I’ve had the honour of being part of three really special, authentic conversations today, and one theme that has recurred in these conversations has been that of self-acceptance.

In my experience, the path to the authentic self can only be followed by accepting all of your other selves first - the ones you identify with, the ones you reject, the ones you project and the ones you disown.

The other element of self-acceptance is compassion. There is lot of truth in the old saying that you can’t expect to be loved if you don’t love yourself. You may yearn to be completely accepted for who you are but what chance is there of this happening if you don’t accept yourself?

Lack of self-acceptance is at the root of unhappiness. When you unconditionally accept yourself as you are in this moment, without judgment or attachment, you cease fighting reality. Infuse this acceptance with compassion and you can access the power of compassionate self-acceptance.

This not the same as self-pity or resignation. Accepting yourself allows you to devote time and energy to taking positive action rather than beating yourself up. 

We often find it easier to feel compassion for another person. Our hearts respond to their pain - compassion means “to suffer with”. In these moments we realise that we are all flawed human beings and that suffering and failure are part of the human condition.

So why do we find it so hard to be compassionate towards ourselves? Why do we tell ourselves we’re a failure when we make a mistake or that we should pull ourselves together if we’re upset? We would never say that to a friend in need.

So I’ll leave you with this: honour and accept your humanity with compassion and embrace your beautiful imperfection.

During my many years of dysfunctional independence, my single friends and I would often try to go out for a meal on February 14, forgetting it was Valentine’s Day. When we eventually found a restaurant that didn’t have a mandatory “romantic” set menu at vastly inflated prices, we would huff and puff about all the miserable-looking couples who had been forced to sit opposite each other and make conversation because they felt they had to. It was particularly excruciating to watch couples who sat in silence, picking at their food.

We were probably just trying to make ourselves feel better about not having boyfriends, but I’ve rarely seen less romance than I have in Britain on Valentine’s Day. Come the rush hour, you always see shame-faced men dashing across station platforms with a ragged bunch of red roses in their hand, or an ill-advised box of chocolates.

Why does there have to be an officially condoned, consumer-oriented day when we have permission to show our partner how much we appreciate them? Surely showing love and affection should be part of a daily routine?

When I met my husband I was glad he felt the same way about Valentine’s Day. There will be no boxes of chocolates, overpriced roses or heart-shaped greetings cards for us. We annoy our friends by saying “every day is Valentine’s Day” for us but we are being serious - we celebrate our togetherness every day of the year.

Of course, Valentine’s Day can be a challenge for people who aren’t in a relationship and want to be. For the same reason that I used to avoid parks on sunny Sundays, single people have to take refuge at home or in groups to avoid smug couples on February 14.

There is nothing that is authentic about Valentine’s Day. Its origins are shrouded in mystery - and no one seems able to agree which St Valentine we’re honouring anyway.

Here’s what I propose as an alternative. Count your blessings every day of the year. If you are married or in a relationship, show your gratitude to your partner on a regular basis. If you’re single or looking for a date, concentrate on developing your relationship to your authentic self before you go out looking for “The One”. Connect to your own truth and you stand a much better chance of attracting a good relationship.

If you are celebrating Valentine’s Day, enjoy yourself. I won’t be joining you!

Last night, a 23-year-old girl from north London swept the board at the Grammys - winning all six of the categories in which she was nominated. She has achieved extraordinary success at a time when the music industry seems to be dying on its feet . In fact, she has sold three times as many records as the far more image-savvy Lady Gaga.

She may not have 47 million followers on Twitter or treat her life like performance art, but Adele has a quality that cannot be manufactured. Adele has Authenticity - with a capital A.

Neil McCormick, music critic at the Telegraph, writes: “Everything about Adele is authentic because she is her own creation. She writes her own songs, and this is crucial to the emotion she invests in them. Her voice is fantastically appealing and compelling but it is a natural voice that she has developed in a highly personal way.”

Like Amy Winehouse, Adele is a graduate of the Brit School of Performing Arts. But she told McCormick when he interviewed her in 2008 that she had only gone to one singing lesson at the school, and quickly decided not to do any more because “they made me think about my voice too much”.

It seems as if she absolutely trusted her innate gift and what is unique to her, and resisted any attempts to have her talent polished in a way that didn’t feel right. Her presence, her soulfulness is what sells. People get that she is real.

Her album, 21, struck a deep chord with its songs about heartbreak - everyone can identify with that.  When she is attacked for being “a bit fat” by fashion designers who should know better, she simply says: “I represent the majority of women and I’m proud of that.”

She rarely plays the promotional game and seems to have her feet firmly planted on the ground. When she won the Grammy for Album of the Year, she simply said: “Mum - girl done good.” You can’t imagine her getting lost in addictions like the sadly departed Amy and Whitney.

So what lessons can we learn from Adele’s success? We can’t all be great singers but we all have something to offer the world that is uniquely ours. And whatever that is, it can only be accessed through our authentic self - that part of us that is beyond ego that knows what our gifts are and how to use them.

I’d like to think that the Age of Consumer Consumption is coming to an end and a new Age of Authenticity is under way - and I can’t think of a better poster girl right now  than Adele Adkins.

How do I know it will be exceptional? Because it’s Olympics year, it’s the Queen’s Golden Jubilee year, it’s a leap year, it’s the Year of the Dragon, it’s the end of the Mayan Calendar year, it’s the year of some extraordinary astrology, it’s the year I’m going to become a full-time human potential coach, it’s the year I hit the midpoint of my 50s. More of all that in later posts.

However, first things first. My pearl for 01/01/12 is this - my favourite quote from one of my all-time favourite films, Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.”

OK, on the surface the movie was about Kevin Costner hearing voices which told him to build a baseball pitch. But it’s so much more than that. It’s about paying attention to the whispers, the little voices that speak to you about your heart’s vision - however foolish or over-the-top they may sound.

So if you have a project in mind for this year and the loud voices in your head (a gang of thugs with members such as the Inner Critic, the Perfectionist, the Pusher, the Controller, the Realist and the Protestant Work Ethic) are telling you it’s a waste of time, that you’ll fail, it’s pointless, who are you to be doing this, no one will be interested anyway - stick with the still, small voice of your intuition and quietly prepare the ground. If you create good, solid foundations then whoever “they” are, they will come, because the project will be managed by your authentic self. And you couldn’t find a better gaffer than that.