Self-Acceptance: An Inner Climate of Compassion by Theresa

 

Treating ourselves with warmth and gentleness does not come naturally to most of us.  We are much more familiar and even comfortable with a mixture of self-judgment and self-neglect.  This unfriendly inner attitude towards ourselves can be difficult to unlearn and to replace with a deeper, more compassionate internal climate.  It is generally a pattern that has built up over a lifetime of subtle and not-so-subtle messages from those around us.  

We learn early that there are certain aspects of ourselves that seem to please others (parents, teachers, peers, society in general), and other parts of us that are met with disapproval, withdrawl, or hostility.  As we learn to suppress those “negative” parts and hide them from others, we gradually lose touch with them ourselves, including all their potentially positive facets.  They are relegated into our “shadow,” and then projected onto people and circumstances around us.  We resist opening into our internal world, because we would invariably encounter these uncomfortable, scary, and painful feelings.  Some examples of things that might be in the shadow are feelings of anger, resentment, sadness, tenderness, needing, desire, and vulnerability.

Take a moment, if you want, to look inside yourself and see what may be present inside you that is difficult to accept, some part you may judge or avoid.  A couple of clues that can help you know what you do not accept in yourself are either to think of those things in others that you judge, or that anger and annoy you, or think of those times when you feel embarrassed or ashamed of your thoughts, feeling, or behavior.  

Why look inside at these things?  What do we gain from these self-observations?  What harm does out tendency to avoid and disown these “negative” parts do?  First of all, we end up causing a deep split within ourselves, resulting in an internal conflict between our “good” and “bad” parts.  This is very energy-consuming, since much of our natural vitality gets drained by this inner battle.  We then have less energy and enjoyment for our lives.  Not only is there the energy output to keep these parts suppressed and to wage the internal battle, but we also lose the energy of the positive aspects of these disowned parts.  For example, if we cannot allow ourselves anger, it is very difficult to be assertive and have clear boundaries.  If it is not okay to be tender, there is not much chance for nourishment and intimacy with people.  Finally, if we turn against ourselves and are split internally, we simply do not possess the quality of wholeness and well-being that can enrich every moment of our experience.

So how can we re-connect with our disowned aspects and thereby get to know and accept all of who we are?  In my work with myself and others over the years, I see three essential ingredients.  First, we need to want to do it; that is, we need to have the desire and the commitment to make the journey home to ourselves.  It is not a smooth, easy journey and having a sense about the greater purpose and value helps us along the way.  Secondly, we absolutely must set aside time to be with ourselves.  Many of us are so swept up in the hectic pace of our lives, that we fail to set aside the time to touch into our deeper selves, from which we gain our spiritual sustenance.

In addition, it is crucial to create an inner climate of warmth, acceptance, and gentleness.  Without this inner tone of kindness, we tend to avoid the necessary “letting down” process as soon as we reach those uncomfortable and scary places within ourselves.  If we have not yet developed the inner resources to be present with what we find inside us, we tend to turn back outside and distract ourselves through busy-ness, television, work, food, alcohol and drugs, feeling victimized, giving to others, the list is endless.  Or we convince ourselves that taking such time to be with ourselves in a warm, friendly way is selfish, nonproductive, emotional wallowing, non-spiritual, etc.

How then can we begin to cover our inner selves with a blanket of caring and warmth, so that the disowned parts and scary places can trust enough to peek out, tell their stories, grow, and re-integrate into the whole of who we are?  We need to develop what Ed McMahon and Peter Campbell, in their book, Bio-Spirituality, call “Caring-Feeling-Presence,” although there are may names for this state.  Caring-feeling-presence describes an alternate way of being with difficult feelings inside ourselves.  It is a presence that says to those uncomfortable and scary places, “You are not alone.  I am right here with you and I care.”  It is a presence that is felt in our body, by our body.

We all know what a caring body presence is.  Imagine coming across an abandoned baby or a lost, frightened kitten in a thunderstorm.  We do not explain rationally to them that everything is okay now, the appropriate people will be called, etc.  No, we instinctively pull them to our body and let the warmth and gentleness of our physical presence do the communicating.  Our body and our tone of voice say to them, “You are not alone.  I am here and I care.  I will take care of you.”  We carry them qualitatively different than we would carry a sack of groceries.  We hold them, rock them, and our body soothes them.

This is the type of body attitude that we need to develop towards our own unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and confused places.  Our body attitude of caring says to those aspects of ourselves:  “I am with you—I see you,” and this is what makes it possible for those parts to feel safe enough to come out of hiding.  These places need to feel our acceptance, our availability, and our caring presence, in order to express themselves, to unfold, and to change in the way they need.  The irony is that only when we truly accept ourselves as we are, can change happen.

The point of the caring-feeling-presence is not to anesthetize, “get rid of,” or bypass these hard places.  On the contrary, it is to embrace them fully and to surround them with affection, so that we can become reconciled with feelings that we have made into the enemy.  The vulnerable parts that still need to tell their story are now able to surface.

The development of the caring-feeling-presence is simply a matter of practice.  In my experience as therapist and teacher, I have never encountered a person who was not able to tap into that deeper place of affection.  Some people, who have seldom been the recipient of this type of care from significant others in their life, must devote a little more time to developing this part.  I have found that the use of imagery is very valuable in this regard.

One client who swore she could not remember ever feeling this type of body affection finally remembered this scene:  One day, after playing in the snow all afternoon, she came inside, where her visiting grandmother gave her hot chocolate, wrapped her in a soft blanket, and sang to her, as she slowly thawed out.  She was able to deeply feel, in her body, what it had felt like to be so cared for.  This image and its accompanying body-feel were the entryway into what became an ability to receive affection.  This capacity for receiving affection is the key to opening the wounded and neglected parts of ourselves, so that healing energy can enter and transform us.  This energy is sometimes referred to as grace.

It is also important to learn to generate the active part of the caring-feeling-presence, that is, the part that can surround the internal object of affection with acceptance and warmth.  This same woman, whose almost-grown son had drowned the previous year, could remember how tenderly she would hold her favorite stuffed animal as a child, how much she had loved and cared for “Bunny.”  This became her bodily-felt model for the expressive side of her internal caring-feeling-presence.  When feeling this body affection, we are much more able to simply be with those inner aspects that need our attention and care, without needing them to move on or be different.  We can be quiet, very present, and patiently wait for that place within us to express itself, and change according to its timetable, not ours.

This woman became able to hold her own pain and grief over her son’s death in the same way she had held her beloved childhood friend Bunny.  Her hurting places inside were able to receive this tenderness and love in the same way that the little girl in the blanket had received the affection from her grandmother.  Her body-climate of warmth and compassion enabled her to, at last, let down into the enormous pain of her loss.

Caring-feeling-presence is a term that encompasses many body-approaches that can aid us in opening to the gift of healing change.  Affection is at the center of this body attitude, and with the warmth and gentleness of affection we can much more easily feel a deep sense of self-acceptance, of just letting ourselves be.  Through this self-care, we support our unique unfolding/healing process to proceed in exactly the way and at the right speed that we need.  It is our body’s way of inviting grace.