The Self-Acceptance Trap

Reflections From Clinical Residency In Counseling, In 300 Words Or Less

Spoiler alert: there is no such thing as self-acceptance.

I know what you’re thinking, and it probably rhymes with “WTF.”

Focusing your efforts on self-acceptance only perpetuates the construct of a divided self. It’s like a dog chasing its tail. By trying to accept some disavowed part of the Self, you only perpetuate the very division you’re trying to make whole. In other words, you’re pretending that somehow the self that needs to be accepted isn’t the self that is doing the accepting.

If you’re familiar with Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, then parts work isn’t what I’m talking about. What I’m referring to is the part of us that notices our own thinking, feelings, intentions, body, and interactions.

The truth is, there is no separate self to accept because doing so would suggest a final version of self to accept, which will never occur. Just as moments are strung together like an array of dominoes, the self is constantly evolving with no end in sight. And because moments are constantly changing, that means the self is constantly changing too, which also suggests that so, too, must our acceptance.

But here’s the main point I want to share: if you struggle with self-acceptance, change your relationship with it. In other words, stop trying to accept yourself and instead become an accepting self—a constantly evolving center of awareness that restarts with each moment and, therefore, never strives to know the “right” self but rather always accepts oneself as right.

Inspired by Bruce Tift’s book Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation