Self-acceptance Not Self-improvement

A short talk on embracing radical acceptance, and releasing the painful feeling of constantly needing to fix ourselves. How can we hold the paradox of accepting ourselves fully as we are, whilst still wanting to change some aspects of our lives or behaviour?

Transcript

Okay, So I was reflecting on this theme of self-love and I was remembering my younger years when I was a university student and at that time I felt really drawn to bookshops and it was not unusual that when I visited bookshops I would always end up in the self-improvement section and during that time I felt very compelled to read book upon book on self-improvement and looking back now you know there's nothing wrong with that and actually it was the start of my journey that finally led me to my spiritual path part of the reason being because that none of that self-improvement stuff actually worked or maybe it worked at the beginning and then that kind of effect faded and I was left feeling more confused or in doubt but looking back now actually I really realized that this endeavor was actually a subtle self-rejection of myself and I'm reminded of a quote by Bob Sharples and he writes you know don't meditate to fix yourself to improve yourself to redeem yourself rather do it as an act of love of deep warm friendship to yourself in this way there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self-improvement yeah so looking back this dive into self-improvement it was actually subtly saying to myself over and over Lucy you are not okay as you are and really we may unintentionally be bringing this energy into our mindfulness practice too it's not unusual for people to come to me and say you know Lucy I'm trying this practice and that and this and I'm just not feeling better I'm still feeling this difficult emotion or they think they're a bad practitioner because they still get upset when something challenging happens or they feel if they just practice hard enough they won't be touched by the by the pains of life anymore and really this this this comes to the the crux of what self-love is or self-compassion which is we give compassion not to fix ourselves but because we are suffering so we offer ourselves compassion because we're suffering as all humans do rather than to fix ourselves and the meditation teacher Jack Cornfield said the point of practice is not to become perfect but to perfect our love so what we're doing in practice is actually ultimately we're not learning self-compassion what we're learning to do is to embrace our imperfections this is a very radical reframe it's subtle but it's a radical reframe I love this quote by Pema Chodron this Buddhist nun she wisely said we can still be crazy after all these years we can still be angry we can still be timid or jealous the point is not to throw ourselves away and to become something better the point is to befriend who we are already and I acknowledge that this is kind of a paradox because actually I do believe that true self-kindness can bring a kind of freedom that is reliable and trustworthy yeah and that is untouchable that's unfazed by unfazed by external circumstances but also if our intention behind our practice is to fix ourselves in some way then for sure our mindfulness practice our other practices they will hit a ceiling of limitation and if you're hearing this and you're thinking gosh what hope is there because actually I do really want to to change I want to feel better I want to navigate through life in a more skillful way and I'd just like to offer these words by the psychotherapist Carl Rogers and he said the curious paradox is that when we truly accept ourselves exactly as we are that's when there's the greatest capacity for change so the invitation with this practice is to be a compassionate mess and yeah really to say that there are times where I'm messy that I feel confused I'm not quite sure how to meet a situation don't have the right answer I feel overwhelmed just like you and every other human being but we're not just being messes we're being compassionate messes so can we meet whatever's arising with this energy of kindness and unconditional acceptance and this is a gift to others as well that when we truly allow ourselves to be messy we also give others permission to be messy and I'm just going to finish with one final paradox which is yeah everything that we need everything that we need to heal and grow is within us but there are times when we uncover hurts maybe deep hurts where actually you know we need others to help us to heal so this might be seeing a counsellor or another professional it might be allowing others in our lives our community those who really just meet us with this energy of unconditional acceptance might just be allowing them to hold us as we digest these hurts so let's meditate together

Reviews

Spot on 🙏🏼 thank you for the gentle reminder.

Loved this little talk. Thank you ❤️

Thank you for making things simpler 🙏❤️

Thank you for your thought provoking ideas 🙏

It was amazing!