“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
-Lao Tzu
The Law Of Acceptance
Spiritual acceptance means to not resist the experiences of your life, but rather to permit them to be as they are and let the energy flow with what is happening. It is the ability to allow people, circumstances, and situations of life to be as they are, and to make peace with your circumstances.
This universal law is also about the conscious choice to drop all forms of grudges, egos or resistances and to be in the present moment.
The law of acceptance is not about just liking or approving of thigs or people and accepting them. It is about letting life flow and unfold as it is and as it should be without our presumption, ego, mindset, emotions or judgements getting in the way…
The Deeper Meaning Of Acceptance In Life:
Acceptance means true kindness, and true kindness means loving life and everything in it ‘unconditionally’ and resisting the dangers of perfectionism. By loving and accepting our humanity, we will treat all humanity in the same way. All history-makers have worked hard to achieve self-awareness and full acceptance of themselves. Only after this can we give compassion and love to others and reduce the suffering of others.
Acceptance is an active process of creating a prelude to change and becoming the best version of ourselves. This does not mean limiting our possibilities; Instead, we provide space for promotion and leave all the margins aside.
The Counterpoint To Acceptance
“The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”
-Eckhart Tolle
The opposite of ‘acceptance’ is ‘judgment’.
To accept, we must stop judging even in our thoughts and accept the whole reality not the parts that we want to accept based on our own choices or experiences.
Acceptance does not mean avoiding a subject, thing or person or resignation from facing the hurtful truth. True acceptance comes to us only when we accept ourselves can we accept others and life’s events ‘completely’.
Let’s not be mistaken, acceptance doesn’t mean giving up trying to improve. We need to think about individual and social development, as trial and error and achieving goals are all parts of the process of our development. If we fail or make a mistakes in some areas or experiences of our lives, we should ‘accept’ it for the experience it was and learn the lessons it teaches us, and try again to do something better in the present and build a better future by accepting the reality of those lessons that we have learned.
Accepting is fully acknowledging the facts of a thing, person or situation and not forcing or trying on fixating it by thinking on how it shouldn’t be that way…
“Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.”
-Paul Tournier
What Is Required For True Acceptance/Admission?
We need to take a step back sometimes and become more self-aware, carefully examine what is happening inside us, and ultimately prepare ourselves for future life experiences.
The three important principles for achieving the art of acceptance are:
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness does not mean that we can change events outside of our control; Rather, we can only change the way we perceive events. The fact is that no event by itself can bother us; Rather, it is our judgment and understanding of the event that can harm us.
We don’t know what will happen when, we can only prepare for it.
When we focus on our strengths, we will not only be happier but also more effective and creative.
Mindfulness
Sometimes we cannot reconcile our feelings with objective reality, and we need to examine what is going on inside us.
The quality of our awareness, recognizes what is happening in our moment-to-moment experiences. For example, when we are aware of fear, we know that our thoughts are tense, our bodies feel stiff and trembling because of it, and we may have to run away. But we experience all this without removing the source of fear. It is this ‘mindfulness’ that allows us to see life as it is. (Click here if you want to read more about mindfulness.)
Compassion
It is easy to know what to do, but it is much more important to do it. We need to have compassion for ourselves. We cannot forgive what we do not have.
Compassion in some way is being able to relate in an empathetic way to what we understand from the things or feelings that we experience.
Instead of resisting various emotions, we accept our pain with kindness. We understand ourselves instead of judging. Compassion honors our experience and allows us to be intimate with life as it is.
When we consider all three principles, acceptance does not seem to be a withdrawal, but the most important step towards self-awareness, growth, and freedom.
What Is The Positive Impact Of Acceptance On Our Life?
The more we accept others and ourselves, the more ‘stress-free’ , ‘calm’ and ‘meaningful’ life will be for us. As George Orwell, the famous author of The Animal Farm, mentioned:
“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”
We might ask ourselves what positive impact acceptance has on our lives? We must know that the way we live is a choice. Often these two states are among our choices:
First, we are in a constant battle, fighting our true selves, focusing on the bad aspects, being dissatisfied with the way things are going, and trying to change the people around us.
The second choice is to appreciate everyone -especially ourselves-, for what they are, and are not, without judgment. Accept that what is in the present may change in the future. But it is always towards evolution. This choice is positive, peaceful and successful.
The real acceptance can help to make life easier in many ways. It has this ability because it is the only way to face the anger, stress, anxiety, hatred, depression, despair, ego and guilt, as they are some of the normal human feelings that we face in many life situations.
The ‘mindful acceptance’ means the ability to face the reality in a way that allows us to cope with the past, the uncertainty of the future and the incompleteness of the present, as well as facing the truth about the situations, or things that cannot be changed or transformed at the moment.
Self-Acceptance
Many believe that acceptance should be one of our major life goals and it can help us live a better and more meaningful life. As Carl Rogers (psychologist) mentioned: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
Perhaps to this day, acceptance is associated with negative concepts such as surrender or passivity. Carl Jung has mentioned that ‘we can accept others only to the extent that we have managed to accept ourselves.’ Perhaps self-acceptance is one of the ways to our happiness.
