245. Stop Waiting to Accept Yourself: The Truth About Unconditional Self-Acceptance

January 14, 2026

Most of us are wait to accept ourselves after we achieve our goals—after we get that award, land the job, or fix that flaw. But this approach keeps us trapped in an endless cycle of unworthiness. In this episode, we'll dig into why self-acceptance is actually the most powerful fuel for growth and healing. We'll also spend some extra time on the difference between conditional and unconditional self-acceptance, why our minds constantly judge us, and practical ways to break free from self-criticism. If you've ever felt stuck in patterns of negative self-talk or believed you need to be "fixed" before you deserve acceptance, this episode offers a compassionate, scientifically-grounded path forward.

p.s., Find your Simple Joy practice for this episode right here at our blog.

About: The Joy Lab Podcast blends science and soul to help you cope better with stress, ease anxiety, and uplift mood. Join Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek for practical, mindfulness-based tools and positive psychology strategies to build resilience and create lasting joy.

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Sources and Notes:

Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
Related Joy Lab Podcast Episodes
- Self-connection series:
  - Making Self-Connection Your Superpower in 2026 [ep. 243]
  - The Practice of Self-Awareness: Why You're Worth Knowing [ep. 244]
- Self-acceptance episodes:
  - No Need to Hurry, No Need to Sparkle, No Need to Be Anybody But Yourself [ep. 160]
  - Accept Yourself Just As You Are & Then You Can Change [ep. 150]
  - How to Change: External vs Internal Motivators [ep. 145]
- Authenticity series:
  - Unmasking Your True Self: Exploring Authenticity and Awe [ep. 216]
  - Embrace Your True Self: Accepted, Connected, & In The Game [ep. 217]
  - The Road Most Travelled: Awakening Through Suffering [ep. 218]
  - Follow Your Bliss: Awakening to Joy [ep. 219]
  - The Still Small Voice: Awakening with Soulfulness [ep. 220]
- Reducing Negative Self-Talk with Illeism [ep. 235]
"The truth is belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance." —Brené Brown

Key Moments

[00:00:00] Welcome & The Resolution Trap Henry and Aimee introduce the episode's core challenge: most people believe they'll accept themselves after achieving their goals, which creates an endless cycle of unworthiness and self-rejection

[00:01:00] Self-Acceptance Defined: Not Surrender, But Action Aimee clarifies the mission of self-acceptance—accepting all pieces of yourself (internal states, preferences, external situations, strengths and struggles) while understanding this doesn't mean never taking action or calling everything "good"

[00:02:00] The Full Picture Enables Real Change Discussion of how accepting "what is" rather than rejecting or avoiding reality gives you the complete information needed to take meaningful action if necessary

[00:03:00] Self-Acceptance as Active Daily Practice Henry explains why self-acceptance is the opposite of passive—it's a moment-to-moment commitment because the mind constantly creates new judgments and comparisons that pull us away from our center

[00:04:00] "We Fall Into the Trap of Thinking" Aimee's observation about how we evaluate, judge, and continue judging ourselves; links to past Joy Lab episodes on self-acceptance including the authenticity series

[00:05:00] Disconnection as Doorway to Self-Connection How to use moments when you're not feeling authentic as opportunities to practice self-acceptance and self-connection; understanding the difference between inner knowing/loving yourself versus external expression

[00:06:00] Five Essential Self-Connection Questions Practice questions to ask when feelings of disconnection arise: Am I showing up for my inner world? Listening to my wisdom? Acknowledging my feelings, needs, boundaries? Being open and kind with myself?

[00:07:00] The Three Domains of Self-Acceptance (Introduced) Henry outlines his framework for self-acceptance: acceptance of outer life situations, acceptance of inner experience, and acceptance of true self (explored in reverse order, starting with the external)

[00:08:00] Domain #1: Accepting Life Situations Without Self-Blame How we often identify external circumstances as "the problem" but then pile self-judgment on top ("I shouldn't have said that," "It's my fault")—and how noticing this pattern creates distance from unnecessary suffering

[00:09:00] Domain #2: Accepting Inner Experience (Pain vs. Suffering) The Buddhist distinction between unavoidable pain from outer experiences and the suffering created by our resistance and reactions to that pain; understanding that the antidote to resistance is acceptance

[00:10:00] Accepting Both Your Feelings AND Your Reactions Henry's two-level acceptance practice: accepting that you feel a certain way (like fear) AND accepting that you may tend to react with that emotion—no judgment at either level

