At 11am on Friday, September 21st in Baltimore, Maryland at the Fitbloggin conference, I am going to be teaming up with Shauna and Karen to facilitate a conversation about the middle ground between self-acceptance and weight loss.
Self-love and the desire to change.
Digging yourself utterly + completely and wishing for a little more out of your life.
Too often we operate under the misconception that self-acceptance is a place that we will reach, an end-point that will have us relaxing in the shade of our new and improve attitudes about our self worth.
This means one of two things:
That once we have achieve this mythical place of self-acceptance – we no longer need to work for it, that we have conquered the mythical quest, have slain the dragons, and get to live the rest of our days enjoying our kingdoms and counting our many blessings.
Or,
The mere fact of wanting to grow and change is inherently the antithesis of self-acceptance, and that all respectable self-loving ladies (and gentlemen) are sublimely please with what they’ve got, 24/7.
Now I’ve slain some dragons. I’ve enjoyed a day or two frolicking about my kingdom.
But I have never, ever stopped wanting more for myself.
My self-love is firmly rooted in the process of getting closer to the source, my essential self. It is the peeling away of layers, over the course of my life, and in the process seeking more: truth, vulnerability, comfort with intimacy, respect for my body, settling into relationships, and widening my dreamscape.
My self-love is the slow and steady process of becoming who I already am.
This is a very confusing topic for very many people, one of the many reasons that we chose it for our session at Fitbloggin.
Too often we get caught up in the black-and-white of either or.
We forget that we, ourselves, live in the grey matter.
We forget that it is perfectly acceptable to meet ourselves where we are - working and figuring it out as we go along.
We forget to appreciate that we are in the constant state of getting to know ourselves.
My self-love is the daily refinement of who I am becoming and what I need to support my best self.
It is about taking my heart and growing needs into consideration. It is about tailoring my daily routine to best fit MY life and reserving the right to change my mind.
It is about making my life decisions based on what feels good to me, at a gut level, and opening myself up to the possibility that trusting myself will get me where I want to go.
It is about choosing to make myself a priority in my own life, every day.
Now, because this session is all about community involvement and discussion (and truly, not at all about my definitions of self-acceptance), I am here today to humbly ask for your assistance in cultivating the program for our session.
I want to know:
What questions do YOU have about self-acceptance?
What has always irked you about conversations about self-love?
What feels too good to be true, and what do you need clarified?
How might you need to be better supported in order to be your best, most loving self?
What do you really wish people said out loud on the topic of self-acceptance?
In short, what do you need from us to help you get on your way?
I absolutely want to hear from each and every one of you – whether or not you will be attending the conference. Please feel free to get in touch with me in whatever way feels the most comfortable to you.
You can:
- Leave me a comment below.
- Scramble on over to Facebook and chat me up on my wall.
- Scoot on over to Twitter and @reply me, using the hashtag #fitbloggin.
- Send me an email if you’d like your comments to remain low-key and secret-like.
Please and thank you.
Ohhh! Good stuff- I can’t wait to hear this chat. Let me ponder on this & I’ll get back to you with some good stuff.
Hey Mara,
So excited for you for Fitbloggin! Is this your second year or was it BlogHer you went to? I mix them up too frequently.
I guess the first thing for me that comes to mind – in terms of what irks me – is just how self-love uses all these lofty, abstract words, and while they are beautiful and help people realize how valuable self-acceptance is, sometimes I have a hard time putting my hands around them, so to speak, and actually figuring out what to DO. If that makes sense.
Yep – second Fitbloggin, which I LOVE and am so excited for. Hmmm I love the concept of “practical self-love” like the bare bones, no bullshit sort of approach.Thanks so much for bringing this up – I’m going to figure out a good way to incorporate it. oxoxo
I still struggle with accepting the part of myself that I still want to change. I hate when I act ____, but how to find forgiveness for myself & know that I am trying to not act that way. Even stuff like over-eating or over-drinking or over-sleeping, when I know I didn’t want to do those things, but still did them. How do we gracefully accept that, but still commit to acting in ways that will make us happy with ourselves?
