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If there’s one thing I learned in my years as a dieter and a coach, it’s this: hating yourself doesn’t work on any level.

You can substitute “hating” for “fighting with,” “tormenting,” “being at war with” or whatever. No matter how you say it, it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t create change, it only creates more stress, more of the same.

We’re all taught to fight our imperfections. We’re supposed to fight our bodies — changing our shapes, our weight, our wrinkles etc. We’re supposed to fight our tendencies — too be loud, or rude, or to take the time we need for whatever. And even if you don’t subscribe to all of the societal “shoulds” that are thrown your way, you may feel a push to subscribe to some of them.

You may even hate your tendency to feel the pressure of all of these “shoulds!”

If you really want to change a habit, or a situation, or how you feel about yourself, the only route that will bring you any peace is to start with acceptance. From that place, you can actually make a reasoned decision about whether change is even necessary in the first place.

A Real Life Example

Let’s use a real life example so that you can see what I mean.

Let’s say you have a tendency to binge at night. Maybe you stick to a meal plan during the day, or you just feel like you’re able to eat more reasonable amounts during the day, and then at night you feel like you’re bingeing.

How would you handle it if were fighting with yourself about it? Perhaps you’d judge yourself, feel guilty for eating what you eat, feel like you need to hide what you’re eating from others.

Maybe you’d get really strict with yourself and force yourself to stop eating as much at night for a few nights or a week or two, and then you’d have a particularly stressful day and you find yourself overeating again. Then the guilt and the recriminations are back, and you feel awful. You hate yourself and your lack of willpower and feel stressed out for being out of control.

Introducing The “Kindly Researcher”

Now let’s consider another way to handle this situation.

I’d like to introduce you to your inner “kindly researcher.” Your kindly researcher sees your late night bingeing not as a reason to judge you, but as a wonderful source of information.

It accepts what is and just wants to know more.

You can access your kindly researcher at any time. Use it to ask yourself questions in a kindly way. It might ask you if you’re eating enough during the day, if you’re feelings feel more overwhelming at night, if you’re eating past your comfort point because you miss your ex, or feel creatively stymied, or you hate your boss.

As you engage with this concept, you can start to use the stuff you normally fight as a source of information. Not so you can fight it harder, but so that you can, as best you can, start to give yourself what you need.

It will also allow you to start accepting the parts of yourself that you may not be too thrilled with right now. (And if you feel like there’s no way you could accept yourself or your body, check out this recent post.)

Accepting Things About Yourself That You Don’t Like

You may be thinking that it’s dangerous to accept things about yourself that you don’t like.

On the contrary, I think it’s dangerous not to accept those things.

I can’t think of an instance where someone (a client, a friend, myself) hated something into changing. For years, I hated my tendency to get flustered when I had to do public speaking, even if it was just a meeting at my job. It was only when I became more self accepting that I began to feel more comfortable with speaking.

When you accept your perceived flaws, you can actually make some decisions about what you want to change, and whether those flaws are really flaws at all. Acceptance allows for a fluidity of energy, and appreciation of tiny steps of progress. Hating aspects of yourself just breeds frustration and more hate.

If nothing else, loving your perceived flaws is a worthy experiment. If you’re reading this post, you’ve probably been trying the other way for a long time. Where has it gotten you so far? I’d love for you to share about it in the comments sections below!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight.  Registration is now open for her group program, The Big Beautiful Goddess Academy. Click here for details!