Self-Acceptance

Sometimes you must accept that certain people will not accept you no matter what you do.  This is hard when, like me, your deepest desire in social situations is just to get along and have a good experience.  I have recently restarted working at my previous employer, a physical therapy office where I was an Office Manager.  I have returned as an Office Assistant.  The current Office Manager is someone with whom I had initially had vibes that we would not meet on common ground.  It was an awkward situation for both of us.  When I left three years ago, she obtained my position.  Now she has to leave for personal reasons for a limited time period.  I will only be working for a temporary time to cover her absence. 

Knowing that this would be slightly awkward, I reflexively resolved to be both warm and humble.  I wasn’t trying to step on anyone’s toes, especially her’s.  I just wanted to come in, do my job, and if possible, enjoy myself.  That is how it was before, when I first worked there.

But it wasn’t to be.  Despite numerous attempts to lighten the mood or be friendly, with special caution taken to not be over-friendly or too chatty, she remained standoffish.  I wasn’t sure what to make of it.  In fact, she seemed to only want to find things that were wrong.  Out of 10 things I was being trained on, I would, naturally, not pick up on approximately two of the tasks right away.  Those 8 things done right were never acknowledged.  There was never a “You did this right, but you missed this other thing on two items.”  It was always, “this is wrong.  You need to do x, y, and z.”

So, that’s okay.  I can be corrected.  I don’t mind it.  But I couldn’t help but notice I was secretly wishing I could just please her.  I don’t believe myself to be a people pleaser in particular, but I must have the tendency because, honestly, I just wanted a simple “atta girl” or at least a mention of what I did right, as in, “These are okay.”  That was never brought up.

So I must assume one of two things, if not both.  First, she may be a bad communicator.  She may also not know how to train someone.  Instead of taking each and every error I made as a self-reflection of some sort of incompetence, it might be a reflection of her as a teacher or trainer. 

You cannot always assume, especially in relationships, that the difficulties lie within your control or are caused by you.  This is another case where it isn’t all about you.  It’s hard because you’re leading this story of your life.  You’re the main character in it.  You experience life through your senses and you learn through the feedback of those senses.  How can we not be self-involved?  But just as one person in a relationship feels this way about their life and ultimately their interactions, so does the other one.

You are taught as a Communications student that one of the key ways to insure good communication is to check your perception of what the Communicator is saying.  So, that is to say, you would repeat back to the “talker” what you believe them to be saying.  Essentially, you paraphrase and start your sentence with something like, “So, just to make sure I’ve got this right, you’re saying________________.” And then make sure your perceptions are right.  Now, this wouldn’t be such a key principle if there wasn’t a high likelihood or occurrence of communication error. 

I say all this to prove a point: we are often wrong in our perceptions of what others are thinking or saying.  And this is especially true when it comes to what we think they are thinking or saying about us. 

Now, it isn’t always appropriate or professional to address a personal issue with everyone.  In my case, I worked with this particular person for a short period of time and it was not relevant to my job performance what her personal opinion was of me.  Did it unsettle me that it felt, on every level, that she found me incompetent?  Oh yes.  Especially because I pride myself on a job well done.  It is a core value for me.  Almost a defining principle for me and how I see myself.

So that all said, there is something else that must be realized.  As I said above, you must accept that you won’t always be accepted.  And the kicker is….it has nothing to do with you. Not one bit.  It is all about the other person.  Just like when you don’t like someone, it isn’t something “wrong” with them.  It’s something you can’t tolerate in general. 

But think of it this way, even if you are perfect, someone, somewhere (because of their own issues) will not accept you.  They won’t like you.  It’s not fair, but it is predictable.  You could be God Incarnate, just as Jesus was, and look how the world received Him!  The only perfect person to have walked this earth and look how the world treated Him!  This world is not always a place of love, acceptance, and all good things.  The world is a school and some lessons are served up in a not-so-kind way.  I don’t know why.  I didn’t set the school of Life up, I have only observed it closely.

So, it is even so much more important to be yourself and be what you need to be to be happy and forget the rest of the world.  Surely, you must take into account your loved ones but that is where it shall end.  Because no matter if you’re more predictable and reliable or more spunky and daring, not everyone will accept you. 

You must be the self that makes you happy.  And, you know, forget the rest.  There are plenty of people who love you for you, don’t let the negative vibes from some random person affect you. 

Self-Comparison and Self-Compassion

I am reading The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeeken.  It is a fast read.  Her tone and rhythm are well balanced and are particularly easy to follow.  I am learning about confronting the inner critical voice and carving out time to follow my heart or listen to it.  That rest is required, sitting and daydreaming are necessary for creative ideas to occur. 

But the demon I must confront is my own critical self-assessment of myself.  It is a cognitive error, a slippery trap that you don’t even know your falling until you find yourself in the pit, trapped again.  How is it that I get this side of myself, this critical, unhealthy voice out?  How did I catch it? Is it a natural product of our current culture? Catching a “negative self-perception” virus?  Is it inflicted upon us by media and Hollywood?  

Making us feel we must measure up?  But haven’t we felt that way for a long time?  Even before the days of TMZ and Us Weekly magazine, women were comparing themselves, unfavorably, to the perception of what was beautiful.  It doesn’t mean it should continue.  We must find a way to counteract that critical inner voice, the one that tells you that we’re not good enough, won’t succeed, or we’re not the right size, color or age. 

