Animation: Acceptance
What are you fighting within yourself? An emotion, a thought, a feeling, a belief? How much energy are you spending on doing that, and how is it making you feel? If you’ve been fighting with it for a while, and not seeing the changes you want to, it might be helpful to try something new.
Acknowledge it for what it is. Your pain, difficulty, frustration, anger, and life experiences are real, valid and true. When we fight against reality, we lose. When we acknowledge it for what it is, we free up our energy to be used in far more productive ways.
Once you acknowledge it, you can accept it. You don’t have to approve of it, like it, or force yourself to want it. Acceptance is just embracing the truth that this is how it is right now.
And the magic of acceptance is that it can facilitate change, change that really isn’t possible when we’re fighting against it. As Carl Rogers wrote, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
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