My clients are usually in therapy because they want things to change. They don’t want to keep feeling the way that they feel, they want to have better relationships, or they might want their work life to improve.
Yet, rather frustratingly, the best way to achieve lasting change is to accept where and who we are now. It’s what we call the counselling paradox.
It does feel paradoxical. How can we change if we accept where we are?
Clients will often say things like: “If I accept myself as I am, won’t I just stay stuck? Shouldn’t I be pushing myself to do better?”
But then, how can we achieve lasting change if we are always fighting ourselves?
Change can be hard, it can be scary, it can be overwhelming. We are going against behaviours and patterns that we have lived by all our lives. Change is about embracing the unknown. It, therefore, requires patience, care, and self-compassion ─ exactly the things we deprive ourselves of when we are stuck fighting our thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and experiences.
To put it another way (because I love a visual metaphor!), trying to change while fighting against your current reality is like doing hard algebra while someone repeatedly bonks you on the head. It takes something that’s already difficult and makes it impossible.
Table of Contents
You’re Already Winning at Life
Let’s start with something fundamental that we rarely acknowledge: from a biological perspective, you’re absolutely nailing it.
You’re alive. You’ve managed to stay alive for however many years you’ve been on this planet. Your nervous system has successfully navigated countless threats and kept you safe.
As an organism, you don’t actually need to do much else. Everything beyond staying alive is bonus territory.
This isn’t about lowering your standards or giving up on growth. It’s about recognising that you’re already succeeding at the most important task of all. You want things to be even better? Great — that’s completely natural and healthy too.
The Problem with Fighting Yourself
Most people approach the parts of themselves they don't like as if they're enemies to be defeated. The anxiety. The anger. The procrastination. The patterns in relationships.
“I shouldn’t feel this anxious.” “I need to stop being so sensitive.” “Why can’t I just be more confident?”
This approach treats parts of yourself as enemies to be defeated. But you can’t win a war against yourself because you are both armies. Every bit of energy going into the fight is energy not going towards change.
Imagine trying to run a marathon (I told you I love a visual metaphor!) while your own internal critic is running alongside you, shouting: “You’re too slow! You’re embarrassing yourself! You should have trained harder!” How far do you think you’d get?
What Acceptance Actually Means
Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up or being passive. It doesn’t mean you like everything about your current situation or that you don’t want things to change. It’s not resignation, and it’s certainly not approval of harmful behaviours.
Acceptance means stopping the internal fight long enough to see clearly what’s actually happening. It’s like taking a pause in that marathon to assess your situation: “Right, I’m here at mile 15, my legs are tired, I’m thirsty, but I’m still moving. What do I need right now to keep going?”
When you accept where you are, you can:
- See your situation clearly without arguing with your inner critic
- Recognise what you actually need — water, rest, a good cry
- Access your energy for moving forward rather than fighting reality
- Make decisions from a place of calm rather than panic
- Recognise your strengths and resources instead of only seeing problems
The Paradox in Action
When you’re anxious about being anxious, you now have two problems — the original anxiety plus the anxiety about the anxiety. When you're angry at yourself for being angry, you're now both angry and self-critical. When you judge yourself for procrastinating, you're still not doing the thing — but now you also feel terrible about it.
Acceptance interrupts that loop. Instead of "I shouldn't be feeling this way" — which just adds a layer of shame on top of whatever you're already carrying — you can try: "I'm feeling anxious right now, and given everything that's going on, that makes sense."
When you stop fighting your internal experience, your nervous system can shift out of that defensive fight-or-flight mode. When you’re not perceived as under attack (even from yourself), your parasympathetic system can engage — and that’s when clear thinking, creativity, and genuine change become possible.
Practical Steps Towards Acceptance
I want to offer some small, concrete things you can try — not as a checklist to get through, but as experiments to notice what feels different.
Start with small acknowledgements. Instead of “I’m such a mess,” try “I’m struggling with some things right now, and that’s human.”
Notice the language of war. Catch yourself using words like “should,” “battle,” “fight,” “overcome,” “defeat” when talking about parts of yourself. What would it sound like if you used gentler language?
Ask yourself: “What if this part of me is trying to help?” Your anxiety might be trying to keep you safe. Your anger might be protecting your boundaries. Your procrastination might be telling you something important about your priorities.
Practice the pause. When you notice yourself getting frustrated with your own feelings or behaviours, take a breath and ask: “What do I need right now?” rather than “What’s wrong with me?”
Celebrate the basics. You got up today. You’ve survived 100% of your difficult days so far. These aren’t small things.
Consider what you would say to a friend. If someone you cared about came to you feeling exactly the way you do right now, what would you say to them? Most of us are significantly kinder to the people we love than we are to ourselves. If it’s helpful to work through your own example, check out my Self-Compassion Mirror tool.
Change Through Acceptance
It might sound annoying at first, but I’ve seen the change in action time and time again. When clients stop judging themselves for who they are, how they feel, what they’ve done, or how things seem to be, they are able to stop fighting themselves and make changes from a place of self-compassion. It’s these changes that tend to last because they are self-sustaining. If (or, realistically, when) we slip into old patterns, we can recognise them without shame or punishment and go back to doing things the new, more effective way.
If nothing else, remember this: You're not trying to reach some other version of yourself in order to finally be okay. You're already okay. You're already doing a lot. Acceptance just makes the next steps a lot less exhausting — and a lot more possible.
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