The “A” Word
This post is a bid toward depth empowerment and kindness toward self. In it, I offer some thoughts or nudges for your own exploration of what is true for you. Acceptance has a decent potential for being a “loaded word.” And so, this post is not about explaining it or saying what it should be for anyone else. I offer these nudges and questions because it seems to me, as a tracker, that acceptance is one of the ground zero factors for either suffering or for unlocking life force.
Per usual, I’ll not inundate you with wordy prose. Just some phrases to ponder and a little example:
A person broke their ankle due to the violence of someone else.
They spent days, then months, then years, then a lifetime not accepting. They walked on it without attending to it because attending to it would mean accepting that it happened. They spent their own energy blaming the person and the cosmos. They told everyone the story and the story became a part of their identity. Eventually they give up entirely as a way of protest and became depressed because what happened was truly unfair. Unfortunately, none of it actually skillfully healed the ankle.
What if accepting, in this case, only means I have a broken ankle? Could it then set up the conditions for the appropriate behavioral response: heal the broken ankle? What if accepting the broken ankle and healing it does not, in any way, validate or justify that the person broke it?
It is broken. The person is another matter entirely. And we can never go back in time, so dealing with the person means dealing with them now and creating conditions now that will help to deal with them and others in the future.
Some Puzzle Pieces for Your Own Sovereign Consideration
Acceptance is the path to free energy.
Acceptance means accepting the reality as it is, as opposed to how you would like it to be. Some say that all suffering stems from not accepting the here-now reality as it is.
Being a human means navigating a sea of complexity. The puzzle of acceptance usually includes changing thought patterns. However, the body and the entire experience usually needs to be a part of the process.
In not accepting, the Mind goes forward or backward in time to what it wants or wanted and tries to reject parts of is. Forward or backward in time are where you are not. You have no power where you are not.
Acceptance is not the same as acquiescing, encouraging, or condoning. Accepting that something happened does not mean that the action or event was just or fair or should be repeated
Not accepting here-now means denying-through-editing the simple, wholesome pleasures and the empowerments of here-now.
Saying I should accept usually doesn’t help. Shoulds are often (not always) violent to the truth of the moment and disempowering of self.
Acceptance is the truth starting point.
Courting acceptance is courting here-now, which is also courting the wholesome pleasure of here-now. There is so much less to manage (if anything) here-now. Acceptance means accepting low intensity pleasure and personal power.
Some questions for path
For you, in your own direct experience, what is the relationship between acceptance and Now?
What is the relationship between acceptance and a quieter mind?
And the relationship between acceptance and all of your Parts (protectors/loyal soldiers, firefighters, exiles)?
How can this exploration be liberating of life force and lead to a kinder and better life?