Acceptance is being in the moment without necessarily agreeing with it. It’s about facing reality rather than trying to control it.”
We have been talking about mindfulness, why it matters, and what mental attitudes allow us to cultivate it. So far, we have covered non-judging, patience, beginner’s mind, trust, and non-striving. This attitude – acceptance – is very important if you want to succeed at being more mindful.
People say things like, “It is what it is”, or “Life is life”. Those phrases, in a coarse manner, summarize the attitude of acceptance. Acceptance may seem passive, but it is anything but! It takes a great deal of effort sometimes to accept the challenges we run up against in life. Often we spend a lot of time and effort resisting or avoiding what’s going on. Perhaps rather than deal with the pain of abandonment, we instead eat an entire box of cookies! Having a beer eases the stress of the day, but doesn’t get at the source of that stress. One beer will become two, three, or four as we continue trying to mask our feelings and not deal with reality.
Megan Bruneau, a Psychotherapist and Executive Coach, tells us five things that we need to know about acceptance:
- Acceptance does not mean liking, wanting, choosing or supporting.
- Acceptance is an active process. It must be practiced.
- Acceptance doesn’t mean that you can’t work on changing things.
- Acceptance doesn’t mean you’re accepting is going to be that way forever.
- We can practice acceptance toward our experience, people, appearance, emotions, ideas, and more.
A friend I grew up with had a mother who was mentally ill. Because my friend (“Sheri”) was the oldest of 5 siblings in the family, she had to step in often to protect the younger children from their mother’s attacks. As soon as she could leave home, Sheri did so, not wanting to ever see her mother again. I couldn’t blame her one bit, but I saw how that decision could not change the past, and it made the present and future miserable for my friend, as well.
Eventually, Sheri sought out counseling and was told that perhaps she would need to just “accept” that her mother would always be mentally ill, and that if she wanted to have any sort of a relationship with her mother, she would have to be the one who would adapt. At first Sheri angrily refused to give in to that attitude of acceptance, and persisted in her feelings of resentment.
Then one day, Sheri’s mother attempted suicide and nearly succeeded. Sheri began to realize that her mother was suffering greatly from her illness and that whatever she – Sheri – could do, it was time to take some sort of action. Before she could put a lot of energy or effort into helping her mother, though, Sheri had to first accept that her mother was who she was and no amount of resisting that would change the reality. Sheri instead decided to quit resisting the truth of the matter and found that it felt like a burden was lifted.
Sheri knew that her mother would never be able to change, so she decided to change herself instead. The possibility of her mother eventually succeeding at suicide made Sheri realize that she could no longer stand by, holding onto resentment. She would cause herself greater pain by doing nothing. Sheri wasn’t grateful for her mother, but she was grateful that she had a mother, and wanted to do whatever she could to help her. One of the most well-known sayings from the Buddhist tradition is a formula for suffering. It goes like this:
SUFFERING = PAIN x RESISTANCE
The more she resisted (didn’t accept), the more she would suffer.
Have you dealt with a situation similar to my friend’s, where you ended up accepting something you could not change, knowing that the suffering would be greater if you did not? If you feel inclined to share your experience here, I know you would find that all of us have similar experiences and have decided to adapt and learn acceptance. It doesn’t come naturally, so give yourself a pat on the back and encouragement for being so very brave!