5 Best Self-Acceptance Books

Hello, fellow bookworms!

This year, we are devoting it to creating your own damn magic, and this February we are devoting it to self-love and self-acceptance. So, we thought, what better to read than the best books for finally allowing yourself to heal and grow through self-acceptance? Here are our favorite self-acceptance books that we read over the years, that truly helped us in creating our own damn magic:

1. Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Steven C. Hayes

If you think self-acceptance in an unimportant concept then, definitely this is the most understanding and helpful book to pick up and read. Hayes explains and walks you through ACT – acceptance commitment therapy, a new scientifically based psychotherapy which is not based on fighting off the pain, but rather accepting its existence and allowing us to heal through that acceptance. It’s an amazing book, definitely pick it up!

The “acceptance” in Acceptance and Commitments Therapy is based on the notion that, as a rule, trying to get rid of your pain only amplifies it, entangles you further in it, and transforms it into something traumatic. Meanwhile, living your life is pushed to the side. The alternative we will teach in this book is a bit dangerous to say out loud because right now it is likely to be misunderstood, but the alternative s to accept it. Acceptance, in the sense it is used here, is not nihilistic self-defeat, neither is it tolerating and putting up with your pain. It is very, very different than that. Those heavy, sad, dark forms of “acceptance” are almost the exact opposite of the active, vital embrace of the moment that we mean.

Steven C. Hayes, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

2. The Self-Acceptance Project: How to Be Kind and Compassionate Toward Yourself in Any Situation by Tami Simon

Sometimes you think that you need to be better, you need to change ourselves completely so that self-acceptance can come easier to us. That’s where you are wrong, and this book helps understand that. We loved this book because it was written by a deeply spiritual person, that even on her spiritual part still stumbled and struggled with self-acceptance, and she shares a lot of tips, techniques and truly different perspectives that will help you accept yourself more easily.

We can move through our days so out of touch with ourselves that, at the end, we feel sorrow for not having expressed our own aliveness, creativity, and love. So much of the time we’re simply unaware of just how pervasive that sense of something’s-wrong-with-me is. Like an undetected toxin, it can infect every aspect of our lives. For example, in relationships, we may wear ourselves out trying to make others perceive us in a certain way – smart, beautiful, spiritual, powerful, whatever our personal ideal happens to be. We want them to approve of us, love us. Yet, it’s very hard to be intimate when, at some deep level, we feel flawed or deficient. It’s hard to be spontaneous or creative or take risks, or even relax in the moment – if we think that we’re falling short.

Tami Simon, The Self-Acceptance Project: How to Be Kind and Compassionate Toward Yourself in Any Situation

3. You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance by Chani Nicholas

For all of you Astrology lovers out there that are wondering on a lot of parts of their natal charts, and staring at them confused and trying to uncover their meaning, this book will help you get clarity on one of the most important parts – self-acceptance. In this book, you will read a little about the authors' story and how his life turned around once he finally started to understand his astrology chart. Then he proceeds in explaining each part of your natal chart, and how to use the information from it for accepting yourself. It’s an amazing book!

Being witnessed is essential to our humanity, to our growth, and our ability to move past the trauma that we have survived. If astrology does its job, it offers a mirror in which we see both our best selves and our growth edges.” “Whatever pattern constellated in the heavens at the moment you took your first breath is the cosmic imprint of your soul, the map if the journey you will take in this lifetime, and the ways in which you will go about it.

Chani Nicholas, You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance

4. The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive by Kristin Neff & Christopher Germer

Have you tried to live according to: “Treat others, as you would like to be treated yourself?”. This amazing book asks the very question that you have been missing out yourself – are you treating yourself as well, as you treat others? We enjoyed it because it explains where the issues for self-acceptance come, and asks the right questions that hit home. Plus there are so many comprehensive techniques, methods, and exercises that help to fully accept yourself, fully.

Self-compassion involves treating yourself as you would treat a friend who is having a hard time – even if your friend blew it, or is just facing a tough life challenge. Western culture places great emphasis on being kind to our friends, family, and neighbors who are struggling. Not so when it comes to ourselves. Self-compassion is a practice in which we learn to be a good friend to ourselves when we need it most – to become an inner ally rather than an inner enemy. But typically we don’t treat ourselves as well as we treat our friends.

Kristin Neff & Christopher Germer, The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive

5. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

And last, but not least, we are giving you one of the best books that inspired us and helped us the most to accept ourselves as we are, and awaken our magic! Brown’s books are always very powerful and hit all the right places, and this one is an amazing way to awaken self-acceptance.

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection. Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.

Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

Tune in to our blog to get more free book recommendations and to-read lists!