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Is self-acceptance really the first and the most fundamental step in
our journey towards developing ourselves? World War II Eighth Air
Force Pilot for the Allies, Morton M. Hunt, gave a list of the
psychological techniques that we can use to heal ourselves mentally.
In this article we’ll compare and contrast all the possible
techniques with the belief of self-acceptance (which was also a
technique listed by Hunt) and come to a thesis. Also, we’ll try to
apply these techniques in real-life case studies collected from
various TedEx Talks around the world on self-acceptance and try to
come to a conclusion by inductive reasoning and logic. The first case
study we’ll discuss about is the case of Ekaterina Karebasheva1.
What happened in Ekaterina’s case was that even though she had good
positive intentions behind her binge eating, her belief that you need
to be loved by others to be happy went to the extreme. Let us examine
what if Ekaterina had Hunt’s techniques at her disposal: <br></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>1.
The balance restorers:&nbsp;just like the physical body
pushes out foreign contaminants in the form of cysts, our minds have
a self-healing mechanism called “compensation” where our minds
propose to us habits to get over the feeling of guilt or inadequacy.
Sometimes it’s bad, like taking over smoking and substance abuse
habits. Sometimes it’s good, for example you start practicing
presenting in front of many people after you get humiliated by your
enemies for stuttering when being in front of others and then you
defeat all of them. Practically, you become a master of the skill
that you’ve been lacking. In Ekaterina’s case*1, this technique
wouldn’t work. Picture Ekaterina’s friends asking her if she’d
like to eat out and her giving an automatic no answer. Of course
she’d decide to eat as little as possible&nbsp;, because no matter
what habit her mind prompts her to take up to get rid of the feeling
of inadequacy, she still believed that her identity depended on
others loving her.</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span></span>
<span>2.&nbsp;The
healing of love:&nbsp;love is powerful in that it makes you
want to improve yourself to make yourself look good to your loved
one. Let’s take the case of Michelle Charffen*2. The fact is, she
already had love for her children and her children also had it for
her. As she went on her journey towards self-discovery, she
discovered the solution lied in transforming how she “perceived”
the relationships. It all started working when she convinced herself
to adopt a new belief set where she pardoned herself for not being
able to control her kids.</span>
<span>With
the above 2 techniques analysed, now is the time to analyse
self-acceptance. As Hunt has already said it, this is the “most
valuable” and “most pervasive” of the mind’s defences. It’s
clear to me by now that self-acceptance is actually a&nbsp;belief
about the self.&nbsp;Once we have our beliefs figured out,
the beliefs automatically influence our attitudes and ultimately
actions. How do we do self-acceptance? I think it’s possible with
hypnotic auto-suggestions, affirmations, meditation, a combination of
western and eastern sciences, and some rules of conduct to follow&nbsp;!</span>
<span><br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>1.
Karabasheva was a young teen attending high-school with excellent
results. She wanted to be very very skinny and lose weight only to
get validation from others in society. However, at one point, her
wish to cut down her calories and lose weight became almost
obsessive. Having a feeling of power and control over her body was a
valid feeling and target. However, the problem started when her
belief was changed. She believed “if I don’t lose weight, people
won’t love me.” In other words, she allowed her self-image to
completely reliant on others’ feedbacks. Then, she found herself in
the hospital after a few years for being too much underweight.
Ekaterina identifies her positive intention from her ordeals: “to
look more beautiful”. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEQs3z8Sydg" target="_blank" rel="" title="Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEQs3z8Sydg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEQs3z8Sydg</a>)</span><br></div><div><br></div><div>
2.
Michelle Charffen was a parent and she had her learning lesson from
her relationship with her toddler. She was having trouble
disciplining her children and at one point she resorted to commenting
to her daughter that the police would actually take the daughter away
instead of the mother because her daughter was the one who was
screaming.
<span><br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Michelle’s
children started to use threats to get attention and to get their
mothers to comply with their requests because that’s exactly what
she did to get them to comply with her demands. Her problem was
solved when she simply changed her fundamental belief. She found out
that she was judging herself and her performance as a mother and had
a fixed picture of what a successful motherhood looked like. For this
reason, she at first judged herself for not being able to have her
daughter keep silent, then she judged her daughter too. She solved
the problem by accepting herself with absolute positive regard. Once
she accepted herself absolutely and stopped holding herself
accountable for her lack of skills, she also encouraged others to
participate and volunteer.
(<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tkkL9w2pw8" target="_blank" rel="" title="Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tkkL9w2pw8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tkkL9w2pw8</a>)</span>
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Self-acceptance: the very first step of self-development

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