When we don’t like what is, we think accepting it will hold us back:

• I don’t like where I work or live.
• I don’t like my habits.
• I don’t like the thoughts in my mind.
• I don’t even know what I don’t like; I’m just unhappy.

We think:
– “If I accept those things, I’ll be STUCK with them.”
– “I’ll get complacent & not strive for something different.”

The opposite is true; change is easier when you accept what you don’t like about the current reality.

1.  Accepting What Is – Unwanted Thoughts:

Have you ever just recognized your thoughts?  I mean, without reacting to them, judging them, suppressing them?  Just noticing.

If you have, you’ve probably seen many more negative than positive ones.

Your brain has a negative bias & that’s why it’s so difficult to think “positively” and so easy to think “negatively.”

The reason for the negative bias is the need to survive.  There was a time when we were tribal beings, dependent on our relationships within the tribe to survive.  Without the tribe’s support, we’d perish.  Threats existed around each corner.  We didn’t have societal governance, police forces or warm homes.  We were exposed to threats of danger and the elements.

Before you judge yourself for your negative thoughts, consider this.

For 3 million years, we depended on our status in the tribe VS only 12 thousand years of more independent-styled settlement living.

That puts some perspective on the matter.

Allow your negative thoughts to be with you.  Not following them but not fighting them either because what you resist will persist.  Give yourself compassion.  Allow the thought to come & leave again, realizing the perception of danger you feel is there for good reason but not based on your current reality.

2.  Accepting What Is – Unwanted Emotions:

This is not what we are used to, but learning to allow our emotions ultimately breeds a sense of hope, not hopelessness.

We are afraid to allow what we feel because we think those feelings will swallow us whole.

THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE:

1. When we make space to allow emotion, it creates a sense of compassion for that emotion.  The feeling quiets down because it “feels heard.” We feel heard.
2. We can’t hate or suffer ourselves into changing.  If we want things to be different within ourselves or reach new goals, we first have to accept where we are with compassion, not hate.
3. Acceptance always precedes change: Learn to like yourself.
4. Forcing ourselves into change because we don’t like where we are is not sustainable.
5. The motive to remove thoughts or habits because we don’t like them is not, on its own, enough to inspire long-term action.
6. Sustainable change comes from adding something we love to someone we love, not removing something we hate from someone we don’t love.

No emotion is bad, they feel bad, but they aren’t.  They simply are.  They are part of where you are right now:

Acceptance Prompt for difficult emotions:

“This is where I currently am.
I have had emotions before.
They come, and they go, and this one will go as well.”

3.  Accepting What Is – Compassion:

• With Compassion always comes a sense of openness.
• A broader range of emotions & thoughts becomes available to us.
• We become more creative in our solutions to problems.

We begin to see that an undesired experience is one wave on a vast ocean of other experiences.  It’s not our whole experience.  Different potential experiences suddenly come online, and what once looked like a tidal wave becomes a ripple in a sea of choices & opportunities.

4.  Time:

It takes time to shift this perspective.  It’s uncomfortable at first and supposed to be; that is part of the change process.

It’s tough when things don’t go our way.  We have expectations that things must result how we want them to.  For example, if we work hard, we expect to be rewarded.  But that isn’t always the case & then we get disappointed in ourselves.

However, we don’t control the outcome of our work.  LOTS of factors play into the results we get.  Even if we’ve worked hard to get something, we don’t control whether we get it or not.

What if:

• instead of putting our energy into an outcome, we don’t control; we look at what we control,
• we change our expectations about what “should” be happening?
• Instead of the end goal, what if our lens looks at HOW we show up, not WHAT we make?

Then we begin to sense pride in our efforts & we can more easily let the outcome be what it is.

5.  How to release expectations:

When stuff doesn’t work out:

1. pivot to form a new goal,
2. a different pace,
3. or another way to get what you want.

Instead of doing something just for the goal & focus on the experience of reaching a goal you:

1. GAIN MORE CONTROL of your emotional experience.
2. You enjoy the process more without all the attachments of how it should go.
3. You enjoy the present moment because you don’t EXPECT that things have to go your way for you to be ok.

Do you see how that works?

Situations are determined not by what we want but by what is.  Accepting that and pivoting to incorporate an inventive means to an end gives us more opportunity to get what we want.

 

Also check out:

What Does Self Compassion Mean?

Breaking Free: A Guide to Harnessing Your Courage & Dealing with Abusive People.