“Why can’t I just… like everyone else?”, “What’s wrong with me?”
Many of us carry around that feeling of something being wrong with us. Believing we’re broken in some way, while everyone else is doing just fine. But what if the energy we’re putting into trying to be different is actually what’s stopping us from being able to change?
Accepting yourself
Carl Rogers (the American who researched and designed person-centred theory) wrote “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change” (Rogers, 1961, p.17). He believed that accepting who you are and how you’re feeling right now, allows you to stop fighting against it. It’s not accepting as in being complacent or pretending to like everything about yourself - but accepting yourself as you are as a starting point. Being realistic about where I am and how I feel right now, that’s accepting what just is. Once we can do that, Rogers believed that was the starting point for the possibility of change.
How does person-centred therapy help?
Person-centred theory is based on the belief that humans have a built-in tendency to move towards growth. This growth can be blocked by things we learn to think about ourselves, such as ‘I’m acceptable if I’m always happy’, or ‘I’m lovable if I always do my best and achieve well’. These things we learn about ourselves may not be true, but we feel strongly that they are, and most likely don’t even consciously realise that we hold these beliefs. However we grow up, we learn to believe things which dictate the way we behave in relationships, the way we view ourselves and the unexpressed expectations we feel from others.
As a result of extensive research, Rogers also believed that the presence of certain conditions was helpful in allowing people to feel able to explore their feelings and do so with honesty, curiosity and . The presence of a therapist who could provide genuine acceptance, empathy (trying to see and understand the client’s world as they experience it) and bringing themselves as a real person to the relationship. When another person really hears us and we find they still accept us, something shifts in our ability to accept ourself. Voicing our real, unfiltered thoughts and feelings out loud can be scary. But if we experience someone else is able to hear and receive them, without rejecting us - they suddenly don’t seem quite so awful.
We can all be experts at critcizing ourselves and then feeling ashamed. These feelings frequently lead to avoiding the issue, self-sabotaging, or believing it’s impossible for us to change.
What might accepting myself look like?
Learning to accept yourself might lead to different choices about how you relate to yourself. These might include;
Noticing your thoughts and feelings without judging them. Being able to notice how you’re feeling and leave it at that, without having to change it.
Speaking to yourself kindy. When something happens, you might check the way you respond to yourself internally. ‘You’re such an idiot for doing that’ might soften to ‘Doing X feels really difficult for me today’ - more like the way you might speak to a friend.
Allowing difficult emotions space. You feel the way you feel. Learning to allow yourself to feel difficult emotions without trying to instantly get rid of them allows space to wonder about what these emotions are telling us. We might learn something about the way we function, a pattern in our behaviour we’d never been aware of, or an underlying belief which may not actually be true.
Letting yourself be seen by another. Therapy offers a space for you to be truly seen by someone else. This might feel vulnerable to begin with, but this is why building a genuine, trusting relationship with your therapist is so important. Finding someone you think you can do this with is crucial, so take your time in deciding. And, if you begin and are not feeling like your therapist ‘gets you’ then find another one! In being seen by another person for who you really are, you can experience what it feels like to be accepted (even as you are feeling now) and as Rogers believed, this can lead to change becoming possible.
You don’t need to be fixed
Whatever it feels like, you don’t need to be fixed. Humans feel things in response to what’s happened to them, whatever you’re feeling is probably a completely ‘normal’ human response to whatever situation you’re in now or have been in the past. So you don’t need to be fixed, but perhaps you do need space to be seen, as yourself, heard, and accepted.
Reach out
Therapy offers this space. If you feel like I might be someone you’d like to explore working with, message me using the contact form, or visit one of my directory listings (links on the About page) and contact me there.
References
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.