On Acceptance
Why Accepting Yourself is How You Start to Change
I’m honest, reliable, productive, principled, idealistic, orderly, and self-disciplined. But I can also be impatient, self-critical, and judgemental of myself and others. Worst of all, I’m always in a hurry.
My enneagram personality type is 1—the Reformer, perfectionist or idealist. I’m motivated by the need to live rightly and driven by a longing for a true, just, and moral world.
Ones are known as reformers because they want to improve the world. They are gifted at bringing order to chaos and creating structures to help others thrive. They strive to overcome adversity — go after higher values, and always remain honest.
But the Reformer can slip into being critical and perfectionistic. They typically have problems with resentment and impatience. At their worst, they can be rigid, controlling, aggressive, uptight, critical, demanding, and impatient.
I can clearly see the two different sides of me. So, how can I live to be the best version of myself?
I think the first step is accepting myself for who I am—accepting that I can be both good and bad. That the same person who is judgemental today can be loving and compassionate the next day.
I know that acceptance is not an easy concept to understand. It is also one which is saddled with many negative undertones. As Carl Jung said, “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
However, the wiser I’ve become, the more I recognise that only when I can fully accept myself can I be fulfilled. Ignoring my truths is simply a detour from my authentic path.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”—Carl Rogers
True acceptance starts with self-acceptance. Only when we accept ourselves can we be ready to accept others. The opposite of acceptance is judgment. When we stop judging ourselves and start accepting who we truly are, can we rid ourselves of the worst aspects of human suffering—judging, comparing, resisting, grasping and striving?
Acceptance is loving ourselves unconditionally and resisting the perils of striving for perfection. In accepting and loving our own humanness, we start to do likewise with the whole of humanity.
Whether it’s Buddha, Jesus Christ or Prophet Mohammed, they all endured much struggle and pain to arrive at the self-awareness to accept themselves fully.
Only after that could they have enough self-compassion to offer love and compassion to the rest of humanity, alleviate much suffering, and seal their destiny.
What Acceptance is not?
Acceptance is not resignation. It’s not about being passive and allowing life to happen to us, but rather an active process, a preamble to change and become our best versions.
Acceptance does not mean limiting our possibilities but instead provides room for growth as we focus on our inner music and ignore all the noise that hovers in the background.
The 3 principles we need for Acceptance:
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the stoic understanding that we can’t change events outside of our control but can only change how we perceive them. The reality is that no event in itself can upset us, but rather how we judge that particular event.
We can’t change the fact that the rains will come in May, and perhaps a devastating flood will ensue. However, we can be ready for it and prepare the best we can.
When we focus only on what we can do, then not only are we happier, but we also become more productive and effective as well.
Mindfulness
However, the problem arises when we can’t decipher between our feelings and that of the objective reality. This is when we need to examine what’s happening inside us with the precision of a surgeon.
Tara Brach explains:
“The wing of clear seeing is often described in Buddhist practice as mindfulness. This quality of awareness recognises exactly what is happening in our moment-to-moment experience. When we are mindful of fear, for instance, we are aware that our thoughts are racing, that our body feels tight and shaky, that we feel compelled to flee—and we recognise all this without trying to manage our experience in any way, without pulling away. Because we are not tampering with our experience, mindfulness allows us to see life ‘as it is.’ “
Compassion
Compassion is acceptance in action. Knowing what we must do is easy but often difficult to practice. Compassion can act as a bridge and make that problematic path easier to traverse.
However, it all starts with self-compassion. We can’t give out what we don’t have. So, if our hearts are empty of love, we give very little even when we give.
Tara Brach continues:
“Compassion is our capacity to relate tender and sympathetic to what we perceive. Instead of resisting our feelings of fear or grief, we embrace our pain with the kindness of a mother holding her child.
Rather than judging or indulging our desire for attention or addictive behaviours, we regard our grasping with gentleness and care.
Compassion honours our experience: it allows us to be intimate with this moment’s life as it is. Compassion makes our acceptance whole-hearted and complete.
When we consider all 3 principles at play, Acceptance doesn’t sound like an act of resignation but rather the most important step towards the never-ending ladder of self-awareness, self-growth and the freedom of being who we must be.
For More:
Book: Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach
Ted Talk: The Power of Self-Acceptance
This is lovely. Thank you, Mo. I'm my worst critic, I am sure. Thank you for shedding light on how to move past that self-defeating thinking.
Beautiful writing Mo.
We definitely need to meet ourselves where we are as opposed to where we want to be. I always struggled with the self improvement genre and never seemed to be able to take action from the books/events that I encountered. I got stuck in my head. It seems that self-awareness goes hand-in-hand with self-love. Know thyself. Once we know our self we can find a way to climb the ladder to that no self of the presence. Through that door the compassion of our heart waits to walk us home. Thank you for these principles on the path to authentic being.