It’s common to hear this advice on acceptance. Something untoward happens and you are asked to accept it.
As you can’t change the past, it’s wise just to accept it. Forget about what happened. Just accept!
But this seems hard, probably unreasonable to do so.
You are angry, resentful or hurt. Not in a state to accept. How can one accept? Or Is it even a real, honest possibility to be able to accept?
Or are we saying that we can accept few situations but few situations we can never honestly accept?
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I think we as a society have a done a poor job of communicating the true meaning of acceptance. More effort should be put I guess. Even this blog post will be a hogwash if you have not experienced something similar to what I’m going to describe. At the least it will be unrelatable. In any case kindly allow me to elaborate.
What is acceptance? When something untoward happens, acceptance of the situation means (a) accepting the situation & (b) the consequences it has on your mind. The (a) part doesn’t actually mean anything without the (b) part.
The situation has hurt you. Accepting is actually feeling the hurt from wherever it is coming. Denying the hurt is not accepting.
Acceptance is not putting yourself in guilt for crying whereas seeing your crying is the acceptance. Giving your crying space, is acceptance.
Acceptance is not suppressing your anger. Instead acceptance is feeling and realising your anger in you, respecting it.
The mistake I see myself do is pushing aside my “negative” feelings anger, guilt, resentment and tell myself accept, accept, accept.
The real acceptance is the acceptance of the response of the pysche.
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One thing I want to distinguish is the self-victimising part. Judging who is at fault in a given situation is jumping to a conclusion. Or justifying the anger with internal chatter is also jumping to conclusion. The act of observing whatever is happening without giving more fuel to it with speech or actions is trying to accept.
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How to accept?
We looked at what is acceptance. But how to? This I believe is a skill that can be practiced and learnt. By observing oneself. If one is angry, observe what is happening to the body? My throat stiffens, I can sense my hands trembling a bit, face is flushed. If at that moment I’ve caught myself being angry, I give myself a duration of at least 30 secs or more to see it more clearly. I close my eyes if possible. Sometimes it’s painful , intense and might need to stay with it longer. After sometime though (most of the times) it melts away like ice. The stiffness is released, my breath is back to normal and I’m better. I’ve not suppressed my anger, and therefore I’m in acceptance of the situation.
Practising breath observation or something similar helps. Vipassana is highly recommended if you can give it 10 days.
The melting away part – is like magic. I wish everybody gets to experience it. It’s weird , but good. There is nothing one can do to bring it about. Only wait and observe till it happens.
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