How good are you at fully accepting your current reality? Worts, butterflies and all?
I was lucky enough to go on a course last year that introduced me to Gestalt (I’ll let you google it yourself). On that course the wonderful facilitators shared two quotes: Firstly, “Change rests on the full, albeit temporary, acceptance of the status quo” from the Polsters’ book in Gestalt Therapy Integrated and secondly, “Change can occur when the patient abandons, at least for a moment, what he would like to become and attempts to be what he is” from Arnold Beisser’s The Paradoxical Theory of Change.
Sorry I should have warned you that I’d be starting off heavy…
I suppose I’m asking the question because I’m not sure that many people are very good at fully accepting themselves, even for a moment. To be able to sit with both our struggles and our strengths and allow them to be exactly what they are before we seek to make any changes. I think often we try to skip a few steps ahead to be the person we want to be before we’ve got there.
When I discuss this with my clients, or any of the individuals I have the privilege of working with through group coaching or facilitation, the analogy I use is a satnav. Have you ever put in your destination to find you are being given directions from somewhere other than your present location? Being told to go down the road and turn left in 200 yards but there is not left turn in 200 yards?
I think trying to move forward, without accepting where we are, can be a bit like this. We push ourselves to do things we’re not ready for and wonder why we weren’t immediately successful. We forget to use our skills, strengths and resources to support us on our journey. We sometimes go round and round in circles not getting any closer to where we want to be. We can feel lost, frustrated and well and truly stuck.
So what can we do?
Firstly, take some time to get really clear on your present reality. If this thought makes you want to run away screaming I might suggest getting an appropriate professional (coach or therapist) to support you with this. It is absolutely normal to find this an emotionally challenging experience, our brain likes to avoid discomfort so it’s probably been helping you avoid a lot of current truths.
Secondly, bring the compassion. Use the compassion to help you soften and understand that you’re doing the best with what you’ve got. Be gentle with how you speak to yourself around the challenges (and the strengths because we can criticise ourselves about those too).
Thirdly, getting clear on what you need. Yes you do have needs, sorry to break it to you, even strong, independent individuals have needs. Sometimes we can meet our own needs, sometimes we might have to ask someone else for support.
Finally, take the next step. This doesn’t always have to be on a perfectly mapped out path (despite what my performance coaching diploma might like to tell me). It doesn’t have to be a big leap either, it can just be one tiny step.
And apologies that it is rarely this simple or straight forward. Is it worth it though? I think so.
Before I head off to try and follow my own advice I want to leave you with one last thing that came from my introduction to gestalt course that is part of the gestalt ways of being: “Be as you are. Be more fully where you are and what’s next will follow.”
As ever, if you’d like a coach to talk through any of this with then I’m always happy to chat. Just drop me an email at sophie@sophieeaden.co.uk.