Accepting the hard stuff

Self-doubting Sages! Graham here.

I just did an interview with the NZ website Capsule.

One of the questions they asked me was, ‘what are the tools that help me maintain my mental health?’

Here’s what I said...

“I wouldn’t say I have ‘tools’. It’s funny, I think the biggest shift for me came when I actually stopped trying so hard to ‘fix’ myself. If you spend your life trying to fix yourself, you can really start to feel like you are the problem.

I’m slowly (sloooowly) learning to be more gentle and accepting with my sensitivities. Lately I’ve been thinking of it this way. The hard stuff – the doom spirals, my finely-honed ability to anticipate any and all possible catastrophes well before they happen, the feeling of being on edge all the time – it’s all part of me. 

My friend sent me a quote about this just the other day, from Jung (definitely a big feeler). Basically, all that hard stuff that we judge as 'worthless', he says it belongs to us. He says, it 'belongs to me as my shadow and gives me substance and mass. How can I be substantial if I fail to cast a shadow? I must have a dark side if I am to be whole.'

So I now see that as my number one job when it comes to this stuff. To make friends with the hard stuff. That’s probably a life-long task, but there you go.”

All of which begs the question...

Yeah but how do you actually do that though?

The paradox of acceptance and change

Now you might be thinking, as I often have, ‘sure I’ll love and accept myself, just as soon as I’m a completely different person.’

But as I wrote about last issue, somehow that approach doesn’t quite seem to work…

There’s a quote about about all this in a book I’m reading called ‘On Becoming a Person’. 

(That’s right! There’s a manual! HOW DID WE NOT KNOW THIS)

And just look at that spiffy cover...

The book says:

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I change…. We cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed.”

Very curious...

This book isn’t new. It was published sixty years ago, by the other Carl. Not Jung but Rogers, one of the founders of humanistic psychology.

The paradox of self-acceptance 

I’d add one more paradox to the one Rogers is pointing out about how acceptance can lead to change. I think self-acceptance is something that's very hard to do... all by yourself.

We need other people to help us accept ourselves, just as we are.

But here’s the good news. I don’t think it needs to be many people. In fact, even just one can be life-changing.

One single person you can really show yourself to - including at least some of the bits you are most ashamed of. And to have those intimate disclosures received without judgement. Well, it really matters.

Company, not help

Here’s what Carl Rogers has to say about that. He’s writing from the perspective of a therapist, but he suggests the same principles apply to any such relationship of non-judgement, wherever you’re lucky enough to find one.

When face to face with someone in crisis… “a question I ask myself is: Can I let myself enter fully into the world of his feelings and personal meanings and see these as he does? Can I step into his private world so completely that I lose all desire to evaluate or judge it? Can I enter it so sensitively that I can move about in it freely, without trampling on meanings which are precious to him?” 

(Amen.)

When I’m really overwhelmed by life, when the doom spirals are in full force and I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep on going as I am, this is what I desperately need. Someone who’s willing (and able) to step into that scary space with me, and not trample the vulnerable little Me who’s in there freaking out. 

It’s not ‘help’. It’s not a fix or a tool for keeping well. It’s company, in the hardest bits. And it’s just that little bit of encouragement to accept whatever’s happening, as scary as it may be.

A nudge in the direction of acceptance

I was in the middle of a doom spiral just this morning. (A three-dayer, at this point.) So I texted Gareth, who more often than not has been that ‘one person’ for me, over the past few years. The person I can tell what’s really going on.

I was bemoaning an aspect of myself that I’ve often been ashamed of. 

His response?

“Please remember you’re not normal and it’s the highest compliment I can pay you and the thing I love the most.”

I breathed out a little just reading it. Sometimes it doesn’t take much. Just a nudge in the direction of acceptance, from someone who knows some of your weirdest stuff, and hasn't gone running.

A wider canvas

When you're the sensitive type, it's so easy to feel like you're 'too much'.

But what if there was another way to look at it? What if you are too much sometimes, but that's not a problem with you, it's simply a sign you need a wider canvas to paint on? 

You don't need to show everyone the whole painting. But the aim is to find one or two people you can show it to, every now and then. 

Not as in, 'gee doc, what do you make of this, is it serious?' 

But simply, 'hey so... what do you make of this?'

Yeah, but where are all the Gareths?? 

So... How do you find that ‘one person’? 

Sometimes it’s the paid professionals that fill that role. After years of trial and error, I found a therapist who works in this mode. He’s probably read a lot of Carl Rogers.

But how to find this non-judgmental space in your friendships? I think you have to create it. 

Some of it’s just dumb luck - the people you have around you at different times in your life. Some of it’s putting yourself out there, and then somehow finding it in yourself to do that again with someone else if it hasn’t gone well the first time. And some of it’s offering to other people what you hope to receive in return: that non-judgemental listening space.

A gravitational pull 

I find lately that I’ve been gravitating toward other people in crisis. 

It’s not a coincidence. As regular readers know, this last few months I've been spelunking deep into the cave of big, often overwhelming feelings. It's an experience that in the past I might have labeled 'depression' or something similar, but about which I've been trying to remain a little more agnostic this time around.

Some of the most nourishing conversations I’ve had this last few months have been with other people having their own tough time. Time spent deeply listening, and sharing my own stuff too.

And sometimes it’s not even about 'the conversations' at all, which can be equal parts awkward, profound, and banal. 

Sometimes it’s not what’s said but what’s unsaid: 

I know how deeply weird you are, and I still want to be your friend.

One last thought on non-judgemental listening… 

Even with all the goodwill in the world, it’s not always easy to know what to say when people are in pain. And it’s hard to feel like you’re really being useful by simply listening. 

Carl Rogers has some advice on this too. Lower the bar.

Rogers says, just the intention to understand - whether you can really understand or not - can make all the difference.

“I am often impressed with the fact that even a minimal amount of empathic understanding - a bumbling and faulty attempt [to understand] is helpful."

And maybe that’s really the thing we can offer one another. Not the perfect words, but the willingness to understand, or to at least try. And a sincere desire to bumble along together, as best we can.

Check out my whole interview over here at Capsule. 

They asked some really good questions, and published my answers in full. (You’ll also hear about how this not-so-little-anymore club started out, three years ago, as a meet up with strangers in my living room. Plus, a rare sighting: an actual photo of me. Oooooh…)

Care to share your thoughts?

I’m curious, if you have a person in your life who helps nudge you in the direction of self-acceptance… How did you find them? And how did you develop that relationship? 

Click the pink button below to let me know. If I get any hot tips I’ll share ‘em with everybody.