🔼: ###### 🔑 Acceptance is a prerequisite for change > “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” > ― Carl R. Rogers When most of us seek to change ourselves, we’re in a tangle of [[💡 Parts|Parts]] looking to change one another. Self-improvement is driven by [[💡 Protector Parts|Protector Parts]]. We were taught and conditioned to treat ourselves and one another like bonsai trees with the belief that we have to conform to a particular standard in order to be beautiful, valuable, acceptable, or worthy by other people or even certain parts of ourselves. We can get caught on a self-improvement hamster wheel where something can always be optimized, and we can start to feel stuck when those changes don’t come to fruition, or are temporary, or don’t scratch the itch we thought they would. These strategies are often more draining and time-consuming than they are revitalizing and freeing. If there are [[Symptoms of Unresolved Trauma]], we may first consider them something to be stopped for fixed. "How do I make these feelings go away?" "How do I make my [[💡 Parts|Parts]] feel better?" "How do I make the symptom stop?" In either case, [[🔑 Protectors do not like their jobs, but are afraid to stop|🔑 our Parts are often afraid to stop doing what they do]], and [[💡 Burdens 🪨|Burdens]] make it impossible to change. This leads to inner-conflict, [[💡 Polarization|polarization]], or [[💡 Locked Constellation|Locked Constellations]]. But it’s actually in our nature to change. Life is a steady stream of emergent transformation. We only become rigid and stunted when [[🔑 Burdens pollute our system and cut us off from ourselves|🔑 burdens are polluting our system and keeping us frozen in place]]. While the self-improvement paradigm is driven by [[💡 Protector Parts|Protector Parts]] and their being convinced that something about us is wrong or unacceptable, developmental change is a natural consequence of nurturance. [[🔑 Parts use our minds and bodies to get or distract our attention|🔑 Symptoms are signal flairs from our parts]]. When we listen to the signal instead of trying to stop them, we can get the message. When we answer the message, the signal can stop, and the [[💡 Parts|Part]] of us who was sending it can [[🔑 Liberate Parts from the roles they’ve been forced into, so they can be who they’re meant to be|🔑 do and be what they were really meant to]]. A seed does not need to be taught *how* to grow, and [[🔑 Healing is a happening, not a doing|🔑 a wound doesn’t need to be taught *how* to heal]]. They just need the right conditions to allow them to happen spontaneously. When we’re able to accept our [[💡 Parts|Parts]] exactly as they are, even the ones who want to impose change on the others, the tangles in our inner-community are able to loosen, and the [[💡 Burdens 🪨|burdens]] which hinder our natural growth lose their grip. [[💡 Parts|Parts]] of us who have been stuck in their seedling states bloom into their authentic expression, whole and complete as they are. We change, but organically; we emerge into ourselves, not into a [[🛡️ Perfectionism|Perfectionism]]-contorted bonsai. All meaningful and fulfilling change we experience is the result of developmental growth or unfolding, not self-improvement, not control. This is the core of [[⭐️ Individuation|Individuation]]. [^1]: