“Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
What is Acceptance?
Now, Acceptance can be describe as recognizing a situation, a process or a condition and accepting it without trying to change it or protest it.
Sometimes you’re an observer of other people’s lives and you think you’ll never experience what they’re living, whether it’s a positive or negative situation. You think, “That will never happen to me.”
Part of the real beauty of life is that it’s unpredictable. Nothing is permanent, everything changes, and of course, a lot of things can happen that will transform who you are and have an impact on your life. The problem is that we need to cultivate the ability to truly accept whatever comes and embrace it.
“Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.” ~Arthur Rubinstein
Why do we need to accept present?
Life will definitely bring many challenges, such as losing someone we love, and it’s not easy to embrace them when we’re suffering and wishing those things would have never happened. But if we start cultivating acceptance in our lives right now, we’ll likely cope with future crises in a different way and view them from a different perspective. We will accept instead or resisting.
Yes, acceptance is a choice — a hard one most definitely, but a choice nonetheless.
Acceptance is the key to convert momentary happiness to enduring happiness. It helps you to move on from feeling happy to actually being happy.
In the last one year a lot of things had happened in our life. I personally suffered a lot and came out of it by simply accepting things as it is and not expecting what it should had been. Accepting is very hard choice but when you finally do it , you will become free and ready to embrace anything that life throws at you. Whether it’s a family loss, a missed opportunity, or a sudden change in your plans, being able to accept things that are out of your control will help you maintain inner peace and happiness.
Let me clarify that acceptance is not at all related to weakness, and is definitely not a synonym of conformity or mediocrity.
We need to learn how to identify when it’s time to persist and when it’s time to accept. One thing that makes acceptance much easier is to list all the possible explanations for why you’re experiencing something.
Finding the lesson or purpose behind every hurdle will help you embrace it .
Choose not to judge what happens to you. Instead, believe that everything happens for a reason and that better things will always follow. That’s the beginning of true acceptance.
Sometimes God makes better choices for us than we could have ever made for ourselves. So just have faith in God. Accept and embrace it. God always have better plans for us .
Self Acceptance
Self-acceptance is being satisfied with one’s current self. It is an agreement with ourselves to appreciate, validate, and support yourself as it is, despite deficiencies and negative past behavior. People have trouble accepting themselves because of guilt, trauma, or a perceived lack of motivation . To accept yourself means to no longer reject yourself. Being rejected is bad for your health. Protracted feelings of isolation, loneliness, and rejection tend to coincide with deteriorations in physical health, which can be derived from a lack of eating or exercise. They don’t sleep well, their immune systems sputter, and they even tend to die sooner than people who are surrounded by others who care about them. We think if we punish ourselves enough, we’ll change. Accepting ourselves unconditionally is difficult because we must give up the fantasy that if we punish ourselves enough with negative thoughts, we’ll change but instead we make ourselves more anxious. The frightened little child inside of us doesn’t respond favorably to such a mean dictator. Instead, we need to find ways to accept the anxious part of ourselves, to hold that part by the hand and gently say, “You’re OK.”
Social Acceptance
Social acceptance affects people of all social and age groups. Children and teenagers tend to desire to be accepted among friends as part of that group, and act upon that desire through peer pressure. Peer pressure sometimes determines how people style their hair and clothing to “look cool”. A desire to be accepted by those whose friendship one values can determine their openness towards popular behavior smoking, drinking, swearing, and more. People exhibit and avoid certain behaviors out of the desire for the approval of their friends, which may include drinking or taking drugs. Now a days people worry for friend’s or society’s acceptance , when they only need self acceptance .When it comes to Mental Disorder , social acceptance plays a big role in recovery . Many people don’t understand mental illness, so they are unsure of how to embrace people who have a disease, leaving these people with feelings of isolation in friend groups.
“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
― Ellen Bass
