Radical Self-Acceptance

“Radical self-acceptance may be our highest calling as human beings. ~ Freeman Michaels

What’s so radical about Self Acceptance?
Well, everything!
Self Acceptance is the most elusive sense of Self for humans, primarily for us women. It is also an aspect of ourselves chased by an entire army of giants (read: corporations) which spend unimaginable amounts of money to oppress and compress it. Only so that they can sell us their latest “cure”…

Women (and people) whose sense of self is depleted are insecure, needy, dependent, and constantly seeking acceptance outside of themselves. There is nothing radical about them. They do not want to change the world, or make it a better place. They do not want to create any waves or rock any boats. They only want to be accepted, by someone outside of themselves. And when they do — the relief is only temporary since it’s source is external to their Being.

A newborn baby, as dependent as it is on its care givers, is radically self accepting! A thousand falls will not deter a baby from trying to stand up, yet again, and attempt to balance independently. Not only do babies not give up, they also don’t start despising or ridiculing themselves, they don’t compare themselves to anyone, nor do they think they are any less for merely falling down.

Comparison is what starts chipping away at our utter Self Acceptance as infants. It is in the act of comparing that we start feeling ‘less than’. And herein lies the withdrawal from Radicalism to Conformism. From a complete initial Self Acceptance to a lifelong maddening obsession with comparison, in which we, by and large, find ourselves falling short.

Why would Freeman Michaels point to Self Acceptance as “our highest calling”? Many will define our “Highest calling as human beings” by lofty ideals concerning humanity as a whole. Yet only self accepting beings, free of inner comparison, could truly look at the world with unbiased eyes. Innocent of the need for external approval, such beings carry available inner resources with which to work for the good of all.

Free of the need to overshadow others, self contained in their Self Acceptance, such human beings are as radical as babies are, as close to the Spirit Realm as newborns, taking their queues from a sense of Connection rather than Comparison.

Having all started our lives as connected, self-accepting infants, how did we stray so far? When did we start comparing instead of connecting? When did we start craving external approval rather than being fed by an inner, expansive, universal sense of Well Being? It would seem that the care givers who looked after us from birth — were the first beings we encountered with the ability to not only give but also withdraw love, warmth, and acceptance.

Through our growing years we have encountered, some earlier than others, instances of withholding love and approval — so painful that our inner, radical, Self Acceptance shrank in response…  When acceptance was withheld — our inner wellsprings started drying under the scorch of the desolate surrounding. Slowly we started mimicking the outside by cultivating an inner voice that compared, criticized, and found us, time and again, lacking.

It is a radical act indeed, then, to return to that initial Self Acceptance paradise. It may well be “our highest calling as human beings” to come full circle: Having lost our innate paradise, for which we didn’t need to work initially, we are called to labor, consciously, to regain it, to reclaim the reigns we handed over to our parents, our teachers, our ‘superiors’, and the corporate army of giants — so that we can navigate our life’s chariot based on our inner compass, our true connection, our radical Self Acceptance.

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DeAnna L’am © 2015, All Rights Reserved