Perfection is not just about making money, becoming famous, reading all the books in the world, or even saving the world single handedly. Maybe we will reach the point of happiness when we accept ourselves and enable ourselves to change and evolve.
By knowing and accepting our selves, as a ‘whole’ and looking at ourselves and our experiences from different points of view, and as an evolving-being, we can see our ‘true selves’ and our humanely weaknesses properly, not only we can change in a positive way and manage our improvement, but also build a bridge to our success. (Read this article to know more about ‘True Self’.)
How To Use The Law Of Acceptance In Your Self-Improvement Process?
- Accept Yourself, Including Your Weaknesses!
Accepting weaknesses does not mean that you should not correct them, but we mean that you should not be depressed because of your weaknesses. Don’t forget that no one in the world is without weaknesses.
First of all, stop blaming yourself and try to accept yourself with all your weaknesses and shortcomings; This means acceptance of this law!
Consider a person who hates being overweight and considers his weight to be a major weakness. She goes on a strict diet to get rid of excess fat, but after a short and temporary period of weight loss, she returns to her former weight and the nightmare of being overweight does not leave her.
The person must first accept this situation in order to correct it calmly, otherwise the diet will bring him nothing but tension and anxiety. - Get Help From Others
Sometimes, you may not have any knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses; In these situations, it is best to seek help from those who know you well and truly want to help you in your growth process. But keep in mind that these weaknesses can be used in a positive direction. Don’t be surprised! This is the technique that can turn your weaknesses into strengths.
For example, your weakness may be that you are very slow at work because you pay more attention to the details and take your job seriously, and this may sometimes make those around you angry, as you do things too slowly that you can’t even finish them at one day’s work hours, and you leave most projects unfinished to come back and finish them later. But have you ever noticed that doing things slowly has made you more careful and made you put more attention to details and made you more subtle than your colleagues at creative projects?
(As another example: Let’s suppose that you can’t get up early in the morning -like many other people- and you’ve lost your job because of this simple weakness… But instead, you are used to be up at night and can easily do intellectual work during the night. At these times, you should spend your mind and physical strength on something that is in harmony with this characteristic that you already have(we are not going to look at the extremes in this example); In this situation you can accept the fact about your current sleeping pattern and then start an changing process mindfully to change the situation for better, or focus on your strength in this situation and and start work in your productive hours, or working on the areas that are not in conflict with your real abilities at the moment, that requires less thinking and less physical strength in the morning, such as managing a website, becoming a content creator, graphic or animation design, and similar projects.)
But if for some reason you can’t find the positive side of your weaknesses, you should try to accept the reality in order to change your habits so that you can make fundamental changes in your lifestyle. In this regard, you can make these fundamental changes in your life by using the power of your conscious habits. (Read this article if you are ready to change.)
- Highlight Your Strengths
If you have many weaknesses that have lowered your self-esteem, use this technique; Try to highlight your strengths.
For example, if you have a habit of smiling a lot and can communicate well with different people, expand the circle of these communications and smile more. By doing so, you have weighed the scales of your strengths so heavily that your negative and weaknesses will be less allowed to maneuver, and this will increase your sense of self-confidence. In this situation, you can work on your weaknesses more easily and without worry, and you can be sure that you will get better results. - Take A Little More Time
You don’t have to be or act like a professional in everything. But if you have many weaknesses in your field of expertise and these weaknesses have hindered your progress, at least try to spend more time in this field and raise your level one or two degrees higher than your current abilities. By identifying your weaknesses and practicing to improve them, you can gradually become a professional and see the results of this behavior’s correction clearly in your personal and work life.
Here Are A Few Simple Exercises To Practice Acceptance In Real Life:
Let’s Focus On What We Have
This may sound a bit stereotypical, but that’s the real solution.
Strengthen the feeling of satisfaction
This concept may be interpreted with neglect, but in reality it is not.
Let’s Forgive Ourselves
Self-blame may take us away from our goals. Let’s move with accepting the situation and know who we have been. And if we want to move forward, this moment is our starting point.
Let’s Not Avoid Reality
We all have things that we are not certain about about our selves or we may find problems that we want to forget in different ways because we want to avoid facing their reality. But we must admit that keeping them deep in our minds is causing us to have some real problems in life. One of the best ways to overcome such issues is connect to our own truth. (Read this article to know more about your ‘True Self.’)
Let’s Find What’s In The ‘Present‘ Moment
We all worry about the past that will never come back and the future that has not yet come. So it’s better to stop sometimes and appreciate the moment of our lives. Sometimes when we look back, we realize that we didn’t try so hard, but it happened, and maybe if we had tried harder, it wouldn’t have happened. But all we have at this time is the present moment and here and now is when we can decide about creating the better, and making the brighter future actually happen in reality!
–Positivity gurus always emphasize the principle of acceptance in life .
“The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door will open. Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade. Joke with torment brought by the friend. Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, then are taken off. That undressing and the beautiful naked body underneath is the sweetness that comes after grief. The hurt you embrace becomes joy.” –Rumi
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