How to Accept Yourself (Overcoming Common Problems)<\/a> by Dr. Windy Dryden<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nBoth cover much of the same ground and teach you how to use REBT on your own. How to Accept Yourself is deals more with self-esteem and acceptance, while the other book covers a broader range of negative emotions.<\/p>\n
I like REBT because despite being remarkably simple to use as a self-help technique, it’s also very effective and scientifically validated. This is not one of those self-help approaches that makes you feel positive for a few days but causes no real change.<\/p>\n
Conclusion: To have acne is human<\/h2>\n
I hope that by now we have established that acne is a natural part of human life. The earliest records of it go back several thousand years, and it has probably been with us as long as we’ve been humans. It’s certainly much older that many of the modern sins blamed for it.<\/p>\n
Diet and lifestyle do affect acne, and with rational and scientifically guided changes it’s usually possible to drastically reduce moderate\/severe acne. But no amount of healthy eating and living gets rid of the genetic tendency towards acne.<\/p>\n
Getting rid of mild\/occasional acne may or may not be possible, but I feel it’s much easier just to learn to live with it. A person stressing over the occasional pimple probably needs to work more on self-esteem and emotional issues than acne. Because even when acne is gone, those problems will find another outlet; perhaps less than ideal weight or imperfectly shaped nose.<\/p>\n
You are never going to be happy and content until you learn to accept yourself, pimples and all. In other words, as a human.<\/p>\n
Epilogue – reader story<\/h2>\n
A reader and a frequent commenter, Adel, asked me to write a post about “why it’s ok to have acne”. What you just read is the result. He struggled and overcame with many of the issues I talked in this post. So I asked him to write his story to give this post some personal touch. Here’s what he had to say.<\/p>\n
My story<\/h3>\n
Hi! My name is, Adel. But most people call me Alex.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m 18, almost 19 years old now. Living in Copenhagen in Denmark. Which is located near Finland where Seppo is from. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll try and not make this a lengthy post so I\u2019ll just go right to the stuff.<\/p>\n
I think the first time I got acne was when I was about 11, I clearly remember I got this big pimple on the side of my nose, when it finally disappeared I think there went about 2 solid years before I started getting acne regularly.<\/p>\n
It was nothing special really, I got that occasional pimple but my skin was\u2026 More or less clear you could say? Anyways. Fast forwarding to my late 16’s and my 17-18’s and that’s where things got interesting.<\/p>\n
I was about to start in College and I decided that I wanted to have clear skin so I went on acne.org\u2019s website and purchased the regimen. While I was reading all the positives reviews I was sure that this was the regimen that was going to make things work for me!<\/p>\n
But not quite..<\/h3>\n
I remember when I got the products, when I first started using it, nothing really happened. In fact the first 2 weeks nothing happened at all. After a while my skin started to dry out and all the pimples I hah did the same. Everything was cool but my skin was really dry.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t help much that it increased my skin\u2019s sensitivity to the sun; hanging out in the park in the King\u2019s Garden is a tradition in Denmark during the 1st week of College and drinking beer (of course) at the same time. I never needed to use sunscreen because my skin is slightly tan already so I already had some protection against the sun. It’s more my mum who get sun burned rather easily but I get tan pretty easy compared to her.<\/p>\n
So yeah, I got sun burned, and my skin was rather delicate against the UV rays (which everyone who has hung around Seppo’s website knows that it’s pretty bad for acne skin.. Or skin in general)<\/p>\n
My skin got drier too. In fact, some guy from my class asked me what\u2019s up with my skin like.. why it was so dry? I\u2019m not kidding, I was scaling but it wasn\u2019t that normal kind of scale, my skin was really peeling off. I mean, they weren\u2019t small scales but it was like peeling an orange.. That kind of peeling.<\/p>\n
My skin was itching as crazy as well, I think I tried to overuse the moisturizer because of my skin was so itchy.<\/p>\n
Oh well.. My skin was clear though.. Until my skin got dry then I got scales. :S<\/p>\n
Until it happened.<\/h3>\n
To be completely honest, my memory from this point is rather hazy. I don\u2019t remember every detail very well but I remember when I woke up and went to the bath room mirror I noticed that I had acne \u2013 and quite a lot of it \u2013 on my jaw line. Like.. I don\u2019t remember exactly, but I think the total pimple count was about 10 around there. They were inflamed too.<\/p>\n
After that, it kinda went downhill, my skin was getting inflamed spots all over and even though it only took about 1 month to clear them all out I was left out with some serious inflamed markings. Heck I think the inflammation did something to my skin barrier because I kept breaking out during the course of some months after that, and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s because I never noticed it before but I don\u2019t think I broke out that much before all this happened? Oh well…<\/p>\n
I was desperate<\/h3>\n
I was desperate so I searched around how to clear acne and I found Tracy\u2019s website thelovevitamin. I downloaded her E-book and started to read out what caused acne etc.. I realized that I did so much wrong with my body and I started to blame and guilt myself unnecessarily much because of the stuff I ate when I was growing up\u2026 Although I know now better that it\u2019s not your fault that you get acne but I think Seppo will cover that in the post as well.<\/p>\n
After that time passed by, I started doing the cavemen regimen (really gross) I never ate processed foods and when I did I would freak out all the time and pretty much isolate me from the others in my class. Nevertheless, I went from being socially outward to an introvert.<\/p>\n
Fast forwarding until summer<\/h3>\n
I tried the candida diet during the first 2 weeks of summer, after a while. I still broke out but still I felt miserable. I also lost 8 kilograms which is.. Quite a lot for someone who is tall and skinny\u2026 \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n
