“Self-acceptance is not something you tell yourself to have. It’s something you experience when you discover that you can pay attention to your innermost feelings and desires with care and compassion. You can also pay attention in the same way to the feelings you block because they cause you pain, and to the parts of you that you think are unacceptable. Then these aspects of yourself can be welcomed back into your conscious self with the life-giving message they are holding for you. When you do this, you become more spontaneous and alive, quite literally more full of yourself, as you once were as a girl, before you learned that girls and women can’t live from their inner selves and follow their own lights.”

-- Helene G. Brenner

This is drawn from Dr. Brenner’s book, ‘I Know I’m in There Somewhere.’ I highly recommend it!