[00:11:00] Conditional vs. Unconditional Self-Acceptance Explained Aimee introduces Carl Rogers and Albert Ellis's concept of unconditional self-acceptance and flips it to show how most people practice conditional acceptance: "I'll accept myself after I quit smoking/lose 20 pounds/make $75,000"

[00:12:00] The Demands That Hold Us Hostage How conditioning self-acceptance on meeting demands sends the message that we're unworthy unless we meet those standards; every time we fail to meet a demand, we cement the belief of unworthiness deeper

[00:13:00] Why Conditional Acceptance Doesn't Work Despite being surrounded by this approach (parenting, education, employment), conditional acceptance actually blocks behavior change rather than promoting it; it's fundamentally irrational yet we employ it on ourselves constantly

[00:14:00] Unconditional Self-Acceptance: The Only Logical Path If you want to grow, live joyfully, and connect with yourself and others, unconditional self-acceptance is essential—not about skating by, but about waking up and not wasting time stuck in rumination

[00:15:00] Practical Tool: Illeism and the Many Selves Exercise Introduction to using third-person perspective (pronouns "you," "they," or your name) to talk to yourself; returning to the "many selves" list from the previous episode with psychological distancing to add more items

[00:16:00] Creating Your Self-Acceptance Affirmation Aimee shares her go-to affirmation using illeism: "You are a person worth knowing and you are worthy of acceptance"—plus the powerful addition of supportive touch (gentle pressure on chest, legs, stomach, or wherever feels comforting)

[00:17:00] How the Practice Rewires Your Brain Over Time This isn't a magic pill—it helps your brain take a different road from self-evaluation to self-judgment; with practice, the affirmation grows taller and bigger while unfair self-critical thoughts become smaller and less frequent

[00:18:00] Domain #3 Revealed: Acceptance of True Self Henry returns to the "teased" third domain—true self, which is both the easiest (because it has no judgment) and hardest (because we forget it exists) form of self-acceptance to practice

[00:19:00] The Untamed Mind vs. True Self Why we need self-acceptance: the untamed mind's job is to see what's wrong and fix it, leading to judgment, comparisons, and blame. But none of that is who we really are—true self is the consciousness able to observe without judgment or fear

[00:20:00] Experiencing True Self Through Practice When you offer yourself genuine affirmation, supportive touch, or real compassion for your courage in facing obstacles—that comes from true self, the part that knows you are enough just as you are

[00:21:00] Waking Up Dormant Muscles of Self-Acceptance Aimee reflects on how self-acceptance is like waking up dormant muscles we haven't used in a while—bringing true self back into awareness and activity so it contributes to self-connection and joy; preview of next episode on self-alignment

[00:22:00] Closing Wisdom: Brené Brown on Belonging Episode concludes with Brené Brown's insight: "Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing you are enough gives you courage to be authentic, vulnerable, and imperfect"

The Illeism Affirmation Practice

Create an affirmation using third-person perspective (you, they, or your name)
Example: "You are a person worth knowing and you are worthy of acceptance"
Pair with supportive touch—place gentle pressure on chest, legs, stomach, or wherever feels comforting
Use when self-judgment rises, repeating several times
This isn't a magic pill, but it helps the brain take a different road

Many Selves List (from previous episode)

Review your list with the "you" perspective
Add more items using psychological distance
Notice how this third-person view allows you to see yourself more compassionately

Coming This Month on Joy Lab

January's series on Self-Connection will explore:

Self-Awareness practices and principles
Self-Acceptance techniques for compassionate inner dialogue
Self-Alignment strategies for living in integrity with your values
Self-Concordant Goals: a powerful alternative to traditional goal-setting
Applied mindfulness practices to deepen each component

Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program.

Please see our terms for more information.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call the NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 available Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET. OR text "HelpLine" to 62640 or email NAMI at [email protected]. Visit NAMI for more. You can also call or text SAMHSA at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.

Episode Transcript

245. Stop Waiting to Accept Yourself: The Truth About Unconditional Self-Acceptance
===

[00:00:00]

Henry: Hello, I am Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.

Aimee Prasek: And I am Aimee Prasek. So, it is the season of resolutions. And I think most of us believe that we will accept ourselves after we achieve those resolutions, after we lose the weight, land the job, fix some flaw. But that approach keeps us stuck, in an endless cycle of unworthiness. We are tackling that today.

