The power of radical self-acceptance: How to love the loathsome

Psyche's gift to the shameful: two powerful questions that'll change your self-image

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If you struggle to contain emotions like anger or resentment, if you find it hard to even access those emotions, or if you find yourself in a persistent state of feeling like you just need more of something like money, qualifications, belongings, or whatever before you'll feel like you're enough, then this piece is for you.

This article is part of a short series exploring the lessons to be learned from the myth of Psyche and Eros. If you want a more detailed rendition of that story, check out the first post in this series. But you don't need to know the myth in order to follow along.

The myth of Psyche and Eros – a summary

In short, Psyche, a mortal woman who Eros, the god of love, has fallen for, finds herself thrown into a dungeon by the goddess Aphrodite and set four impossible tasks in order to regain her freedom. She nails the first task thanks to help from an army of ten thousand friendly ants. But it turns out that not all animals in myths are quite so obliging.

Psyche's second task is to retrieve a tuft of wool from the golden fleeced sheep, which Aphrodite knows to be vicious, poisonous, aggressive creatures and therefore hopes they will kill Psyche when she naïvely tries to approach them.

As with all these tasks, Psyche begins this quest in a state of hopelessness. She goes to the paddock and watches the golden sheep, who are engaged in competitive play – butting heads and roughing each other up – and she knows that if she tries to get near them, she'll be trampled or bitten. So, rather than approach the sheep, she wanders down to a nearby river with the intention of drowning herself in it.

Thankfully, the river god doesn't want her to pollute the waters with her sorrowful end so, like the ants, it helps her, in this case appearing as a personified reed by the water's edge, and warning her of the danger. It instructs her to wait until nightfall when the flock will be drowsy and calm, enabling her to get close enough to claim a tuft of wool. But even then, it warns, it's best not to approach the sheep directly. Instead, Psyche grabs the golden wool from where it has been snagged on the bark of a nearby tree.

Symbolism and meaning – the golden fleeced sheep

The sheep in the myth of Psyche have multifaceted meaning. On the one hand, the beasts are thought to represent potency, prowess, and vigor – a wild and combative energy. On the other, the fleece itself can be understood as a delicate, precious thing – the riches to be gained by daring to face ourselves, confront the shadow, and just Do The Work, essentially.

Together, the prospect of gathering the precious golden prize from the vicious, poisonous sheep symbolises the process of facing and confronting the more aggressive, primal aspects of the unconscious, including greed, competitiveness, lust for power, and the desire to dominate.

The challenge for Psyche here is not just to obtain the fleece, but to do so without falling victim to the dangers associated with it – to glean the insights without getting drawn in by the heat of the emotion involved. This is, of course, the challenge we all face when attempting to address our own experience of these more aggressive tendencies in real life. If we just go rushing forward while in the thrall of these drives and inclinations, we're going to either get hurt or hurt someone else, or both. The river god's sage advice, then, reminds us that wisdom, patience and caution are required when dealing with the more potent, tempting forces in life.

Let's take a closer look at these forces.

What happens when we reject the parts of self that we don't like?

Greed and ambition are traits that carry a lot of stigma in our culture. Of course, we all have these potentials, and in many ways that's a good thing. Without the desire for more, to strive, and to achieve, we'd be empty, directionless husks. But because these traits are generally not accepted – especially in British culture – we're conditioned from day dot to minimise the associated feelings and not let them show. In other words, greed, ambition, and the desire to succeed have been relegated to the cultural shadow.

And herein lies the problem. When we repress an aspect of self, we don't get rid of it; that's just not how it works. No matter how hard we might try to reject the things we don't like about ourselves, or don't feel allowed to express, those traits will persist. They just do so beyond our conscious control and sometimes beyond our conscious awareness.

So, if we reject greed, ambition or competitiveness, these things will bubble up in their own way. They may manifest as compulsive workaholism – late nights at the computer, feeling like we simply have to do more – or as the tendency to hoard things, be that money, material goods, accolades, or qualifications, all of which come with their own plausible rationalisations, of course.

Sometimes, our resisted desires to succeed or dominate show up as nagging, destructive envy or resentment towards people who have what we secretly want for ourselves. They may manifest as projections – our own self-loathing thrown out onto others, tainting the world we perceive around us and ruining our relationships. We might find ourselves struggling to share or enjoy what we have; overcompensating with limiting people-pleasing or minimalism; or battling with micromanagement, control issues, addictions, relentless self-criticism, perfectionism, you name it. There are many, many ways for repressed content to manifest, but not one of them is good.

