Acceptance is an interesting word. At first blush, it would seem to be something one would \u2018do\u2019, to accept something. But in terms of what we talk about here, I believe acceptance more describes the result of something, rather than something I would \u2018do\u2019. Still, it\u2019s useful to consider. Like gratitude, acceptance flows from a deep movement in us that changes us profoundly.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that acceptance is what occurs when I surrender my sense of self in some situation \u2013 particularly my insistence that things be different than they are. In any given life situation I may have worn out and given up the strategy of resisting life-as-it-is because it hurt so much to resist. Or I may really see that letting go of something is the only intelligent thing. At that point, I give up and immediately I\u2019m in acceptance. It doesn\u2019t mean I like what\u2019s going on, but there\u2019s acceptance of how it is. The essential motion of the \u201cme\u201d who wants things different is released. Acceptance is then an attribute of living beyond my sense of self (of being someone separate from others or from life). From that state I may work on the ground to change something difficult or hurtful, or try to persuade someone to a different point of view, or fix the broken step, but that motion will be from acceptance, and thus not at all like psychological resistance. Action taken from acceptance is palpably different both in how it feels and in its effect. <\/p>\n
Of course, trying <\/em>to accept something that I don\u2019t like because I think it\u2019s a good idea or something I \u2018should\u2019 do, or because I\u2019ll be more \u2018spiritual\u2019, is useless. Yielding my resistance in the face of life is not. It\u2019s common for us to try to be better than we are, clearer than we are (even more accepting!), or more or less this way or that. In other words, we don\u2019t often accept ourselves just as we are. We want to be better or different. This is the source of immense suffering. When there\u2019s surrender to that suffering, there\u2019s less of me. When there\u2019s less of me, there\u2019s more acceptance. With surrender and acceptance, the \u201cme\u201d that I believed needed to change is not even running the life anymore. Whether it improves or changes is irrelevant now; I am free of that concern. <\/p>\n It\u2019s that absence of something again, rather than something new added. When there\u2019s less of me, I am in surrender. I yield naturally to life\u2019s movement. I flow with it instead of fight against it, whether my personal sense of myself likes it or not. Then I am open to the moment, to just being here without resistance. At moments, there is absolute <\/em>surrender, a deep and intimate participation with life without the slightest hint of \u201cme\u201d. The feeling tones of this in one\u2019s life are love, joy, ease, acceptance, gratitude, and deep compassion. I sometimes can\u2019t help but weep. It\u2019s almost a shock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Acceptance is an interesting word. At first blush, it would seem to be something one would \u2018do\u2019, to accept something. But in terms of what we talk about here, I believe acceptance more describes the result of something, rather than something I would \u2018do\u2019. Still, it\u2019s useful to consider. Like gratitude, acceptance flows from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erniethayer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}