Acceptance, what a painful thing that can be sometimes. Pretty easy to accept the things we like but what about the things we don’t like? I talk to myself- asking- how can I not accept a fact? That doesn’t sound rational. A fact is a fact, it doesn’t change because I don’t accept it. Yet, accepting what is — is not as easy as it sounds. I saw a definition of acceptance as “a person’s assent to the reality of a situation.” I am surprised how many times I choose not to deal with my reality.
Usually I have many reasons to choose from when I don’t accept the reality of a situation, when I don’t accept a fact:
- I don’t agree with it, it’s not what I want to happen
- I want the fact to change
- I want someone to change
- I don’t like what happened or what happened is unfair
- Or, I choose not to accept the fact because it easier to do, than accept my inability to control what happened.
I am so caught up in emotions, that accepting what is, is not an option — it’s not on my mind. Rationality often takes a back seat to my emotions; my viewpoint about the fact gets in the way of my accepting it.
Nine times out of ten, the pain of non-acceptance causes me the most pain. For example, I get stuck in traffic and I am going to be late. I hate being late. I react as if I can scream at the traffic and somehow miraculously, the traffic will clear. If I clench the steering wheel, give it a couple pounds, say I can’t believe this is happening enough times, maybe the traffic will go away. It’s like I would rather disagree with the fact, than accept it and see where to go from there.
When I accept what is, I free myself from unnecessary pain and struggle. When I am in non-acceptance, I tend to ask, why me, why is this happening to me, how could this be happening to me, this can’t be happening to me? Starting from acceptance, I ask different questions. I have a different perspective. When I accept what is, the acceptance has me thinking forward, not stuck in the past, nor focused on why. When I accept what is, I focus on what happens next not on what already happened. I move beyond what happened.
If I could only do that more, my world would look like this: something happened, whatever it was, I accept it and move forward- accept what is. Granted, I do believe there are occasions when non acceptance equals self preservation, a pain so deep that bringing it to the forefront immediately would wreck the brain. But the bottom line is: most of the things I don’t accept don’t fall in the self-preservation category. It’s amazing to me, when I am paying attention, how often I reject facts. And, it’s not that I can’t accept certain things, it’s that I don’t want to … I choose not to. Finally, I am learning that a lot of times when I practice non-acceptance, it causes me more pain than when I accept the fact and move forward.
“Acceptance is the key to be, to be truly free.”
