"You" Are Not Your Mistakes

Self-acceptance means accepting and coming to terms with ourselves now, just as we are, with all our faults, weaknesses, shortcomings, errors, as well as our assets and strengths. Self-acceptance is easier, however, if we realize that these negatives belong to us—they are not us. Many people shy away from healthy self-acceptance be­cause they insist upon identifying themselves with their mistakes. You may have made a mistake, but this does not mean that you are a mistake. You may not be express­ing yourself properly and fully, but this does not mean you yourself are "no good."
We must recognize our mistakes and shortcomings be­fore we can correct them.
The first step toward acquiring knowledge is the recog­nition of those areas where you are ignorant. The first step toward becoming stronger is the recognition that you are weak. And all religions teach that the first step toward salvation is the self-confession that you are a sinner. In the journey toward the goal of ideal self-expression, we must use negative feed-back data to correct course, as in any other goal-striving situation.
This requires admitting to ourselves—and accepting the fact, that our personality,, our "expressed self," or what some psychologists call our "actual self," is always im­perfect and short of the mark.
No one ever succeeds during a lifetime in fully express­ing or bringing into actuality all the potentialities of the Real Self. In our Actual, expressed Self, we never ex­haust all the possibilities and powers of the Real Self. We can always learn more, perform better, behave better. The Actual Self is necessarily imperfect. Throughout life it is always moving toward an ideal goal, but never arriving. , The Actual Self is not a static but a dynamic thing. It is never completed and final, but always in a state of growth.
It is important that we learn to accept this Actual Self, with all its imperfections, because it is the only vehicle we have. The neurotic rejects his Actual Self and hates it be­cause it is imperfect. In its place he tries to create a ficti­tious ideal self which is already perfect, has already "arrived." Trying to maintain the sham and fiction is not only a terrific mental strain, but he continually invites dis­appointment and frustration when he tries to operate in a real world with a fictitious self. A stage coach may not be the most desirable transportation in the world, but a real stage coach will still take you coast to coast more satis­factorily than will a fictitious jet air-liner.
Prescription: Accept yourself as you are—and start from there. Learn to emotionally tolerate imperfection in yourself. It is necessary to intellectually recognize our shortcomings, but disastrous to hate ourselves because of them. Differentiate between your "self" and your behav­ior. "You" are not ruined or worthless because you made a mistake or got o f f course, any more than a typewriter is worthless which makes an error, or a violin which sounds a sour note. Don't hate yourself because you're not per­fect. You have lots of company. No one else is, either, and those who try to pretend they are are kidding them­selves.