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There are many reasons why you might be uncomfortable accepting love. Perhaps you’re afraid that

you may be hurt if you accept someone’s love. You may have trouble loving yourself, so you see

yourself as unworthy of another person’s love. No matter your reason for being afraid to accept

love, there are things you can do to help you open yourself up to the possibilities that come with

loving and being loved.

Part 1 of 2: Accepting Love From Yourself

1. Understand self-compassion. Self-compassion is the extension of acceptance and empathy to

yourself. Self-compassion is crucial to your ability to love others and accept their love. According to

researchers, self-compassion involves three elements:

Self-kindness. We’re sometimes taught that being accepting and understanding toward ourselves is

selfish or narcissistic, but think about it: if a friend made a mistake, would you constantly remind

them of how horrible they are, or would you try to be understanding of their error? Extend yourself

the same kindness you would to others.

Common humanity. It can be easy to believe you’re the only one capable of imperfections and guilt,

but making errors and experiencing pain are part of what makes us human. Understanding that

you’re not the only person to make mistakes or feel hurt can help you feel more connected to those

around you.

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Mindfulness. Mindfulness has a lot in common with meditation: it’s the idea of recognizing and accepting an

experience, without judgment, as you experience it. For example, if you frequently have the thought, “I’m so

unattractive, nobody will love me,” a mindfulness approach might be something like, “I’m experiencing the feeling

that I’m unattractive. This is just one of many feelings that I will have today.” Recognizing when you are having

negative thoughts will help you move your thoughts elsewhere.

2. Understand some myths about self-compassion. We are often taught that accepting ourselves is self-indulgent or egocentric, or — worse yet — lazy. Instead, we are told that perfectionism and self-criticism are healthy and productive. In fact, they’re not; they are usually based in fear.[3] Self-pity is different from self-compassion. Self-pity is the feeling of “poor me” that you may experience when things don’t go your way; for example, “My colleague got more of the credit for our project than I did. Nothing ever works out for me.” Self-pity focuses only on your problems and often creates feelings of inadequacy. A self-compassionate thought might be, “My colleague and I worked hard on that project, and I feel that I did a good job. I can’t control how others respond to our work.” Self-compassion isn’t laziness. Accepting yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t want to improve yourself. It just means that you won’t be cruel to yourself when you make mistakes. Practicing expressing love for yourself also helps you express it to others. Beating yourself up is not the same as accepting responsibility for your mistakes. A self-compassionate person can still own up to mistakes they make without feeling that he or she is a terrible person. Research has shown that self-compassionate people are actually more likely to attempt self-improvement.

3. Understand the difference between self-compassion and self-esteem. While these two sound similar, they have

some crucial differences. Self-esteem is what you think and how you feel about yourself, and it’s important to being

a healthy, happy person. However, it tends to be motivated by external validation: for example, you may feel

attractive because someone compliments your looks. Self-compassion is about accepting yourself, flaws and all, and

treating yourself with kindness and understanding.

Psychology research has shown that self-esteem is not a reliable indicator of success or even capability. Sometimes,

it’s the most confident people who know the least about a situation.

4. Reject shame. Shame is the source of a lot of pain, and we’re very good at producing it. Shame is the profound,

enduring belief that somehow, we aren’t worthy:of love, of time, of attention. However, shame is often not related

to anything that is actually wrong with ourselves or our actions; it’s an internal judgment.

Try to be aware of your thoughts and feelings about yourself. Sometimes shame manifests itself as feeling that you

don’t deserve love. Sometimes it presents itself as a fear that if we reveal our true selves, the other person will

leave us. These feelings are common, but they are also very damaging. Try affirming to yourself that you do deserve

love.

5. Practice self-acceptance. This doesn’t come naturally to most people, because we’re often trained to see

criticizing ourselves as something positive (for example, it drives one to work harder, improve oneself, etc.).

However, there are steps you can take to work on improving your ability to accept yourself.

Point out your strengths to yourself. We’re used to making lists of failures, and humans tend to remember negative

events and emotions more clearly than positive ones. Take some time each day to write down something positive

about yourself. It doesn’t matter so much if you believe it at first. Make a habit of thinking about yourself in positive

terms, and you’ll probably become less resistant to believing them.

Depersonalize your failures. It can be easy to think “I’m a failure” if you haven’t succeeded at something, but that

kind of totalizing thinking devalues you and promotes feelings of shame. Instead, try thinking something like, “I

didn’t succeed at _____, but I did the best I could.”

Remind yourself that you’re human. Perfectionism can have devastating consequences on the way we

view ourselves. Try looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself: “I am a human being. Human

beings are not perfect, and neither am I. That is okay.”

