Self-Acceptance: The Journey to Inner Fulfillment

Glowing up led to unhappiness, but self-acceptance brought inner peace and a genuine transformation.

### The Journey to Self-Acceptance: How "Glowing Up" Ruined and Transformed My Life
* 😢 After striving to "glow up" by losing weight to gain external validation and happiness, the journey led to a **deep sense of unhappiness and insecurity** as I struggled to meet societal standards.
* 🌱 Realizing that true and lasting transformation requires making peace with all versions of oneself and forgiving oneself, I sought to cultivate **self-acceptance and self-love**.
* 🎯 Self-acceptance is about acknowledging one's current reality without judgment, creating space for **self-awareness and compassion**.
* 💖 When I started accepting myself, I began to believe in my own value, defended myself from negativity, and **stopped depending on others' validation**.
* 🎢 The path to self-acceptance is a daily practice, and ultimately, it provides the foundation for **maintaining self-worth** and **embarking on external transformations**.
* 💔 Seeking external validation through a "**glow-up**" journey based on societal standards can lead to **unhealthy pressure, toxic patterns**, and a **fake relationship with oneself**.
* 🎉 Achieving self-acceptance allowed me to experience **deep fulfillment**, defend myself from **negativity**, and embrace the **simple joys of life**.
* 🌟 "If you don't use it, you lose it. **Self-acceptance is a daily practice**."

okay, let's try to say some nice things about yourself. Okay, um, have you ever wanted something so badly because you felt like it would make your life so much better? I don't want to be that girl in college that none of the guys like. But now when the guys at my school and they look at me, I don't really probably find me as attractive anymore, which I don't really care. But again, it's SE as an indicator that my appearance has changed. I didn't always look like this. Just a few months ago, things were so different. Back then, the boy I was in love with liked me back. People were nice to me, and life just felt exciting. But now, people treated me differently, and that hurt. Ow, I just need to get it to the point where people can still look at me and not bother. It. I could no longer enjoy the simple things that I used to with, you know, gaining weight. I have to always wear big sweaters, always black pants. So many restrictions, you know.

thing that hurt the most for me was that the boy I was in love with stopped talking to me, and suddenly We Were Strangers again. you would think that the answer to a problem like this would be to glow up, and that's what I thought too. I thought it would make make me happy, and it did, but it also ruined my life. the first day is always the hardest about two more miles to walk so I'm putting on this solstic acid think about the guys in college like do you want to be that girl that the guys don't want to talk to I'mma change you I'mma change you. the journey was taking longer than expected because I was struggling with weight loss. that's really unfortunate anyway it's okay don't lose Faith you're going to get right back on track and you'll lose weight you know I'm consistent in a lot of things but when it comes to weight loss it is so hard. the more I struggled the more I craved my dream self. I'm starting to picture this person.

I could look like who I can be, and she looks amazing and seems amazing. And it's just like everything I want to do is being held back by one thing, and it's my [Music] weight. My efforts to lose weight weren't exactly working. I was getting further away from my dream self, and that made me even more insecure. I just remembered part of me actually doesn't want to go to dance class. The teacher was really judgmental towards me and neglected me in the class. I felt really uncomfortable with myself and started to develop unhealthy patterns, you know, like what I did in the past is I would actually just cancel plans and not even go hang out with people. I don't take Instagram photos if I've gained weight, you know, because it's like I don't even want to go out to this party anymore because I just look terrible. And yeah, like I don't look good in any of my clothes. When I was walking to my hair salon, in my head I just wanted to go around and buy a

bunch of different food why am I thinking this way why am I thinking this way like why do I want to go and buy a bunch of food when I'm like not even that hungry why would I want to sabotage everything like but if I stay strong today tomorrow should be easier I don't know what to do I I just can't meet up with him looking like this like this is just not [Music] acceptable people were getting tired of watching my repetitive failures I stopped posting on YouTube and decided I would come back to complete my story once I figured everything out and finally glowed [Music] up and then today I was in the room it was just laughing at me and they're like what cuz you ate too much like I just I just and I don't know why I'm crying about it but it's probably because I've struggled with it for so long [Music] during this time I got help from a therapist and a celebrity fitness trainer but none of that worked it only

gave me more reasons to be ashamed of myself. You know, you may wonder, like, how could you let yourself get to this point? And it's because I didn't care, I guess, 'cause I understand it's like a deeper-rooted issue. It's like who I am on the inside and who I am on the inside is pretty weak. It was hard not to dislike myself. I was a failure. Sometimes the world insults you in a way that makes you feel like you just can't take it anymore. I did not come this far just to come this far. The humiliation pushed me to such a low point that I thought I'd rather die than be a failure. When your feelings get hurt this much, you can't help but become consumed by darkness. I wanted to destroy my old self and bury her so deep into the ground that she never comes back to make me feel ashamed or humiliated ever again. I was extremely angry and fed up with being this version of myself, so I started pushing past my limits because I wanted to get to my dream self.

