At the heart of many support groups is affirming the Serenity Prayer (or poem): “Grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”. As I discussed in the last blog post, the hardest part for many of us is the part about accepting what we can’t change, as most of us favor having a sense of control. When people hear the word “acceptance”, some tend to turn away, or cringe – as it can appear to mean something along the lines of “just live with it” or “just deal with it”.
Some people may mistakenly see it as a stage that once you obtain, you reach a level of acceptance, and then life just becomes easy as pie.
I think that acceptance is an ongoing process.
Acceptance is a necessary revelation to combat our notion that we have ultimate control over the world, others, our health, and other life circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Certainly we do have some level of control – and we can identify some things in our lives that are unacceptable and then make some healthy changes.
Mindfulness comes into play too. Our mind, the interpreting machine, that takes facts, adds opinion, and then sells it to ourselves as truth, often will give us messages about how dire our situations are, sometimes will criticize us, or will convince us to make poor choices to deal or cope – then we get depressed, anxious, angry or we do something that ultimately makes our situations worse.
Acceptance is realizing that we are limited in changing others. Acceptance is recognizing that life will often throw us something unexpected. Acceptance is also self-acceptance that includes awareness of our limitations, our faults, our flaws, our mistakes, along with the opposite: and that is being able to see our strengths, our accomplishments and the good that is within us. The strengths and positive aspects of ourselves is often what we minimize or overlook.
Practice changing what you can, and then let go of the rest. Learning to let go is very difficult, maybe harder than asking for help and anything else. Learning to let go takes practice. It often requires support – as it is really a difficult task to deal with the things that life throws at you by yourself. Life can sometimes go good, and then the “cosmic 2×4 (or large wooden board)” hits us when we least expect it.
I accept you for who you are. I accept that I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, where I will go, and what life will bring my way.
One of the biggest gains that I have taken from spirituality (Taoism, Stoicism, Native American philosophy, and all the psychological knowledge that I have gained), is the wisdom of accepting that some things are out of our control and that – sometimes, the only thing we can control is how we react to things. It is good if we can take a step back and notice how our thoughts tend to make reality seem worse (or in the case of addictions or destructive relationships, how our thoughts may minimize the destructiveness or as family members, lead to enabling, rescuing, and other destructive behaviors). In other words, we can learn a path of looking at the role and power that we give to our thoughts and then start practicing the art of reacting to life in better, healthier ways
Also, a part of acceptance is recognizing when to yield. Learning to yield means to learn when to not go against the grain. Realizing that we are part of a larger system and how our actions can cause ripple effects – in either a good way for all things around us, or in a not-so-good way. I say this because one bad decision or action can result in years or even a lifetime of pain.
Mindfulness helps us be aware of ourselves – as if viewing from an outside perspective. It also helps us be aware of our thought machine in our head, which is often helpful, yet other times, often gets in the way of living fully. With mindfulness we can recognize how we sometimes throw dirt on top of the dirt that life is trying to bury us with. Again, we tend to make things worse with our thoughts and behaviors.
It is scientific to say that one’s quality of life is relative. Yet, it is practical and more relevant to realize that that how we perceive life can be changed in a way that gives us a better quality of life. At the same time, we can continue to remind ourselves that we can’t control everything, we often can’t change others, and we grow from both the unwanted or unexpected circumstances we find ourselves in. How could you explain acceptance to others – that it is not hopeless resignation, that it is letting go of the things that we can’t control and finding some peace and serenity in learning to do that?