Developing Ourselves

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.” Carl Rogers

So far in this journey, we have focused on discovering ourselves and accepting ourselves. The next step is to develop ourselves. Carl Rogers, among others, said that it is only when we accept ourselves that we can change ourselves. Accepting ourselves isn’t about giving ourselves permission to be the worst version of ourselves. It’s about creating awareness, learning from experiences, and using those learnings to change and grow.

Let’s take a hypothetical example of someone who can be a bit irritable at times. We probably all know someone like that and it may even be true for us. If we’re not aware of it and we haven’t accepted it as part of ourselves, we often get very defensive and react poorly when someone mentions it to us. This reaction is generally not helpful and results in conflict and worsened relationships. However, the fact that we know this about ourselves and we accept it doesn’t give us permission to continually be irritable and dismissing people’s reaction to it by saying that that’s just the way I am. Instead, we can stop pouring gas on the flames by acknowledging the things we said or did, apologizing for them if necessary, and using this experience to learn and grow.

We expend so much energy on hiding the parts of ourselves we don’t like, hoping that others don’t see it, and creating conflict when they do see it and helpfully point it out to us. Wouldn’t this energy be better spent on creating acceptance of our flaws and then working to change them? This cuts out so much unnecessary internal and external strife and creates a sense of peace and love from which to work on change.

We have tried the method of creating change through blame and shame, and it hasn’t worked. Not only does it not reduce our flaws, it actually increases them. When we get defensive and reactive because someone objected to the thing we said that was the teensiest bit irritable, we get even more irritable about it. And so the cycle swirls ever downward.

Let’s not do that. Let’s stop the downward cycle and create a cycle of positive change that goes something like this: I react to a person or situation with irritation, someone doesn’t like it, and they tell me that. This is the decision point for me. I can defend my self-image or I can acknowledge what I said and create better understanding and a better relationship between us. The truth for me is that I don’t do this perfectly all the time. But each time I stop and reflect and choose the better path, this creates and integrates a pattern that makes the next choice easier to make. Of course, it would be better for me not to be irritable in the first place. I’m working on that!