What Even Is It? (acceptance)

Oh. Hi. You.

(Feels like it should have been on Oh. Hi. Oh. joke?!?)

ACCEPTANCE has been on my mind lately.

(I accept my missed joke opportunity and I accept how weird it is that I didn't edit this nonsense out)

We see this word, acceptance, all over the place, all the time.

We hear this word in wisdoms like 'grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change,' in reminders that we can only control our reactions not other people, in traditions about surrendering to things as they are.

Present moment stuff.

I'm a big believer in that stuff. I'm also a big believer in fighting for things that matter, working to make the world better, not rolling over just because someone else says that's the best idea.

So I suppose I'm a big believe in each of us finding our personal venn diagram, middle ground, liminal space, where these overlap.

Acceptance is not meant to be passive.

Acceptance is a lot of work, a lot of effort, and totally frickin rockstar.

I get sooooo mad when (cough fake wellness types cough) say things like, "oh my god you are so brave for...doing something like taking the time for a bath or gasp allowing yourself to age."

So please stay with me and don't be too mad and try not to roll your eyes when I say:

It takes a lot of courage to work with acceptance.

Our society has created a million ways to avoid reality. We numb, we escape, we get overwhelmed and tune out, we flight, freeze, fawn. To be a person who says – okay, I' going to pause and I'm going to REALLY SEE what's happening – that's scary!

Once we REALLY SEE what's happening, we'll come up against our resistance. Our egos, our storytellers, our identity, will resist paying attention to anything that disrupts their comfort.

Self likes a static story, but Consciousness knows we are constantly becoming.

so, i mean, like, what do we do??

We REALLY SEE what's happening. Then we take time to acknowledge it.

Something really hard happening? If you can, go into a room by yourself and scream, cry with a friend, write 'this sucks' a million times in your journal. This is the acceptance part. We don't have to be okay with what's happening, but we also don't have to pretend everything is fine.

The acceptance part is allowing for pain. For big feelings.

If we let these move, we make the space to get unstuck,

to figure out the next best action to take.

And we keep doing that over and over and over and over and over

and over and over and over and over and over.

Stuck in a rainstorm? You see the rain. You notice you're all wet. You can't change the rain, you can't change that you're already wet. You can say to yourself, this is super lame and also I can't make it not exist. You give yourself a shake. Then you decide, what to do next.

Our sense of identity gets a little locked in, something we can't control happens in our lives or in the world, we tell ourselves to really see what's happening, we meet resistance so we do the work to crack our feelings open, we feel them, we open up to movement, we let our identity crackmeltshift, we witness, and as Observer we can figure out what action will help us flow into the next moment of balance.

And then we do it again.

Because there's never a point where 'normal' wins or chaos ceases.

Because science tells us existence is entropy.

Because we've all lived in this world and we know it's wild.

Remember your practices.

Move your body. Take a walk. Breathe fresh air. Touch grass.

Stretch or meditate.

Whatever works for you.

Connect with body.

And then do it again.

Over and over.

(and some more overs)