Accepting Ourselves Means We Must Accept Both The Good and The Bad
Nobody goes through life without both good and bad. Accepting that is empowering.
I’ve done some stupid, foolish, even selfish things in my life.
From many, I learned valuable lessons. From others, I learned what not to do in certain situations. Truth be told, from some of the stupid, foolish, selfish things I gleaned no lesson I can put a finger on.
Guess what? I’ll make more stupid, foolish, and selfish choices in my life. No matter what and how much I study, or the effort to do good I put out – I’ll fuck it up along the way.
This is not my truth. This is true for everybody. That’s because every single person on the planet makes mistakes, does stupid, foolish, and even selfish things from time to time.
No matter the lessons we learn from those occurrences – we might well repeat the same bad things again. Circumstances likely will be different – but we’ll still screw up.
That’s just part of being human. We’re all perfectly imperfect. We’re also messy, rude, screwy, unusual, and do things nobody else understands.
Despite this truth, there are numerous people – gurus, “experts” both legit and full of BS, professionals, doctors, and more – trying to sell you cures for this. Do this program and never screw up again. Take this pill and let it wash your foul moods away. Concentrate on this mantra repeatedly and you’d have anything and everything you desire.
Lots of these ideas can and will help us. But none of them can erase the bad and replace it with good.
Accepting this – especially in ourselves – doesn’t weaken us. In fact, it empowers us.
What does accepting ourselves mean?
Almost everyone I know seeks to better themselves in one way or another.
Some people work on active self-improvement of one stripe or another. Some people take classes, study things, and more formally work on bettering their mind, body, spirit, or some combo therein. And then, some people are on diets, exercise routines, or follow some plan or other for their betterment.
There is nothing wrong with working on self-improvement in any form at all. The issue that does crop up from time to time is rejecting the bad and negatives along the way.
Toxic positivity is toxic because it ignores, neglects, and disregards negativity. For similar reasons, many people roll their eyes at the idea of self-helpery because of its rah-rah see-no-evil attitude.
We are all a paradox of yin and yang, good and bad, right and wrong, and on and on. We can’t erase, negate, ignore, or otherwise disregard our bad aspects.
Frequently, we reject this. Or if we don’t reject it, we take paths that attempt to reject it. And lots of the notions for self-improvement out there suggest pushing against and away from all bad, negatives, and so on.
We are all perfectly imperfect mixes of good and bad. All of us have our positives and our negatives. And when we accept this – we empower ourselves.
How does acceptance empower us?
The world is a complicated place. With technology instantly connecting us across the globe, we’re constantly overwhelmed by information.
Much of what we see and take in is useless to us. What can you do with knowledge of the latest celebrity gossip? Other data we absorb is nothing but entertainment and distraction. Cat videos on YouTube and shows on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Plus, and the like are perfect examples of this.
All that information overwhelming us disempowers us. Mixed in with information we seek – like things to better ourselves – discerning useful from useless is extra challenging.
How do we know what we should and shouldn’t bother paying attention to?
Mindfulness lets us see – here and now – what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling, how we’re feeling, what we’re doing, and what our intentions are. That knowledge opens us to see who, what, where, how, and why we are.
This will not just show us our good – but our bad, too. Then that knowledge empowers us because we now possess it.
How often do you just go with the flow and let your subconscious mind do the driving? When you do that for a while – and then become present and consciously aware – do you feel as if you’ve let something slip? Like you ceded control, time, or some other intangible?
Most people live subconsciously a lot more than consciously. I believe part of why is because doing so means they don’t need to be accountable.
But in not being accountable – and not accepting both our good and bad – we disempower ourselves.
Hence why acceptance empowers us.
Accepting is more powerful than tolerating
Words matter. This is why I’ve written before about the power of want versus desire – the implication and position of a given word will have an impact on its meaning.
But more than that – what we choose and make decisions about is a lot more powerful and empowering than just letting whatever happens, happen.
As such – there have been lots and lots of messages out there about tolerance. How we need to be more tolerant of other cultures, different people, and dissimilar lifestyles than what we’re familiar with.
However – tolerance, to me, still carries with it judgment. The implied judgment is that isn’t right for me – but I will tolerate it from or for you. And nobody should be arbitrarily judged as such.
Accepting means exactly what it says. We recognize, acknowledge, and accept this, that, or whatever it is. Not blindly, not just because – but due to a choice or decision. I accept this.
When it comes to ourselves – this is utterly empowering. Why? Because accepting ourselves for all that we are means we can choose new options to be other, more, different, etc. By accepting ourselves as we are – warts and all – we’re empowered to alter this as we see fit.
Nobody goes through life without both good and bad. Accepting that is empowering because when we accept ourselves for all that we are – we can more easily make choices and decisions for how we can best live our lives.
In this way – we can see both the good and bad of the paths we’re on – and more easily make changes if necessary and desired.
Do you acknowledge both your good and your bad qualities?
This is the five-hundred and fifty-ninth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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