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Acceptance is the willingness to be open-minded, being free and flexible without having rigidly fixed pre-conditions. It is the opposite of being reluctant to look at something in a new way. Put another way, not having acceptance can cause you to find fault with literally everything around you – including yourself.
Acceptance is one of the important elements of living mindfully, and may take some getting used to. In other words, you have to be willing to embrace the idea of acceptance in order to achieve the element of acceptance.
We could have included acceptance in our topic of positive attitudes which already includes open-mindedness, but its importance to mindfulness makes it deserving of its own title in our Knowledge Base.
It Is What it Is
When we can accept “what is” for what it is and nothing more, we have taken important steps on the path to living mindfully. But this may not be as simple as it seems.
Since our personal sense of reality has been created through our own perception, i.e., by how we interpret our experiences, not the actual events themselves, we tend to mistakenly believe that our personal viewpoint, or our perception of the world, is the absolute, objective truth.
Taking Personal Responsibility
Acceptance therefore, becomes the realization that we can and should change our realities. Once we realize that perception is the foundation of reality, we are forced to take responsibility for the life that we have created and the way we choose to view the world.
Dr. Frederick “Fritz” Perls once said that “learning is the discovery that something is possible.” Once we learn and understand that our perception shapes our experience, we can then see how the roles we play and the actions we take are actually tools which we can use consciously for changing reality.
Two Choices
Once we learn to accept our environment for what it is, we then have two powerful choices. The first is how to interpret the environment. The second is how to react to it. This brings us to an important old saying, “no one can make you angry other than yourself.”
Acceptance allows you to cope and maintain emotional stability – regardless of the environment. Another piece of wisdom from Dr. Fritz Perls is “lose your mind and come to your senses.” In other words, we are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are just thoughts.
A Better Day
Acceptance gives us the ability to deal with whatever comes our way, including feeling sad, down or depressed. Accepting what is, often clears the mind and opens up the possibility of a better day.
This report is not a diagnosis. We hope this information can guide you toward improving your life.
Review our Knowledge Base or the links displayed on this page for similar and related topics.