On a Road to Self Acceptance with Tara Massan and Seth Singleton
We Start Out with a Check-in
The Butte and Camp Fires have made the air quality in Oakland very dangerous.
I share a few personal examples including the joys and discomforts of wearing an air mask on a daily basis.
Tara is enjoying a snowstorm that she describes as just normal for where she lives in Minnesota. Tara welcomes the snow because it coats the bleak winter landscape when it is dry.

When Self-Help Goes Bad
There are two main sections Tara wants to address:
The Dangers of Self-Help and Nonsense we have heard of ourselves.
The Dangers of Self-Help
- Self-help can reinforce feelings of shame and guilt and
being less than - Self-help can enable avoidance and procrastination
- Self-help creates more analysis by paralysis
- Self-help is a diminishing return
Self-help creates the urge to say I want to fix this…
That’s great if you want to live to your potential.
But diving in can become, “I can’t fix a problem until I fix what is wrong with me.”
Self-Help is a business that sells information
Not a product that is tangible
To keep you hooked you have to keep fixing what is wrong with youYou don’t have to be or think a certain way to be worthy
It gets you addicted to the idea that you are not enough.
- What’s wrong with you?
- You should be doing this?
- Needing help
- Find a coac
- Guilt is not help
- Not Good Enough
- Never be Good Enough
- You’ll Never Be Good Enough Until You Do This
- There’s Something Wrong You
Self Help is a product of searching and discovery
Specific examples and results
- Self-Help as a bandaid
- And a form of avoidance
- Meaningful action
- Build a door to enter a room
- I kind of cut her off here
- Embracing the suck
- Rumi- all the answers you seek are within you

4 Types of Nonsense
1. You learn to be successful by listening to successful people
- How many people have followed this advice and failed?
- How many did not follow and succeeded?
- Do you they have a hidden variable like luck or money?
2. Positive Psychology
- Good to ask what is the positive here?
- This has led to “Avoid Negative Thinking”
- Address a deep confliction
- Negative reveals discovery about self
- Negative attitudes reveal unreal expectations
- It’s ignoring that you are sick
- Negative perception
- You will experience both
- Sometimes its a bad mood and you don’t have to sit in it
- But to ignore it is to make yourself sick
3. Procrastination
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Procrastination can birth a new idea
- It doesn’t make you a bad person
- Recognize an indicator
- Take a minute to pay attention
4. Follow your PassionDoes not mean, “Screw your job.”Or that you are Entitled to live your life only by your terms
- your passion may not be your income
- It may not lead to greatness
- Beware Misrepresentation
- Passion requires work
- Invest in your passion
- You still have to do something about it
Developing Your Awareness
- Think Critically
- Be comfortable seeing things that might not feel comfortable.
This podcast is Part 3 of a series on Self Acceptance.
For Part 1 click here.
Tara Massan
Tara Massan is a Yoga Teacher, Personal Trainer, and Lifestyle Coach.
She helps chronically stressed out adults create healthier lifestyles by addressing their obstacles through her 4 Pillars of Health: Mindset-Movement-Nutrition-Rest.
She is also the creator of Be Moved and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, US Weekly and the Huffington Post.
She has contributed to over 20 publications with one purpose: To help others live a healthier life.
You can connect with Tara by visiting her website www.taramassan.com or emailing her at tara@taramassan.com
Seth Singleton…
is a storyteller. He is the writing team editor at Blue Alchemy Studios and its upcoming release, Planet Rise.
A free-agent writer who works by project and contract, Seth believes that stories are a common thread that connects us all and that everyone has a story to tell.
To contact him about a writing or podcast project email him at sethsingleton@gmail.com