Acceptance
Hello my friends.
Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time processing and applying (with more or less success) the concept of acceptance.
HARD ??.
But my gut was telling me, that the spiritual teachers, Buddha masters and modern quantum scientists – they can’t all be wrong. Something must be in the art of accepting what is – otherwise the concept would not have survived for thousands of years. (And another, much less poetic, reason was that I felt like crap and was tired of always having expectations, always chasing some next thing thinking it was going to make me feel better. Got tired of it, wanted a new way of approaching life. Wanted to be more at ease with myself and the world.)
What do I mean by “acceptance”?
I believe that, these days, most of us understand and realise how powerful our minds are. The quality of our life, our mental health, our physical health, our sense of self-worth, the way we see life and people around us – ALL starts with our thoughts.
I consider it to be good news. I mean, I consider the awareness of knowing that our thoughts can destroy us or help us flourish to be good news. Because that awareness allows us to work with our thoughts, choose what thoughts we want to entertain and stop ourselves from letting our thoughts ruin our lives.
What does the above have to do with the “acceptance”? The following:
As human beings – our thoughts are set up to run on autopilot. More and more people (thanks God) realise and learn that if we let our thoughts do whatever they want, they (vast majority of time) create a real mess in our heads.
Why is that?
Mess happens because what goes on in our heads (if not observed and regulated) 100% of the time is either thinking about our past – very often feeling hurt, betrayed, etc or creating (very often) catastrophic future scenarios bringing up the feelings of worry, loss of control and anxiety.
In its natural state, our mind is not able to stay present. The never-ending chatter either keeps looking back or focuses on our future which hasn’t happened yet. This is where meditation and mindfulness come in play.
When it comes to the “acceptance”, it is incredibly difficult to accept our everyday life, situations and people in our lives exactly as they are because our thoughts tell us otherwise.
Does the below sound familiar?
“I wish I have not done/said that.”
“I wish I haven’t sent that message/e-mail.”
“What she told me was really hurtful. I don’t want to speak to her ever again.”
“OMG, I am so stressed about that presentation I have to do next week, I’m going it screw it up”
“I am going to lose my job, I am sure of it.”
“When I get promoted, I will be happy.”
“I wish I had more time.”
“I wish my husband/wife/colleagues/bosses were different.”
The list is never ending… It’s constant. You achieve or change one thing, mind gets satisfied for about three minutes and it starts all over again.
The idea of ACCEPTING WHAT IS, is inviting us to detach from the idea that things SHOULD be different. Says who?? (…your thoughts – in case you haven’t guessed the answer)
It invites us to NOT judge the situation. Judgement causes resentment and that energy consumes all our focus. It affects our mental wellbeing which over time manifests in dis-ease, illness and ill-being.
Accepting situations and people as they are allows us to focus our energy on CREATING our life – not on FIGHTING what is.
Simply put; situations and people are neither good nor bad, our perception and our thinking/judgement makes them good or bad. Situations and people are what they are. And our thoughts (if not controlled and regulated) will try very hard to persuade us that things SHOULD be different.
The whole concept of “accepting what is” is a process. It’s training and it takes time because it is not natural to our egos and our thoughts. It means constantly bringing ourselves (mindfully) to the question of “how do I want to feel?”. And if your answer is “I want to feel at ease and not in resistance, resentment and fight mode”, than accepting things as they are is your way forward.
If the above triggers your curiosity and you would like to learn, discuss or apply the concept of acceptance, as an accredited Transformational Coach, I will be delighted to be your buddy and support.
Visit me on michaela-smith.com and get in touch. I offer a free 60-minutes discovery session to talk about what you want to address and how we can work together.
And I leave you with two quotes from two of my favorite mind teachers.
“What happened, happened, and couldn’t have happened any other way ………. because it didn’t.” ~ Peter Crone
“You can’t create a new future holding onto the emotions of the past.” ~ Dr. Joe Dispenza
Have a good one.
Michaela x
?Certified Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner ? Emotional Intelligence Coach ?Addiction/Trauma Therapist ? Psychedelic-assisted Therapy
3 年Cool article, Michaela.
Executive Advisor, Coach & Mentor | Get Out of Your Own Way? Programme, Workshops & Retreats |Fractional Chief
3 年So true. The truth is there, the decision to accept it is often much harder... I highly recommend researching radical acceptance theory by Marsha Linehan, the founder of Dialetical Behaviour Therapy. It can especially effective for emotional regulation when confronted by complex or simultaneous issues (as well as complex mental health diagnoses).
Global Manager of Memberships & Sales, Club Quarters Hotels
3 年I think media - print/ audio and online, all play a big part in people’s ability to accept things the way they are. Being fed millions of pieces of information every day leads to peoples perception that their own situation needs to be improved. Whether that be looks, weight, work ethic, relationships - there is a constant barrage of “if you do or say this, then this will happen”!! It is difficult to accept you are who you are when advertising firms make money on telling you this is who you can be by buying this product or using this service. Just my thoughts.
Director of Sales at Ramada Encore, Muscat, Oman
3 年Read this twice today ... Amazing article ... Thank you for sharing