Accepting Yourself - With Boundaries
Sustaining weight loss requires setting boundaries with our inner critic and unhealthy behaviors, leading to acceptance and surrender to ourselves, which is critical to success.
On July 31, 2022, I experienced a moment of surrender that led me to accept myself just as I was despite weighing 316 pounds. This day marked the beginning of my weight loss, but it was not the starting point of my journey.
My weight loss journey started long before I lost the first pound. It began when I started the hard work to bring awareness to my inner critic, unhealthy behaviors, and the emotions behind them. I spent nearly two years setting boundaries with my inner critic and unhealthy behaviors so that I could have the space to process the feelings that were driving them.
This hard work was crucial to my weight loss and even more significant for my success afterward.
Sustainable Weight Loss Strategy
Step 1: Set boundaries with your inner critic.
The inner critic is that little voice in your head telling you some form of “you are not good enough” and “if you only did more of something [i.e., fitness],” you will fix what’s wrong and get the love and acceptance that your inner critic so desperately craves.
The inner critic is formed as a child in response to traumatic events.
For me, this voice in my head would see my image in the mirror and say, “You are disgusting,” and “If you just lost fifty pounds, you would look so much better.”
Where did this voice come from?
Growing up, my mom told me, with the best intentions, things like, “If you just lost 15 pounds, you would be such a good-looking boy.”
At the beginning of my journey, I had to bring awareness to this voice and tell myself some version of “No, you will not talk to me that way” and then pivot to practicing saying something kind to myself in its place.
Step 2: Set boundaries with your unhealthy behaviors.
Like my inner critic, I had numerous unhealthy behaviors that were driving my obesity. These coping mechanisms were keeping me stuck, and I had to learn to say no and then replace that behavior with something healthy.
One of those coping mechanisms was waking up in the middle of the night and midnight snacking to numb out from the chronic hip pain I was feeling.
I committed to myself that I would not do this ever again. Recognizing that was easier said than done, I also made a nightly ritual.
Every night, I wrote myself a love note and placed it on the fridge to read it in moments of weakness when I wanted a midnight snack. In the note, I reminded myself what I could do instead of reaching to food for comfort, that “I got this,” and that I loved myself.
Spiritual bypassing:
Many people, myself included, will want to skip right over steps one and two and accept themselves where they are without doing the hard work of setting boundaries with their inner critic and unhealthy behaviors.
This is a form of spiritual bypassing.
It is avoiding facing the complicated patterns that protect us from the uncomfortable emotions and pain we don’t want to feel.
Before practicing self-acceptance, we must be willing to say no to those protective patterns and feel what's underneath.
Step 3: Accept yourself where you are at
Setting boundaries with your inner critic and unhealthy behaviors creates the space for you to accept yourself where you are now. When you do this, you allow yourself to experience happiness right now!
You are not waiting for some goal to be happy.
You are not resisting the truth about what is — i.e., your current situation — as an obstacle to happiness.
You realize that right now, there is nothing to fix.
Though this may seem paradoxical — to change, you must accept the way it is.
This is because when you let go of the tension of wanting to be somewhere else, you can relax into the serenity of taking action aligned with who you are in the current moment.
When you are clinging to a goal and resisting the truth, you are creating internal tension, and over time, be it tomorrow or six months, this tension will become more than your mind can handle.
And this is why we quit.
Because willpower alone is not enough.
Action becomes sustainable when it is not fighting the internal tension of clinging and resisting.
Closing Thoughts
I will close today with a note I shared with my brothers in the Man Talks Alliance in November 2021. I was reflecting on my experience in a guided breathwork meditation — a moment where I began to see what awaited me in the space of accepting myself with boundaries.
Perfect, serene, and at peace, just as I am
November 1, 2021
When I first started daily inner child mediation, I would go back to moments of scarring and change details about those moments...
For example, in the 4th grade, I came home from school, and my Mom told me about the results of a survey we took in class where they asked us, "What kid in the class would you take your party?" and "What kid would you not take?"
She said, "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but no one said they would take you, and every kid said they wouldn't take you. I'm telling you because I want you to be better... The teacher will have you sit by yourself for now in class until you fix your behavior..."
The next day, I came to class, and my desk was at the front of the classroom, facing the marker board. I wasn't allowed to sit with the other students. At recess, I walked to the south side of the school, where all the kids were playing hopscotch and 4 square.
In my mind, I can still picture the details vividly. As I approached the kids, I said to myself, "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get these kids to like me..."
This moment has been at the driver’s seat of my consciousness for many years.
When I first started doing inner child mediation, I would go to this moment, and I would see my current day self show up right before I thought those thoughts about "Doing whatever it takes to get these kids to like me" and stop my inner child before he could think them. Then I would sit with him, our backs against the school's brick walls, and I would ask him [myself] questions like:
“What it was like at home?”
“What do you need?”
etc...
Yesterday, in Trevor Bird's guided breath session, when asked, "Who am I when I have no problems to solve?" the image of the spot where my mom's ashes are spread appeared. Her ashes are spread along a creek, just below the place where my family camped when I was in high school.
When I visited this spot on my 24-hour solo in June [of 2021], it was just after sunrise. There was a serene quiet, only the sounds of nature, the birds, and the creek flowing. I felt a sense of peace and awe. As I walked back to my car through my family's old camping spot, I was struck by how nature had taken it back. It was overgrown with dense trees and brush. You could hardly tell it had been a camping spot. A part of me wanted to break out my saw and axe and restore that spot to how it was before — but then I realized it wouldn't be serene and at peace. So I took a moment to soak in that place, letting it be.
Yesterday, during the guided breath session, when asked, "Who are you when there are no problems to solve?" that image of the spot where my mom's ashes appeared, and I realized that I am like that spot — serene and at peace.
I also realized that when I first started my mediation practice, I was changing the details of my experience; I was trying to do with my inner world what I had, for a moment, wanted to do with my mom's camping spot. To restore it to the way it was before, to fix it.
As I have experienced growth and healing, I have begun to let go of this notion of changing and fixing what was.
If I were to change what was, it couldn't just be.
Instead, I've started to relate those parts of me like my mom's camping spot — A sacred place that I visit to reflect and gain awareness so that I can connect with my inner feelings so that I can acknowledge and learn from the truths they hold — but never to change them — for they are perfect, serene and at peace just the way they are.
Because I am perfect, serene, and at peace just as I am…