Our Bodies, Jobs, & Relationships: Choose Acceptance

Exploring Byron Brown’s Soul Without Shame

Mindset note: As we explore Soul Without Shame this month, we encourage you to show up rooted in a place of curiosity, rather than judgement. It may be natural or easy to begin to evaluate Brown’s ideas but we invite you to be open to them and see what comes up for you. Not everything will resonate and some things may not align with your values or beliefs. But others might, and could lead to a valuable insight. We encourage you to be curious first and look into the ideas Brown is offering.

If we consider these things to be true, then what? Have some fun and play with these ideas! Take what serves you and leave what doesn’t.

What exactly do we judge? Turns out, there are 3 common areas our judge likes to focus on: our bodies, our jobs, and our relationships.

Our Bodies

This is probably the easiest place for our judge to criticize because it is the most visible. We judge ourselves for our appearance itself (e.g., too short) and we also judge ourselves for what we do to our appearance (e.g., I should work out). Then there’s what we wear, which we also judge: “you look like a fool in that outfit” (p.75).

Attention to appearance is the most constant and can be the most vicious. However, we also judge how our body functions and responds. Mistakes, illness, lack of motivation — these are all things we also judge about ourselves (p.75).

Brown also points to a subtle area of criticism when it comes to our bodies: self-understanding. When we begin to notice our bodies, we often find that we are very unaware of how they move from moment to moment. Then we may start to judge that: why are we so oblivious? How can we not know ourselves? (p.75–76).

Judging our bodies tends to come in polarities (p.76):

• Appearance: Beautiful vs. ugly; attractive vs. repulsive; acceptable vs. unacceptable
• Function: Strong vs. weak; capable vs. deficient; graceful vs. awkward
• Self-knowing: caring vs. apathy; trust vs. fear; intelligence vs. stupidity
• Do any of these feel familiar to you?
• Are any of these sparking an inner reaction for you? What might that mean?

Our Jobs

Judgement can often focus on our jobs: the kind of work we do, where we work, who we work with and for, and how successful we are at work. We tend to be in comparison mode — comparing against real people in our lives and even fictional characters in books or on tv (p.76).

The judge can also fixate on our process for finding our job and the work itself. It lays down impossible standards of success that are hard to achieve even if we’re satisfied with the work we’re doing (p.76). Most of us aren’t aware of what satisfies us, so we’re caught in the judge’s standards that can make us feel like we’re on an ever-moving conveyor belt with happiness always just out of reach.

The judge also finds its fuel in where we work, the hours we work, how often we work with others or alone, and our relationships with our colleagues.

Why does our judge like to focus here? Well, because “For many people, work is connected to their sense of being as an adult” (p.76). There’s a lot at stake, and it’s often important to us to get it right. We can think of our work as a measure of our self-worth, status, and our sense of accomplishment. Or, it can relate to our lives having meaning or purpose. Therefore, we tend to have standards — either conscious or subconscious ones — about the work we do.

The key thing to recognize here is that whenever we are creating standards we are comparing ourselves to an ideal. This is an invitation for self-judgement (p.76).

• What would happen if we spent time defining our own success? If we shifted this out of the hands of the judge?
• Imagine removing your satisfaction off of the conveyor belt and setting it on the solid ground in front of you. What does it look like?

Our Relationships

This is the area where we probably most clearly recognize that we have standards — more specifically, our intimate relationships. “Your judgments are based on standards that define what you are looking for in the relationship, what you find valuable in it, and what bothers you about it” (p.77). Standards also often include how you believe you and your partner need to be for the relationship to work (p.77).

These standards have good intent: We “tend to believe that these standards determine security and satisfaction” (p.79). However, again, once we have standards this creates an “ideal” that we then compare ourselves against. This is where self-criticism gets its juice.

Brown poses an interesting question: “Is a relationship real and vital because it meets your standards or because of the unfolding mystery that connects you and your partner?” (p.79).

Our inner judge likes to focus on our bodies, our jobs, and our relationships. These tend to be the areas where we have high standards that keep changing, and that we can’t ever seem to meet. Rather than focus on that moving target, the way to shift this in our life is to instead change how we’re engaging with the present. We need to stop looking forward at where we want to or “need to” be, and stop evaluating what is happening right now. Instead, we need acceptance.

Acceptance

Acceptance occurs when we don’t evaluate or comment on our experience. It’s a different way of being with your experience — no need to determine if the experience is good or bad. No need to even react to everything you feel. No need to change the experience (p.89). Instead, it just is.

“True acceptance is stepping out of the world of assessment altogether.” Instead, it is a “state of Being without attitude, simply allowing experience to be as it is.”

The important thing to remember is that acceptance is not approval or you necessarily liking the experience. “Acceptance means you get out of the way and stop taking a position” (p.90). Sometimes we may not like an experience and we accept it the same as those we do like.

According to Brown, acceptance has a calming effect on the soul. “Your soul spontaneously relaxes as it senses the arising of acceptance” (p.90). For some, at first, it may bring a sensation of letting go or releasing (p.91). Then as you deepen into the relaxation, space is created for your soul to express the essential qualities we all have — our true nature.

As different things arise in this state, we begin to notice that “each has its place and can be understood and appreciated. None is better or worse than another” (p.91). We are simply watching, observing what comes up. This begins to take on a natural cycle: a flavor of our true nature arises, unfolds, and moves on as something else emerges. This spontaneous process is “the gift that acceptance offers to your soul” (p.91).

• Have you experienced this state before? If so, what did you notice was happening around you? What about internally?

The main thing that can get in the way of us accessing acceptance is the urge to control (p.91). It’s usually motivated by a desire to feel safe and comfortable, but it doesn’t support our ability to be in an accepting state. To have that release and relaxation provided by acceptance, we must let go of the urge to control.

Accessing acceptance is a practice in self-regulation. It becomes an alternative option for you: you can approve, reject, or accept your experience. By choosing to accept, you are “letting your experience be what it is without commenting on it, reacting to it, or jumping to conclusions about it.” Whatever arises is then seen “as simply an expression of your soul’s unfolding at this moment. You open and surrender to the movement of your life” (p.94). Acceptance isn’t something you do, it’s an expression of opening up to the truth of what is there in the present moment (p.96).

Choosing this way of engaging with your current experience is a conscious move to quiet the judge. By accepting whatever comes up, there is no comparison — no right or wrong. The judge loses its voice and its power. Rather than feeling shame, we create a space to allow our essential qualities to emerge in support of our soul unfolding. We know ourselves more intimately and can begin to feel whole again.