Is self acceptance self-defeating?

[Heretolearn]

Is self acceptance self-defeating?

How do you deal with the paradox that accepting yourself means accepting your weaknesses.


I guess the key would be to accept yourself as having strengths and weaknesses and know that one of your strengths is to fix up your weaknesses!

thoughts?

 

[joekerr31]

self acceptance isn't self defeating. its only when you accept yourself will you have the strength and honesty to recognize your weaknesses. and its only then that you can focus on strengthening those weaknesses.

hence the power of confession. peple in AA go and apologize for people they did wrongs to. they confess their sins. because those sins burden them and prevent them from self acceptance.

self acceptance also goes a long way towards blocking out the bullsh*t rules of society that condition us to think in dysfunctional ways. You decide whats best for you, not some woman, tv or group of friends.

life is a growing process. self acceptance is the first stage to enlightenment.

insecurity is not self acceptance. insecurity is self judgement.

see, even the hottest hb10 generally lacks self acceptance. the moment that first wrinkle sets in she panics.no one else in the world sees it, but she does, and she knows its the sign of first step towards a state of lesser beauty.

and because she does not accept herself for whatever she may be at any given moment, she judges herself negatively.

really self acceptance is the greatest strenght you can ever have and its the key to living a happy enjoyable life.

all fear is based around not having self acceptance. and fear limits all the possibilities that could unfold in your life.

J

 

[The Anti Dr Phil]

Bro, you have it COMPLETELY backwards. Self accepting is a place everyone should hope to get to. When you're self accepting, you can view the world with amazing clarity, and you'll be able to - very clearly - view your areas of strength, and more importantly, the areas where you can use the most polishing & imporvement.

Self Accepting = Finding yourself.

Finding yourself and being comfortable with who you are = beggining stages of enlightenment.

And I firmly believe that once a person find themselves, the whole world will open up - in all phases of your life.

Either you're constantly changing and evolving, or you're becoming extinct.

 

[joekerr31]

im assuming you mean yendor has it backwards.

we basically said the same thing.

J

 

[The Anti Dr Phil]

JoeKerr: Yes, that's what I meant. Yendor has it backwards. You and I are in sync on that.

 

[Alicorn]

I understand what you are asking yendor and YES self-acceptance can be a bad thing.

Can you imagine a fat slob accepting himself as a fat slob and saying "well I guess I'll just be this way all my life." When self-acceptance leads to apathy you're in trouble.

Now if self accetpance leads you to say "I'm a fat slob, but I know I can do something about it," then you are ok.

 

[BigDawg]

To quote William Shakespeare: "This above all: to thine own self be true."

Self acceptance is the result of honestly assessing yourself. You should want to change the things you can't accept and accept the things you can't change, and be smart enough to know the difference.

 

[joekerr31]

Originally posted by Alicorn
I understand what you are asking yendor and YES self-acceptance can be a bad thing.

Can you imagine a fat slob accepting himself as a fat slob and saying "well I guess I'll just be this way all my life." When self-acceptance leads to apathy you're in trouble.

Now if self accetpance leads you to say "I'm a fat slob, but I know I can do something about it," then you are ok.

self acceptance would be:

ok, im fat. its not healthy to be fat. it doesn't better my life to be fat. so let's do something about the problem.

self criticism is:
ok im fat. im a loser. no on elikes me. im going to try to lose the weight so that people dont think im such a loser.

self acceptance doesn't mean that you dont improve your lot. exactly the opposite. but you can't improve your lot until you accept and love yourself for who you are first.

its a tricky concept to grasp.

see, its usually the fact that you didn't accept yourself that led you to getting fat in the first place. at some point you cared way more about what others thought and turned to cheetos to drown your sorrows.


J

 

[A-Unit]

Re:

Self-Acceptance =====> Self-Awareness

It's not so much like "I have these faults and mistakes," because faults and mistakes are only relative in the presence of truths and strengths.

So to say you're imperfect, lends itself to the belief that PERFECT exists. Which it does not, because there'd be 1 human being, and the rest would be IMperfect copies, not fit for existence or procreation.

That being true, imperfection is the only real ideal.

Recognizing your "weaknesses" as you put it, only lends itself to identifying where you aren't going to be strong right now. Sure, if you're fat, it's unattractive, heavy to care, and doesn't lend you to overall physical fitness. BUT, in deep regions of the world, where it's very cold, FAT does lend itself to an advantage of staying warmer than your skinny counterpart. Also, you'd have the energy to subsist longer under extreme circumstances of starvation. Of course we're not under those precepts, BUT, the fact remains, strengths and weaknesses only become evident in places where comparisons exist.

So if you have faults, you must also have strengths. Correct?

Self-Acceptance is Self-Empowering, because you learn you were built a certain way, and that SOME liabilities CAN be used as an asset. The same way a car isn't itself an ASSET, even if you own it, it can be used to deliver pizzas, run a livery service, sell it, and so forth, so you CAN turn a liability into an asset producing income, just like you can use what appears to be a negative and make it a positive.

I knew some wicked fat guys (sticking on that theme) who jumped into Powerlifting and kicked arse. They immediately already had alot of power, they just had to focus it. Same here.

------------------------

If self-acceptance WERE self-defeating, nobody would wake up to reality, and most don't, hence the problems we experience.

Most people BLAME everything and everyone BUT themselves, and with that in mind, problems go round and round with no solutions, because they expect the world to be perfect, but don't anticipate it's them.

In fact, just accept we're all luny. Here we are living on this big, bad rock, complaining about bank accounts, healthcare, tv, media, women and so on, and it's just a planet inhabited by an insane species. We really are crazier than the animals, because we have the POWER of choice, yet so few exercise it, and when they do, it's over crazy things.

Even guys here don't accept themselves, and it's quite hard to do that. It's developed through habits, awareness, unplugging, thinking, self-introspection, meditating, and much more.

And it's more than that, just be happy with who you are. I don't see it as strengths vs. weaknesses, or being fat or not. Sure, you're fat, so what? You have the ability to gain weight easily, so when you go to lift, you should be able to gain muscle fast. That's a plus.

To me it's about being cool with who you are. In a business sense, maybe you're "lacking" certain skill sets, so you hire people to complement you, but in the great widespread understanding of the universe, it certainly doesn't require perfection or self acceptance TO BE HAPPY and just ENJOY the ride we're on, whether this big old rock crashes, the sun melts down, or we live on to eternity to see the 1000 year reign of Jesus and God on Earth.


A-Unit

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Originally posted by yendor28
Is self acceptance self-defeating?

How do you deal with the paradox that accepting yourself means accepting your weaknesses.

Who the fvck says that? It's overly simplistic. Given that acceptance of yourself does include acknowledging who you are, defining yourself by putting any focus on your weaknesses is self defeating.