This is a very good question Amanda. I think that this is something that LOTS of women struggle with in the realm of “self-acceptance.” I’ve found that my understand of self-love is forgiveness of my less than sparkly actions and thinking about ways to make different choices next time. We will never (ever) be perfect, but when we generally like ourselves, thinking about the negative ramifications of our actions makes more sense. For example, I absolutely loathe feeling hungover – it makes me feel god awful. Thus, I drink a lot less now than when I was struggling deeply with my self-esteem. There are some parts, too, which will always be a bit of a struggle for us – even when we love ourselves quite a bit.
My best self is not grounded in ‘acceptance’. When I think of the terminology ‘self acceptance’, I think of defeat. Maybe I will think that way when I retire.(LOL)
Most people seek happiness, but the term ‘self love’ seems too flowery a concept to get me there.
Is self acceptance really a motivator to feeling more happiness? Challenges, goals and the desire to grow and improve yourself are motivators. To me the word ‘acceptance’ does not belong in the mix leading to happiness.
I do think most of us probably need better ‘self talk’ to get us that happiness. Changing those recordings is what I would seek on the road to providing more happiness.
Hmmm. Very interesting Donna – thank you so much for commenting. I’m curious, what about acceptance = defeat in your mind? Is it the feeling of settling for being “less than,” while challenging yourself feels like “striving to be better”? I’ve found that when based in a general appreciation of myself and my body, challenges, goals and the desire to grow and improve are much more fruitful and take deeper and more profound hold. What is your experience?
Accept the now, which is not leading to happiness = I’m done trying = defeat. Or to think of it spiritually, ‘Leave things in Gods hands’, accept that what will be will be = done trying = defeat. I’ve tried thinking of it that way, appreciating what I have vs. don’t have etc… It’s like ‘faking it until you make it.’ If significant time passes and you don’t make it, you’ve wasted all this time when you should have been at least putting effort in to change things.
From my point of view, acceptance is not the same as resignation. My experience with self-acceptance is: Yes, I need to sleep more, eat more healthy foods, drink more water, study more, have sex more often, move my body, read more books, save money. All those things will make me happier and a better person.
The difference between who I was before self-acceptance and who I am now is that I don’t think I’m a piece of shit because I’m not doing it. I acknowledge that I need and want to change, but I also know I am already enough as a person. I know I am already worth respect and love.
This way, I’m not pushing myself into change, I’m gently and willingly moving forward. I’m doing it because I want to, and not because I think I’d only be enough, or happy, or a good person if I acomplish all things in my to do list.
This way it is easier to change. If you respect and acknowledge your difficults and powers the way they are know, it is easier to evolve.
Sorry about any english mistakes. It’s not my native language.
For me, self-acceptance has been very fluid. Some days it goes great, sometimes it lasts for weeks or months. The hard part is weathering the storm and returning back to that self-acceptance afterwards!
If we truly believe that’s no harm in being fat, and that fat is also beautiful, and that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, why would people want to lose weight? How is it possible to wish to lose weight without believing, somehow, that FAT equals bad, ugly, unhappy?
First, I’m SO relieved that the discussion group Tara and I are hosting is NOT at the same time as yours with Karen & Shauna because I’m really looking forward to being there.
To respond to some of your questions:
For me I wonder how/why self-love seems to have this ebb and flow to it. Being in a recovery process the last year has taken a toll on my positive energy and its become more difficult to “like” myself, let alone love myself.
I have to second what Hannah said above, I’m not a big fan of the dreamy “woo woo” words that are often used when talking about self-love. The idea of practical self-love, a no BS approach really appeals!
I have a difficult time when I have conversations with many women in my life who are interested in commiserating. You know, those conversations where its “god I’m so fat today” and they either want you to share the sentiment, “oh, I know…me too” or they want you to contradict it to make them feel a little better “what! you look great…”. I wish as women we could find ourselves to a place where we can recognize a negative thought and at least pair it with something more positive ourselves rather than constantly seeking the sharing the “negative”. To me it just feeds the insecurities all around.
I would really love some dialogue on the benefits of positive self-talk vs. the evil self-critic and how it can feel so ridiculous when you first begin, but is such a powerful tool.
Hope this is the kind of stuff you’re looking for and I can’t wait to share with all of you at Fitbloggin!