Change or acceptance?
The adage goes that we have to accept the things we can’t change. But what if we could also accept some of the things we can change about ourselves?
We live in a change-obsessed culture when it comes to self-help. Indeed it’s hard to imagine something like self-help existing without a relentless focus on making ourselves better, or at least different. The promise of pretty much the whole genre is that change is possible and, usually, necessary.
Proven therapy techniques like CBT - cognitive behavioural therapy - as well advances in understanding neuroplasticity - the brain’s ability to change - have shown us that it’s possible to break out of habits, thought patterns, and ways of reacting that seem hard-wired. This has undoubtedly made a huge difference in people’s lives. The question I’m thinking about, though, is is change an imperative?
This line of thought was inspired by an interview on the 10% Happier Podcast, where host Dan Harris spoke with author and researcher Dr. Ellen Hendriksen about her work on perfectionism, social anxiety, and self-acceptance. Hendriksen described the critical, negative voice in her head piping up after a podcast appearance where she stumbled over a few words. Most of us can relate to moments like this where we go over every mistake, call ourselves a few names, and generally find fault with what we’ve done and even who we are.
Hendriksen knows it’s possible to rewire your brain to do significantly less self-critique. But she also said that it’s okay to accept this as part of your process. By accept, she meant notice that it’s happening and say to yourself something like, “Oh, this is the part where I give myself a hard time over a couple of mistakes. This is just what I do!”
That moment of recognition is enough to pause the spiral and give a little distance, but it doesn’t require a concentrated effort to stop those thoughts or run a bunch of different scripts.
Her story reminded me of my experience on a three-week book tour two years ago. Somewhere around day 12, I noticed that every afternoon, sometime between getting off a train and trying to find my next hotel, I would have a mini temper tantrum. This consisted of a very self-pitying inner dialogue - “I’m so tired, why can’t I have a day off?” - and a bunch of passive aggressive irritation - “Why didn’t they leave me time for dinner? Couldn’t somebody come and pick me up before the event?” and so on.
Once I noticed this pattern, I suppose I could have tried to snap myself out of it and be grateful and start a different dialogue and all of that very mature and enlightened stuff. But in the throes of relentless travel and trying to understand other languages and scarfing cheese sandwiches on trains, I wasn’t in the best position to make this change. I did, however, name what was happening (a mini tantrum) as it happened, and just that move was enough to give me a little distance, have a tiny sense of humour about it, and be able to accept it without giving myself a hard time for not being in the perfect mood.
It’s nice to think that sometimes acceptance is enough, especially if you’re not harming anyone or causing undue chaos in the world with your little habits or weird inner monologues. Change is always happening anyways, in one way or another. Maybe we don’t need to hustle so hard for it.
What I’m reading: A Ruse of Shadows, by Sherry Thomas. This is number 8 in the Charlotte Holmes series and I’m not as in love with the series these days. But I will see where this book takes us.
What I’m watching: Dept Q. I was most of the way through the first episode before I realized this series is based on a Scandinavian noir thriller that I read a few years ago. I was not a fan, but I like the cast and I’m enjoying it so far.