Or what I learned about self-acceptance from trying to walk a cat
Self-acceptance is not a concept that comes easy to me. I remember being quite a few days into an Acceptance and Commitment therapy training once (the clue is in the name) and having to be reminded, “It’s accept and commit, Nina, not dismiss and commit!”. I see that struggle with the idea of self-acceptance in a lot of my clients, when I explore the possibility of accepting some part of themselves that they don't like or don’t feel good about. “I see what you mean,” they say, or “I get that it’s healthier to do that,” but something inside pushes back or pulls away from the idea.
A lot of people come to therapy because on some level they want something to change. It is pretty common for people coming to therapy to want something about their life or themselves to be different. They want to feel better, do better, live better — be better, perhaps. And it’s not surprising, given the messages many of us have received about what change looks like, that the call to self-acceptance sits uncomfortably, in seeming conflict, with that. Whatever we’ve read in self-help books or heard in therapy, it can still feel deep down like self-acceptance would get in the way of change. Accepting can sound like settling, like setting up camp in a place you just don't want to be rather than pushing through to get somewhere else.
The growth kind of change
I find it easier to see how change and self-acceptance can be allies and not antagonists, when I focus on the growth kind of change rather than the fixing kind of change. When I spend time with plants and animals I’m reminded that growth is not the negation or the eradication of everything that is. It is not primarily an act of destruction. It is an unfolding, a process of absorbing and expanding — a reconfiguring of what is already there. You grow from where and what you are.
There are two things I have faith in — that I feel like I know about you as you read this, even if I have never met you:
You are not a broken object, to be either fixed or thrown away.
Whatever your past, whatever your flaws or shortcomings, you are a living being with the potential to learn and grow. You are endowed with the capacity to move in some way, at some pace, towards healing and your own version of flourishing.
Like all living beings we grow easiest and bloom fullest in the right conditions, with whatever the right metaphorical sun and rain and soil is for us. Like all living beings the wrong conditions can limit and distort our growth as we try to adapt to them.
But that potential to sense and orient, to absorb and convert and make use of what’s around us, that strange alchemy of living — that’s in us.
If we think of change in terms of growth, the work of change becomes the work of being good self-gardeners and caregivers, nurturing guardians and guiding educators of our own potential. That might sound a little too big and too elusive to grasp if we have no ready models to hand. But the practice (unlike the theory) is not abstract, esoteric, or epic.
The practice feels, if anything, like the act of walking a cat.
Walking a cat: some thoughts
I don’t know if you have tried to put a cat on a leash and walk it. It’s an odd experience, and perhaps if you are acquainted with cats this analogy doesn’t make self-acceptance sound any easier. But then self-acceptance isn’t easy for a lot of us.
The thing with cats is that we want to take care of them, do what’s best for them, and keep them safe. But also they don’t really listen to us, or they do sometimes and then pointedly ignore us. They can get along with us, and even love us, but they do so on their own terms. And, well, sometimes working with myself feels a lot like that.
I have taken to walking my new cat Zelda sometimes since she seems to be not at all bothered being in a harness, and the first thing I realised is that you don’t really walk a cat as such — you sort of go on a cat’s walk with it. I’d like to walk her around the block but I’m not sure we will ever actually make it out the drive.
It has been fascinating to watch her figure out what she wants to do. It’s a long retractable leash and I leave the front door open for her so she knows she can run inside if she needs to. I think of the open door as a secure base because I’ve read too many therapy books. Sometimes after dashing out she will retreat back to the doorway because the sound of a car or the weird and unfamiliar shape of a bicycle scared her, or the neighbourhood fox approached.
And then a leaf will catch her eye, or a twig, or a ledge — and she is back out the door to investigate.
At a recent online conference, Dr. Stephen Porges, an expert in working with traumatic stress, talked about the importance of honouring our physiological states. He described what it is like when the body is in a state of threat — when our instinctive fight-flight-freeze response is engaged; and described how when the body feels safe we are able to engage, connect with others, explore, and play. I think Zelda out on a walk in the front drive would have made a perfect Zoom backdrop to that talk.
I’m struck by the fluid interplay between the physiological states I see in her — the shifts, the instinctive back and forth. She shows me that honouring our physiological states doesn’t mean staying stuck in them. I notice how she moves to self-regulate — hiding under the car or coming close to me to be comforted, or deciding to go inside when she feels a bit scared. And I am amazed how quickly she starts to feel better, and how rapidly curiosity and excitement take over when she runs to explore something new and interesting.
She reminds me that both body states, that of fear and that of safety, are valid and serve a purpose. I want her to avoid moving cars and possibly suspect foxes. And it’s joyful to watch her discover something new, and beat a twig into submission.
And I think about how she would have felt if I had yanked her about on a short leash to get her where I wanted to go, which is out of this (to me, quite boring) driveway. Would she have been able to enjoy it? Would she have been able to play? Would she have been able to self-regulate if she couldn’t hide or retreat? Would she have been able to honour her physiological states?
