The Internal Battle for Change
In a very real sense, psychotherapy is all about change. Some people find change deeply challenging. They want things to remain the same and wrestle with the uncertainty that change brings. Others are desperate for change and want to leave behind them the parts of the world, others or themselves that are a source of suffering. Most of us have a mix of these at different times.
Change doesn’t need to be a battle, but it often is. People come to see psychotherapists with their suffering – depression, anxiety, grief, addiction, relational collapse and more. These are profound experiences they want to move past. Experiences that sit deep within the self, buried within the nervous system and the very narrative of their life-world.
It’s natural not to like such things. Some people berate themselves for their suffering, while others deny or avoid thinking about it. I listen as people treat themselves harshly or fall into self-pity. The internal narrative for some is “This is ridiculous” or “Get over it”, for others it is “Why can’t I just move on?” or “No one sees or understands me”. But does the butterfly wish it had not been a moth?
It’s understandable. The depressed person doesn’t want to feel sad, unmotivated, hopeless or numb. The anxious person dreams of not feeling fear raking their nervous system or its heavy weight in their chest.
But this often results in internal psychological war, with non-stop battles to repress, deny, coerce, and subjugate parts of the world, others or the self. But however much we hate on them, they remain. The battle is between the depression/anxiety/anger/grief fighting to be heard and the self that wants to be rid of the associated suffering.
A regular theme of my psychotherapeutic work is helping people end these internal battles and work towards accepting sources of emotional and psychological pain. I ask people to engage with the very things that they want to forget about and move past. And there is good reason for this.
Erik Weihenmayer (www.erikweihenmayer.com) is a blind adventurer and mountaineer. He went blind in his teen years and then used this experience to propel him to incredible achievements: he summitted Everest in 2001 and then completed the ‘seven summits’. Over and above the physical challenges that all mountaineers face, imagine what this required of him. He had to navigate the practical, emotional and meaning-laden processes of accepting the new reality of his life and adapt to his situation so he could explore and push his limits.
We all face our own version of Erik’s experience – allowing acceptance to facilitate change and enable us to take ownership of our lives. Of course, no one does this perfectly and we all have moments of anger, fear and self-pity. But I don’t think it is possible for us to adapt to life, the world or ourselves by being at war with them – and this means a level of acceptance. However, this does not mean passive acceptance and ‘defeat’.
Practising Acceptance as Part of Change
There is one primary pitfall in practising acceptance: using acceptance to avoid the challenge of change. The assumption that acceptance of a situation means it is unchanging is simply untrue. In my life and work, I differentiate between the acceptance that I encourage, which I call ‘proactive acceptance’, and the avoidant version that I call ‘sedimented acceptance’.
Proactive acceptance says something like:
‘This is how I am, and how things are today. I want to truly accept this, to understand the limits and possibilities of what, how and who I am and who I can be’.
This is difficult. It is an act of hope, a call to courage and action. It invites honesty, self-compassion, responsibility, engagement and action. It recognises limits and hurdles and allows for change, growth and development within those parameters. It is also a lifelong practice of change – after all, every day is ‘today’ and has changed from yesterday.
Sedimented acceptance says something like:
‘This is how things are. This is who I am. This is all unchanging. I might as well accept this, and the world will have to accept this too.’
This can be easier – at least in the short-term. It might end the internal battle discussed above, but in the long term it is probably catastrophic. It is avoidant, rejects responsibility, is usually untrue and often comes with a sense of disappointment, self-pity and hopelessness. This approach to life is to be stuck. Every day is a version of the same sedimented perspective and approach to life.
We all have moments of falling into sedimented acceptance but recognising it and moving back towards proactive acceptance is the task. Acceptance is usually paired with other attributes. I suggest two are of primary importance – courage and humility. Paul Tillich wrote: ‘Courage is rooted in the whole breadth of human existence’. It is courage that is needed to be in psychotherapy, to practice proactive acceptance and to fully engage with the world around you, others and yourself.
No matter your spiritual, philosophical or cultural heritage, it is probable that the role of acceptance in change has been considered. Buddhist, daoist, ubuntu, stoic, Jungian and existential thought are just a few examples of traditions practicing acceptance. I offer the following adaptation of a Christian prayer as an affirmation that I believe I universally relevant and can be applied in any tradition. It has been adopted by the 12-step fellowship to remind its members of how to practice what I call proactive acceptance and goes as follows:
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference”