Self-Care Toolkit: #5 The importance of Acceptance

I realise now after all these years that some things within me won’t change, even if I desperately would love them too. For sure I can work on improving something, change it to some level, but depending on what it is, I might not change it completely especially if it’s a deep characteristic or trait that I’ve always had. So, what is one to do? Constantly beat myself up or struggle with never ending self-improvement? Then in doing so, unintendedly bring about more of what I don’t want because as we know what you think about and give energy to, grows.

With this need to change something are we losing sight of what we already have that is good, that can be harnessed in more ways than we can imagine? You are “you” for a reason after all, with your unique traits and skills that no one else has and refined over the years with ongoing experience. But obscuring your real reflection and confusing the reality, is a smoky distortion followed by another and another as you fall into the stop start loop of constant change or striving for something, a front disguising the negative chatter or even self-loathing of who you are, what you can do, why you’re not happy etc. all because you're not accepting who you are and what uniquely you have to offer.

We can’t say to someone or ourselves to just accept it and get with the program. Only if it were so easy. No, we fight it, we balk that it’s not progress, that we’re giving up on ourselves or we’re not living the growth mindset that can so often be flippantly thrown at people day-in-day-out. We dread to think we’re laying down to live with the exasperation of “This is all there is for me”.

At some stage however through mellowing with the decades or an intervention of some type, perhaps in a professional setting or just an epiphany of realisation----------that to fully ACCEPT, you need to first fully SURRENDER. I don’t mean drop out of life, give up in the literal sense, no, it’s a full-blown surrender to who you are, that it’s okay to be you in the world, that it’s okay to not know, to not be seen as having all the answers or to step up to another’s view of what is next and best as you care too much what people might think.

Dare I say it but yes, there is a need for you to love yourself. This is a hard concept to understand because of course you love yourself, right? But do you? There can be shames hiding away you can’t see or don’t want to admit to that are holding you back from loving who you are. Simple gestures like looking forward to celebrating your own birthday can put you on a path to love yourself more. Congratulating yourself for a job well done with positive talk or buy a gift to treat yourself. Speaking your darkest worries out loud to aid letting them go or when someone puts you down, that you fight for yourself, showing everyone and your true-self that you’re worth it. All these little gestures help on the road to loving yourself more.

This is it, accept your true-self, accept why you are here and what you are here to do. You can drop to your knees and cry, howl, laugh and surrender it all and then really breathe. Rising with the stature and smile of acceptance knowing that you don’t have to push, you don’t have to speak up to be seen to be towing the “in the know, expert or opinion line”. You have raised the white flag, you accepted surrender, said your piece out loud with words and howls and everything that is now important to you is clearly in view as you feel at ease that life will now work out as it should.

Not all of us have something to surrender I hear you say. That’s true and equally important is to be able to accept things as they are. Something happens and “it is as it is” but you’re not happy about it. You can swing into a rage, turn victim and negative or induce the tightness of stress or feel the gloom of an anxiety bubble surrounding you. Since it is as it is, with the emotions thrust upon you, why don’t you take more control and use the simple tool I named Ghost viewing? I’ve written on this before but good to reiterate in this context so you have a tool to use when you’re finding it hard to accept something or just to snap out of negativity or anger.  

Ghost Viewing

Ghost viewing is where you view yourself from above, as if you were a ghost hovering ten feet in the air looking down upon yourself with a sort of detached attitude as you realise and accept what is really happening. Now why would you do this I hear you say? Well around 2016 as I read another heroic fantasy book, one of the two heroes suggested a similar approach if the other was struggling with thoughts of jumping into the next fight or a tense situation and needed to relax, calm the mind and perform. The way it was very specifically worded I figured it was a real technique or at least semi-true. The effect should be an instantaneous calming of the mind and body. For me it's like a burst of peace or relaxation that descends upon you, if only for a short time.  

The technique stuck in my mind for some reason, and I don’t think I intended to use it, but just so happened I tried it while I was walking my dog one evening as he pulled on the lead in the opposite direction and nearly yanked my arm off. When the fury and red mist descended, I decided to calm the anger using Ghost Viewing to help accept the situation as it was----------a loving excited dog going for a walk with his owner, his friend. I looked down upon myself and said in a matter of fact and nonchalant way "There I am, walking my dog, no big deal" and accepted the situation by seeing it from another view. My mind was indeed calmed, Hunter was happy and I continued on the walk amazed by the results and so much so I added Ghost Viewing to my self-care toolkit.