Self Acceptance vs Body Acceptance

I use the phrase “self acceptance” a lot. I believe very strongly in the power of self acceptance, and am devoted to helping others find a place of self acceptance. On my own journey towards body acceptance, I came to use the term self acceptance interchangeably with body acceptance, not differentiating between the two phrases. But in a recent conversation with my Life Coach Andrea Owen, I realized the body acceptance is only part of self acceptance, and reaching one doesn’t neccessarily equate to achieving the other.

Through several years of active work with the help of a mental health professional, I have overcome my eating disorder, and have begun a love affair with my body — something I never thought possible without first losing a lot of weight and reaching some kind of societal ideal. And when I realized I had reached this moment, I celebrated this monumental achievement by claiming self acceptance for myself at last.

And then I sort of clapped my hands together with the sense of satisfaction that comes from fixing something that is broken, metaphorically said to myself “Ok, so what’s next?” and went on to start working on fixing the other areas of myself that I saw as broken. Aside from my relationship with food and my body, the qualities about myself that I saw as needing dire improvements were my organizational skills (or lack of them) and my time management skills (or again, the lack of them). Just as I was once convinced that losing weight would change everything and give me the happiness and success I so desired, I held firm to the belief that transforming my cluttered unorganized personality into a compartmentalized and structured Type A personality would help me achieve my dreams. It was at this point that I hired my Andrea, and told her of the list of things I hoped to accomplish, but felt that meeting those goals could ultimately done by focusing on the areas of organization and time management.

Throughout each conversation, I lamented the mess on my desk, the clutter in my brain (i.e. the inability to focus on any one thing at a time), and the fact that I wasted countless minutes on meaningless things like Facebook when I should be focused any of the kazillion tasks I had on my to-do list. I would harp on my childhood, blaming my upbringing which lacked any kind of structure, organization, or discipline, and dream of waving a magic wand which would transform me into the Type A personality I thought I should be. I mean, after all, what are the merits of being disorganized and not managing my time well?

And then one day, Andrea said “What if that’s just you?” She suggested, if just for a moment, setting aside my desire to be a different kind of person, and reflect on the possibility of staying the way I am. “What would happen?” she asked. “Would your husband leave you? Would your kids suffer? Would your world fall apart?” Andrea reminded me that I’ve gotten along pretty well doing things my way for 37 years, and in fact, I’ve done more than just get along. I would actually define my life as pretty successful. I have a fantastic marriage. I have terrific kids who are smart, creative, and compassionate — to name a few of their qualities, I have a web site that I’ve worked hard on for the last year, and have had several big milestones related to it. I could go on, but the point is, Andrea was right. “My” ways may not be perfect, but then, what is? And they’ve worked pretty well over time. Maybe with my disorganization comes my creativity, not bound by constraints. Perhaps with my less rigid time management tendencies comes the willingness to try new things and be spontaneous. The things that bug me about myself are inseparable from what I love about myself, so why not learn to love the whole package?

Have there been frustrations? Of course. I hate it when I can’t find something because I didn’t put it back in it’s place. Occasionally I miss a deadline of some sort. But for the most part, projects get done, bills get paid, and my house is generally not a terrible mess, though I’m sure there are plenty of Type As that would disagree. (It would help if my dog didn’t shed so much!) But then, ask any one with a Type A personality, and they will find plenty to complain about in their own nature, often wishing for a little more flexibility and spontaneity that comes with a more disorganized (for lack of a better word) mind like my own.

Of course, my realizations and new level of acceptance don’t mean that I am going to stop cleaning my house, never wear a watch, and let chaos take over — no more than learning to accept my body led to eating with abandon. But I will no longer try to be what I am not, and instead reflect on the values that come from who I already am — which I tend to think is a pretty awesome person. What have you thought you needed to change about yourself? Is it possible that the qualities you most want to change are integrally connected to what make you wonderful?