A Way to Radical Self-Acceptance
““No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.””
I somehow have this idea that I need to be better, to fix myself, to be constantly growing and improving.
But what if I didn't need to fix myself? What if what I need isn't another hack, another expert, another five-step plan?
What if I don't need to be fixed? What if I am completely whole, with all my flaws, imperfections, strengths and beauty? Maybe what's holding me back isn't that I'm not perfect but the idea that I need to be, that I need to be fixed. What if I could let go of the notion that if I could only fix this issue or that, I would be happy? What if I could find peace with exactly how I am?
As I write that, I notice a part of me seize up in fear. I tighten the muscles around my chest, belly and throat. "But how will I get anything done if I'm at peace?" a voice cries out. "Surely, I have to keep improving in order to be loved?".
Oh, my love. I hear that's how you feel. I hear your fear and your longing to be loved. And those are just stories.
You came into this world whole. A soft little body housing pure light. As you've grown, your body grew. Your mind developed. You learnt things about this world and you learned to respond to it in a way that would keep you safe and belonging.
Gabor Mate described two fundamental needs: secure attachment and authentic expression. We will always choose belonging and suppress our authenticity for the sake of safety and survival. So you developed ways to suppress your authenticity to keep yourself safe. Of course you did - your body is intelligent and adaptive. You built armour and developed patterns of behaviour to keep yourself feeling safe. And you hid your light away.
That pure light, that wholeness, that total worthiness is still in you.
The work then isn't to change or improve or better yourself. It's to come home to yourself. To drop the armour. To take the walls down.
It's a returning.
A remembering.
I invite you to start by stopping.
One thing I notice perfectionists have in common is that we immediately want to get into action, to fix the problem. That makes complete sense and it's reinforcing the underlying belief that this is a problem that needs to be fixed.
Instead, before doing anything, what would feel like to notice what's happening? To pay attention and to be curious first before deciding if anything needs to change?
The practice of welcoming everything is one of equanimity. It's the power to remain undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, and life. It's not indifference. It's not condoning. It's the power of simply turning towards what is with awareness and curiosity.
Welcoming everything is an invitation to become conscious.
When we allow ourselves to receive all the sensory and emotional information in our bodies, we create the space to make conscious choices about what we do next. Rather than reacting, we can choose our response. Nothing is ever to fix, shift or change - simply notice. We stop resisting the flow of life within us and we can be present with what is.
““What self-acceptance does is open up more possibilities of succeeding because you aren’t fighting yourself along the way.””
We say yes to ourselves; we give ourselves permission to feel everything our body is telling us in that moment.
This is a radical act. A gentle revolution in a world that profits from our self-doubt.
From here, from this place of saying yes to our full experience, we can decide that we want to be able to do something more because we want to, not because we're lacking.
Change without acceptance is sacrificing our authenticity for safety. Welcoming everything is the key to holding the polarities of loving myself as I am and embracing my desire to learn new ways of being. When I notice that my experience, my world, is a complete and whole human experience - for good and ill - then I'm giving myself the gift of learning because I'm excited, not because I'm scared. I'm full-filled, not lacking.
And isn't that what we're all chasing anyway?