ness in the medical community about the benefits of self-com- passion and a deficiency of prescriptions by medical providers for programs to help improve self-compassion. As hard as it is to believe, accepting ourselves as we are in this moment allows us to reach our full potential. A common scenario in today’s society might be one of a
working married woman with 2 young children, who is incredibly organized and diligent. She finds out that she’s gained 5 pounds since last year—on top of the 10 pounds she never lost after hav- ing her second child. Her last New Year’s resolution was to lose 10 pounds, but instead she gained 5 pounds. She did not accom- plish any of her other stated goals for the year. She is likely to be very self-critical. She berates herself for her failures. Thoughts begin to run through her head such as, “I can’t accept myself as I am. I just have to work harder. I’m not good enough. If I accept myself as I currently am, I’ll never be a success”. Her 2017 New Year’s resolution might be to hire a personal trainer to help her with an exercise regimen, a nutritionist to help her lose weight and a business/life coach to help her improve herself. The belief is that once she loses the weight and achieves the goals, then she will be good.
Unfortunately as we all know, it doesn’t work this way. We
set ourselves up to fail whether we achieve the goals or not. If the woman loses the weight and achieves all her goals, she will find something else with which she is not good enough. Probably the last thing on her mind is embracing the way she is today, but that is exactly what will help the most.
Self-acceptance tends to come across as a paradox. We hold accomplishments in high regard. We’re led to believe if we want to get ahead, we need to get things done. The more we get done, the better we are. If we can check off everything on our to-do list (which almost never happens) we are good, at least for that day. If we check off only a couple of items from our long to-do list, than we are not good. We are constantly trying to find ways to be more efficient and get more done in less time. We believe that if we accept our “failures” or let ourselves off the hook, we will never accomplish anything and we’ll never be successful. We tend to accept this “having ‘to do’ to be good” mentality and few of us ever question it. In fact, many of us rarely question anything we are taught or led to believe. In questioning our assumptions and beliefs, we gain control over our lives. Our general definition of an “accomplishment” or “success”
revolves around achieving a desired outcome. Could our defini- tion of an accomplishment or success be too limited or skewed in some way? Is our understanding of the concept of an accom- plishment too narrow or misguided? Most of us don’t stop to consider that an accomplishment might actually include more than simply achieving a desired outcome. Let’s say for example, a chemical engineer is hired to produce
a new product for his company. He makes all of his calculations and runs the experiment. To his surprise, the reaction that occurs does not produce the desired or expected result. He and his boss don’t understand what went wrong and consider the experiment a “failure.” They have no idea why the reaction produced what it did. That night, the engineer explains to his wife what happened and how poorly the experiment went. He tells her he felt like a fool because he was hired for this project based on his expertise. He figured he would likely be fired over this fiasco. His wife asks him what he thinks may have happened. While explaining the issue to her, he has a realization about what may have occurred.
FEBRUARY 2017 9
Julius Torelli, MD
He returns to the lab the next day and tries something different. He still does not get the intended outcome, but after the second “failed” experiment, he begins to under- stand what is occurring and realizes why his previous tests turned out the way they did. He then sets up a third experiment in a completely different way. The results of the third trial are actually better than what he initially expected producing more product than he imagined possible. He tells his boss, who is thrilled. It is likely that without the first two “failed” experiments, he
may never have had the awareness of what was happening. He may never have come up with the final idea that led to the third “successful” experiment with the better than expected outcome. In retrospect, were the first two experiments failures or successes? We cannot know at the time, if an outcome is a success or a failure simply because we did not get our expected outcome. It is useful to think simply in terms of “outcomes” rather than in terms of success or failures. You may not get the outcome you desired from your effort, but the experience from it may be criti- cally important to you in a future endeavor. It can be difficult to accept these apparent “failures” when we do not achieve the outcome we desire, yet there may be lessons in the acceptance of the undesired outcome that you cannot see at the time.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – Carl Rogers
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Ends 2/28/17
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