On Self-Acceptance: No Longer Avoiding Yourself
Self-acceptance is not something you “do”.
Self-acceptance is the result of no longer avoiding your unwanted thoughts and uncomfortable emotions—the result of no longer avoiding yourself.
Self-acceptance is what remains when you no longer instinctively avoid those aspects of yourself you don’t care for (or even wish didn’t exist).
An instinctive desire to eliminate/smother/fix the (often unexamined, conditioned) discomfort of self-criticism or self-rejection keeps us anxiously looking out for it: a stronger desire for self-love often makes us hypersensitive to instances of self-rejection—just as a stronger desire for money, fame, or status often makes us hypersensitive to our lack, obscurity, or powerlessness.
Self-acceptance is not a new/stable state to be generated or maintained—not unconditioned self-love or even neutrality. Just as we become undistracted the moment we notice we are distracted, the more we become attuned to our instinctive habits of self-rejection, the less we feed them.
Self-acceptance doesn’t require generating particular feelings (of, say, warmth/love) towards yourself. No amount of training will guarantee that warmth/love will be available when we feel we need it—and this absence may itself trigger self-rejection. However, self-acceptance—as awareness of our instinctive modes of self-rejection—is always possible, and includes noticing the very reactive pursuit that keeps us stuck in the loop of needing to fix self-rejection by generating self-love.
Self-acceptance is not the blind rejection of all self-criticism, self-improvement, or avoidance—in becoming aware of our impulsive habits of self-rejection, we give ourselves choice—a moment to intervene in the momentum of self-criticism (even if we ultimately decide that self-criticism is appropriate in some particular situation).
COMMENTARY
Whether we like it or not, we are always making particular thoughts/feelings/actions/perceptions more or less accessible to our instinctive self. As such, we may choose to cultivate particular emotions like self-love or self-compassion—but we must be mindful not to reinforce the very problem we were attempting to subvert, lest our pursuit of self-love (or even self-acceptance) deepen our self-rejection. And a compulsion to “track our progress” may be keeping us stuck in the same loop that motivated our pursuit.
Feeling self-love is not necessary for noticing self-criticism. Self-acceptance requires the cultivation of a kind of receptivity—a willingness to recognize our habitual self-resistance instead of reflexively avoiding/fighting it. Though this is always possible, it is simpler for some people and some patterns than for others—especially those patterns tied to our deepest habits, those of self-preservation. This capacity is always made more difficult by craving some version of self-mastery or purity, which is the very attitude that turns awareness into an(other) tool of self-rejection/obsession—keeping us blind to the structures that shape us—including those structures that position us to see ourselves as inadequate.
FURTHER READING
What is the Objective of Meditation?
Self-Acceptance is Not Something You “Do” (LinkedIn)
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