“If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now.”
— Eckhart Tolle
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A big question someone asked me the other day –
How do you accept something you don’t want?
It’s a great point. How do you embrace something that you really really are against?
Well …
The point is, what can you do about it?
From a place of pure logic, is there anything you can do right now to make it different?
Yes or no?
Not maybe, not “if I continue thinking about it,” but a black and white ‘yes’ or ‘no’?
You don’t want it, but here it is. Acceptance isn’t being a doormat or mean you’ve given up,
But if you can’t change or leave it right now, your only option is acceptance.
You don’t have to like it, but you do have to face up to the fact that it’s a fact. Maybe not forever, but right now, that’s all you have.
The thing is, when you see your options clearly like this, you see that it’s not the thing that you don’t want that causes you the pain and suffering –
Your resistance to it does.
A small example: You’re stuck in traffic and getting frustrated because you’ll be late or just want to be home.
Is it the traffic that is the real problem, or your reaction to something you don’t want?
Exactly.
You can't sleep and yet you need to sleep because you have a big day tomorrow. You're tossing and turning and struggling to sleep ... which is the direct opposite of what's needed to fall asleep.
So you can't sleep, but you can relax into that fact and that will at least mean you're conserving your energy, and are much more likely to fall asleep, right?
The struggle is entirely in your hands.
Do you want to keep fruitlessly fighting, or stop and be able to make the most of your moment – on whatever level?
The struggle means you don’t see your options.
All your energy is focused on what you don’t want or don’t have, rather than what you do.
There’s zero room for appreciation or gratitude, or just simple calm.
Stop struggling. Its insanity itself; a type of madness you’re inflicting on yourself – and everyone around you.
Practice shifting your attention away from “What should be” and “What if?” to “What is”.
Not future maybes or what you don’t want, get out and instead notice what is happening, maybe even what you could approve of, that is somewhat good.
That’s priceless. Don’t live “I’ll be happy when …” – live now.
Stress building within you is a great alarm. Use it as a reminder to stop, to choose differently.
If you know the Ascension Attitudes, use them. They’re a real superpower in detaching from habitual resistance and placing you in the heart of what you can do, right now.
Let me know how you get on, alrighty?
Go well,
Arjuna
PS.
Realise this IS a skill and it will take practice. Don’t give up … it’s one of those things that the more you do, the easier it gets.
The reward for patient persistence is real freedom in seeing what you do control rather than resisting what you can’t – and being able to let go into acceptance.
Give it a shot and let me know.