"One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am.
It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim "You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself" made clear sense. And I add, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.""
---bell hooks (from her book, "All About Love: New Visions")
The quote above from author and social activist bell hooks (who sadly passed away on December 15 this year) really spoke to me when I came across it (courtesy of James Clear's 3-2-1 newsletter, to which I subscribe). While in the quote she speaks about romantic love, this really applies to all forms and degrees of love and acceptance.
The key message for me is, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself."
As I've said before, like many of you, I am my own worst critic, with that "inner asshole" voice berating me for many perceived failings on a daily basis. While I feel I have made great improvement in this realm and coaching others on this has been a BIG help in keeping me mindful of this, it is a constant work in progress.
One stumbling block that I've come up against, and seen in others, is the apparent dichotomy between loving and accepting one's self as-is versus the desire to improve and be one's best self.
In simpler terms, "How can I truly love myself, yet still want to change?"
There really seems to have been a confluence of things bringing this to the front of my mind, as the same week that this quote popped up, I watched this interview with the comedian/actress Rebel Wilson where she also alludes to this same challenge in relation to her recent personal journey (which she called her "year of health"), and it was also a topic of discussion in a course from Precision Nutrition in change psychology I recently completed.
Here's the bit from that course that really clarified this point for me:
"Striving for improvement doesn’t mean we’re broken or dysfunctional. After all, we can rearrange the furniture in a room that we already enjoy.
We can allow things to be, and even love them, as they are... while also wishing they were different.
We can balance an honest acceptance and account of reality with a desire to do something differently. Although we might hope to be better than we are, or prefer another path than the one we’re currently on, making productive changes doesn’t require us to suck or suffer first.
We MUST balance acceptance and evolution.
Building on the last point, two of the central paradoxes of change are:
Only when we compassionately and kindly accept things as they are right now can we truly hope to change them.
Only when we create safety and security can we then venture out into an unknown and uncertain territory.
The reason for this is based in simple neuroscience: Threat, fear, and anxiety cuts off all but the most aversive learning — avoid pain and get away.
When our brains feel fear, pain, or distress, they try to avoid the suffering as much as possible, and regress into basic coping mechanisms. (This generally means that we do more of the unwanted behavior we’re trying to quit doing.)
We can’t bully, panic, or criticize ourselves into lasting change."
---From the Precision Nutrition course, "How Do We Change Our Behavior"
So what appears to be dichotomous or paradoxical actually makes complete sense.
In order to make lasting change, we must first accept things as they are so that we begin that journey from a place of security that can act as a safe harbour from which our journey begins and to which it can return.
Setting out on that journey doesn't mean abandoning our current self either - we are merely "rearranging the furniture in a room we already enjoy."
Loving and accepting yourself as you are now DOES NOT mean abandoning the idea of being the best "you" possible - it is, in fact, a crucial first step toward lasting change. You will still, and always, be YOU.