THAT'S MEN:'Tis no longer the season to be merry. For as long as the new year glow lasts, it is the time to be resolute and to set about various self-improvement projects. In my opinion the most important resolution is to accept more about yourself than you will attempt to change – but more about that below.
First, the following quote from psychotherapist Irvin Yalom might provide a roadmap for thinking about the coming year:
“I often counsel myself and my patients to imagine one year or five years ahead and think of the new regrets that will have piled up in that period. Then I pose a question that has real therapeutic crunch: How can you live now without building new regrets? What do you have to change in your life?” (Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death).
Notice that Yalom is not asking us to wallow in our accumulated faults.
Instead he puts the focus on anticipating the regrets that we may have this time next year and that we can do something about.
It’s a humane approach and one that is based on looking at your own values and arriving, fairly quickly, at identifying the sort of changes that would make a real difference to you.
But first, as I said at the start, you should resolve to see what you can accept about yourself and accept it. Most of the things that are “wrong” about us don’t need to be changed. We can change all we like and we will still be imperfect at the end of it all.
Self-acceptance
I like the approach of writer and teacher Tara Brach who uses the acronym
“Rain” to outline a means of self-acceptance.
The R stands for recognising what is happening within you right now. This recognition process, she writes, “starts the minute you focus your attention on whatever thoughts, emotions, feelings or sensations are arising right here and now”.
The A is for allowing, in other words simply accepting the fact you have these feelings, thoughts and so on.
So you accept, without condemning yourself, that you feel scared about the year ahead, or that you hate your job or you wish you had emigrated to Australia when you had the chance and so on.
Very often those two steps are all you need to do to gain some freedom from endless disappointment and dissatisfaction with yourself and the world.
The third step, the I, is to investigate. So you might ask, “What most needs attention?” or “What does this feeling want from me?”
You have to do this with kindness towards the self and without condemnation. When you start condemning, your defences go up and it is very difficult to change from a state of defensiveness.
Acceptance is the beginning of change. If I accept in my own heart that I have a drink problem perhaps I can accept that I would like to do something about it and perhaps I can make a plan that might work. But once I start condemning myself, I’m just going to need another drink to make the bad feeling go away.
Acceptance is very powerful indeed and so is kindness towards the self – try it and see.
The N stands for non-identification. If you do two or three of the previous stages (RAI . . .) then you get a little distance from the feelings and issues you are having and you cease to identify yourself totally with them. You can get out of the river and stand on the bank for a while and see what way the water is heading.
But my hope is that most of what you recognise about yourself you will be able to accept for what it is and save your energy for what you need to do.
For more on Tara Brach's approach, see her article on psychotherapy.netat bit.ly/tarabrach
My thanks to therapist Anne-Claire Nash for the Irivin Yalom quote.
Padraig O’Morain (pomorain@yahoo.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book, Light Mind - Mindfulness for Daily Living, is published by Veritas. His monthly mindfulness newsletter is available free by email.