How can we obtain our own tufts of golden wool?

So, what can we do about undesirable or unaccepted aspects of self if rejection and repression won't work? Well, we need to do the opposite. Acceptance and integration of these shadow aspects allow us to regain some conscious control over them. But there's more to it than that – what we see as the "problem" when it comes to our emotional, relational, or financial health (sometimes even our physical health) may very well turn out to be the solution we didn't know we needed.

In The Alchemy of Psychology, which is a recorded lecture-series by Jungian psychologist, James Hillman, Hillman talks about the recurring archetypal motif of the rejected soul – the unwanted child or outcast – returning as the saviour. We all know this story. Among others, it's the story of Jesus, beginning with "no room at the inn" and ending with world redeemer. That's quite the character arc.

And it does seem that this narrative plays out psychologically, too. The parts of the personality that we initially feel we have no space for can often turn out to be the parts that play the biggest role in our healing journey.

"The thing that won’t go away by itself, that can't be accepted, but can't be suppressed," Hillman says, "is the nucleus of what wants you – what wants to come to light with you.” This visitor within you is what Jung would have called the Self, the Romans would have called your Genius, and Christians would know as a guardian angel. In other words, the things we resist in ourselves have the potential to be transformative and positive in a very powerful way. And what those resisted aspects want from us – the only thing they want – is to be seen, heard and accepted. If we don't do that, they will use their power to give us hell.

Accepting the unacceptable

So, how do we bring difficult, shameful experiences like greed, spite and a selfish drive for power into the light of compassionate awareness? How do we accept what we consider unacceptable?

These are big questions, and there is no single answer, but there is a way for everyone. This is the work that gets done in therapy, meditation, ayahuasca retreats, journaling, and talking things through with trusted friends. But it's also available to you every day when you have the chance to observe your reactions objectively – to just note what you're thinking, feeling, saying and doing without judgement – because if you do that, you'll meet these more aggressive aspects of your shadow self incrementally and safely.

Shadow content is dark because it's shrouded by shame – the emotion that tells us we're bad, wrong or just not enough. And because that hurts and makes us feel like the outcast or the rejected child, we close our eyes and push it as far away as we can. This reaction is natural and perfectly understandable. It's just not all that helpful, especially in the long term.

Thankfully, there's another way: empathy dissolves the shame of the shadow. Connection, understanding and feeling heard can, gradually, gently bring shadow content up into the light. Just as Psyche was guided to do, we need to exercise patience and caution when doing this kind of work. If we go rushing in, we'll surely get trampled. And if we try to be too direct or forceful, we'll find ourselves bitten. But if we're patient – if we just observe at first, and wait for the calmer, quieter moments before choosing to get closer – then we'll be able to collect the golden fleece, strand by strand. And as it accumulates, our relationship to ourselves, the world around us, and everything in between, can change entirely.

So, let me leave you with two simple questions to start mulling over whenever it feels safe for you:

1. What's one human trait you'd find very hard to witness in yourself?

You could choose one of the aggressive forces we've discussed here today – greed, competitiveness, power-hunger or the desire to dominate – or you could start with something different, such as fear, avoidance, lust, gluttony, arrogance, ignorance, promiscuity, weakness… There's plenty to choose from. If you don't have an answer to this question right away, just think about what you loathe to see in others, as that'll surely lead you to the same place.

And then, when you have an answer, try this one on for size:

2. Who could you become if you were to fully accept that trait in yourself?

Who would you be if you could use that kind of energy in a more measured and healthy way?

Because acceptance is not the same as submission. To accept repressed anger isn't to become angry forever; it's to acknowledge your pain and allow yourself to act on it consciously and without shame.

To accept gluttony, promiscuity or an unhealthy shopping habit isn't to resign yourself to a life of overindulgence; it's to acknowledge your needs, desires and coping mechanisms, and ultimately make possible new ways of expressing those things.

Acceptance isn't giving up. It's learning to love yourself as you are, while simultaneously choosing to be better. That sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. It's how change happens.

So let me ask the question one more time:

Who could you become if you were to fully accept this part of yourself that you don't like?

If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear your answers in the comments.

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Thank you for reading!

We’re Hazel (ex boxer, therapist and author) and Ellie (ex psychology science writer). We left our jobs to build an interactive narrative app for self-awareness and emotion regulation (Betwixt), which you can try on Android here and on iOS here.

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