Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined a belief about assumptions and how a human mind thinks when we are in the assuming mode. This week however, I would like to break away from examining another belief and just examine what ‘acceptance’ really means, what it feels like in the mind and heart. I have written about ‘acceptance’ so many times in my posts and because this is something I personally come face to face every time I face a challenging situation and/or person, and because it’s really the very first step in facing any challenging situation and/or person, I thought it was important to write about it and at least give you my perspective on it and step by step on how I practice it because I had to practice it just last weekend 🙂
So, let’s first explore what acceptance really means and let’s take an example from real life. Let’s imagine that you are a person who works in a big corporation and although you are good at what you do, you don’t believe in sucking up to your boss. And because you don’t believe in sucking up to your boss, you were just passed over for a promotion even though you think that you absolutely deserved it. This is a scenario that happens way too often in our lives. So since you are human, when you get your review and you find out that you didn’t get promoted, your mind goes into over drive. It starts to think negative and angry thoughts. It may think something like I am not valued at work or no matter how good I am or how hard I work, no one really cares. You may also think that these other people who got promoted totally didn’t deserve to be promoted etc. etc. And in addition to thinking these thoughts, you will also be feeling a variety of emotions and which will mostly be negative. You may feel angry, hurt, disappointed, fearful etc. etc.
Let’s take another example and let’s imagine that you are part of a very close knit family that loves and respects each other. And in this tight knit family you are very close to one of your family members and they pass away suddenly. You are overcome with grief and shock on what happened and how it happened and what you could have done to prevent it. So again, your mind may be busy thinking a lot of negative thoughts and you may again be feeling a variety of emotions ranging from sadness, fear, guilt, despair, grief, anger etc. etc.
So, the question in both these situations is, when you are in the middle of thinking and feeling a lot of negative thoughts and emotions as a result of what or who you are facing in your life, what does ‘acceptance’ even look like and what is it that you are really accepting? So, let me break it down and give you my perspective based on what I have been learning and practicing in my own life. Acceptance in both these situations would first of all mean ‘noticing’ what it is that you are really thinking and feeling. Then the second step would be to ‘acknowledge’ that you are actually thinking and feeling this way – being honest with yourself. Keep in mind however that this second step, even though it appears to be very simple, is so very complex in reality because as humans in this society we don’t want to appear weak and sad and lonely and guilty. We want to appear very courageous and set examples all the time. Examples for kids, examples for family members, friends etc. And in trying to set all these examples, we don’t just try to hide these feelings from others, we also hide them from our own spouses, our family members and above all we also hide these feelings from ourselves. And because any negative feeling is very difficult to experience and live with, especially for a long period of time, we try not to feel those very uncomfortable feelings by declaring to the world and ourselves that what happened was meant to happen and also announce that we should all get back to our normal lives where we don’t feel the pain and unhappiness. Hence we pretend to be happy, pretend like nothing happened, and pretend like everything really is okay! And this is the worst thing you can do to yourself, your spouse, your family and most importantly to your own kids who you love so very much. More on this next time.
Now the third and final step in the process of acceptance is to ‘allow’ yourself to think and feel the way you are thinking and feeling without judging the thoughts and feelings as bad and without judging yourself as bad a person for thinking and feeling all those negative thoughts and feelings. This is so very important! And this is very important because in this human society which only believes in PERFECTION, it appears that the goal of being human is to be happy ALL THE TIME and because the goal is to be happy all the time, we push away all feelings which are seen as ‘negative’ or ‘unhappy’. However, this is just not right! It’s not right because being human doesn’t mean that you will only feel the ‘positive’ feelings that will bring you happiness. What being human really means is that you will feel everything ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ and learn and grow from feeling all these feelings no matter how difficult they are to feel. And believe me, you can really learn and grow from challenging situations in your life because I did and I still do and I am able to write what I write because of everything that I have learned through the situations and people that came into my own life!
So now that I have laid out these steps, I think it’s very important to also mention that I am NOT suggesting you that accept everything that life throws at you AND not do anything about it. So, in the first example, what I am really suggesting is accept the fact that you are angry and hurt or whatever else you feel and once you have calmed down a little realize how hard working you are and how valuable you are. Realize your own worth and value because when we face outside situations and/or people which we have no control over, we tend to forget our own value and start to ‘assume’ stuff about ourselves which is absolutely untrue. And once you have realized your own worth and value, either make a decision to talk to your boss about not getting that promotion or start looking for another job or both.
Finally, before I end, another very important thing to keep in mind is that there is no timeline for any of these steps. Depending on who you are, what your personality is, what your life situation is, what kind of support system you have etc. etc., you may take more or less time in moving from one step to the next. So, don’t begin to compare yourself with your friend, your family member or anyone else for that matter and beat yourself up if you are the one taking more time. You are not them, you are you and you are perfect the way you are!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
