The Paradox of Change and Personal Growth
What allows us to change something in our lives? How do we change some aspect of ourselves that we don’t like, such as a habit, physical quality, or life circumstance? The first step may seem counter intuitive. Our initial tendency when we don’t like something about ourselves is to either avoid thinking about it or to actively criticize ourselves for what we are doing or not doing–almost as a means of forcing the negative feeling out of ourselves. Therein lays our error in thinking. Most things we don’t like about ourselves have to do with the refusal to accept and love ourselves, just as we are because we feel we cannot accept/love ourselves as long as we have or do this thing we hate. In other words, our self-love and acceptance is contingent upon an inner ideal of perfection. Whether it is a physical attribute or a personality characteristic, our refusal to love and accept ourselves seem linked to the idea that; “if I have what I want or look the way I want, then and only then I could feel ok”. The problem with this way of thinking is that it is not the way the heart and mind […]