Acceptance-A Powerful Tool

I've been very open here and elsewhere about my journey (that word is forever ruined by the "Bachelor" contestants and every other reality tv star, but I literally googled synonyms and couldn't find a good one, so the bachelorettes and I are just goin' with it)  journey through depression.  I really have struggled with varying degrees of depression since as long as I can remember.  I've read dozens of books, researched for hours online, tried every natural and modern medicine approach and have spent many hours with therapists.  But it wasn't until one day in a therapy session with my amazing therapist (btw, it's taken a lot of time to find the right fit, so don't give up on therapy, just find a good one)  that really changed my life.  She was able to see through all my efforts for what it was; shame.  I have always been so keenly embarrassed and self-conscious about my depression.  I felt so so stupid and wimpy and just wrong that I struggled to be happy.  After all, I have it as easy as it comes: amazing parents, great family, supportive good husband, no traumas, no big losses, etc..  Everything in my life has worked out exactly how I pictured and wanted, leaving me with the conclusion, that I was fundamentally the problem, I was broken.  If I were just more grateful, if I just worked harder, if I just discovered the right remedy, I could change, I could be the person I wanted to be and get rid of this dysfunctional Eeyore, wet-blanket persona I saw myself as.   My therapist looked at me and said "Honestly, I don't know if you'll ever be "rid" of depression. It might be a lifelong battle. So instead of fighting it, I want you to fight through it."  I experienced so many emotions at that moment, it was like someone threw a bucket of cold water on me but also got chills up and down because the truthfulness reverberated through my body.   I knew she was right, I did not like it one little bit, but I knew it was true.  That session really changed everything. It changed my whole outlook on not just my depression but on all of my flaws.  This outlook paired with a mindfulness approach which is all about acceptance and not judging anything, has not gotten rid of my depression or made me a different person, but it has really healed my shame and grief and given me so much more to work with.

First, let's talk about why acceptance is so hard. For me, I had the erroneous belief that if I accepted myself, warts and all, I would be giving up and never progress, grow or improve.  Secondly, when you're busy beating yourself up and reading and researching and stewing and planning, you feel like you're productive,  you feel busy and like you're making headway and you will surely be on your way to a new and shiny you in no time.  Here's the truth I've discovered to both of those thinking errors.  First,  it is counter-intuitive but when you accept yourself, your whole self, that is when change and growth really happen.   You take the anxiety and urgency out and then you can see your strengths and flaws and have a more clear perspective on how big a role each of those play (hint, those flaws are not nearly as exaggerated as when that's your only focus). Secondly, think about how motivating love vs. fear is.  If you had a close friend that saw your weaknesses and harped on them all the time, constantly criticizing, ignoring your strengths, tried endlessly to change you into something you're not, do you think it would motivate you very much?  Probably not and if it did, it would be motivated by fear, which is a powerful motivator, but one that is not lasting or healthy.  Now imagine a person that just believed in you, loved you, saw your flaws and still saw your potential, how much more motivating is that?  I heard Maya Angelou interviewed and she talked about a time that her mother changed her life.  Maya was young woman in her early twenties when her mother just stopped her as they were walking and looked her in the eye and told Maya how much she admired her and all the good she saw in her.  From that moment on Maya resolved to not smoke, drink or swear and never do anything that would lose her mother's respect.  She used that moment as a powerful driving force to live up to what her mother saw in her.   That is what acceptance and love does, it moves mountains and it motivates and lifts like nothing ever can.  Sure, fear is a great counterfeit, but you will pay an exacting price of self loathing and superficial change if you let fear govern your growth and life.   Thirdly,  to answer the point that the self loathing/non-acceptance feels good and productive and like you're actually taking steps towards change, at least in my case, that was a cover, a diversion that really kept me from seeing myself and truly changing.   It wastes so much precious time and energy and not only keeps you from moving forward but instead moves you backward as now you are filled with such a negative energy and your'e whole focus has been on your weaknesses, which is a skewed, unproductive and miserable way to live.

So we accept ourselves, now what?  Well, acceptance is just the start.  You have to start there and radically change your approach so that you accept and then see purpose, meaning and goodness in your flaws. Then you ask yourself how you can harness the good in it and lessen the bad.  So for me that looked ugly and sad and I had to grieve,  but eventually I told myself, gulp "well, it looks like depression is just a part of my life, and that's okay.  No, not just okay, it could be great.  God gave me my genetics and the bundle of personality and situation that he knew I could handle, he wired me and there is a purpose in everything he does, so there is a purpose in this depression, there is some good that can be used from it.  How am I going to use this as a gift and see the meaning in it?"  So at first, the key was seeing my "flaw" as neutral and changing the thoughts and interpretations I had about myself.   Then I had to challenge myself to see what I had once been so ashamed of and bully out of existence, as a good thing, something that would make it purposeful.  This was hard but also a powerful exercise.  For me, I tried to see my depression like the role "Sadness" has in the movie Inside Out.

  

Like Sadness in the movie, the purpose I found in my depression is that it serves as a good gauge for me to re-calibrate if something is off.  It makes me slow down and breathe.  It's a huge learning opportunity and my empathy has grown tenfold.  It's also given me a platform to which maybe I can do some good and connect with and help others.  

Obviously I'm not an expert but I have my own life experience to tell me that acceptance is a powerful tool and the key to moving forward through life with happiness and hope. Here's to accepting and loving our whole selves.