That's why we're digging into self-acceptance. And important point, self-acceptance is not surrender. It's fuel for our growth and healing. So let's dive in. If you are just joining us now and you haven't listened to the last two episodes, our Element of Joy that we're working on this month is Inspiration and we are in a bit of a [00:01:00] self- connection series, so you don't necessarily need to go back to the first episode for January, but it certainly can help either now or after this one.

And we are breaking down self-connection into those three aspects, which are self-awareness, self-acceptance—that's today— and then self alignment, we'll get into that later. So we talk a lot about self-acceptance a lot. We talk about it a lot, a lot.

Henry: It's really important.

Aimee Prasek: It is. It is essential for good mental health. The big mission with self-acceptance is that you accept your internal states, your preferences, your external states, the stuff you're mastering and the stuff you're really terrible at, all the pieces of you realizing this is, that this is all part of you for lots of reasons and lots of consequences. Good or bad. All of this is part of you [00:02:00] and as we've talked about before, when we're digging into self-acceptance, this is not surrendering to whatever the current state is. It's not that we accept whatever and always call it good or never take action.

This is really about fully accepting that this is it. This is what is happening now rather than rejecting or avoiding this stuff, it gives you the full picture so that you can take action if you need to.

Henry: Yes, I, I think we sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that acceptance is passive. It's giving up. It's just letting things be, and there is a little truth to our need to let things be as they are. But in a sense, I think practicing acceptance is the opposite of being passive or giving up.

Self-acceptance is a [00:03:00] really active day-to-day, moment-to-moment practice. It is never done because our mind is forever creating new judgements, new comparisons that we fall short of, or just things that take us away from our center and and leave us essentially feeling badly about ourselves. It's something that self-acceptance is something we have to take on as a real commitment, which we only tend to do once we've realized, fully realized that this other way we've been doing things just isn't working, and in fact it's making things worse.

Aimee Prasek: Oh yeah. I, I, I actually thought you, when you started, you, you had said, we sometimes fall into the trap of thinking. I thought you were just gonna stop there. I was like.

Henry: Could have.

Aimee Prasek: Absolutely. But then you continued and it's just even more [00:04:00] true, we think. And then we evaluate and we continue to evaluate and judge, and judge and judge and judge.

So I'll link to some great episodes actually we've done in the past on the power of self-acceptance, like the obstacles, strategies, lots of tools for you all. Particularly, I think our recent series that we did on authenticity. We talked about self-acceptance loads there, so I'll link to that.

And during that series we talked about how authenticity and self-acceptance worked together. And Henry, I loved how you noted that we can use those moments when we're not feeling authentic as opportunities to practice self-acceptance. Yeah. When those, those feelings of disconnection rise up, we can accept them,

we can be with them and we can really listen for these ones that are like in our [00:05:00] inner world. Particularly that disconnect that has to do with kind of the knowing and loving of ourselves, versus just expressing ourselves. So self-connection is more like a seed. The self-awareness and self-acceptance are part of this inner work.

It's what we need to then used to go out in the world in a way that feels connected to our true self. So we can notice. When these feelings of disconnect, I think, appear and see them as opportunities to practice self-connection, we can check in with some questions when those feelings rise up.

Am I showing up for my own inner world?

Am I listening to my true wisdom?

Am I acknowledging my feelings, needs, boundaries?

Am I open with myself?

Am I being kind to myself?

And we can just notice if any answers rise up in there as well. Just more invitations to practice self-connection and maybe be a signpost [00:06:00] to help us look at a particular piece of our life to practice with.

I think I'm seeing that connection here, pun intended. Would you agree?

Henry: I totally agree.

Aimee Prasek: Okay.

Henry: So I, I find it helpful just for myself to, to lump this topic of self-connection into three parts and you've, you've actually already alluded, I think, to all of these, Aimee, and I, I, I like this too because it ties into self-awareness, which we talked about last time.

So let me just highlight a couple of things. So see if I can describe it in a way that that makes sense. So these three domains are one, acceptance of true self, two, acceptance of your inner experience, and then three, acceptance of your outer life situation. So let, let's just look at these in reverse order. So we'll start with the life [00:07:00] situation.

This is what we often identify as the problem, the source of our stress. Some people call it our drama and sometimes we can get attached to our drama, maybe just because we're so used to it 'cause it's been there with us for so long and it can be strangely hard to let go of the sources of pain even though we want to be free of that pain.

Aimee Prasek: Yeah.

Henry: The truth is nobody is completely free of painful life situations though. But it is important that we don't take those painful life situations and then pile on top of it more self-judgment, which is what we frequently do. That little voice in our head says things like, oh, I shouldn't have said that, or, I should [00:08:00] have done this thing differently.

