The Paradox of Acceptance
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Hello friends,
This week, I want to share with you a reflection on something I've been living with for along time: self-acceptance.
Yesterday I was in the first session of coaching program with my inimitable colleague Mai-Khoi. We asked participants to share their highest hope for the program. One said: “I want to find balance between different parts of me. I’ve struggled between one part wants to make other people happy and another part is more selfish and just want to pursue what I want.”
Sensing the inner tension in what was said, Mai responded: “Balance is a misleading wish. It doesn’t really exist. What you are looking for is not balance but rather acceptance. To truly accept each of those parts rather than judging yourself for not being able to get that balance.”
I find that to be quite a provocative perspective and want to dive deeper. I hope you found the inquiry helpful for you too.
The Paradox of Acceptance
Sometimes we try to fix and improve ourselves because that’s only thing we know PC
Ambition may bring us to the horizon but not over it. (PC)
The Paradox of Acceptance
“The curious paradox is that, when I accept myself as I am, then I can change” — Carl Roger.
Many people including myself have this conception of “acceptance” as a soft wishy washy yielding stance. It is a misunderstanding. If you have seen someone who is so fiercely accepting the whole of who she is, both strengths and weaknesses, power and vulnerabilities, best and worst, you will realize that acceptance actually takes a lot of gut.
It’s just not in the “no pain no gain” brute force way that many of us growth-oriented people are used to.
When I first read about this paradox, my first reaction was to protest:
How could I change without the will to change? If I accept completely what is, then where is the will to change into what could be?
However, as my inner skeptic calms down, I began to explore this paradox in my own life. Let me share what I found, but first, a bit of context.
Behind the Action: a brief detour.
There is a particular narrative about willpower and self-improvement among the secular people that goes like “If something you want hasn’t happened, it means you haven’t tried hard enough, which means you haven’t wanted it badly enough.”
The logic is that wanting something enough often leads to taking action which leads to result. This can be expressed simply as:
Motivation → Action → Result.
For our inquiry, I’d reframe it as Relationships → Action → Result.
As I’ve written before in three kinds of commitment, we track result or outcome because it is the easiest to verify. You either achieve the goal or you don’t, so you don’t have to think too much about it. Using an example of weight loss, losing 2 kg is losing 2 kg, no more questions asked.
Because result is not entirely dependent on us, we track action because that’s what we think we can control. If you keep taking action or adhere to the process towards the goal, then at least you can rest in the comfort of knowing that you have done something instead of merely wishful thinking. To continue the example, you may track how you are eating less and do some exercises everyday and sooner or later you will lose weight.
However, it turns out that we are not so much in control of our action either. As humans, we don’t simply take action out of a vacuum like a robot pumping out motions. We take action out of context or relationship, whether it is to yourself or to someone else. We care, therefore we do. You care for your health, so you exercise in a careful way. You care for your partner and love seeing her thrive, therefore you take appropriate action to support her.
It’s the quality of that caring that makes a difference in our action. Action without caring feels empty and sooner or later will lead to burn out. As an example, having been through several burnouts and injuries in my exercising life, I’ve learned the hard way that in addition to the measurable goals and the consistent actions, the real focus is indeed to have a healthy, supportive, curious and respectful relationship with my body.
In reality, all these three pieces interlinked. However, each of us has a default which we are good at and also tend to get stuck in. For example, I tend to get stuck in the relationship and context part. Most hustlers over-focus on the doing part. The hackers are more result-oriented: whatever delivers result is good. What’s more important is to remember cycling through them, which Venkatesh Rao writes at length about in this excellent long post.
As with any good insight, it’s easy to say and hard to do. How come we are often so frustrated by our own self-improvement effort?
Having been through enough of may cycles of frustration I am now beginning to see this differently.
What if it is not about finding the root cause of where we fail to improve but rather about questioning this whole cycle of expectation, disappointment and self-flagellation?
What if it is precisely because we want our improvement so badly that it doesn’t happen?
Taking care of your childlike self
Anyone who has been a child knows that when you force a child to do something, he will resist. He may comply at first to please you or avoid your wrath, but sooner or later he will sneak out of his room to either go back the old way or do something even worse.
Similarly, the more you force a part of you to change, whether it is to find a balance or to lose weight, the more it will resist.
You don’t grow up by forcing or abandoning the inner child; you grow up by taking care of him. That includes cleaning up his mess, listening to him, playing with him and sometimes guiding him towards something good. You can’t do the latter unless you do a lot of the former, especially if you have a history of being harsh with yourself. For better or worse, that applies to most of us in this modern hard-working, high-achieving culture.
