What does acceptance or accepting mean? “Accepting the negativity that life can bring and overcome them and accepting that things won’t go as planned and that you can’t control them…” was someone’s answer to the question: What is your biggest challenge with your personal growth and wellbeing?
Wikipedia states that “Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it.”
This can be challenging to do even for seemingly ‘small’ things. I’ve been having some work done on my home and I was astonished by my dissatisfaction with many things: the untidiness and dust, with the smell of paint (I’d forgotten to ask for odour free paint for the wood), with what I considered to be a poor finish sometimes, work that had to be redone, the fact that workmen were in my space - some days I could not wait for him/them to leave and more…
I got into serious drama at times and kept my sanity by continuing with my daily practices - walking, yoga postures, breathing exercises and meditation, which always took me to a calm inner place. We go into unhelpful drama when we are not getting what we want and the challenge is to accept situations that are not going the way that we would like. “I like this, I don’t like that, this isn’t up to [my] standard, s/he is really annoying…”
This is all mental chatter, conditioning and having expectations that we want to be met or everything to be perfect..
I decided to research what the enlightened masters and spiritual teachers say about acceptance.
Sadhguru says that “acceptance facilitates a free flow of life...Either your body or your mind being in some way constricted means your ability to experience life also gets constipated…[and] there is no free flow of life”
Eckhart Tolle tells us “to accept the present moment, not the entire situation...Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it...This will miraculously transform your whole life.”
Spiritual teacher Jiddu Kristnamurit said, “...don’t mind what happens.”
Lao Tzu says, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Accept the present moment and then consider what action needs to be taken, without resisting what is. It is when we ‘mind’ something that there is a problem.
How does this work in everyday life when the mind has such a strong negative bias. My humble experience is that self awareness is the key. We have to pay attention to what is happening in the moment without any desire to change it, to see the situation for what it is without wanting or trying to control it - often we can’t control it anyway. Once we accept, we can take action that isn’t driven by resistance or the need for control.
One day, the mobile phone of the man working in my homerang. He had it on speaker and as he spoke to his daughter she asked him how the work that he was doing at his home was going. “The kitchen was almost finished,'' he said, “and he would be working on his bedroom next”. She felt that he should do his living room first and they went back and forth for a while about this.
As I listened to this conversation, I thought, “He sounds like a nice man. She obviously cares about him. He’s not a demon to her but her dad - a loving person.”
This stopped me in my tracks. I felt acceptance that he was a human being. Right now in the moment all was well. My own mind and body were getting in my way and I was creating all sorts of stories in my head. I could see that he was used to a cluttered environment and I was not. He worked one way and I would have preferred him to do certain things a different way. I expected things to be a certain way and was indeed trying to control how things happened. However, it wasn’t working.
As soon as I accepted him the way he is, I felt lighter and freer. I was no longer resisting the situation. My whole energy shifted to calmness as I accepted the situation. Acceptance is freedom indeed.
By focusing on the real person, on his own unique way of being and doing things, I saw more of his humanity and decided to change my behaviour. Acceptance also leads to behavioural flexibility.
It was not passive acceptance. This was a decision point. I chose to have a chat with him from a place of no resistance and agreed what needed to be done, including what I wanted to have happen.
Coach’s Tip
When you become aware that you are resisting rather than accepting a situation, take you attention to the present by focusing on your breathing. Do this for as long as necessary to feel centred and more at peace. Often a five to ten breaths are enough.
Then take a metaphorical step out of the situation and become the witness. Look without judgment at what us happening - that isn’t working out or in some cases is working well and still creating resistance. Consider what you would like to have happen instead that is in your control and create an action plan. Then take the first action step.
