For a long time, I judged myself for all the things I thought made me weird, hiding them or trying to fit myself into a mold of who I thought I needed to be to fit in.

Meanwhile, I felt stuck, unsure how to find my unique path, my purpose, or a place in the world that felt like home.

At the time, I didn’t connect the dots — that I couldn’t find a place that felt like home in the world because I hadn’t yet connected a place that felt like home within myself.

I didn’t yet understand that my outer world was a reflection of my inner world, and that to change what my life looked like, I had to change what I felt like.

A lot of self-development and spirituality talks about changing your thoughts and feelings — or vibration — to change your life, but often this causes people to fight against themselves even more, blaming any sad or angry feelings they feel for creating a life they’re not happy with.

Of course this causes more inner resentment, frustration and anger, not less.

It intensifies the war within rather than pacifies it.

Finding your unique place in life is really about accepting how you feel instead of fighting it or wishing the feelings weren't there.

Pain has a message for you. It exists because of some past hurtful experience that created limiting beliefs or self-criticism blocking you from being who you really are.

As you totally accept how you feel, letting the pain guide you on a pathway of healing, you receive the wisdom inside these emotions. This wisdom then guides you forward on your path.

Space has been cleared for your natural, irrepressible creative impulse to rise up and carry you toward the life you are meant to be living.

But connecting with that impulse in the first place requires you to learn how to accept yourself exactly as you are.

Because it’s only when you stop judging yourself and start loving yourself that you find your true gifts (that are often hidden inside your so-called flaws) and start interacting with life from a place of play and experimentation rather than heavy-handed neediness to get somewhere else because you’re not happy where you are.

Thanks to the three simple ideas I’m about to share with you, I now really love the woman I’ve become. I love how unique and independent and free spirited I am.

I love that I’m following my unique path in life, have found my life purpose, and wake up each day grateful and happy to keep growing and exploring the wonderful being I am.

If you want to learn how to accept yourself so you can find your path in life, you'll love the Self-Love guided journal.

Here are a few tips I've learned for accepting myself you can use right now:

1. See the positive side to so-called flaws.

Nothing is all good or all bad, and many times the things society tells are are unworthy or unacceptable are actually the coolest, most interesting parts of us.

For example, I'm a hardcore introvert, pretty much a hermit. When I was younger, I'd literally sit on the couch all day with a stack of books by my side. (I could rattle off all the titles of The Babysitter's Club, in order. I was obsessed.)

Oh how people (including my family) have loved to comment on this over the years.

I judged myself for this for SO long. As a result, I spent my young adult years drinking, trying to be outgoing, still not really fitting in, and feeling at war with myself because of it!

If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself, "Suzanne, don't focus on what you think the world wants from you. Focus on doing what you love to do."

I found my unique path in life only when I began to accept myself unconditionally.

I realized my deep introspectiveness and introversion held my greatest gifts — my ability to think about life, articulate those realizations and ask myself the perfect questions to evolve past my problems and toward my desires.

That's why I created the Self-Love guided journal.

It's a mix of self-help book and guided journal with 30 insightful daily readings and incredible prompts to help you accept yourself unconditionally — including finding the gifts inside the things you think are weird.

2. Set goals and follow through with them because avoiding this is toxic to your self-confidence.

One thing that really changed my life was holding myself accountable for moving forward on all the ideas I had.

As an introverted dreamer, I can spend all my time lost in thought if I'm not careful.

I thought about starting projects, but they languished in notebooks.

Not moving forward on your dreams or breaking promises to yourself — these things are toxic to your self-confidence. Don't do this if you want to learn how to accept yourself.

Not pursuing your own goals leaves you focused outward on what other people are doing, comparing your life to theirs, finding reasons why your life is unfair or you have it worse.

As soon as you focus inward on loving, accepting and understanding yourself, connecting to the force of creative potential within and expressing that into the world, your life will change — fast.

That's why one of the most empowering things you can do is follow through on your creative impulses.

Don't be a flaky creative — give yourself projects and goals and deadlines.

If you've had trouble following through in the past, you'll love Week 4 of the Self-Love guided journal, where we talk about overcoming perfectionism, creating new habits and finding your flow.

People often wait to feel good enough to follow their dreams or start a new creative project, but ironically it's starting the project and following your dreams that helps you feel empowered and in love with yourself. This is how to accept yourself.

3. See yourself for who you are rather than seeing yourself based on how others see you.

Self-understanding and self-acceptance go hand in hand. So many people spend their entire lives trying to get things from other people — love, validation, acceptance and approval.

When we do this, we see ourselves through their eyes, doing anything to make ourselves look important, impressive or worthy.

Unfortunately, the more we try to appear a certain way, the more likely we are to fall out of alignment with our true self.

Trouble is, by the time most people realize this, they're so disconnected from their souls they have no idea who they are anymore.

A lot of times the ways you judge yourself start way back in your childhood. (I know. It's annoying. But it's important to do the work.)

The Self-Love guided journal starts out really deep to help you examine how things from your past have affected you.

During Week 3, which is all about reclaiming your inner power, you'll explore how you want to relate to the world based on who you really are, rather than who you think you should be.

This includes identifying the pieces of yourself you've lost over the years trying to fit in (and accepting them so you can reintegrate what's true back into your personality), along with creating a greater sense of yourself.

This includes identifying your values, setting appropropriate boundaries, and digging into the all-important difference between being nice versus being kind.

All told, the Self-Love guided journal will help you live more authentically by while finding your unique path in life.

It will show you exactly how to accept yourself unconditionally not by telling you what to do, but by asking you important, powerful questions — the same you'd be asked in expensive coaching or drawn-out therapy sessions.

It will help you learn how to accept yourself.

You are powerful. You have all the answers within you. Journaling is the best way to find them.

Shop the Self-Love guided journal here.

All the love,

Suzanne Heyn

Founder, Soul Scroll Journals

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