Self-Acceptance: How to Accept Yourself Without Giving Up on Change

Forrest Hanson (0:07)

Hello, and welcome to Being Well. I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. There is a really unfortunate part to learning more about ourselves. As our self-awareness improves, we usually find a lot in there to like, but we can also find things that really frustrate us. Maybe we've got some habit or tendency that's been bugging us for a while that we just can't seem to change. People often talk about how important self-acceptance is, but are we really supposed to accept all of that stuff? What about the parts of ourselves that we just don't really like? It's easy to then get very self-critical, and harsh self-criticism rarely helps us change in good ways. But is the answer really to swing all the way over to just love yourself more, man?

Well, I don't think so.

So today's episode is about self-acceptance, what it is, what it isn't, and how we can use it as a tool for both feeling better and changing in the ways we want to. We'll be talking a bit about acceptance and commitment therapy, Carl Rogers, and a distinction between what I've been calling critical self-acceptance and idiot self-acceptance, which I promise will both make more sense and sound a little bit less harsh in a minute. So I'm joined today by clinical psychologist, Dr. Rick Hanson. Dad, how are you doing?

Rick Hanson (1:31)

I'm really good, Forrest, honestly, juggling a lot of plates. And this topic of self-acceptance is so great because it opens into, how do you combine handling what is there to handle in the outer world, as well as in the inner world, while resting in a fundamental wisdom about it all? That includes accepting it and being fundamentally at peace.

Both and. It's a sweet spot. I look forward to exploring it with you.

Forrest Hanson (1:59)

We're a middle path kind of podcast over and over again, as it turns out. So before we get into it today, I do want to give people a quick reminder about one of Rick's upcoming programs that we're really excited about. It's called The Healing Link, and it's a six-week live online course focused on teaching a specific technique of his called linking that helps us repair old wounds and change some of our most ingrained patterns. It is a very, very cool concept that Rick has been working on now for 15, 20 years, longer than that even. And it's the actual mechanism for change that's usually missed by most approaches to something like reparenting or working with your inner child or whatever is popular on Instagram these days. And you can learn more about it at rickhansen.com/linking and use promo code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% off discount. So I was hoping to start today's episode by talking a little bit about what self-acceptance is and how we both think about it. So I want to start, dad, with some kind of a definition. Like, how do you think about this thing?

Rick Hanson (3:05)

I know you're going to elaborate this, so I'm going to speak more kind of from my gut than my cerebral forebrain.

In the gut, there's a kind of softening around what actually is the case.

Tara Brach, in her breakout first book titled Radical Acceptance, speaks to some of this. And it's interesting that the root of the word radical is root. It's getting to the root of things and moving beyond hope and fear, moving beyond liking and disliking. It is what it is, whether we like it or dislike it. And so, there's something kind of intimate about that. When you're accepting yourself, you're just simply, yeah, this is here. This too belongs, as Tara would put it. So, there's a clear seeing involved in accepting, and there's a non-resisting. And I know we're going to be exploring the sweet spot, the intersection of guiding that is not resisting in a larger framework of acceptance.

Forrest Hanson (4:06)

So, the way that I think about acceptance is really similar to the way that you put it from Tara and their dad, that it's a kind of receiving of what is. You know, you're in this world of accurate, unresisted contact with reality. And I really want to say three things that I don't think it is. It's not approval. So, acceptance is not endorsement. So, accepting something about yourself does not mean that you're happy with it, that you approve of it, whatever it is. You're just like, oh, this is real and it's there.

It's not resignation. It's not saying, oh, I'm accepting this, so I'm not seeking to change it. From our conversation that we had ages ago with Dr. Steve Hayes, who's the creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, he had this great quote in it. What we're talking about here is not tolerance or resignation. Acceptance is to receive as if a gift. And I think that that's probably the simplest way to put it, to receive something as if a gift. So, you're not in resistance to it. And I knew that I was interested in doing a self-acceptance episode. And so, when I got to that point, I went, okay, I want to do something about this. I did some initial research, and I ran into this article from Very Well Mind. It's a website I like a lot. I think they do very good work on what self-acceptance is. And it included a list of different aspects, many of which I would give a total thumbs up to. First, seeing yourself fairly accurately, including what you are and aren't good at. Second, accepting your values, preferences, feelings, and actions, past and present. Third, recognizing strengths and accomplishments without being vain about it. And then fourth, acknowledging weaknesses and faults without beating yourself up. I think that's a great list. Big thumbs up from me. But then there's one that this episode is basically gonna be about.