Acceptance doesn’t mean no intervention or boundaries. I’m not going to let her run in traffic or get lost. I will use a laser pointer to channel her attention when I need to get her out from under the car. I will help untangle her when she gets tangled up in the bins and can't see her way out. I can accept my own limits and take her inside when I have things to do,or when I just can't stand around watching a cat inspect a leaf any longer.
But maybe the practice of acceptance is about letting that leash be as long as it safely, tolerably, can be. Maybe it’s about motivating and directing without using more force or restriction than I need, by channelling her love of chasing and treats. Maybe it’s about being ok with not making it out of the drive. Maybe wherever we eventually get to is enough because it's right for her, and she had a good time getting there.
If I had dragged her around on a short leash, or tried to make her a dog instead of a cat, I wonder whether we would have got anywhere at all, and what the cost would have been if we had. Would she have felt overwhelmed? Would she have scratched me? Would she have shut down? Would she have trusted me less and felt less confident? Would I have ended up not her ally in the dangerous terrain of suburbia, but another hostile entity? Would I have ended up engaged in a futile, counterproductive, and frankly absurd battle of wills with a cat?
Loosening the leash
I get that it's not straightforward when we translate this overextended analogy back to the work of self-acceptance. I know that are more vital and more urgent personal, professional, and political goals than walking round the block with a cat — ones that are harder or impossible to compromise on. I’m going to explore that more in an another post as I’m not sure I could do it justice as an aside, but for now I just want to make clear that I’m not saying you must always accept yourself when you fall short of those goals. I’m not saying that it's never worth pushing through or pulling back the self. But I think it’s really important to make a conscious decision about whether and when it is worth it to us. I think we can only do that by recognising the cost that non-acceptance in our striving for goals exacts and the possibilities it shuts off — even as we keep one eye on the goals we want to reach.
I want to invite you to recognise just how exhausting and stressful it can be to push back or push through the state we are in. I want to invite you to explore how much energy it takes to fight yourself. I want to invite you to reflect on how much harder it can make it to play and explore, to access joy and renewing rest and calm, and manage fear, when you have yourself on a tight, tight leash. I once watched a documentary that looked at the emergence of self-control in babies and was struck by the tension and strain in baby Monty’s body as he tried to rein himself in. You can check the clip out here. Watching him reminded me that self-control is both a crucial, fascinating development in the brain, and an embodied process that has an embodied impact. It’s so easy to lose sight of that.
There’s a trade-off in relying on a strategy of self-judgement and self-coercion to pursue goals, over a strategy of dialogue, encouragement, reassurance, and self-facilitation rooted in acceptance. I can’t say that it is never the right trade-off for you to make — no one outside your life and your constraints can tell you that — but we need to be able to recognise what that trade-off feels like in our lives and our bodies, so we can decide for ourselves whether it makes sense for us.
What would it be like to check in and find out how tight a leash you are keeping yourself on in this period of your life, and how hard you are pulling? Maybe it varies for you from year to year or day to day.
Can you sense how tight it is for you today?
Does it need to be so tight right now in this moment?
I wonder if you were to loosen it a little, or pull less hard, what possibilities of being would that open up for you.
What would it be like to have more freedom to explore?
What would it be like to have the freedom to find your natural embodied rhythm of self-regulation and feel less (often) under threat?
What would it be like to let yourself come home at times to a place, inner or collective, of rest and security?
Maybe for you the answers to those questions come quickly to mind or maybe the answers to those questions feel inaccessible. Sometimes if we haven’t experienced much acceptance, internal or external, self-acceptance can seem like another continent, an ocean away, that we have never seen, and whose plants and hills we could not describe. That’s ok. It’s a process, a practice, and a journey — you don’t need to get there overnight or even know what “there” looks like yet.
A final note for the resolutely self-critical
Trying to become someone who is more self-accepting can feel like chasing your own tail (a thing coincidentally that Zelda loves to do) — especially when you have a strong inner critic that doesn’t quite get irony and can’t resist the opportunity to label and criticise your own lack of self-acceptance. So if that’s the block you are hitting at this time, start your acceptance there. Start by trying to accept in this moment that part of yourself that doesn’t accept. Extend a gentle curiosity there.
Is it scared, determined, protective or something else?
It is repeating old lessons it once learnt to survive, feel safe, and be accepted by others?
That’s ok. Meet it there with as little judgement as you can. Right there what that voice is, however harsh or cramped or small or scary or loud or stuck it seems. Wrap your arms around yourself if that feels right. Hold yourself with the particular soft gentleness or containing firmness that your body needs to feel right now.
Let that harsh voice know that you are willing to hear it, are curious about what it is trying to do and where it is coming from, even if and as another part of you disagrees with what it is saying.
Let it know that that other part of you (that part outside the inner critic), is there holding and hearing your fears, present, ready to share with that harsh voice some new possibilities – some interesting new directions to grow in – when it feels ready to explore them.