A Dangerous Desire for Acceptance.
Have you ever wanted something so badly that it consumed you? A desire so strong that it overtook your life, and changed who you were? So completely that it held you back from becoming the person you could be?
I see this from time to time, and I’ve seen how it can ruin people.
The desire for acceptance is nothing new, or revolutionary. If you look back in all the world’s wisdom literature, from whatever creed or culture, eventually you will find a story of someone who didn’t feel accepted, and acted out in anger or pain.
Feeling unaccepted is one of the most intense emotional pains that we can feel, robbing us of our sense of personal worth and even our humanity if we let it.
But sometimes, that desire can hold you back.
I have a good friend who realizes that she needs to make some changes in her life, and grow into the better part of her nature. Yet she is held back by an overwhelming desire to be ‘loved and accepted’ for who she is, and so she stubbornly resists life’s attempts to nudge her in the direction of who she could be.
So instead of growing from her challenges, they become fuel for her disappointment, her anger, her ranting and raging.
In short, she is wasting her life, subconsciously demanding to be liked for a lesser version of who she could be, not realizing that she could be adored at the level of being all that she could be.
The choice is hers, but I wonder if she is aware enough to even realize she is making a one.
It’s sad, because instead of enjoying the struggle to become who she could be, she instead fights against her problems with a determined desire to not change, not become better.
It’s almost as though she holds onto the parts of herself that are less than she can be in an attempt to have her flaws accepted and applauded.
And in doing so, she creates more problems than she can see.
All of us have a desire to be accepted by others, but that acceptance will always be fleeting, and false. The only true acceptance you need is the one that comes from within yourself.
Once you accept who you are, without any need for outside validation, then you can begin to see the things about yourself that you need to change. Then you change them because it is your choice, not because some outside influence is making you, but because you want to.
Want, or desire, is one of the strongest human emotions, that can drive progress, or destroy perfection.
Today, I invite you to begin the process of accepting yourself. The more aware of yourself you become, the easier it becomes to understand all those parts of yourself that you might wish to release, and in releasing, become the greatest expression of yourself that you can be.
Accept yourself, accept your life, and move forward.
Become free.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings