This week I have focused primarily on getting myself back on track when it comes to how I see myself. I am extremely hard on myself all of the time and I carry around immense amounts of guilt about everything. I spend more time telling myself that I’m stupid or that I’m useless or that I am a slacker. Logically I know these things are not true. I personally think that 8 times out of 10 I am one of the smartest people in the room. I am a college graduate and I am months away from getting my Masters degree. I was laid off in December, thanks Covid, and I know that has taken a toll on my self image because I haven’t found another job yet so the only thing I have to keep me busy is my school work. But my accomplishments or the state of the world is just not enough to quiet the voice in my head.
I went and saw my therapist yesterday, which I always recommend to anyone who is struggling, and it was one of those sessions that just was not long enough because I felt like we were on the brink of a breakthrough. Anyway, we talked a lot about me feeling like I do not deserve to be praised, which is ridiculous because we determined in another session that I seek validation from others. But with that being said I am very quick to brush off any compliment or praise from anyone. My professor is one of those people who loves to praise his students when they do good work but I can never bring myself to believe one word of it. Overall I think very little of myself.
So since I am on this journey of complete healing this is my first issue I need to address. I watched a video which was a video version of a podcast episode by Kalyn Nicholson called Radical self acceptance. The podcast is called Kalyn’s Coffee Talk. The video is 40 minutes and I took a lot of notes so I will just summarize the episode. Radical self acceptance is when you go above and beyond to accept not only yourself but the situations you are in. We cannot live in a state of mind where we tell ourselves that we will only accept ourselves once we lose weight, get a job, get into a relationship, or whatever else we can think of. We need to accept ourselves for who we are in the present and that means accepting everything that comes with it, flaws and all. She said we need to “surrender in a way that will allow you to be victorious” even if it is in a different way than we will expecting. She then used the analogy of play dough. Imagine someone just plopped a mound of play dough in front of you but you choose to only use half of it to put into your mold. Your problems, inner critic, shame, guilt, etc. is the the other half. No matter how much you reject it or try to ignore won’t change the fact that it is still going to be sitting on the table next to you.
Radically accepting yourself will make it easier to radically accept the truth about bigger issues, like a global pandemic. It is also very healing and extremely empowering when you are able to accept yourself and your situations. In these moments you are taking back the control you have given to your inner voice, You and your critic can work together as a team instead of you constantly being at war with yourself. She then used the example of the world ending, which I think is very appropriate because it does feel like that sometimes. She said that if you know for a fact that the world is going to end on Sunday you could do one of two things. You could either scramble and try to do everything in your power to try to prevent it or you can step back and say okay the world is going to end there is nothing I can do so how am I going to live my last couple days? Now radical self acceptance or radical acceptance in general does not mean you are throwing in the towel or giving up it means that you have accepted the truth of the matter and you will carry on in the only way you know how: fighting. Odds are if you knew the world was going to end you would not be concerned with how you look or how other people perceive you. You are going to live you last days like you have wanted to live your whole life.
She then went on to explain how we need to change the way we treat ourselves. If one of our loved ones spoke of themselves the way we talk to ourselves we would be really empathetic towards them and do everything in our power to help them so why aren’t we doing that for ourselves? It is never too late to make a fresh start and acknowledging when we are being mean and practicing this self acceptance can be that fresh start. We are not practicing this so we can change everything about ourselves this is an act that we learn to do because it allows us to accept that we are who we are and that is okay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MrV-dCB1ek&t=1971s
“All the voices in my head always try to break me mess me up and change me but talk is cheap this is the last time I listen to the voices in my head” -Ashley Tisdale.
A little bit of everything 