It's my fault. Why do I keep creating these problems for myself?

Aimee Prasek: You're in my head right now, Henry.

Henry: Comes so easily out of me. So noticing when we're saying things like this to ourselves, just noticing it can give us a little distance from it, you know? We can see it for what it is. This is just something outside of myself that is causing me pain or stress. That's it. It's nothing more than that, and it's nothing we did to ourselves purposely, you know, basically we just wanna create a little distance from this.

The second domain is acceptance of our inner experience. And this is where I, I think the, the mindfulness or Buddhist idea, the, this distinction between pain and suffering becomes really helpful.

These outer experiences that [00:09:00] we just talked about create pain, and to a degree that is unavoidable, but our inner reaction to that pain is what causes suffering, largely because we want it to be different than it is, and that's what's called resistance. The antidote to resistance is acceptance. And in the case we're talking about now, it's, it means accepting our reactions

to what's happening, all the fear, the sadness, the belief that we somehow attract these problems because we're so flawed in some way or another. We can see that those reactions are just kind of the, the, the mind doing its thing, and we can accept them and we can let them go. And we can take it one step further, we can accept ourselves for the fact that we're [00:10:00] having those reactions.

So let's say I'm responding to something with fear. I accept that I feel fearful. I can see that. I notice it in myself. I can accept, okay, right now I'm feeling fear and I can accept that I am someone who tends to react to things with fear. So I can do it at both of those really important levels. The third domain is what I'm calling acceptance of true self, and I think I'm actually gonna set that aside for a moment.

Put it on the shelf and come back to it later. Sorry, Aimee. It's a, I know it's a teaser. I will definitely come back to it, I promise.

Aimee Prasek: In this, like before we end today, or do we have to wait until next...

Henry: you'll just have to see.

Aimee Prasek: Good gracious. Alright, I accept that I am frustrated with Henry's. No, okay. I accept that. Good for you, Henry. [00:11:00] Um,I'll give us some,like another maybe few cues here that I like when we're talking about self-acceptance. Particularly when we're talking about self-connection.

And it's something that psychologists Carl Rogers and Albert Ellis described as unconditional self-acceptance. And I think it can be easy to kind of bristle at this as being too easy on ourselves or something. And so sometimes it can help to flip it. Conditional self-acceptance. This is what the majority of us do.

We condition our self-acceptance on a demand. On lots of demands. I'll accept myself after I quit smoking or after I lose 20 pounds, or after I get in a relationship, or after I make $75,000 this year. All of these conditions that we have to meet before we love ourselves, before we accept ourselves, before we connect [00:12:00] with ourselves.

And of course, we do it because we want to make some kind of change and we think it'll help us get over the finish line. But it doesn't. I mean, we really have to look at this. We are giving ourselves a message that we are not worthy of acceptance, love, connection, unless we meet these demands and every time we do not meet a demand, we cement that belief.

We anchor it. That I am not worthy of acceptance or love until I meet the demands set for me, set by others. So like anything we do over and over again with practice, we get better at it.

It's not something we really wanna practice. So as we continue to condition our acceptance and miss the goal again and again, the belief gets stronger, it gets wider, the net gets cast further. You kind of grow in this thinking that others don't accept or love [00:13:00] me unless I meet their demands. you know, I start to hold that same love and acceptance as ransom for others as well. So we just continue to expand and kind of project this as well. Do this for me, believe this way, act this way and then I'll give you love and acceptance. So this could be really great if it worked, again, if this kind of conditional acceptance and love promoted behavior change, man, we would all be on the straight and narrow, just rocking it. But it just doesn't work. It's actually pretty irrational. Many of us have been parented or educated or employed this way, though. So even though it doesn't work, we are surrounded by this irrational approach and we employ it on ourselves and it just holds us back.

So unconditional self-acceptance is really the only logical way to care for ourselves if we want to grow. I sincerely believe that. If we wanna live more joyfully, if we wanna [00:14:00] connect with ourselves and connect with others, we need unconditional self-acceptance, continuing to grow in that practice. And one simple way to sort of play with this is to use the practice of illeism and create a simple affirmation followed with a supportive touch. So this is brain training and nervous system training. We talked about illeism a few episodes back. I'll link to it. Essentially, illeism is the use of third person perspective when talking to yourself.