as fast as possible. I needed to succeed because succeeding meant that all my problems would go away, and I would finally be happy. I'm like looking at someone different. Who are you? Me down [Music] me [Music] [Music] make. I went back on YouTube to complete my story, and I didn't expect that many people to watch it. And when you've gone so long not feeling good about yourself, the effects of success truly make you feel valued and appreciated. You get hooked on the high of the wind's validation, and you almost feel like you can't live without it. Like if I failed now, there was really no point in living anymore. Oh my gosh, people are going to see this, and they're probably going to expect me to be perfect. Afterwards, I was like, Wow, if I do something in the future and I do something wrong, people are just going to think, 'Oh, she's just like her old self.' When the external validation feels too good, there's usually another side to it. I was live streaming, and then

someone commented, and then people were like asking, they were like why do you not look as good as your Instagram photo, and I'm like because my lifestyle is out of whack, and yes I have gained a little bit of weight back. You start to feel like the world is watching your every move, like you cannot be less than this standard. I became really self-conscious, and even a little bit of weight gain made me feel insecure. Basically, I walked in, I was like holding myself, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I really understood what that meant, and not only did I feel uncomfortable, I just felt like I didn't belong. I felt like it was easy to be kind to myself when I was my ideal standard, but as soon as I wasn't, it would trigger these negative thoughts, and I would start to shame myself. As I was eating my cake, I saw this woman running, and I literally saw her, and I felt bad about myself, and so that's when you realize it's not about the other person. It doesn't affect your life what

affects your life is if you're running or not. I know why I felt so bad about myself. It was because number one, I was in my pajamas. Number two, I haven't been eating healthy this week. I thought I was just keeping myself in check because when you are being the best version of yourself, you just don't let yourself do these unhealthy habits. My dirty apartment is triggering me. My disgusting outfit is triggering me. The fact that I haven't showered in a while is triggering me. Like I couldn't maintain a balance in my life, and as a result, I couldn't hold on to my dream body. Holy, I look different. I wasn't supposed to end up like this again. I was not supposed to end up like this again. What the happened to the pain of who I used to be? And I look fat too. Throw me out on the streets at this point. I don't deserve this. While my life was spiraling out of control, the online pressure was getting worse. Coach Greg, and today I'm going to be talking.

about Olivia Dandrea. She recently posted a video that essentially has gone viral. Nearly we'll be looking at Olivia Dandrea blowup diary. I've never gotten so many reaction requests like that video. So I am other creators were commenting on my journey and it led to me receiving a lot of [Music] messages. I am just trying to be the best version for me and I'm trying to make others feel better as I share my journey. It's like it's like people I can feel negative comments so happy with the fact that I didn't reach this perfect version. Okay let's let's try to let's try to say some nice things about yourself okay [Music]. Um and that that is how glowing up ruined my [Music] life [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] so I'm struggling to care about anything in my life and then I realized I thought about my subscribers and something like I felt

something and so I was like, what about my subscribers? I care about them and all I want is for people to accept me in any body that I am in. And the cold hard truth is, I don't know why. I don't know why I want to be accepted. What is the purpose? What is the purpose of this entire glow-up journey? What is the purpose for why you're trying to reach that goal in your life? When I was younger, I said that I just wanted to be happy and no one ever questioned me. I didn't even question me because it was such a socially acceptable goal to glow up, to chase something that the world values. But now, with the awareness that I have, I recognize that the happiness I was after was not a good happiness. The problem with the glow-up concept is that we're only seeing these results, which can easily create the illusion that these results are what creates the happiness. And secondly, it can be easy to fall into the mindset that the before version of you is not enough.

acceptable, and it starts to make you place value on only one version of yourself. The version that has all the external things that society values. It ends up creating such a fake relationship with yourself. It's like a fake friend, a friend that only likes you because you're pretty, you have cool clothes, you're rich, you get good grades. That's not a friend that I want. I want a friend that likes me no matter what. Correction: I want a friend that loves me no matter what. But there's a difference between like and love. I think it's fine sometimes we don't like ourselves, but our love for ourselves should be such a basic human need that you should have at all times, and it should not be dependent on a goal. Watch the story later because I'm going to talk about the difference between like, self-worth, and self-confidence, and all that. Okay, bye. Those real friends are the ones that make you feel deep fulfillment. The fake friends make you feel empty. In the end, I think there's so much knowledge online about how to chase external goals.

