I’ve always wanted to be accepted exactly as I am. I have said that I want someone to love me, warts and all.
I also want to be perfect. I’m always striving to be better than I am. I want to have a more successful career, a better attitude, a healthier body and a cleaner environment. I want to be happy and joyous and free, and I want to concentrate solely on those aspects of life.
Yet, I am human, and I have my share of fear, doubt and pain.
When a bad feeling arises, my instinct is to push it away or recoil from it like it’s a giant spider. If I feel angry, or irritated, or even just apathetic, I slip pretty rapidly into self-judgment mode. “No,” I tell myself. “Don’t feel sad! Sadness feels terrible and you don’t want to feel terrible.”
A funny thing happens when I push against my so-called bad feelings. The more I deny or push against my anger, my sadness or my frustration, the bigger these feelings tend to get. It’s as if I push a bully on the playground and the bully comes back at me with a right hook to my jaw and then knees me in the gut. I end up feeling more pain, not less. The result of the self-judgment against my feelings is that I get more of those bad feelings, plus now I have judgment on top of them. It can be a vicious cycle that is terribly difficult to disengage from.
If pushing against pain and fear doesn’t work, is there a better way?
What if the unconditional acceptance I truly crave is my own responsibility? And what if that unconditional acceptance means that I have to accept my own feelings of pain and fear rather than push them away?
So-called bad feelings are a part of life. Just as there is light, there is darkness. We can appreciate the more pleasurable parts of life precisely because we have seen the hardships. We can recognize true joy, peace and love because we have felt sorrow, anxiety and fear.
What does it look like to accept bad feelings?
Process for Accepting a Negative Feeling
Recognize & label the feeling. Are you sad, anxious, frustrated, nervous, or annoyed? Do you feel guilt, shame or rejection?
Do a body scan. Sit quietly and scan your body from head to toe to see where you feel the emotion. This could be a knot in your stomach, a clenched jaw or a hunch in your shoulders.
Ask how this emotion serves you or what it is here to teach you. Maybe you’re feeling anxious and overwhelmed because you have taken on too much at work and you need to rest and care for yourself. Or maybe you are feeling angry because someone is taking advantage of you and you need to set a boundary in that relationship. Every emotion is here to teach something and to keep you safe in some way.
Feel and express the emotion. Feel it! If you’re sad and need to cry, let those tears out! If you’re angry and need to punch a pillow, by all means grab the fluffiest one and let it rip. Bottling emotions up inside is harmful to our emotional, spiritual and physical health. Give yourself permission to feel and express emotion in a safe environment.
Express appreciation and acceptance for the emotion. A simple “thank you,” goes a long way in almost every aspect of life, and that’s equally true with your own feelings. Simply say, “thank you,” to your sadness, anger, impatience or fear. Allow it to be.
Accepting something doesn’t mean we condone it. I don’t have to like my fear or pain and most times I most certainly don’t. Yet, pretending it doesn’t exist or fighting against it is counterproductive. I can’t do anything about something if I deny its existence. If I instead accept its reality and even express gratitude for it, it can lose its intensity. I can learn the lesson it’s here to teach me.
If I want true acceptance, I have to accept myself for my light and my shadow. That means the joy and the sorrow, the love and the fear. The so-called bad feelings I naturally experience are a part of me, and they are here to teach me something.
When I get quiet and recognize my emotions, whether good, bad or ugly, I find that they aren’t as scary as I thought. Fear and pain may feel uncomfortable, but they are part of the human condition. If we can meet our feelings with compassion and understanding, and possibly even gratitude, we can learn to accept our whole self, warts and all.
The more you can accept your shadows, the more open you are to radiating your light. So accept your darkness, and welcome the joy that is waiting for you.
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