The Principle of Self-Acceptance

Ideals hurt

We often live our lives in resistance to what is. Always trying to change something to become something other than we are. If we look deeply into this activity of changing what we are, we will find that, in the vast majority of cases, at the heart of this activity is an ideal. And at the heart of that ideal is a judgment that something isn’t right, something isn’t okay, something is wrong with us; our minds, our bodies or with life in general.

In seeking to resolve this sense of wrongness; we look into the world and we see others that seem to have life figured out better than us. And we say, “Hey, I want to look like that, I want to feel like that, I want to be that.” And so we have this image in our mind that we use to measure ourselves against. And we never quite hit the mark, do we? An ideal is always based on non-acceptance of the present moment and an image of a better future. Can you see this is a recipe for suffering? An ideal doesn’t project us towards a bright future. It punishes us for not being there already.

You are complete

In truth, you are complete as you are. Nothing ever needs to change in order for you to be what you are. From a place of completeness we may notice many things in our experience that are not quite how we want them to be. The good news is we can improve our experience. However, if we do not first and foremost accept ourselves exactly as we are, any attempt to change based on an ideal will be overshooting the present moment as it is. So any strategy for change isn’t based on an authentic experience of the present moment.

We will always miss the mark because we are reinforcing the belief in wrongness, which simply isn’t true. Your existence is enough; you are whole and complete because you are. So before we get started on any kind of process of change, we need to take time to be what we are, warts and all. In any case we need to revisit this activity often, checking in: where am I overshooting? what am I resisting? what am I telling myself? We need to practice sell-acceptance regularly if we want this principle to have a powerful impact on our lives; maybe multiple times a day; learning how to simply be and accept who, what and where we are.

I have a bias for learning principles by first adopting them in relation to the body and movement. From this perspective, this can look like freely moving our bodies and finding that sweet spot of total acceptance of self, body and the present moment as it is. Allowing every movement to be nourishing, opening, healing. This sets the foundation for true and effective change. And any strategy that we take from here will be vastly more effective than one based on ideals. Moving from self-acceptance we can experiment with any technique or modality - and there are many good ones - and put it to good use. We’re already whole and complete, we’re just waiting for reality to catch up with this truth. We may experience many things we’d like to change about our experience, but we are approaching them with commitment, focus, intent, openness and a naïve curiosity.

Fixed Realities

Self-acceptance puts us in an honest relationship with what’s true. Instead of living in reaction to our pain and suffering and struggle, we are moving towards it; being honest about it. Being open to an experience beyond the “known” is essential for any change process. For what is known is fixed; and no amount of action will change a fixed reality. However, if we open up beyond what is known, then we can see the foundational components of our suffering; we begin to see what gives our suffering its existence. Without this clear seeing we are likely to run in circles, chasing ideals and reacting to our fixed, conceptual limitations; never quite being where we are.

By putting our attention on the pain without resistance, and being open to something beyond the pain - being open to experiencing the truth of the matter, getting honest with ourselves about it, about what it’s made of, what emotions are there, what thoughts are there; wrapping ourselves around the pain, feeling its edges, getting the whole thing as it is, without trying to fix or alter it in any way - we can deepen our understanding, deepen our experience of everything that is involved in our pain. From here, we can explore the edges, the boundaries of this pain, where else it’s connected to in the body or in our lives. Gently exploring, moving, mapping it out with an openness and curiosity.

Victimhood or Empowerment?

What we come to recognise is that we are not victims of our pain, but our pain and suffering is something we are doing, albeit unconsciously. Much of what ails us is resolved through seeing what we are up to and ceasing to engage in such activities. We may find that there’s nothing to resolve, or we may find that resolution happens through the process of exploration, acceptance and letting go.

Acceptance, honesty, openness and commitment are the keys to transformation. You are a powerful being who is capable of much more than you realise. Trying to be something you are not whilst denying what you are is a key for a fractured consciousness and a life of pain and struggle. Setting goals from a place of complete self-acceptance and aligning to those goas as if they are already true is the key to an empowered life.

Self-Acceptance in Physical Practice

Adopting the principle of self-acceptance in our lives offers the possibility of training a new way of being and relating to our self, body, mind and life. We can take on a commitment of intending to accept ourselves for 15 (or 5) minutes a day. In the context of the body we may move our body, gently and intuitively, for our dedicated time period. Letting go of any formal way of doing things - techniques, methods, frameworks, models - and just being with what is; seeking only an authentic experience of this moment as it is. Exploring how the body works, how each body part relates to other body parts, and to the whole; letting gravity be your medicine.

We may learn about parts of the body that we hold as being “bad”, “wrong” or undesirable. We can explore these areas meeting resistance with acceptance - accepting where we are with an open curiosity. Instead of trying to change our body we seek to discover what’s true about it. If we feel pain we seek to understand the pain experientially. Perhaps mapping out its boundaries and what other body parts might be involved in our condition.

Everything we do for those 15 minutes will be aligned to this principle. How we move, how we breathe, how we think, how we feel. We can become conscious about everything we’re thinking, doing and feeling that is running counter to this principle and start to inquire into the nature of these activities; letting each one go as we get clearer on how they live in us. For more on this check out my article [[Assumptions that Shape Your Reality]] (coming soon).

Simply put you are already doing a bunch of stuff with your mind that you don’t realise you’re doing. It’s distorting the present moment and causing you a lot of pain. You can become conscious of this activity, and you can, in a sense, “replace” those activities with ones of your own making - with powerful principles like self-acceptance.

It is possible to become conscious that your true nature exists “prior” to any cultural ideals.

You are. Ideals aren’t!

This is true freedom and it all starts with self-acceptance.

I wish you the fullness of an empowered life. May these words serve to guide you back to you.