ACCEPTANCE
In Tara Brach’s book, Radical Acceptance , she uses the term to “cage” oneself by putting up the artificial walls of self-judgment and anxiety. (See some of the “cage” statements in Cage Statements, with acceptance statements and empowering statements.) [This is mandatory reading for all. Richard Lui holds it as one of the vital few books to have. Hopefully, the quotes and comments herein will help give you a view of what is in it. This is a “review”, of sorts, of the book, with the critical opinion that it is an absolutely excellent book.]
Once one gets to the point of realizing that all self-judgments (right/wrong, good/bad, and I’m powerless to survive) and almost all threats are not real and are strictly fabricated as a childish way of “protecting” oneself from the concept of “non-survival,” there is nothing left to not accept.
Definition
Accept: To receive with approval or favor; to admit and agree to; accede or assent to
Essentially, we are resisting, feeling displeasure, and suffering by not accepting most of what is in our lives – and we’re doing this as a result of some things we made up as a child, things that have no basis in truth. See the Sources of Suffering discussion. [Note that resisting never changes the actual reality at the moment. See The Realities Of Life.]
When we let go of these, what we get is fully engaging in this world – “wholeheartedly caring about the preciousness of life.”
The false beliefs that cause us not to accept (and cause us suffering) are:
1. We are defective, unworthy, incomplete, basically flawed, something is fundamentally wrong with
us.
2. Something bad is going to happen.
3. We must avoid disapproval.
We adapt to these false beliefs by spending our time, energies, and lives on:
1. Trying to manage the pain, trying to soothe ourselves
2. Avoiding the pain
3. Trying to stave it off by replaying worries and plans
4. Addictions (substances, people, romance, stimulation) that numb us out
5. Hiding who we are and operating in fear of being discovered.
The irony here is that we don’t know who we are and we assume we are
everything around us. We are pure awareness and love.
What a waste!!!!! None of these work and all have great costs to us.
If we believed the above were true to some extent, we would attempt to deal with them in a more beneficial way, such as:
Learning to love, accept, and be kind to ourselves and hold ourselves in compassion (See and
Relaxing about our imperfection, and realizing that trying to be other than we are is a
waste of effort
However, as dealt with in The Underlying Basics of Life, Parts I and II, we may be spending our lives trying to walk around and adjust to the pink elephant in the middle of the room (accept it), while we should, instead, just realize that there really is no pink elephant that is real and just “get rid of it” and walk freely about the room.
The Truths in life are actually:
I am worthy simply because I do exist. (If a baby is worthy when the baby can only cry, take in food and liquids and excrete same, then how can we after becoming much more useful and functional be any less worthy?)
There are endless creativity and possibilities that exist in living this life!
There is simply no truth (we made it all up) in the three concepts that have us suffering: good/bad, right/wrong and my survival is threatened as I am not powerful enough.
I am powerful, period.
I am simply he/she who experiences (and there is no right/wrong, good/bad).
We will cease to exist only one time. The others are all false and needless alarms.
The only question is: How high shall I go?
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Read the pieces on the website www.thelifemanagementalliance.com, Psychology, Overall on the judge, critic, blame, shame, guilt concepts. You should put these to rest forever and always.
Acceptance (or the diminishment of non-acceptance) is enhanced by filling up one’s “emotional tank”. Regular reminders of your goodness, power, and survivability are useful, such as looking at photos, writing up good things you’ve done, keeping copies and logs of thank you and good deeds, the use of mantras and empowering statements/affirmations.
Excerpted or adapted from the book Radical Acceptance, as a preview:
Our purpose in life is: Helping love to flower in all being everywhere. If they could only see themselves (and each other) as they really are.
The trance of unworthiness: We spend our lives with desires fixating on soothing, once and for all, our anxiety about imperfection.
We need to accept our humanness and that we
Long to be loved.
Yearn to feel our own goodness.
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