“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6)
I am accepted; therefore, I accept myself.
Acceptance is, in many ways, a functional synonym with love. The term love is often confused with romance or passion, and so there is a sense in which the idea of acceptance helps to clarify an important aspect of what is happening in God’s love.
“I accept myself.” This cannot function merely as an idea, ideal, or a projection. It must be “felt,” it must be an internal experience. It is not enough to say “I accept myself” and then not actually accept oneself. It means to accept who you are, your self, your personal being and existence. Many people live while in a constant state of agitated resistance to existence, and have a projection of who they think they ought to be, or how they ought to feel, some ideal condition of personality and/or appearance. Trying to live through that projection, the square peg and the round hole never align, and so misery is ever at the root of life. In order to amend that misery, then, and apart from actual acceptance, the person uses all misery to continue striving towards and laboring under the projection.
It is noteworthy that the projected self is not the same as having goals or ideals, for the projected self is a basic self-image of who one is, not simply who one can become through growth and development. The false self, the projected ego, actually functions more like a chronic judgment of who one is not, who one ought to be already, and so constantly suffers a kind of regret, not a regret so much for some past act but an existential regret for who one is. One is insufficient, inadequate, unacceptable, never enough, never quite right, always a little off, different, etc.
The projected self therefore serves as a constant source of psychic, which is to say psychological, tension. Some will attempt to ameliorate this psychic tension by embracing their insufficiency, their inadequacies, their differentness, or weirdness. Accepting one’s unusual traits, foibles, inadequacies, etc., however, is different from accepting oneself. Prior to all the unusualness, traits, insufficiencies, and weirdness, which is to say one's personality, there is a person, a self, and no amount of accepting one’s “personality” will compensate or equal to accepting oneself. One must accept who one is, not merely how one is. Too many treat accepting how one is with accepting who one is, and they reify their personality, a personality which is in many ways born out of the non-acceptance of self. People who merely accept their personality end up confusing non-self personality traits with self, and so champion post-self developments and environmental reactions as if these were virtues.
The sense that there is something wrong with the self is at the root and core of our being. Something is “off” not merely with “how I act,” but “how I am.” I cannot accept this “I,” and so in self-rejection I project and re-project a more acceptable “I” and then live as its slave in order to cope with my misery. God help the person who is successful at such an endeavor through their natural giftings, as they spend the lion’s share of their life approving of their performance-self rather than their real self. From this many will and do develop chronic symptoms like migraines, chronic fatigue, depression, and so on. They are overachievers, overfunctioners, and always a little restless.
What is needed is to accept oneself. Although there is something wrong with who I am, I must accept this self in order to become whole. Wholeness is possible. But, since I reject this self already, how can I accept me? On what grounds? There must be a ground for this acceptance. This ground will not likely be touched by an analytical mental calculation, but the fact is that there is a ground, and it is the Gospel. In Christ Jesus you are accepted, for it is God’s grace that makes us accepted in the Beloved. The life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ is the living and present ground of your acceptance. God accepts you totally in Christ.
Here is needed an important clarification, for many will see in this acceptance an acceptance of sinful proclivities, not discerning the difference between healthy and unhealthy, i.e. true and false, acceptance. The difference between healthy and unhealthy acceptance of oneself is that a healthy acceptance will necessarily include a willing movement or motion towards holiness, and a desire to be conformed to holiness. Unhealthy acceptance results in a stubborn commitment to attitudes, opinions, personality traits, etc. True self acceptance goes categorically deeper than personality acceptance, and intuitively senses the distinction between person and personality. In accepting self in Christ one finds a corresponding willingness to embrace the holiness of God as the bedrock of self’s continued activity in the world, and His grace as the new energy for the healing and transformation of one’s personality to become a carrier of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). In this way self-acceptance functions as a kind of rebirth unto new life, and, as acceptance deepens and stabilizes, one’s new life matures and grows. Since the truth of God sets a person free, freedom from the domination of personality is included in the development of authentic self acceptance.
St. Paul teaches that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God loves us, which is to say He accepts us, even while we were yet sinners. And yet, because God unites us with Him in a filial blood covenant in and through His Son, and thus makes us partakers of His divine nature, His love for sinners therefore does not condone or cooperate with sin, but atones for it, cleanses it, and sets one free from its power. True self acceptance therefore accepts the self that Christ paid for with His blood, infused with all the value with which He gives it according to the riches of His grace. Thus, true self acceptance results in holiness, “for this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
Since one does not accept oneself in their own name, but in the Name of Jesus, the experience of accepting oneself therefore is the experience of the Gospel. It is accepting God’s accepting of you in Christ. It is receiving forgiveness. Acceptance of oneself in the Name of Jesus means giving up all pretense, all inability to live up to automated or innovated self projections. It means simply allowing oneself to exist in the arms of Jesus alone, laying down one’s guard, one’s defense mechanisms, one’s ideals, and letting Jesus be all, which in truth He is. This trust transforms and motivates the progression of holiness as a participation in the life of the Holy One. I can accept myself, because One accepted me. I can accept myself, because I am accepted, I am held, and I am loved in the Beloved.
-Fr. Joshua Schooping
