"I can't relax into who I am because I'm not where I want to be."

With those words a client of mine summarized a very common challenge for many of us. On the one hand, in order to make change we need to recognize the gap between where we are and where we want to be.  But on the other hand, if we are to be successful at personal growth we need to begin from where we are.  We need acceptance.

How often do we feel frustrated with ourselves for not being where we want to be?  For not getting to that laundry list of things that we know we ought to do.  For not yet being more confident or peaceful or fit or organized... 

Acceptance.  It sounds like such a pleasant word.  It sounds like it should feel like ease and comfort.  Acceptance seems like the starting place for our journey of growth.  But in reality we have already travelled far if we are able to be with ourselves with acceptance.

Acceptance demands a lot of strength.  To be able to be with what is, as it is.  To be with ourselves, as we are.  To value ourselves in our not quite ready, not quite there yet, imperfect reality.  We need to give up the judgement that says we are not okay unless or until we leave that job or land that partner or lose that weight... 

I need to be willing to be with myself even though I am not where I want to be.  To accept myself I need to be able to let go of the conditions on caring about myself.  I need to release myself from  the "could" and "would" and "should"  straitjacket.  

Yet that is easier said than done.  Woulda/shoulda/coulda buys me a ticket out of feeling the losses and pain of the truth of my current situation.  By staying in the war against myself, by blaming and judging myself for my failure to be somewhere else, something else, someone else, I do not have to feel the pain of the gap, of the truth of what is.

Yet in order to grow, that gap is precisely what I do need to feel.

And to do that I will need to be able to feel what it feels like to be me, right here and right now.  In the moment in the body.  In the vulnerability of not yet having what I want.  We need to feel the dissonance of that: the muscle tension and physiological arousal that are our body's way of asking "are we safe?"  

In being with ourselves there we will soothe the body and drop down into the anger and grief and pain about all the losses, the price we have paid, for not being able yet to be our most magnificent selves.  Whatever the reason might be.

This journey to our biggest life is so hard.  We deserve tenderness and patience.  And acceptance. The amazing thing is that in accepting yourself, you will get to your goal of "more you" sooner.

You are enough, right now, even as you see all that you need to do and all that you need to become.  Breathe in and know that.  Breathe out and be with yourself.  You are so worth it.

Photo Credit: "Reflection" by ELB Photos