Before we can change anything about ourselves we must first accept who we are. This was postulated by Carl Rogers,who founded the Person Centred Association, and developed a humanistic approach to psychology named Unconditional Positive Regard. Many people see this and think they know what it means, but they don’t.
If we want to accept who we are we need, first, to realize how we sabotage our self acceptance.
- Resistance to how our life is. The cards we are dealt, so to speak.
- Having unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others
- Confusing our random thinking with values.
We all come with attributes and skills. Also we have negative characteristics. Think of any quality and the possibility of it growing in us is there. Life is like that.
Life also has a way of dropping difficulties in our paths. A bad parent, an abusive partner, illness etc.
The thing about resistance is that the more we do it, the more that thing gets ground up and refined into our lives. More resistance means that that thing overwhelms us. We cannot avoid it. It looms large.
Robyn Norman says; Many of us spend much of our life trying to be somebody we can like, which is terrific. But when we ignore the parts that we don’t like or pretend we don’t have them, they tend to grow and sometimes take over, or show up in weird ways.
Take the person who believes they’re always kind. When they behave in unkind ways, they will fall on the sword to prove that they’re only doing what they’re doing because they love you, or because it makes sense (to them).
Resistance can be rationalization. Like telling ourselves our relationship is not so bad, or work is ok really.
Until we accept that there is a problem, we cannot change it.
We cannot place our happiness on winning the lottery, or hoping that our abusive partner will change. Doing such things means we will never be happy.
Confusing our random thoughts with values;
Our values start with what our early caregivers teach us or set as an example. We alter or build on them as we travel through life. Our values indicate who we are and how we behave. However we come by our values or principles, we must be guided by them and not by our thoughts.
Our thoughts can lead us into mistakes. A thought acted on can be rudeness, or an insult. Acting on thoughts can cause us regret.
Robyn Norman says;
When we confuse our random thoughts with values, we can convince ourselves of almost anything. We (need) work to recognize the difference so we can let our values lead the way. And that is the beginning of change.
In order to change we must
- Accept the reality we are in.
- Keep expectations in within reality.
- Make clear what is your value and what is random thinking.
Maturing into the person we want to be means seeing and accepting where we are. Acceptance is key. Only then can we change and grow. Acceptance is the victory of defeat.
Published by The Good Men Project