When someone first suggested to me that I “ Just Accept” I thought they’d gone mad.

Were they asking me to give in, submit, accept defeat and condone something?  How wrong I was.

Acceptance does not mean we are some sort of doormat who just rolls over and takes whatever is happening to us.  It does not mean that this is it forever and nothing will change.  It means we are able to give up the struggle and come to acknowledge that something IS SO.

Acceptance helps us to acquire a clearer sense of reality and is the platform from which informed,  reasoned and lasting change can be made.

All too often we leap from Awareness,  as described in my previous post, to Action.  We cannot bear what has been revealed and we want to change it immediately.

This was my default position.  As I became aware of something I did not like I saw it as a call to action and I leapt into some new behaviour.  I thought I could force myself into complying with my new desire.

Awareness to Action alone does not work because we are reacting.  We are trying to alleviate the discomfort of awareness and may miss out on true understanding and taking considered and effective action to change that.

In submission an individual accepts reality consciously but not unconsciously.  He accepts as a practical fact that he cannot at the moment conquer reality,  but lurking in his unconscious is the feeling:  there’ll come a day…….Dr. Harry M. Tiebout

So often this is the route we take,  we submit,  a sort of pseudo acceptance but lurking below the surface we are still trying to figure out how we might illicit change, our struggle continues.

By yielding you may obtain victory. Ovid

With true acceptance we yield to the truth, we surrender to what is, and drop into reality.

How might we do this:

• We become willing to accept what at first may feel unacceptable or unbearable.

• We can refer to our awareness raising exercises, and remind ourselves of what we have uncovered about ourselves.

• We can gently remind ourselves that this is so, this IS how things are.

• We drop the justifications and excuses. If we find ourselves saying “Yes, but….”, we stop and say, “ Yes, and this is how it is.”

• We notice our wishing things were different and again gently remind ourselves, this IS how things are.

• We give ourselves time to digest the reality we have uncovered.

• We remind ourselves that this is a loving act.  As we are able to see and accept ourselves for who and how we are we will be able to extend this to others.  The world can become a kinder more tolerant place.

• We can use EFT to assist us on our journey. By tapping with the truth we calm our emotional response, clearing the way for greater clarity and insight.

• Even though………use your truth, what you have uncovered……….I love and accept myself anyway.

To find out how to tap check out this helpful guide.

Acceptance looks like a passive state,  but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world.  That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.  Eckhart Tolle