Learning self-acceptance

Let's be honest – we all have parts of ourselves we would happily get rid of. Perhaps that part of you who always gets drunk and loud at parties; or the part that struggles to be assertive, crumbling in the face of strong characters; or maybe it's the part that holds all your pain, anger or loneliness. It's a normal, entirely understandable reaction to turn away from, repress or otherwise try to ignore these uncomfortable elements of your psyche – the trouble is, they are in you whether you like it or not, and so will find a way to make their presence known.

The same rule applies to negative feelings and emotions. Who wants to feel rage, deep sadness or fear? Not me, that's for sure. I'd much rather experience joy, pleasure, confidence or peacefulness and I'm sure you are the same. This self-protective mechanism leads humans to have two basic ways of experiencing everything (both internal and external) in their lives: approach and aversion. Approach is what you feel when you see someone you love, or a cute furry little animal, or smell something delicious baking in the kitchen. It's all about openness, acceptance, wanting to touch, embrace or consume something.

Aversion is the direct opposite. You experience aversion when something or someone looks threatening, when you take a whiff of rotten food or see a big, angry dog in your path. Aversive feelings are all about shutting down, rejecting, disliking, wanting to get away from or get rid of. 

Now, neither approach nor aversion is good or bad. We need both states to survive, to stay healthy and well and protect our loved ones. The problem comes when we experience aversion towards negative feelings like anger, fear, sadness or hurt. If we can allow these feelings to exist they just flow through us, felt in our bodies and lasting for a few seconds before fading away. But if we are aversive towards them, they get stuck, last much longer and turn into unhealthy mental states.

So depression comes when we feel aversive to (scared of) anger and sadness; anxiety is all about an aversive reaction to fear; procrastination stems from an aversive reaction to things we find scary or dull. Learning how to 'turn towards' every experience, however painful, is a powerful way to recover from depression, anxiety, chronic stress, anger issues, addiction, binge eating... And learning how to stop being aversive to (and so ignoring, disliking or suppressing) parts of ourselves we're not crazy about is key to self-acceptance.

If you would like to know more about approach and aversion, read Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation, by Jon Kabat-Zinn; or The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, by Christopher K Germer. 

Best wishes,

Dan

Tags: Anger management, Anxiety, Binge eating, Chronic worrying, Depression, Mental health, Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, Shame