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Articles Self Acceptance by Bronwyn Fox The practice of skilful compassionate action, self acceptance and self responsibility, will literally turn our beliefs and our ideas upside down. And they need to be turned upside down! At the moment our beliefs and ideas about ourselves and our relationship with others, is not only dis-empowering us, it can also create much of our underlying anxiety and depression. The first belief we need to turn upside down is that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. What we don't realise is the only thing that is fundamentally wrong with us is our belief about ourselves. And I am not just playing with words. We based our beliefs about ourselves on the messages we received as children. In many, many cases the messages we received, were not meant literally, but as children we accepted them as fact. And in doing so, we have tried to live our lives trying to prove they are not true, that we are not 'bad' 'stupid' 'weak' etc. Our beliefs about ourselves are not based upon fact. They are not based upon our own personal experience of ourselves nor our interaction with others. We discount the reality of our own experience by discounting our skills, our talents and our our individual qualities and we discount our inter reactions with others. We may receive a job promotion, obtain straight As at university, we may succeed in getting employment in our chosen field, we may excel in any area of our life, yet so many of us we disregard these accomplishments. We certainly don't take pride in them. It 'doesn't really' count. We think it must be some sort of 'fluke' or some sort of error, and we can live in fear for years with the thought,' what if people find out I am not as good as they thought I was. ' We can also be extremely creative and can offer much to employers, family, friends in creative ideas, strategies and/or opinions. Yet we don't voice them because we are frightened people will think we are stupid or silly. How many times have you come up with an idea or strategy and held back, only to find someone will come up with a similar idea a few months later, and it will be accepted and sometimes applauded for it's originality and viability. When we develop our anxiety disorder its seems as this is the 'proof' of how weak or stupid we are. Especially when we spend years trying to fight our anxiety and panic to no avail. We all go through the stage where we think if we accept we have an anxiety disorder we have to finally accept the belief that as a person there is something fundamentally wrong with us. Accepting we have a disorder without mentally abusing ourselves about it, is skilful and compassionate and means we can then begin to work towards recovery. And for us to develop a more whole and healthy sense of Self, we need to not only accept our anxiety disorder, we need to begin to fully accept ourselves...as we are right now. Right now in this moment. Many people will comment, 'well I will accept myself once I have recovered from my disorder' or 'I will accept myself when I have more confidence or I will accept myself once I have more self esteem. ' It doesn't work that way. So much of the 'emptiness' and loneliness we feel inside is a direct result of our not accepting our self. We try and seek this acceptance through other people but until we accept our self as we are right now in this moment we will not be able to gain the confidence and the skills necessary to develop a more whole and healthy sense of self. Our sense of self will continue to be dependent on other peoples' opinions of us and by our trying to prove there isn't something fundamentally wrong with us. Our lack of self acceptance is not skilful, nor is it compassionate or respectful towards the Self. Until we can accept ourselves as we are right now, means we are in constant conflict with ourselves. And this conflict manifests in our anxiety and depression. It also impacts in our lives in other ways. When we don't accept ourselves, we are unable to accept other people as they are. Although we may not be aware of it consciously, we keep on trying to 'change' ourselves to fit into the image of who we think we should be. We also keep on trying to change other people, or wanting them to change, to fit into the image of who we want them to be. This can and does create a great deal of underlying tension and conflict within our relationships. This is usually evident in our overall attitude to ourselves and other people. We long for the 'Father Knows Best' or the 'Partridge' type of family. We long for the 'happy ever after' type of relationship with our partners. We think to ourselves, 'if I just try a bit harder, just a bit harder'.. all our private and 'secret' yearnings will materialise. Until we can accept ourselves as we are, we are not going to be able to accept other people as they are. This then leaves us to keep on trying just that little bit harder, just a little bit harder. And all this does is create further anxiety. Not accepting our Self is also not respectful towards our Self. Because we don't have any respect for ourselves, we disregard ourselves completely. Besides not acknowledging and taking pride in our achievements, we never consider ourselves, our well being, or own needs and wants as important. This can sometimes be to the point we are not even aware of our own wants and needs. Many people often comment they feel used, or taken advantage of by family and friends. Until we can become more become respectful of our self, we cannot expect others to respect us in the way we would wish. While we may not need to go back into our childhood backgrounds and analyse all that happened, we do need to understand the overall 'bigger picture' of why we actually feel the way we do about about ourselves. So much of our anxiety stems from our belief system that there is something inherently wrong with us. And this is simply not true. We need to discover for ourselves why we are not 'bad' 'stupid' weak' etc. We are living breathing proof we are not and when we begin to practice compassion towards ourselves, we will find we are not going to turn into the person we fear we may be underneath. Practising compassion will lead us to a more whole and much more healthy sense of Self, with the power and freedom we so long for. The practice of compassion doesn't mean we need to stand in front of a mirror telling ourselves how much we like or love ourselves. If we feel we 'have to' like or love our self, then we are going to be in very big trouble. Because 'having to' or 'should' means these feelings are not coming naturally. 'I have to ' , 'I should' is telling us this is another area where we feel we have failed. 'Have to' or 'should' traps us and gives us no choice. We either 'have to' or we fail. There is no middle ground. We can't manufacture feelings of liking or loving our selves. They arise naturally, as a result of treating ourselves with compassion, dignity and respect. The first and most basic step towards a more healthy way of feeling about ourselves is to treat our self with the same respect we give to other people. To treat ourselves with the same care and kindness we give to other people. To be patient with ourselves in the same way we are patient with other people. In short, we need to treat our self in the same way as we treat and want to be treated by other people. And when you do begin to treat yourself with compassion, see how you respond!  |
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Last modified: June 12, 2007