life, but not enough about how you have to develop that healthy relationship with yourself first before going to chase those external goals in life. There's not enough information about how to make yourself your own best friend. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the video and see how I end up becoming my own best friend. What is acceptance? Acceptance is an opening of your heart to the realities of life. The thought of acceptance is painful and scary because it makes us feel like we have to let go of our goals and dreams, stop growing, and accept our harsh realities. This is just the reality that when I lost weight, people treated me differently. The world sets a standard and convinces us that we're not good enough. This motivates us to want to change because we want the world to accept us, to approve of us. So we try to conform to the world's standard, thinking that it makes us better people and that it helps us grow. But chasing a goal out of seeking the world's approval is an

insecure goal. Insecure goals cause unhealthy pressure, which can create toxic patterns. When we seek validation from others to feel worthy, we start to believe that our worthiness depends on their approval and acceptance. This fragile mentality mistakes happiness, love, and inner peace as things that can be given or taken away from us at any time. Don't limit yourself to what society says is successful. Be yourself, as cheesy as that sounds. Anyway, I started to ask myself, what was like the purpose of all of this, right? The main intent of that journey was for me to glow up and be happy. And here I am, at the end of my journey, and I'm really, really unhappy, probably more unhappy than I've ever been. A true everlasting transformation requires you to break down the very structure of your belief system and rebuild it in a new and improved form. And the very first step to everlasting improvement is making peace with all versions of yourself, forgiving yourself, and realizing that you were worthy all along, regardless of your standards. I think I just want to forgive.

myself for everything that's happened. It's like a forgiveness, like, Hey dude, it's okay, it's okay. I think there's just this part of me that wants to say, [Music] Hey, I don't know if you can see me, but I just want to say this one thing. I don't know who you are, I don't know what you have achieved, what you look like. No matter the mistakes we've made, no matter whether or not we can reach a goal, I just hope that you feel like you are enough for once, because I know what it feels like to not. Self-worth is often times confused with self-confidence. Self-confidence is a feeling of trust in one's abilities. It is derived from our accomplishments and skills. Our confidence goes up and down depending on how we're doing in various aspects of Our Lives. Self-worth is a feeling of love for yourself. It is the knowledge that we are inherently worthy of love and care, no matter the externals. Your self-love should not waver this

allows us to look at self-acceptance in a deeper way. Self-acceptance is not about complacency, but about acknowledging your current reality and not judging it. When we judge ourselves so harshly, it affects our self-worth. When our self-worth lowers, it can cause us to go seek that love on the outside through external goals or other people because we are not getting that love from the inside. How I broke the habit of negatively judging myself is by saying the words, it's okay. It's okay that you're not perfect. It's okay that you were self-critical. It's okay that you weren't productive. The negative judgmental voice in our heads is learned. It is learned through all the voices you have internalized from people, parents, friends, society, anyone who wants you to conform to their ideas of what you should be like and what you should do. Self-acceptance is a way of deprogramming from societal standards. By acknowledging our situation in a neutral way, we can remove the negative judgment.

that pressures us to change. When we release negative judgment, we create space for self-awareness and compassion. We start to listen to ourselves more, become more in tune with our thoughts and feelings, and are able to stand up for ourselves and choose what we really want to do, whether that is to change yourself or not change yourself. Your happiness does not have to make sense to other people. When you accept yourself, some amazing things start to happen. You believe in your own value and only surround yourself with people who see it too. I'm at the mall and something just happened to me. So there was a guy that I went on a date with two years ago during my glow-up journey. At the time, I didn't really understand how much I was lacking in self-acceptance and self-love and all that. So I like so badly wanted him. I was lowkey desperate. I literally just saw him. He was on a date with another girl. But it's so crazy because of how much I've changed as a

person, it's so crazy 'cause like I lo I saw him, and there was just no desire for him because I feel so whole and full on the inside. I love myself truly deep down so much now that I don't want a guy that doesn't want me. Literally, I couldn't get over that obsession, and I didn't know why. I couldn't understand why I obsessed over him, and now I see it's because I so badly wanted validation in the past, and I didn't even understand that. I was like, now I'm not the girl who wants that stuff, but I didn't realize subconsciously I did. And now I literally just saw him with another girl, and I'm like, good for you. And I'm just like, I'm going to go shopping now. You will naturally start to defend yourself from negativity and unhealthy pressure. I'm at the mall right now with my mom, and my mom loves me, whatever. Um, not at all out of hate, like she just wants the best for me. And my mom was just talking to my

