)

Let’s get into it.

Blame, Anger, Guilt, and Shame (B.A.G.S.)

This is an acronym I learned from Discovery, a 2 day seminar and the flagship workshop of I Am Plus Coaching.

Up until attending this 2 day seminar in 2018, I wasn’t really aware that I was holding on to a lot of these bags.

And they were heavy.

A lot of it was because of a goal I set for myself that I wanted to accomplish by an arbitrary time.

Back then, I was already past the timeframe I set, and so I was hard on myself.

I blamed myself.

I blamed myself for procrastinating and not taking the amount of action I should have.

I was angry at myself.

I was angry that I didn’t achieve that goal at the EXACT time I wanted to.

I was guilty and ashamed.

“Was I not good enough?”

“Was I not deserving?”

Again, those negative inner conversations would replay over and over again in my mind.

It was unhealthy, and carrying around those bags led me to make decisions that I’m not proud of today.

I’ll spare you the specifics for now, but looking back, those decisions were a quick escape from the turmoil that I was feeling.

The problem was that those decisions led to even more bags being loaded onto me, and I looked to escape those heavy emotions further which led me to more bad decisions.

It was a cycle.

To break that cycle and release the bags, I had to learn tools to let go of these heavy emotions.

I had to learn “release-work” which was thankfully taught in Discovery.

The release-work included journaling, positive self-talk, meditation, working out, self-forgiveness, and (you guessed it) self-acceptance.

The overall theme of those tools was all about accepting how things were and who I was being at the time.

They called this process “clearing.”

As if I was clearing away the clutter in my mind and my heart (similar to cleaning your room).

And just like cleaning my room, over time it would eventually get cluttered again, so I had to do these processes regularly.

But as I cleared mentally and emotionally, I felt so much lighter. So much more at peace.

So much so that taking action towards my goals became easier (since there was less resistance).

And, today, I would make sure that I would practice clearing as an exercise at least once a week.

This is just to make sure that my heart and mind are okay and that I’m ready to launch towards my goals.

Especially when something goes wrong, or I’m reminded of a past mistake or bad decision, I go straight into clearing.

I’ve incorporated this so much in my daily life that a good day for me 5 years ago (before I learned these tools) is a bad day for me today.

And now majority of my days are in gratitude and lightness (maybe because I made self-acceptance a regular practice).

I talk more about this process of clearing in letter #006 Understanding Emotional Agility.

Loving and Accepting my Past Self

Recently, life decided to punch me in the face.

Do you get those too sometimes? Sucks doesn’t it?

Someone in my past messaged me in order to (in my perspective) clear out any unresolved thoughts and emotions that this person may have had. Valid, of course.

And this is someone that I’ve hurt… badly.

I’m not proud of what I did, and I’m not proud of the pain that my past self has caused others.

Back then, I took advantage, I broke trust, and upon realizing the effect of my actions, I felt so much guilt and shame to the point that many years later (in this present moment) I still feel remnants of that guilt and shame.

I was grateful for the opportunity to have some closure — but in that situation, I felt compelled to really face my past self.

My past self that I don’t necessarily like because of his choices.

My past self that I don’t necessarily like because of his actions.

My past self that I don’t necessarily like because of the pain he inflicted on others (whether knowingly or unknowingly).

And as I write this letter, I am facing this exact past self once again.

At the moment of writing this, I feel the weight of those bags — the blame, anger, guilt, and shame.

Now, I have two choices — I can resist these emotions along with my past self and run away from it all.

Or

I can acknowledge that this is what I’m feeling and I can choose to not judge myself for it (and start the process of self-forgiveness and acceptance).

I’m choosing the second option.

I’m choosing RADICAL self-acceptance.

I’m choosing to fully embrace, love, and accept myself — including my past self who made bad decisions and even caused pain towards others.

This doesn’t mean that I like what happened or what I did, it just means I’m not living in denial of my past anymore.

I’m choosing not to fight against the facts.

I’m choosing not to pretend that things aren’t the way they are because when I do, I rob myself of power.

I’m letting go of the need to be against things.

I’m letting go of the need to berate and punish myself.

There may be things about myself which don’t seem exactly ideal, and I tell myself that I can’t love myself until I change those things.

And I withhold love for myself as a way to motivate me to do better.

Like using the lack of love as a whip to punish me.

But that just creates more turmoil within me which will cause me to make more bad decisions in the future.

And so, I choose to deeply and completely, love, forgive, and accept myself (especially my past self)

Because in order to get to where I want to go, I’ve got to accept where I am.

If I want to book a flight to some other place for example, I have to accept what airport I’ll be leaving from. And it doesn’t do me any good to fight that reality.

I am accepting what is so that I can claim all my power to make things better, and I am making things better by doing so. For myself and others.

The more I love and accept myself, the more I’m naturally inclined to take care of myself. As a result, the more I naturally love, accept, and take care of others.

And the more I’ll naturally do more good in the world.

In Conclusion

This edition of the Empowered Entrepreneur is a bit longer than the others, but I wanted to share with you the process I use to arrive at self-acceptance.

Radical self-acceptance at that.

I also wanted to share what I was ashamed of, because I truly feel better and lighter now that I’ve written this down.

As if I’ve let go of some of the bags weighing me down.

“If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.”

Brené Brown

Now, when you decide to do something similar and share your shame, make sure it’s with someone you trust and can respond with empathy.

Sharing it with the wrong person, it could do you more harm than good.

At the end of the day, learning to love and accept myself fully has allowed me to take action with less resistance (like I was acting from ease and flow).

By learning to do this for yourself, you will have an easier time progressing towards your goals and desired outcomes.

I hope you can take these ideas and use it for your own journey.

If you want to learn more about radical self-acceptance, you can read the letter I posted last Saturday here (in case you haven’t opened it yet).

All the love,
All the power,

— Zach Marañon

P.S. Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways that I can be of help to you:

  1. Follow me on Instagram here if you want a source of bite-sized ideas and content that can help you reach your next level in life.

  2. Book a free kick-off conversation for one-on-one coaching here if you are an entrepreneur or sales professional currently looking to create solutions to a problem or challenge in your life but you seem to be stuck.

  3. Download my goal setting guide here if you are wanting to create clarity on your desired outcomes (Free until 100 downloads — and then I convert it to a paid resource).

P.P.S. If you are from the Philippines and are looking for a personal mastery workshop to help you experience growth and transformation, check out Discovery by I Am Plus Coaching and Training Systems. It’s where my journey of self evolution personally got fast-tracked.

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