Radical Self-Acceptance Needn't Be So Radical

I think that a common experience that happens when we are more conscious about our parenting choices, especially when we look at them in light of ways that we may not have gotten what we needed from our own parents, is to feel regret or guilt for things we've done as parents. And while I think that those feelings can be signposts to help us keep navigating towards ways that we want to be in relationship with our children, I don't think they serve us much beyond the initial reading of the signpost. Having those feelings is human and no one "should" feel judged for having them, AND we don't deserve them as a chronic experience. Again, I make no judgment on feelings of guilt, shame, or any feelings recurring for any of us. Feelings just are. Rather I mean to speak to the fact that I don't believe that we deserve them.

I had a vision a few years back, inspired by a Buddhist story, that continues to serve and feed me. And I offer it to you in case you can resonate with it or find any value in it for yourself. I borrow a term from the Buddhist minister Tara Brach to describe this vision - Radical Self Acceptance.

I have always wanted to make a beautiful dining room table with my husband. Not that I am all that handy, but perhaps someday we may just do it. And once I had this vision I better understood why that idea is dear to me.

In my vision, I see a table inside of me - a beautiful, simple, and substantial wooden table. At this table sit all the parts of me that I find acceptable. I am feeding them. They sit with beautiful round white bowls in front of them, spooning the delicious warm contents into their mouths. They are happy and content. Most likely these parts are also parts that others find acceptable or even admire in me. I smile at them, and I feed them. I like them, I love them. "Good job," I might say to them.

Conversely, the parts that I do not find acceptable are all tearing around the dining room, knocking things over, and being destructive. They are masked in really ugly outsides, maybe even grotesque. Denying them, not accepting them, ignoring them, admonishing them, or telling them they are not welcome at this table until they can act differently, does little good. It may create relief from them for a while, but they always come back. And in fact, it typically just spools them up more strongly. Because ultimately what they want is to be witnessed, to be known, to be seen, to be heard, to be accepted, to be believed, and to be loved. As is. No matter what. Because at their core they are good. The ugliness is just a front.

If I want them to change, the paradox is that I need to let go of them being any different than what they are. I need to breathe deeply and invite them to sit down at the table. I need to bring them a bowl of whatever I am serving and sit with them. I need to keep breathing. And I need to invite them to share everything with me. Hold nothing back. And instantly they begin to soften, and their hurt pours out. And slowly the ugliness melts and ultimately what is revealed to me is some shining precious and vulnerable part of me that was split off when I was young when I was in an environment in which it was not safe for it to exist. It needed that defending and protection, which became defendedness, hardness, judgment, etc. (The way that many of my own defenses work/worked can be described as "the best defense is a good offense.") :)

As mothers and fathers, we parent from where we are. What else can we do? Just like we partner from where we are as wives and husbands, and be in any relationship from right where we are at any given moment. And we all deserve mercy and admiration for our braveness of showing up and being in these intimate relationships, especially if our models for relationships were challenged and felt conditional about themselves and us. We deserve this mercy and admiration, especially from ourselves. In fact, we need it most importantly from ourselves.

The paradox is that when we can invite all parts of ourselves to the table when we are at our most defended, most insecure, most taking actions as parents, as husbands, as wives, as partners, as friends, we don't feel good about, the more we feel accepted. And the more we feel accepted the safer we feel within ourselves. The more we feel accepted and safe within ourselves, the more grounded we are, and the more creative we are in finding ways of parenting and being in relationship that we feel good about, and feel proud of. Then shifts happen, releases happen, integration of those split-off parts happens, healing happens, wholeness happens, and more love and peace flow into our bodies, our minds, our relationships, and our lives and through our children's lives. And the better choices, more mature choices, more honorable choices, we make.

We model self-forgiveness and self-acceptance to our children. And we get a felt sense of what it is like to be deeply accepted, which makes extending it to our children flow much more naturally.

None of us deserve to live in a place of guilt and judgment. It doesn't serve us or our families. And more importantly, we deserve love and acceptance. Getting the love and acceptance we need starts with us. We deserve our own unconditional love. Our own radical self-acceptance.

We all deserve a place at the table.