Why Self-Acceptance is Critical to Growth

Have you ever wondered what sort of life you would live if you could only get rid of such-and-such a tendency? How golden life would be if you could bring some coveted traits magically online and ditch others? Most of us have parts of ourselves that seem to cause trouble and get in the way of positive change. They sabotage our efforts and appear to work against us. Life is hard enough without being your own enemy and it can be tempting to want to exorcise that part completely. What if deciding that some innate part of us is wrong or broken or even worse, evil, causes the very problems we want to solve? After all, what could possibly create more internal stress than being at war with who you are?

If stress is resistance, then resisting your own self is going to lead to further problems. This is something the world of psychology may finally be beginning to understand; that pathologizing someone isn't particularly helpful. Hence the rise in popularity of approaches like Internal Family Systems, which is defiantly anti-pathologizing as referenced by founder Richard Schwartz' book title, "No Bad Parts." I have found that healing is often, if not always, paradoxical. The thing you think you need to do may well lead in the exact wrong direction. Trying to pathologize or exorcize parts of yourself is one such example.

Whether it seems like it or not, we are always innately on our own side. We may be a bit lost on how to effectively help ourselves, but the attempt to do so is always there. In other words, we are always trying to make our lives better, but our method of how to do so may be a poor one. After all, defenses have to be engaged beginning in childhood, long before we can make a good, logical plan. Parts of us may have become overly inflated in order to protect us based on what was praised in us as kids. Other parts were locked away because society didn't particularly approve of them. What can save us as kids becomes problematic decades later when your fellows no longer care for your Bully that saved you on the playground, or your Know-it-All that saved your ego in the classroom. There's no question that we must update ourselves from our childhood operating system. The question is how?

A group of people hugging.

"What a waste of our precious lives it is to carry the belief that something is wrong with us." -Tara Brach

The antidote is radical self-acceptance and complete authenticity. Understand that all your parts belong, that there is no problem to be fixed. Think of the myth of the 'bad dog'. No dog is born bad, but some have been ill-treated and ill-trained. Once they find the right owner and environment, they become a new dog. Similarly, you may have known people who were able to make significant changes once they found their 'thing' to do, or their place in society or simply gave up trying to be someone else. We may well have some growing up to do, but that will be done with the parts of ourselves that we have, not without them. That Bully can really get things done, the Know-it-All can be a great teacher. A Worrier can make a great planner and an Addict can heal themselves and others of addictive tendencies. So it's never about getting rid of a part, but about working through it from it's positive qualities more than it's shadow qualities.

In the end, it's really about transformation. Transforming ourselves through acceptance, not self-loathing or self-blaming. In that way, healing is counter-culture. Our culture has long preached that there is a right and wrong way to be. It has developed all sorts of labels for anyone who is deemed to be outside of the preferred prototype. This is based on subjective opinions and not any great truth. It is healthier, more useful and ultimately more logical to trust that you are who you're supposed to be. Isn't that more appealing than trying to tear yourself apart? It's time to collaborate with ourselves and be our best, authentic selves.