This is just another shade of being mean to yourself.  Before I discussed how mindreading and assuming the worst is really only a negative farce intended to get you to be mean to you.  Now I am asserting that another way is by comparing ourselves to others, unfavorably.  It robs you of your joy.

Joy is found when you are happy with who you are, where you are, and how you are.  These situations would naturally occur when given half a chance but we usually snub them out early.  Mindreading and assuming the worst, coupled with comparing yourself will rip the joy right out the moment. 

One night I was getting dressed in my sweatpants and matching sweatshirt, in preparation for bedtime.  I felt snuggly and life just felt nice at that moment.  I glanced in the mirror and immediately switched to thinking that my gut looked more inflated than I imagined it to be and was I just having a perception problem? Or, what if all along people see me and think I’m fat?  I immediately didn’t give myself or the perception the benefit of the doubt.  And what I mean by that is that I didn’t test the thoughts against reality.  I was self-centered and self-abusive at the same time.  And it happened in a flash.  Life…it happens in flashes.  One quick flash to another.  Sometimes the flashes seem to last forever and other times it seems like they didn’t stay long enough. But they are flashes all the same.  Sparklers in the universe.  ‘

So again, I’m confronted with however are we to become able to short circuit this self-inflicted painful cycle?  If it really happens that fast, do we have any control over it?  The first thing to do is realize that the reason it is kneejerk or feels like a reflex is because it is a habit.  Somehow, someway you and I picked up critical thoughts about ourself and then we proceeded to repeat them over and over to ourselves.  So the first thing is to make it into a positive habit.  Yes, this takes mental effort, practice and exercise.  You’ll have to consciously re-route yourself when you catch yourself having a negative thought about yourself.  You won’t be able to catch all of the negative thoughts so don’t even try.  But know this: You don’t have to for this to work.  All that has to happen is that you consciously re-route the negative thought to its positive opposite and do so on a regular enough basis for it to take hold and start carving one of those beautiful neural pathways. 

The second thing is, really, the first and that is mindfulness.  When we practice mindfulness and stay in the moment but distance ourselves or detach from our death-grip hold on our thoughts we can view them from a broader stance.  You can view your possible kneejerk reaction to something, that is, the negative thought and staying mindful, simply don’t take hold of it.  If you have to do anything, just say to yourself, “Hmmm….I wonder if my perceptions are off today.  Maybe I’m blowing things out of proportion.”  Know that the negative thought is a lie.  It almost always is a complete lie.  David Burns, in his best-selling book, Feeling Good, says, “Our research has documented that the negative thoughts which cause your emotional turmoil nearly always contain gross distortions.” (3) A cognitive error.  So you can catch that negative thought in a loose mental net and say, “This is quite likely to be false and I am practicing some sort of error.  I know this because it is proven to be true.” 

Be nicer to yourself.  I’ll be nicer to me too.  It sounds mushy and new age-y but what if it works? And, what else do you got to lose?

Make Your Own Rules

So I feel I must have clean, flat surfaces in my home.  Instead, they are cluttered.  I crave mopped floors and clean toilets (who doesn’t?).  But, alas, they are quite unclean at times. 

I used to say that my home is my haven and if it is in chaos, so am I.  While I still believe that to be a partial part of the issue, it does not encompass the whole. 

I dared ask myself today, “Why?  Why do I need an uncluttered house?  Why do I feel that it must be magazine picture perfect?”  I knew perfection was impossible.  Yet, perfection sometimes equals protection.  You are protected from another’s painful criticisms if you are perfect.  They’ll never find anything wrong with you!  But we can’t do it.  Can’t keep up.  We get so close and think we’ve done it. 

And I realized, in answering those questions, that I was living by another’s standards.  Actually, quite a few others.  I didn’t want these people to talk.  I didn’t want to hear back, through the grapevine, something rude they said.  Something they criticized that you thought you were doing rather well. 

Some people do it just so they can inflict pain.  They say or gossip so much and know that if they say something it will eventually get back to you.  It is a passive-aggressive stabbing.  But an intentional one all the same.

This seems dreary so far, I know.  But here is where I’m trying to get at: What is best for you?  I happen to function at a chaotic level okay, especially if my clutter is creatively-based in my hobbies.  So what if they don’t like it?

I mean, I’m not the first to say it but some people will always find something to criticize of you.  It’s true and I’m not going to lie and say that they don’t intend harm.  It’s vicious, it’s some predator-prey type of instinct.  They seek a kill because of a hunger of their own. 

So you can’t control them.  It’s going to happen at some point.  It shouldn’t.  But it will.  Let it go, even if you have to pry it finger by finger off of you.  Acceptance will heal you.

And here’s why: You start living by your standards.  And then say someone says something mean and unwarranted, and well, just cruel.  You’ve accepted, consciously (very important that you remind yourself of this often so that you can get it stored in your long-term brain) that others will do this.  Yes, humans are wont to harm each other. It isn’t going to stop for you and chances are, yes, you’ve harmed others too.  You’d like to think it wasn’t intended but, well, you know.  So really, this is just what happens.  A process bigger than ourselves.  That’s okay.  Because if you can see the logic in this then you can accept it. 

And then a magical thing happens.  Someone says something mean again. And you say, “Aww, yes, humans are wont to harm to each other,” and let it go.  And it will take practice and I am by no means a pro at this.