Acceptance

Acceptance can be difficult at any stage of life. 

As a teenager accepting that your parents are trying their best, or not trying hard enough, or that friends aren’t really your friends, or that school isn’t working out the way you thought it would. 

As a young adult accepting that university isn’t what you thought it would be, that the job you have isn’t turning out the way you thought it would, that you can’t afford the life you want to have. 

As an adult accepting that your career isn’t moving in the direction you would like, that you’re still living at home, that you may be an alcoholic, that you’re pregnant, that you’re not pregnant, that you’re sick – very sick. 

With aging families accepting that your parents aren’t the same people anymore, that life hasn’t handed you the life you thought you’d have, that you won’t have the savings you thought for your retirement, that your marriage isn’t what you thought it would be. 

How do you get from admitting things don’t look the way you thought they would to accepting what they are?  It often seems that circumstances don’t shift until we fully accept our situation for what it is. 

Several definitions of ‘accept’ appear in Webster’s 9^th New Collegiate Dictionary. They  include: to receive willingly; to give admittance or approval to; to endure without protest or reaction; to recognize as true; to regard as having a certain meaning; to agree to undertake.

My favourite of the above, the definition that captures the sense of acceptance as I mean it here, is the first one: to receive willingly.  To me that definition captures the essence of how I feel when I really accept my circumstances.  The definition which makes me think twice is the ‘enduring’ one.  All too often I feel as though I’m ‘enduring without protest or reaction’ but if I really pay attention to my heart, I find that although I’m not protesting on the outside, part of me is violently protesting on the inside. 

Acceptance isn’t a head-thing; it’s a heart-thing.  By that I mean that your heart needs to be accepting of your circumstances and your heart won’t be rushed.  I know I have had times (very recently even) where I have found myself staring at the sky saying “Okay.  I accept it all.  I’m good.  It’s all okay.  So – can we move on now?”  Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to cut it.  I want to believe that I’m ‘agreeing to undertake’ my given circumstances but the truth is I just want them resolved so I can get on with whatever I would rather be doing. 

The closest a person can get to full acceptance is sometimes simply accepting the moment they are in.  That may sound silly or over-simplistic.  But if you think about it – no matter how dire the circumstances – if you can stop yourself for a moment – just a moment – and reflect, you will see that for that moment you are okay.  Then as you string those moments together they start to add up. 

The idea is simple but not easy.  Especially when stopping itself is difficult.  Even if you are able to stop, then not getting ahead of yourself is difficult.  “Ya – I’m okay right now but what good is that going to be when the rent is due…the baby comes…my mother dies…?”  Yes – it all has to be planned out and thought about but it need not take up every moment of every day.  Give yourself a break from thinking and planning for the future and fretting about the past.  Breathe in and breathe out.  And do it again.  Notice the small things.  In the moment.  The sunset.  The clouds.  The smile of the person passing you on the street. 

It doesn’t take away the pain or the challenge of the bigger picture.  But it does expand your attention beyond the difficulties you face and draws your attention to the moments that can be accepted in the midst of it. 

“I accept all that this day brings me: both the good and the bad.  I receive the good into my being and I let go of the things I don’t need or can’t handle right now.”