aunt saying the same comment that she said to me for so many years, which is like, oh, just wait and see, like, once Olivia loses just a little bit of weight, she's going to look gorgeous. And in the past, I always loved to hear that comment. That was like my favorite because it just put such a high self-worth on my thinner self and basically completely disregarded who I am right now. And so now when I hear that comment, I immediately just like threw it out of my head. I was like, nope, I can't. Tell you how much more normal my thoughts are now, now that I've truly like learned to love and accept who I am right now. You stop restricting yourself from the simple joys of life because you realize you deserve to be happy. In the past, every time I came to the mall, I would say, I don't want to try on clothes, I don't want to buy any clothes because I don't want to waste money on my current self, like, only my.

skinny self deserves to have pretty clothes so and I didn't realize at the time how toxic that was. How that sends a message to your subconscious self that hey, I don't accept you right now so you don't even deserve nice clothes. Do you see what I'm saying now? It's like if I want to make myself look nice now, please do. You stop depending on other people's validation to feel good about yourself. Now I see that I really so badly wanted people to treat me better because I wasn't treating myself well. Once I started treating myself well like I am right now, if someone's going to treat me badly because like okay, I'm not as thin or whatever, dude, if you don't want to treat me as nicely because of the way I look, then I wouldn't even want someone in my life like that. If you don't use it, you lose it. Self-acceptance is a daily practice. Ultimately, you end up with the tools for maintaining your self-worth, and that's when you know you've glowed up.

and are ready to go on that external transformation. If you want to hi, today is January 31st, 2024. The good thing is that when you have a really good relationship with yourself, it can cause you to flourish in relationships. So, I'm very excited to announce that my next series will be coming out, and it's called The Dating Diaries. I documented the last year of my dating journey. It was a huge roller coaster. I'm getting so excited just thinking about it, but anyway, yeah. So, there's lots to come on my YouTube channel. I'm just so excited to be back and being a YouTuber. Oh my gosh, okay, bye.

How glowing up ruined my life

hey bestie :D self care, dating, growth + other dramaaa

➵ instagram: @aliviadandrea 

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Alivia D'Andrea

Struggling with Body Image and Self-Esteem in College

A college student expresses her struggle with body image and self-esteem, feeling rejected by peers and the guy she loves due to her appearance.

She experiences emotional pain, unhealthy patterns, and a desire to "glow up" and lose weight to regain happiness.

Despite seeking help from professionals, she continues to struggle with her body image and weight loss.

Overcoming Self-Doubt and External Pressure

Feeling like a failure, the speaker was driven to the brink of self-destruction by shame and humiliation, fueling a desperate need for success.

External validation became a consuming obsession, leading to a fear of failure and intense self-criticism.

The pressure to meet external standards and the online world's judgment intensified the speaker's self-doubt and insecurity.

Olivia Dandrea's Viral "Glow-Up Ruined My Life" Diary

Olivia Dandrea's video diary about her "glow-up" journey has gone viral, leading to an outpour of reactions and messages from viewers and fellow creators.

She questions the purpose of the glow-up concept, expressing the importance of self-acceptance and genuine happiness over external validation.

Dandrea emphasizes the need for a true, unconditional self-love, challenging the societal emphasis on external goals.

The Importance of Self-Acceptance and Self-Worth

Acceptance is about embracing the realities of life and letting go of the need for the world's approval.

Chasing goals for external validation can lead to unhealthy pressure and toxic patterns.

True transformation requires making peace with yourself and realizing your inherent self-worth.

Self-acceptance is about acknowledging the current reality without judgment and is a way to deprogram from societal standards.

Breaking the habit of negative self-judgment involves recognizing that the internal critical voice is learned from external influences.

Self-acceptance creates space for self-awareness, compassion, and the courage to choose one's own path.

Embracing Self-Acceptance and Empowerment

Learning to love and accept herself has transformed the way she views comments about her weight and appearance.

Embracing self-worth has allowed her to stop seeking validation from others and to prioritize her own happiness.

This journey of self-acceptance has given her the confidence to pursue new opportunities and relationships, as she looks forward to sharing her dating experiences on her YouTube channel.