The Impossibility Of Self-acceptance & Letting Go

[kurt]

@Sleepwalker

I just had another thought while re-reading your OP.

Self development is not at odds with self acceptance.  Sometimes we think of self acceptance as being acceptance of all our patterns and problems and we should just put up with it.  But it's not like that.  Self acceptance means loving yourself enough to do all this self improvement because you believe you are worth it.  But when we start to look at the whole system of doing self help it can start to seem overwhelming.  One of the things we all need is a sense of personal boundaries and being realistic about what we can control and what we cannot control.  Once you understand what you can control (by letting go of outcomes and just working towards your goals in a patient and disapassionate way, then things begin to clear up in the mind and it starts to make sense.

"Things" like looks wont provide happiness, and if we think that things like looks provide happiness then we have a personal boundary issue because were looking in the wrong place for happiness.

So, to fix that boundary, take the attitude that nothing can be done by negative means, everything should be accepted as it is and then plans mande and habits put into place to achieve those goals. And if the expected results dont come you just let it go, accept that this is all reality has to offer at the moment, life and my body obviously has other plans, and continue to keep working on it while enjoying the process and your life and not beating yourself up over it all.  But if your plans do work out successful then happy days! Either way, you win!

So dont stress, you only live once 

Edited September 27, 2016 by kurt

[Jonas]

13 hours ago, Sleepwalker said:

@kurt Yes, you were right about my values, but really they're everyones values. Every human craves happiness, peace and contentment.

...I just thought about what you said and to be honest, I feel like all my attempts to lose weight were already trying to serve those values (obviously without much success so far). One of my top values is feeling good in my body and all of my actions were just ment to fulfill this need.

3

@Sleepwalker There are many ways to fulfill these needs to some extent, but the easiest and most effective is to look for those things inside yourself. You really don't need anything to feel happy and content. You could be dying in a ditch somewhere and still be at peace. The problem is that most people think they need something external to feel that way, so they go out of their way to feel miserable so they can attain what they want in the future instead of taking the easy road and getting it right now. 

 

13 hours ago, Sleepwalker said:

@kurt

 Maybe I didn't express my problem clearly enough at the very beginning. I have self-imposed eating "rules", but I'm not starving myself to death or punishing myself and I have no interest in being anorexic. I WANT to eat and live as healthy as I possibly can and that's what I was actually trying all the time. For me, looking good and losing weight is just a quite important component of achieving that healhy lifestyle, but it all boils down to feeling good in your body. 

So, to make this very simple: should I RESIST eating a bunch of junk-food or am I ALLOWED to eat it? 

In light of my higher value to feel good in my body, the answer would be: resist! And that's exactly what I was trying all the time and struggling with!

2

How successful have you been with struggling and resisting? How often do you stop yourself from eating when you really want to? What happens before you feel the desire to eat? What do you feel?

I used to eat a lot of junk-food and I still sometimes do. I ate because I felt bad and I wanted to make myself feel better. Unfortunately, instead of letting the food cheer me up, I made myself feeling even worse about eating too much, so I was not only eating too much, I actually felt worse after, instead of better. So I had to eat even more. The best way, for me at least, to break this pattern was to accept my overeating and show compassion. I didn't agree with the way I was making myself feel better, but I accepted it. Instead of identifying with the eating, I decided to watch myself eat as a compassionate observer. Instead of putting my energy into making myself feel bad, I used the energy I got from the food to think about ways I could make myself feel good without eating. 

After a while, I really did feel better without eating and the frequency of my binge eating was greatly reduced. It went from every day to maybe once or twice a month. I'm eating pretty healthy now and I enjoy it. 

For me, the thing that worked best was to stop resisting and to show compassion

13 hours ago, Sleepwalker said:

Because this is such a struggle for me, should I let go of trying to live healthy? Letting go of trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle would be like letting go of feeling good in my body. OR I'd have to feel good in my body regardless of my lifestyle and physical appearance (perhaps ideally?)

I am soooooo confused right now. 

Thank you for trying to help me, you have no idea how much I appreciate your advice. and I'm sorry for being this annoying.. I guess that my situation is a little more complicated. 

3

You know, it's not a final decision. You can just try for a few days to show compassion instead of trying to stop yourself. Just be there for yourself and show compassion for the girl who feels the need to eat so much. And if, after a week, nothing bad has happened, keep trying for a while longer and see if your situation maybe improves. Just experiment a little. You don't have to take yourself and your situation so seriously. You can have fun trying different things. 

20 hours ago, Sleepwalker said:

That sounds amazing! Thank you so much for sharing this, it's so insightful and inspiring. 

I always used to choose "change" instead of acceptance. The concept of self-acceptance made sense to me, but to change simply seemed to me like being more useful. Now I really get to believe that acceptance may be of more importance and more fulfilling. 

Btw acceptance seems to be a passive process, there isn't much to do. but is there anything specific or practical that I can do that could support it? 

 

Acceptance may be passive, but learning it isn't. Acceptance mostly means that you stop judging yourself, your situation and other people and that needs to be practiced. The first step would be to just be aware when you're judging something without trying to change yourself. Don't judge your judging  When you notice that you judged someone, you can go inside yourself and figure out which rules you have that cause you to judge. Then you can evaluate if that rule is serving you to feel more happiness (not pleasure), peace and contentment right now (not in the future). If it doesn't, you can think about letting the rule go or maybe replacing it with a more positive one.

If you're really adventurous and want to explore yourself more deeply, I highly recommend the book Self-Therapy by Jay Earley. It's probably very different from anything you know about therapy and I really enjoyed reading and applying it. 

[Sleepwalker]

@Jonas Thank you for explaining all the steps. I failed to understand the "how to" of dealing with this problem, but you literally solved it for me  I'll certainly apply the advice.

And again, thanks to all of you. I would never have expected to get so much detailed information and that there are people who would be this eager and determined to help me with this issue, willing to invest their time and patience just to give me proper advice. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. God bless all of you.

[Jonas]

@Sleepwalker I really enjoy helping people with this kind of problems, so you're very welcome

I would love to hear if you had any success applying what we discussed.