Last updated on February 8, 2024
The reason radical self-acceptance is so essential to staying on the path to humble self-honesty is that there can be so many voices around us that make it sound like it is unacceptable to be who we really are, faults and all.
The question that inspired the title of this entry and the address of this website came from a student who was in a class I was teaching years ago. It was more of a declaration than a question: what is WRONG with you!?! She barely knew anything about me, but she wasn’t used to someone who had turned his back on faking good.
One absolute rule of dysfunctional families is this: don’t have anything wrong with you. This absolute command drives self-honesty away, and fuels denial and self-deception. We are groomed to fake good, pretend and rationalize and excuse inexcusable things around us.
The story of the emperor’s new clothes is a metaphor about this dynamic. Everyone pretends the emperor is not naked in his imaginary “new clothes,” and they go out of their way to fake good with him. The little boy who says, “You’re naked!” violates the most important command of faking good and punctures the lie by simply stating the obvious.
Many of us grew up in such dysfunctional families where the first and great command is “Don’t have anything wrong with you!” Many communities and churches and groups are formed around this same unspoken command that everyone conforms to and upholds.
Radical self-acceptance and humble self-honesty free us from this oppressive command, and free us from the pressure that can be brought to bear on us by the scowling eye and sharp tongue and constant condemnation of those still faking good around us.
What is wrong with me? A lot, probably more than is worth taking time to talk about. How about discovering first what is good about me? I have some charming and redeemable features that can be quickly learned. 🙂
The little who without challenging misbehavior or disrespecting the kind just said what he thought was the truth for him! Is the best illustration of how society and certain organizations are forcing us to see everything the same way they see it
It like we don’t have the right to notify what is wrong with us!
Thank for these words and clarification that help me now know that I must put mine whenever I fell that something is wrong with me!
We might know what is wrong with us but hesitate to speak it into the universe. Once that’s done then we have a choice: continue pretending or dig into what needs to be done to foster meaningful and transformational change. I love and appreciate your perspective, Brian.
I love your clear and concise way of putting things!