Acceptance

What if I told you that all you had to do to heal your skin was to accept it, just as it is? And what if, just by accepting yourself just as you are, skin and all, you were finally able to feel positive?

When was the last time you actually felt positive about yourself?

Please don’t say, “Gee, I’d LOVE to feel positive, but most days I can’t even come close!” Why? Because wishing for something is the exact opposite of what we should be doing if we want it bad enough.

Focusing on wishing actually creates more of what we are energetically rejecting. Think about it: when you’re wishing for something, you are literally telling the Universe that you believe what you want is outside of you and you’re waiting for it to come.

Well guess what? Since the Universe always says yes, if you keep wishing, you’ll keeping waiting. Acceptance is something you already have. The ability to feel acceptance for a thing is already within you.

Most of us with dermatillomania have a hard time accepting their skin. How can we when it’s so ugly? When it’s inflamed, it’s scabbed, it’s scarred... Accept it?

My healing began when I learned to accept my skin in the condition it was in every moment. Before that, my obsession over my skin affected every facet my life. Not that I didn’t try to get help for it. I’d sought help outside of myself for decades! But no doctor or therapist or medication provided the answer to healing my complexion. That’s when I was forced to turn inside, not outside. I had to look to the wisdom already within me. This wisdom said, “Accept.”

How?

Well, I began taking a deep breath every time my fingers found a bump on my face. Deep breathing helped to calm me down so I wouldn’t attack it. In that calmer state, I was actually able say to that spot, “Hello. I see you.”

This might sound silly, but saying hello is the first step to acceptance.

Before I learned acceptance, all I ever thought when engaging with my skin was, I hate you! You disgust me! Why are you here? Why can’t you just be normal?

Once I began to accept my skin just as it was on any given day, I was able to stop those angry thoughts from taking over my mind—and body. I began to replace them with, “Okay, so this is the way my skin is right now. I accept the bumps. I accept the wounds. They’ll eventually heal…”

In my decades-long quest for answers to my undiagnosed dermatillomania, I learned that the more you resist something, the more it persists. So, it makes sense, doesn’t it, that the angrier I got at my skin and at myself for causing the wounds, the angrier my skin got in return?

I finally won the never-ending battle with my skin by surrendering to it. And surrender began with acceptance.

When I was able to stop focusing on the red spots and focus instead on one area my skin that was wound-free I would say to that patch of skin, “I accept you.”

 Eventually, the wound free areas of my skin grew larger. As they did I could exercise more acceptance by saying words like, “I accept this disorder. My BFRB is a part of me. I want to end this war. I surrender.”

Acceptance is the first step to self-love, which I’ll write about in my next blog. Once we can truly love ourselves, we’ll have no more reason to wound ourselves. And that’s when our skin will truly heal.