6. Understand that vulnerability, weakness, and mistakes are part of the human experience.Sometimes, you will

do something that you didn’t want to do. Perhaps you scored badly on a test, or hurt a friend’s feelings, or lost your

temper with your boss. However, dwelling on those negative occurrences and shaming yourself about them keeps you

from viewing them as learning experiences.

Instead, accept that whatever happened happened, apologize for it if you can, and come up with a plan of what you

will do differently in the future.

Accepting your mistakes doesn’t mean pretending they didn’t happen. It doesn’t even mean not feeling bad that

they happened. Taking responsibility for your actions acknowledges the mistakes, but focusing on what you can learn

from them and how you can avoid them in the future transforms guilt into growth.

Part 2 of 2: Accepting Love From Others

1. Understand where your hesitation to accept love comes from. People have many reasons for not being

comfortable accepting love from others. For some, it’s just a trait of their personality that they’d like to change. For

others, a history of abuse or trauma may have required that the person shut down to protect themselves, making

trusting someone else enough to accept their love nearly impossible. Understanding why you are having trouble

accepting love will help you overcome that difficulty.

Some people are naturally more reserved than others. Don’t confuse emotional reserve with inability to accept or

express love.

If you have previously been in relationships that ended badly, or if you were in a relationship with someone who

didn’t offer you the same love and trust that you offered them, it can be hard to think about accepting

love again.It is natural for survivors of abuse to experience an inability to trust others. Trust is a

difficult thing to re-learn, so take your time. Don’t feel guilty because you have trouble trusting people.

2. Become comfortable with vulnerability. In order to achieve intimacy in relationships, whether they are with

friends or with romantic partners, you need to be comfortable being vulnerable with the other person. It can be

terrifying to accept this possibility, but researchers emphasize that without vulnerability human connection cannot

happen.

For example, much of what drives a classic “fear of commitment” is the fear of being vulnerable and then being

hurt. This often stems from a history of past experiences.

You can practice accepting vulnerability incrementally. Start with small gestures — greeting a coworker, saying hello

to a neighbor — and accept that they may not be returned and that this is okay. You just need to practice putting

yourself forward.

3. Assess the level of vulnerability you are comfortable with. Especially if you haven’t had a lot of practice in

accepting love from others, or if you’ve been hurt by loved ones in the past, you may need to take particular care in

choosing what love you’re willing to accept and what level of vulnerability you are able to handle at this point in

time.

For example, accepting an offer to go out for coffee with a coworker may represent a fairly low level of vulnerability

for some people, but a high level for others. Deciding to try healing a friendship that fell apart represents a very high

level of vulnerability.

You may need to start with small steps at first. That’s okay. You can build up to accepting greater levels of

vulnerability as you become more comfortable with accepting love.

4. Give up the need to control. Being in a relationship with another person, whether it’s a colleague, a friend, or a

romantic partner, means that you are connecting with unique person with feelings and thoughts of his or her own.

You cannot, and should not, control other people’s actions and emotions, and trying to do so can end up hurting

everyone in the relationship. Accepting that you can’t control the other person means accepting the possibility that

they may hurt you, but it also means that you may find out how truly loving they can be when allowed to express

themselves.

5. Find people who accept you as you are. Accepting yourself can be hard if the people you surround yourself with

are constantly criticizing you or asking you to change. It will be much easier to accept love from friends and

romantic partners who accept you for who you, do not constantly criticize or shame you, and do not set conditions

on their love for you.

6. Embrace your right to say “no.” While many studies show that individuals who are open to vulnerability and

accepting love from others tend to be happier and healthier people, you are not required to accept love from

everyone. Always remember that you can and should ask others to respect your boundaries.

The other person should respect the boundaries you set. People who routinely ignore or reject your requests may not

be genuinely interested in your feelings.

7. Learn to recognize when “love” is actually emotional abuse. Sometimes, individuals attempt to control other

people by manipulating their feelings of love. There are many forms that emotional abuse can take, but learning to

recognize these warning signs will help you determine when the offer of love is something that will enrich your life

and when it’s an attempt to manipulate you.

A common abusive tactic is to make love conditional based on something that you do. This can manifest as

manipulations such as “If you really loved me you would….” or “I love you, but…”

Another abusive tactic is to threaten the withdrawal of love to get a desired behavior; for example, “If you don’t do

____, I won’t love you anymore.”

Abusers may also play on your own insecurities to convince you to obey them, such as telling you that “nobody will

love you the way I do” or “nobody will want you if I leave you.”

If you experience any of these in your relationship, consider seeking counseling or other assistance.

Emotional abuse is not normal, and you don’t deserve it.

Sources and Citations : www.imtalking.org