This is not to say that you should leave alone the inner child, like what the let-it-be naturalist camp advocates as a reaction against the overly structured helicopter mom approach to personal development. Far from that, this approach requires a lot more attention. It’s just not the kind of scorching heat sunshine over the dessert but rather the gentle and alert warmth of a nice puppy looking at you.
Only with that kind of attention can there be trust that you aren’t trying to micro-managing nor neglecting yourself. From that comes the inner alignment, cooperation and willingness to change.
Imagine telling the lazy, ugly and unwanted part of us “I know you, I see you, and I give thank to you”. We attend to the child in us who is acting out, kicking left and right, screaming for attention. We give him what he is asking for so that he can calm down. Only then there can be a genuine conversation and possibility of change.
(Notes for further geekeries: There is whole sketch of a theory called the Disowned Childlike Self Theory in the Enneagram world)
Accepting the parts
How do you make sense of the paradox between acceptance and change then?
Here is the bad news. If you view yourself as a single entity and try to muster up Herculean bootstrapping force to change out of a strong judgment that certain part of you is not good, you are doomed for frustration.
Yet if you see yourselves as not made of one but multiple parts, there is hope. As the movie Inside Out has brilliantly revealed, these characters embark on a long reconciliation journey to find harmony and acceptance of each other. Only then the whole troupe to move together in a positive, coherent and life-serving direction.
The Inside Out’s long journey of inner acceptance (PC)
Otherwise, you’ll experience a lot of inner tension and conflict. Guilt, resentment, frustration and lack of meaningful changes are all bound to happen.
On this note, it’s worth remembering that acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean agreement or approval. You can accept a behavior (“it happens”) but not agree or approve with it (“it shouldn’t happen”). Firm but not hostile, sober but not hopeless, the essence of acceptance is the expression “I know you, I see you and I give thanks to you even if I may not agree with you”.
No wonder much of the work of self-acceptance requires time and space. Repeating the mantra “I accept who I am” can help as a reminder, but it alone is not enough. We also have to step back, observe the pattern and not react, which is what we are trained in most contemplative practices.
Doing this inner has been a worthwhile journey. With the shift to acceptance, “what becomes increasingly important is what we are becoming, not what we have or do” as David Hawkins writes in his book Letting Go. This also applies to how we relate others. We become more interested in what others are becoming, not so much on what they do or what they have anymore.
As a practical benefit, when I remember to operate from this place, I am less anxious about meeting high profile people. While the expectation of “making it worth their time” is still there, I am more looking forward to the joy of shared presence and curiosity towards what we could become.
Letting others accept you
One major irony of this whole self-improvement spiel is that oftentimes, change doesn’t come from you but rather from people who love you. By love, I don’t only mean the romantic butterfly-in-the-stomach feeling but more like the love of a teacher who inspired you in school or a parental figure who cares for you in times of illness and struggle. If you have ever been in that kind of love, you know your change for the better becomes smooth and sometimes even joyous. Plus, it stays with you for a long time.
I’m excited by the relatively new field of coaching and its potential contribution to modern world. As coaches and guides, we provide much more than just analysis of what goes wrong and why self-improvement effort doesn’t work. That’s important for understanding. Yet for the truly lasting change, we also have to hold people in love and care, which like sunlight can melt away their layers of inner tension so that something beautiful can emerge at its own time.
Practice
The next time you face an inner struggle between two different parts, find yourself some solitude time in a quiet place. Notice a few breaths, and affirm each part silently
“I know you, I see you, and I give thank to what you are trying to do there to support me”. Notice the softening of your body and the falling away of tension as you exhale. Continue the practice whenever such inner conflict arises.
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Quotes I'm contemplating this week
“And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.” - Joseph Campbell.
A beautiful quote about the journey of becoming fully human by the late mythologist Joseph Campbell.
"Name your poor leper within. Nurse and tend her wounds. Name your inner wolf; tame him by gentle forgiveness." - Richard Rohr
I have been digging more into Christian language and imagery recently, and I found this quite a beautiful image.
Reading & Listening
(Read) Start Finishing: this week I've continued to devour on Charlie Gilkey's newest book. Here is another quote
"When your plans and reality don’t match, the only sensible choice is to adjust your plans. It’s counterintuitive, but the better planner you are, the more often you’ll review and adjust your plans."
(Listen) Jonathan Haidt on Happiness, Fragility & Morality a great interview from a favorite modern thinker on sacredness, happiness and ancient wisdom. Did you know that "happiness" used to mean "happy occasion" as in "good fortune" rather than the "feeling happy" meaning now? He also has another interesting observation and explanation of why in the year from 2012 there has been a sharp rise in American teenage girls depression (hint: social media & overly protective parents).
Lastly.. a not so nice but pretty on point poem
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
p/s: Do reach out for the Inner Critic Assessment or general conversations about life. I'd love to be helpful.