So you use the pronoun, you or him, her or she, they or your name to talk to yourself. One way to take action here. if you started your many selves list from last episode, consider pulling that out again, today or soon, and see if you can add a few more items to it, no matter how small using the you perspective.

So approach the list almost as another person generating it for you with this little bit [00:15:00] of psychological distancing, I bet you can add a few more items to it. And if you're not sure what I'm talking about, go back to last episode and you can walk through that exercise. And one more practice that you can consider to create an affirmation with illeism and that really hits on self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-connection, is to, create an affirmation that you can write down, that you can look at, reflect on even daily. And for me it's really simple. Here it is. You are a person worth knowing and you are worthy of acceptance. Take that if you like as an affirmation.

To that you can add some supportive touch, I think is really powerful. So just use your hands and place soft, but noticeable pressure on your body on a place that feels comforting for you.

Could be center of your chest, could be on your legs, over your stomach, over your eyes or ears, if that feels good, wherever. So when these [00:16:00] feelings of self-judgment and self-criticism rise up. I think the key is here, like we don't need to fight them off. We can move our attention to an affirmation like this with some supportive touch. Just say it a few times and yes, it is not a magic pill. This will not immediately stop our lack of self-acceptance or our negative self-talk, but it will stand up to it. We're helping the brain to kind of take a different road. It will help us to avoid moving from self-evaluation into self-judgment like so rapidly and so frequently. Key here we can still self-evaluate and even realize we're missing the mark and not come down on ourselves unfairly. So unconditional self-acceptance isn't something that encourages you to just skate by or become a lazy leech. It's actually about waking us up and not wasting [00:17:00] time, on, or getting stuck in cycles of rumination and negative self-talk that is so unhelpful to say the least. We have to practice something else to get out of that. And so, at some point with continued practice that affirmation, whatever one you created, will feel more real and right and true, and that affirmation will start to grow taller and bigger. And those unfair self-critical thoughts often can get smaller in the shadow of that affirmation and the practices that you engage with.

And they can show up less frequently.

Henry: I love that Aimee. And it is a--

It does work. And it's the perfect segue to that third aspect of self-acceptance that I promised. I knew if I waited it would, it would be able to come back.

Aimee Prasek: It was inspired.

Henry: it,

Aimee Prasek: Good.

Henry: So, and I think it's perfect because true self gives us the kind [00:18:00] of unconditional acceptance that you just talked about.

Of all the kinds of self-acceptance that we have talked about, I think this is both the easiest and the hardest to practice. It's easy because in true self there is no judgment, none. Acceptance is its very nature. But it's hard because we so often forget that it's there or don't even quite realize that it's there.

Aimee Prasek: Yeah.

Henry: The single reason we need to learn and practice self-acceptance is because of the nature of the mind, or let's call it the untamed mind.

Its job is to see what's wrong, try to make sense of it and fix it if possible. But all of that leads to judgment, comparisons, blaming others or ourselves, and all of [00:19:00] those negative thoughts create unpleasant feelings, which we know all too well. But none of that is who we really are. Who we really are is what we're calling our true self or authentic self or higher self. It is the consciousness that we all have, that we're all capable of the consciousness, which is able to observe all of our inner and and outer experiences without judgment or fear. And that's what we're wanting to tap into with practices like the one you just described, Aimee. So the only thing to accept about true self is that it exists, and maybe the easiest way to do that, honestly, is by experiencing it directly in much the way that you just described. [00:20:00] When we offer ourselves a genuine affirmation that comes from true self, when we give ourselves a supportive touch, that comes from true self. When we can feel real compassion for ourselves, seeing how strong and courageous we are, just to keep going in the face of all the obstacles, that comes from true self. It is the part of us that knows we are enough just as we are.

Aimee Prasek: Yes, it was worth the wait, Henry.

Henry: I'm glad.

Aimee Prasek: Oh yeah. I mean, just the acceptance that self-acceptance is a practice and we're, we're like waking up these pieces of ourselves. That, that true self that wants, [00:21:00] that needs a microphone. It's like these kind of dormant muscles that we maybe haven't used in a while.

Man, we can wake 'em up and bring them back into awareness, bring them back into activity so that they can contribute, to our self-acceptance, to our self awareness, to our self-connection, to our joy. Yes. So,we've got more to talk about next episode with self alignment, which is like, we're, we're kind of bringing everything together as well.

So be sure, to tune in for that episode. To close us today, I wanna share some wisdom from Brené Brown. Here it is. "The truth is belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you are enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable, and [00:22:00] imperfect."

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