Balancing Radical Acceptance With The Desire To Heal

In this talk we discuss how to balance radical self acceptance with the desire to heal. On the one hand, we want to embrace and accept ourselves, not only the good, but also the bad, the ugly, the unknown, and the parts that are changing. But on the other hand we want to heal, to improve, and perhaps to thrive. This is the dialectic; the holding of two (potentially) opposing views at once and resolving them simultaneously.

Transcript

Question. I find it hard to find the balance between accepting and then inviting release. When I invite release during the meditation, I find myself subtly watching and hoping for release, Which seems seems like, Excuse me, Which seems like it's not really truly accepting is it? Ideally I would not be watching or hoping for release when I'm inviting it right. Any tips for this? I hope it makes sense. Yeah, Great question. And it's one that I've asked similarly, Almost every meditation instructor I've ever had. How can we accept if we're, You know, How can we push for a positive result from this if we're practicing acceptance? I did a 10 day Vipassana retreat, And it's like, Let's accept what happens, But we're doing a practice for a benefit. And, You know, A lot of the deep readings that you do, And the deep spiritual teachers, They all suggest just practice for practicing sake. Chop wood, Carry water, Focus on the breath, Just do the work, Just be in the moment. The practice is the acceptance and release. This moment is all there is, That sort of energy. And that's great, But it didn't really feel like it sort of hit the mark of, It's like, Well, I'm choosing to meditate for a benefit. I'm doing this practice because I want real world results. I'm not quite bought in on the whole idea of this deep dive enlightenment approach. That feels a little bit too woo-woo, Too mystical, And not really proven. But what is proven? It is proven that if we practice radical self-acceptance, If we practice the acceptance of the moment, If we practice mindfulness, Self-healing, Introspection, All of this sort of stuff, Good things happen. But there is that sort of, I guess, Dual approach. We want to accept what is arising, We want to be there for it, But we're also hoping that something shifts and changed because my God, This doesn't feel great. So there's two responses, Three actually. The first one is to become aware of that circular nature reasoning arising, Which you are. This question is showing that. You're aware of the desire to accept, And you're also aware of the desire for release. You're aware of it both, And that is another thing to also accept. So as you're accepting the feelings in the body, You're also accepting the part of you that wants them to release because they're not pleasant. So you accept all of that as your acceptance practice. Does that make sense? So it's really, You are accepting it. You're accepting the feeling, And you're accepting the part of you that doesn't like the feeling. You're accepting the part of you that wants them to move and to shift and to change. All of that becomes the acceptance practice. So we're expanding our acceptance to be a bit broader. That's the first part. The second part would be to hold the dialectic. There's a therapeutic approach known as dialectic behavior therapy, And one of its core tenants, Kind of, Is that we can hold two opposing truths at once. We accept what is arising, We love, We honor, We hold space for it, But we also want it to release. Those two truths can be true at once, And that's okay. I like the idea of loving yourself whilst fixing yourself, Because pure acceptance feels like it can lead to just a descent into self-indulgence, Into anarchy, Into just following the will of the id and blowing up your life. Just pleasure-seeking. While I accept this impulse, I'm going to go down that path. So there needs to be a bit of a balance. We hold space for this part of us. We love this part of us, But we also want it to shift and grow and change and heal and reintegrate. So the two parts there, We expand our awareness and acceptance to hold it all, And we also hold the dialectic. We're allowed to hold two separate things at once. And the final aspect of this, And this is a little bit, It's not a cop-out, But it's a promise. The more you practice this, The more you hold space for it, The more you do this inner work, The more you will be able to accept it without the push to release. So almost disregarding everything I've said, Or it's like a deeper practice, But for my own internal experience, When I notice that aspect, That part of me going, Okay, I'm accepting, You have a change already, Release already, I just hold space for all of it. And I go, Okay, I'm not there yet. There is more here to uncover. There is more that this part of me is trying to say. The part of me hasn't released yet, Because it still hasn't told me everything. It still hasn't told me anything. There's more there. There's more underneath. So if I can get curious and compassionate and caring, If I can be calm and confident with that part, Maybe it will tell me more. So when you find yourself subtly watching and hoping for release, Use that as a trigger. Go, Okay, I accept this. Use that as a trigger more so to go, Okay, What is underneath? What have I missed? In the same way, If you were with a child or someone that was struggling and they were overwhelmed, You're hoping that they stop crying. You're hoping that they calm down, That they regulate, But there's something that they still need. Get curious. Figure out what that need is and offer it to them. And in the same way, Offer it to that part of you. Okay, So a follow-up. Okay, So there's the idea of unconditional positive regard, Self-love, Radical self-acceptance within meditation, But also with the tension and the desire to fix. How does that relate to a dialectical thinking where you can accept, But want to fix? The dialectic is the idea of acceptance and wanting to fix. We're holding those two truths. So we can unconditionally love ourself, But also want to fix ourselves. The truth is you are a collective. You are the thing changing. You are the parts of you stuck in the past that are worried about the future and the present moment. You are the good, The bad, The ugly, The unknown, The parts that are changing and everything else. You are all of that. So if you can offer love to that whole process unconditionally, It's like, Yeah, I love myself. I love every aspect of myself, Or at least I'm trying to. But you can also recognize the internal suffering that is arising. It is not pleasant or helpful or desirable to be stuck in the past, But a part of us is. And I guess the offering of love here is loving the part of us that is stuck in the past, Even though it is stuck in the past. That part of us is holding onto tension, Holding onto something. And we can love it whilst it's still struggling, Even as its struggle causes us duress, Right? Even as its struggle causes us to regress, Causes us to act in ways that maybe no longer serve us. You know, We learnt to respond to things that were happening, To keep a safe and adaptive response, Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn or fantasy. And if we don't do the self work in healing, We can respond in our current lives now with those maladaptive responses, Responding in a way that doesn't quite work. It's not great. And it can be frustrating. But we just need to love the entirety, Love us as we are healing. But nonetheless, Do the healing work. Yeah, So there is this balance, Acceptance, But also with an idea or a move to growth and we accept ourself in that process, In that progress. We are us now with our goals. And we do a practice. We meditate, We introspect, We offer self healing, Acceptance, Awareness, Action, And we try to grow. But we love ourselves in the process of that growth, As we are now, Who we're becoming and who we were. It's a bit of balance and it's holding it all in that space. And if we find that acceptance is starting to happen, But then the walls come up, We get curious, Curiosity is one of the best ways through the miasma of the internal space. Something pops up, We get curious, The desire to switch or twist or change arises, We get curious, Like what are we doing here? Why? We just keep asking that why, What's underneath, What's underneath, What's underneath? Being curious, It's hard to be judgmental, It's hard to be not accepting if we're curious. If you're curious, You see what's there and you accept it. Like a scientist is innately curious. If a scientist was to uncover something new that has never been seen before, They would be curious about it. What is its nature? How does it function? What does it do? Why is it here? What's underneath? What are its component parts? Curious, But with also compassion. And if walls pop up, If blocks come up, If doubt comes up, You get curious about that as well. I think what I'm trying to drive at here is that as we do any sort of inner work, Stuff will come, And if we can keep mindfully stepping back, Mindfully sort of seeing the entirety of what's arising, We might start with sensations in the body that leads to an opening of the mind, Leads to self-doubt, Which leads to walls, Which leads to the desire to fix, Which leads to the confusion, All of it. Everything that we're talking about in these questions, We step back and look at it all. Hold all of that as the thing to accept, And we just keep expanding that acceptance circle. Expand the awareness, We expand the acceptance, And that is the action that we're taking to heal. Yeah.