Photo: megwills

All anyone ever seems to be talking about these days (and really all days) is how much we need to change. Change our hair color. Change our bodies. Change our attitude. Change our nose, eyes, chin, eyebrows, the space between the eyebrows, jiggly thighs, untoned (is that a word?) ass.

What is so wrong with all of us that we feel we need to change everything physically, emotionally, and mentally about ourselves? Is what comes at the end of these “changes” really better?

Look at Joan Rivers, for pete’s sake.

Well, I guess one reason that change is a part of all of our vocabularies is that it’s the only constant in life. Change comes whether we like it or not. Maybe to a certain extent, we see deciding to make changes as a way of getting ahead of the forces that will eventually dump the changes we don’t want on us.

So, I’m here to put out a radical idea. What about instead of constantly thinking about how you want to change yourself, you start to think about what ways you want to accept yourself.

Whaha??

Yep, instead of staring at another woman’s stomach and wishing to have her flat abs and not your round belly (one of my biggest demeaning habits), start thinking, “I both accept and love my beautiful womanly belly that is tantamount to the goddesses of Ancient Greece.”

Photo: www-bellyoflove-com

Or instead of thinking, “Man, what is wrong with me to not be able to give up cigarettes? I know they aren’t good for me, I’m not sure if I even like them anymore, but there is some ugly part of me that keeps craving them,” think “I accept that I have a need for these cigarettes. As I grow in acceptance, I begin to understand why I have this need.”

Now, I know it is going to be considered sacrilege by some that I said instead of using gums, patches, medication, hypnosis, or mind-control to quit smoking RIGHT NOW, you should just sit in acceptance. But to that I ask, how has all of that stuff worked for you in the past? These things that are meant to make it easier to quit smoking don’t get to the root of why you are smoking. Yes, of course addiction is a part of it, but there is also emotional underlying components to that addiction.

And to truly look at the why of something, we have to accept the placewe are in at this very moment.

Smoking Gun

I smoked for five years, and pretty much quit cold turkey. According to all the “experts,” in that time, my body would have been addicted to tobacco. But all it took for me to quit was to move from North Carolina and live in California for a year, where you can’t smoke in restaurants or bars. Also, the crowd I began to hang out with didn’t smoke.

Photo: SuperFantastic

I don’t even get cravings when I’m around it now. For me, the emotional component to smoking was both connecting to others and taking a break from whatever I was doing. But once I was around people who didn’t smoke, I didn’t need cigarettes anymore. So if you are still smoking after many years and many times trying to quit, it’s time to look at the why. And to truly look at the why of something, you have to accept where you are, not a future when you will quit smoking.

Imagine if we all walked around saying, “I accept my commitment issues” and “I accept that I tend toward laziness.” While we’re busy beating ourselves up internally for all the things we do and who we think we should be, our bodies and spirits are literally feeling the blows.

Do you think your body really wants to work with you to make changes when you are knocking it senseless? I don’t think so. On the other hand, developing acceptance around things in which we consider ourselves inadequate does one of two things: gives us breathing room (literally, you might end up sighing with relief after admitting your deepest darkest hidden insecurity out loud), or it makes us realize that these things aren’t actually as bad as we made them out to be.

A good friend who is a dance teacher recently taught in front of 7,000 people, by far the largest crowd she’d ever instructed.

Of course she was nervous as hell, as most people would be, but instead of covering that up and possibly coming off with bravado, the first thing she did was tell the audience how nervous she was.

This totally disarming approach not only helped her to get out the butterflies, but it made the whole audience, which consisted of people from around the world, stand up in the bleachers and do a form of dance most of them had never even heard of.

Now, that’s the power of acceptance. Try it out for yourself.