Mar 11, 2024
Why Do We Resist Accepting
Ourselves
Other People, and the
World?
The Five Most Common
Reasons!
Rhonda and David are joined in today’s podcast by Dr. Matt
May, a super popular and loved guest on our show, to discuss the
resistance findings in David's recent survey on acceptance and
resistance. The following is a summary of some of the statistical
findings, but the actual podcast dialogue was wide ranging and
tremendously engaging, and won't require a lot of statistical
smarts!
We also discussed the vitally important difference between
healthy and unhealthy acceptance.
- Healthy acceptance is accompanied by feelings of joy,
lightness, and liberation. Unhealth acceptance is accompanied by
feelings of unhappiness and despair.
- Unhealthy acceptance is characterized by Should Statements and
self-punishment for your failures and shortcomings.
- Healthy acceptance is an expression of self-love.
The group brought the five most common reasons to life with
engaging stories.
Why should you accept yourself? We are not saying that you
"should," and it's really a decision. However, the statistical
models the I (David) developed indicated that healthy acceptance
can trigger a 49% reduction in negative feelings and a 39% boost in
positive feelings, which is tremendous.
Matt told an inspiring story about two strategy for training the
dolphins at SeaWorld. One strategy involved trying to shape the
behavior of the dolphins with little shocks, in much the same way
that some people train horses. Sadly, the dolphins went to the
bottom of the pool and appeared depressed, not moving much. It was
a complete failure.
Then they tried a radically different strategy--they gave a new
group of dolphins fish to reward them for doing the things the
trainers wanted them to do. This strategy was tremendously
successful.
So, the question is whether you want to shape your own life with
frequent shoulds and self-criticisms, which can have the effect of
electric shocks every time you fail or screw up or fall short of
your goals, or whether you want to shape your life with love and
rewards. Some of us have discovered that acceptance is way more fun
and vastly more effective!
Quick Bottom Line
The typical survey respondent endorsed 1/3 of the 12 Resistance
Scale items, and seemed to believed that Acceptance would be
foolish and lead to a life of misery and mediocrity. The actual
causal impact of the Non-Acceptance and Resistance scales on
positive and negative feelings was massive and appeared to be in
the exact opposite direction.
Findings
The respondents in the Resistance survey endorsed an average of
33.8%. (+/- 0.1%) of the items, ranging from 0 to all 12. The most
commonly endorsed was, “Acceptance is easy for rich and famous, but
hard if you’re struggling just to pay the bills.” 47% (+/- 2%)
endorsed this item.
The least endorsed was, “If I beat up on myself, people will
love me more,” although 25% (+/- 1%) of the people endorsed this
item, so it was fairly popular. The high scores on the resistance
scale items is also pretty consistent with my experiences over the
years—the people in the study, and the people I’ve worked with,
have expressed MANY reasons to beat up on themselves.
You can see the list of the 12 Resistance Scale items below. I
have bolded the five most often endorsed. As you can see, many
people surveyed believed that acceptance is fine for people who are
rich and famous, but terribly painful and foolish for people who
struggle with real problems. Many respondents were convinced that
acceptance leads to pain, robs you of motivation and does not make
sense in a the world that’s falling apart.
- If I accept my flaws and shortcomings, I'll end up with a
second-rate life.
- If I accept my flaws and shortcomings, I’ll lose all my
motivation to learn
- If I beat up on myself and work my ass off, people will love
and admire me.
- It would be tremendously painful to accept my flaws and
shortcomings. That would be like giving up and having to live with
a heavy load of inadequacies.
- Life has many real disappointments and losses. I don't
want to feel happy and chipper by “accepting” all those negatives
when the world is falling apart all around me. That just doesn’t
make sense!
- I haven’t achieved many of my goals in life. I think it would
be kind of pathetic to suddenly accept myself and feel enormous joy
that I haven’t really earned or deserved.
- I’ve often fallen short, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my
life. Are you saying that I should be happy about that? Hell
NO!
- I am never going to accept myself as just another
average or below-average person. That would be awful!
- If I accept my flaws, failures, and shortcomings, I’ll just be
like everyone else. I won’t be special, and I won’t have the chance
to become special.
- If I admit that I often fail and screw up, people will think
less of me.
- If I’ve done things that have hurt others or if I’ve violated
my moral values, then I deserve to suffer.
- Acceptance is fine and easy for people who’ve enjoyed
tremendous success, but it’s really hard if you’re struggling to
pay the bills, or if you feel like you haven’t succeeded at
much.
What did the analyses show about the impact of resistance and
non-acceptance on how we feel?
- The Resistance scale had powerful direct causal effects on the
Non-Acceptance scale and accounted for a whopping 46% of the
variance is the Non-Acceptance scale. In other words, the more
intense your resistance, the more you will fight against accepting
your flaws.
- The causal effects of the Acceptance and Resistance scales on
negative and positive feelings were massive. They can reduce
positive feelings by as much as -48% and increase negative feelings
by as much as +47%. Or, to put it differently, the statistical
models predict that healthy self-acceptance will not lead to misery
and isolation, but can dramatically reduce unhappiness and boost
feelings of joy and self-esteem.
- The total effects of Singleness and Income on positive and
negative feelings were relatively small, by comparison. In
addition, about half of the causal effects of Singleness and Income
are indirect and mediated by their causal effects on the Resistance
and Non-Acceptance scales.
- The direct effects of Singleness on the positive and negative
feelings scales were -4% (positive feelings) and +6% (negative
feelings).
- The maximum direct effects of income on negative feelings were
+4% (positive feelings) and -9% on negative feelings). To
experience this boost if you’re in the lowest income bracket
(<$25,000), you’d need a massive increase in income
(>$200,,000.)
- Almost all of the 12 items were more strongly endorsed by
younger individuals. Three items—Ri, R8 and R9—were more strongly
endorsed by men at the p <.001 level or better. All three items
had to do with the fear of not being “special” and ending up with a
second-rate life if you accept yourself.
- White and Heterosexual were not associated with any Resistance
items. However, individuals with more income and education were
less likely to endorse many of the items.
- Higher educated respondents were less likely to endorse R1, 2,
4, 6, 7 and 12, and those with greater incomes were less likely to
endorse R12. These were large effects.
Thanks for listening today1
Rhonda, Matt, and David