Self-Acceptance: Why And How

I’ve written about self-acceptance and the role it has played in my quest for a healthy body and mind, but I don’t think I’ve ever come out and said this directly:

I believe that self-acceptance is necessary for me to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

I never said it because, even though I wanted to believe it, I wasn’t sure if it were true. Part of me believed that a healthy body weight could only be achieved through struggle, restriction, misery, difficulty, and doing things that go against my natural way of being.

But it is true. Back in 2005 when I decided  try and lose weight for the 38th time in 42 years, I stumbled upon something called Emotional Freedom Technique. I went to an EFT practitioner named Lynn Gaffin and in our first session she came up with this phrase for me to tap on: “even though I am overweight, I still love and accept myself.” I couldn’t say it. I was full of self-loathing and felt not shred of acceptance for myself. But until that moment I didn’t realize it.

EFT didn’t cause the weight to just fall off me, but it helped me develop confidence and self-acceptance, which in turn, helped me to  do the right things for myself. At the time, those things involved counting calories, aiming for certain carbohydrate/fat/protein ratios, avoiding “white” foods, weighing and measuring food, eating “super foods,” exercising, and weighing myself once a week (or more). And so it seemed to me that the weight loss came relatively easily. I lost 55 pounds over the course of 18 months.

Then came a period of uneasiness. I was maintaining the weight loss but was obsessed with the scale and the fact that I wasn’t losing any more. I kept playing with ratios and numbers. I had wanted to lose 75 pounds, not just 55. It seemed all I could think or talk about was my weight, how much I’d lost and how much I still had to lose, blah blah blah.

That’s when the self-acceptance went out the window and I started to gain weight. And as I gained weight it became even harder for me to accept myself. Vicious cycle.

Yes, I’ve written about this before so why am I writing about it again? Because it’s vital. It’s everything.

I believe that self-acceptance is necessary for me to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

So many people believe that the two concepts – “self-acceptance right now” and “losing weight” – are mutually exclusive.

“How can I accept myself now (still not at a perfect weight)?”

“If I accept the way I am right now I’ll never lose weight.”

“How can I accept myself if I hate my body?”

“Self-acceptance right now” and “losing weight” are inextricably intertwined. And when I try and explain this to people (usually in the form of comments on their blogs), I get the impression, via their responses, that they think it must have always come easily to me.

For example, here’s a comment I left on Big Girl Bombshell’s blog in response to Kimberly’s comment:

“If you don’t accept yourself now, you won’t accept yourself ever. Acceptance does not come at the expense of health or weight loss. Health and weight loss come from acceptance. And acceptance is not something you get once and then can forget. Acceptance takes practice…Now my mantra is ‘practice don’t preach’ followed by ‘practice practice practice’ until infinity.”

In response she wrote:

“Karen, I am practicing as hard as I can. It is just very difficult to remove half a lifetime of self-loathing. I’m being perfectly honest here. I have never understood acceptance at any size because the world is a far different place for a thin person than it is for a fat person. How do you conquer that? How do you not see yourself through the eyes of what the world expects? I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, it is just not such an easy thing to do.”

When I read that I thought, she must think I’ve never felt bad about myself ever! And so I wrote:

“I spent 40+ years full of self-loathing and NOT accepting myself.”

And then I told her how I practice self-acceptance. You can do this full clothed, naked, or somewhere in between. The more naked, the better.

Stand with your back to the mirror. Take some deep belly breaths. Think about someone or something that you love unconditionally—a baby, a puppy, your spouse. Think of how much this being brings to your life and how much you love it. Feel the googly, melting heart feeling until it you can’t tell whether it’s emotional or physical. It should feel like your chest is expanding with warmth and goodness.

Now imagine yourself as a little child who is totally lovable and vulnerable. Take yourself into your own heart.

Now turn around with your eyes closed. Soften your eyes. Take a few deep belly breaths. Check your posture? Are you tense? Are your shoulders up around your ears? Unlock yourself. Relax. Take some more deep breaths. Open your eyes and keep them soft. Look at yourself in the mirror with soft eyes and turn that warm googly, melty heart feeling in to yourself. Immerse yourself in it for as long as you can.*

Now that I am practicing self-acceptance on a regular basis, I am once again doing the right things for myself. This time around, “the right things” are a little different than they were in 2005.

Rather than count calories, I’ve embraced intuitive eating.

I’m more willing to view my body as a holistic system and am advocating for my health in a way I hadn’t before.

I still exercise, but I don’t consistently push myself to the point of pain and/or injury.

I also still weigh and measure some foods and I still aim to eat as much whole, unprocessed (or minimally processed) foods as possible.

I don’t classify any food as “bad” unless it’s because I actually do not like the way it tastes or if it happens to be spoiled.

I don’t weigh myself but rather use my waist measurement and how my clothes fit as an indication of how my body is responding.

I give myself full permission.

These things do not involve struggle, restriction, misery, or difficulty, and they do not go against my natural way of being. As a result, I am more relaxed and happy than ever before, I am fitter, and my body and my health reflect it.

Every step I’ve taken I was meant to take, and every step you’ve taken you were meant to take.

*I developed this exercise based on something that Dr. Christiane Northrup told me during an interview, and combined it with an affirmation I learned in the Living Lighter class I took back in 2009. It’s a super-charged affirmation that works on our emotions and our physical bodies. Dr. Northrup explains that the electromagnetic field around our hearts (the center of our emotions) is a hundred times more powerful than the electromagnetic field of our brains (the center of our thoughts).  This means that no matter what you think, what you feel always wins! So when you are able to feel such powerful emotions, to the point that you sense them physically as well, and then you direct them inward, it’s powerful stuff!