I went on a one euro trip with my dad afterwards and I was still doing the Cavemen regimen and I was traveling to countries like Italy and Switzerland which are\u2026 QUITE sunny during the summer period. So yeah, looking back at it now my skin was quite unprotected against oxidative and inflammation stress. I was also reading Seppo\u2019s book Clear for Life at the moment. It was quite a hassle to read because I was kinda getting overwhelmed by all the information that I had to process and learn about but at the same time I didn\u2019t want to take a break so I kept on going.<\/p>\n
Then I noticed that my skin was behaving quite.. ‘normal’ as in I didn\u2019t break out as much as I thought I would even though I was eating some processed foods during the trip.<\/p>\n
When I arrived home and started to eat ‘healthy’ again, I broke out even though I was happy to be back home. I concluded from those data that I were quite stressed and it\u2019s no wonder really; college, trying to figure out why your skin won\u2019t behave and thinking what to do after college + loads of assignments, homework, and presentations equals stress at one point and I think that has something to do with my breakouts.<\/p>\n
Where I am now<\/h3>\n
Fast-forwarding a few months I started taking antioxidant supplements and I started to use antioxidant skin care creams. And I was annoyed to find out that my skin started to look better and better after applying some creams especially after I went through 6-8 months of living an ‘alternative’ lifestyle that I didn\u2019t enjoy doing.<\/p>\n
Especially since I think I could have helped my skin much earlier after that inflammatory assault it got the summer before my euro trip.<\/p>\n
But\u2026<\/h3>\n
I still got acne. True it wasn\u2019t as bad but I still got acne, which was annoying me and I remember I e-mailed Seppo what I was doing wrong. I even sent Tracy a mail a while back asking her if it was ‘normal’ to get acne once in a while. And she said that it was totally fine and normal. It\u2019s especially normal for women to get acne during their time of the month.<\/p>\n
Seppo told me to work on my emotions so I purchased 2 books [Seppo’s note: These are the 2 books I mentioned above] that were designed to help someone with their psychological issues, and as I was reading through the book I tried to apply the techniques although I definitely had to rinse and repeat but it worked nevertheless.<\/p>\n
And then it happened<\/h3>\n
Some time during the winter period, probably a week or 2 before the holiday break, a girl from my class was absent from my class. She had some breakup with her boyfriend and obviously wasn\u2019t in the mood to attend some classes. When she arrived in School I noticed (but I didn\u2019t focus on it afterwards) that she got some acne on her right cheek.<\/p>\n
And it made me think that.. If a person who is not acne-prone can get acne, then.. is it truly realistic for acne-prone people to hope that they\u2019ll NEVER get a pimple? It\u2019s not really that realistic when you think it like that.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the thing, there\u2019s this boy from my class (who I\u2019m not going to mention for personal reasons but I\u2019ll talk a bit about him). He has acne, I might as well say that. But\u2026 Even so, I have a crush on him. In fact I find him incredibly hot. He\u2019s confident, he\u2019s an athlete and he is also well-liked by his classmates. And I wouldn\u2019t rate his acne as mild or severe. It\u2019s more or less in between. Like his face can be slight inflamed with small red marks etc etc\u2026 And my acne is definitely milder and calmer than his.. But to be honest, I don\u2019t care if he has acne because of the way he is. (Personality-wise)<\/p>\n
And from there I realized that, there is no reason to struggle for no reason when there\u2019s no need to. When I went on break my skin started to clear out and I made the connection that stress has a far bigger role in my skin. When I started in school again my skin broke out but I managed to keep clear again\u2026 Yeah stress and my skin don\u2019t go too much hand in hand.<\/p>\n
Where am I now and my conclusion<\/h3>\n
Yeah sorry.. this post probably just got longer and I want to apologize for that but Seppo wanted to hear the story.<\/p>\n
Right now where I am, my skin is doing pretty okay. I\u2019m testing an acne lotion from Clearogen to reduce my skin\u2019s sebum reduction and it\u2019s working more or less, my skin is not that oily anymore but I\u2019m breaking out slightly because my skin is getting on the dry side and Seppo already made a post about this. And because I’m kinda scratching a lot on my skin but it’s fine, I ordered a moisturizer from the same company that I normally use to send me a moisturizer with more moisture.<\/p>\n
My conclusion is that yes, clear skin does look prettier without blemishes and such. I\u2019m not going to lie, it does. It\u2019s rare to see models with blemishes [Seppo’s note: because they are all hidden beneath makeup].<\/p>\n
But at the same time, people can be pretty with acne too. Maybe not with modelish skin, but.. then they really have to have another quality that makes up for the loss that the skin does.<\/p>\n
On another note, my skin, even though I suffered from a massive number of pimples, I never had anything major as cystic acne. So of course, for someone having mild to nearly non-existent acne is pretty easy to say that it\u2019s normal for someone to live with acne. But for someone to have their faces fully covered with cystic acne and such… Yes there is a difference and on a note I can see why you want to get rid of acne or at least reduce it.<\/p>\n
It may not be possible to get rid of acne for good, but I do believe that you can reduce the severity of your skin with antioxidants and creams and a healthy lifestyle.<\/p>\n
Also, if the redness and the acne really is annoying you, and you feel like you aren\u2019t going anywhere. You can always opt for make-up, Seppo made a post about it<\/a>, if you want to know more about it. And even though you may think that it\u2019s not fair that you have to use makeup while others don\u2019t have to, well… Life isn\u2019t fair and on the bright side. A lot of celebrities use makeup. Even the male actors! You can opt for a minimum amount of makeup to cover up the spots. You don\u2019t have to cake yourself. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getting into natural health was one of the best things I did for my skin. Over time I learned how I eat and live my life affects my skin. This is also true for many others, I’ve long since lost count on the number of positive comments and emails I get from people. But there’s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[99,44,76,96],"tags":[64,50],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8743"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11222,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8743\/revisions\/11222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}