accept yourself as you are, you may tend to gain temporary self-
acceptance by destructive means such as addictions, people pleas-
ing, workaholism, or trying to control things over which you have
no control.
You may know some people with a very high degree of aware-
ness about how their thinking, attitudes, and personal history affect
them, but who allow themselves to be victimized by their past so
that each setback or disaster serves only to confirm their thinking
that they are hopeless. (This may be an exaggeration, but we are
doing it to make the point.)
If you do not accept your feelings, you tend to allow your fears,
past resentments, or guilt feelings to hold you back from your de-
sires. Feelings are energy. Feelings are your passion. Your body
naturally provides you with this energy to deal with the challenges
you face.
Acceptance includes accepting responsibility—responsibility for
your income, success, and satisfaction, without reliance on outside
sources. Responsibility is not about blame. Accepting responsibility
empowers you to change. The acceptance of situations that are in-
tolerable empowers you to change them, if in no other way than re-
moving yourself. Fighting against them and struggling to change
others usually is fruitless. Instead, accept them as they are, recog-
nize that it is unlikely that they will change, and move on.
Acceptance does not mean you don’t care. It means that you ac-
knowledge that there are things you cannot change. From accep-
tance you can exercise preference.
Disapproval and desire for revenge are perhaps the two most im-
portant psychological factors that stand in the way of acceptance. If
you did something your parents didn’t like, they disapproved. Ex-
pressing this disapproval became a convenient way for them to mo-
tivate you not to do it anymore. Some people fear that if they accept
themselves and stop disapproving of themselves, they will have no
motivation whatsoever. Motivation comes naturally from a person’s
values. Everyone is naturally motivated to express those values,
whether the values are consciously chosen or unconsciously
adopted due to past conditioning. Do not worry that you will have
no motivation if you accept yourself.
Wanting revenge for past hurts and upsets also holds people
back. If you had abusive childhood or adult relationships, likely you
still experience a degree of justified resentment about the events or
the people involved. Unconscious failing to get even is a common64 Three Ingredients to Effective Change: Awareness, Acceptance, and Action