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The Powerful Practice of Acceptance

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The Powerful Practice of Acceptance

We all face challenges, uncertainties, and disappointments. These are features of human life. The question is how we react to them.

Often the way we react to something ends up being worse than the thing itself—causing us more pain for much longer. We wallow in resentment or bitterness, adopt a victim mentality, or ruminate and complain, extending the cycle of misery. When we take something difficult and add resistance to it, it only adds to our suffering.

One powerful practice to break this cycle is “radical acceptance,” accepting situations outside our control without judging them. The idea is to reduce the pain and suffering associated with challenging situations.

Radical acceptance involves accepting reality as it is, so we don’t needlessly extend an emotional reaction that makes it worse. With such a practice, we’re building up our tolerance for distress, which can be quite valuable in all sorts of circumstances. Essentially, we’re preventing pain from turning into further suffering.

Such acceptance makes great sense on paper but can be exceptionally difficult to do in practice, especially given the way we’re wired. Our emotions come strong and quick, and they can flood our system with anger, stress hormones, and other physiological phenomena if we let them.

Can we interrupt the circuit and bring calm and more productive responses instead of becoming the victim of emotional flooding? Can we learn to move on from our initial responses more quickly and effectively?

Accepting things as they are means embracing the present moment and no longer resisting reality. It means acknowledging what’s happening without denying or avoiding it or wishing it away.

With such a practice, we focus on the things we can control, letting go of things we can’t.

Can we learn to accept that life can be good and worthwhile even when it includes pain and suffering? Can we let things go instead of letting them gather inside of us, forming reserves of bitterness and resentment?

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What Acceptance Doesn’t Mean

In this context, accepting things as they are doesn’t mean being complacent, avoiding difficult issues, settling, or giving up on our goals and aspirations. This kind of acceptance doesn’t mean approving of bad situations or passively accepting situations like manipulation, injustice, harassment, or abuse. Acceptance doesn’t mean condoning or agreeing with things, and it doesn’t mean that we stop tending to the fire in our belly or taking action.

Rather, acceptance means that we stop fighting reality. Why not acknowledge and work with it instead? Acceptance means taking a productive, compassionate, and nonjudgmental approach to reality, because it serves us and those around us better.

Clearly, part of the challenge involves knowing when to take reasoned, wise action and when to engage in radical acceptance so that we don’t get caught in downward spirals. Also, acknowledging the current reality without denying it helps free up our thinking so we can come up with new ideas for appropriate actions to take, because we’re using the more advanced parts of our brain.

 

The Benefits of Acceptance

There are many benefits that accompany acceptance. It can improve not only our mental and physical health but also our relationships and performance. For example, this kind of acceptance can:

  • reduce anxiety and lead to less tension and conflict in our lives
  • avoid triggering our stress response (which negatively affects our sleep quality as well as our immune cardiovascular, and digestive systems)
  • help calm our nervous system and lower our cortisol levels
  • free up mental space and energy for coping and problem-solving
  • increase our happiness and wellbeing
  • help us appreciate what we have and cultivate optimism and joy
  • foster trust and intimacy in our relationships
  • help us stop trying to change others (which often leads to frustration and resentment)
  • improve our communication and help us listen more attentively to others
  • help us resolve conflicts more effectively
  • boost our performance since we’re accepting challenges and opportunities and no longer avoiding difficulties

 

How to Practice Radical Acceptance

How does acceptance work in practice? How can we develop and employ such acceptance even in challenging situations? Here are practical steps we can take to develop this capacity:

  1. Perceive things as they are, being an observer instead of a judge or victim. Let go of judging and resisting reality.
  2. Notice when we’re questioning reality or fighting it, often revealed by troubling emotions like irritability or resentment.
  3. Recognize if there are patterns (e.g., similar situations) in which we keep falling into this trap.
  4. Live in the present moment and let go of the past and future.
  5. Remind ourselves that things that have happened had causes and we can’t change them because they’re in the past.
  6. Practice accepting reality as it is with our whole self, including mind, body, and spirit (including relaxation techniques such as meditation or deep breathing).
  7. Allow uncomfortable emotions such as sadness or disappointment to arise within us, avoiding our inclination to resist or numb them. Doing so will only allow them to linger longer.
  8. Direct our attention and energy toward things we can control, instead of toward negative judgments and emotional upset, and accept what we can’t control.
  9. Choose to be effective in challenging situations instead of reactive, hurt, or wounded.
  10. Focus on our own attitudes and actions, while not expecting or needing others to act according to our expectations or wishes.
  11. Evaluate our expectations and whether they’re realistic and appropriate or whether they’re setting us up for disappointment.
  12. Write down the ways we’d act if we did accept the situation and then start doing just that.
  13. Acknowledge that life can be valuable and worth living even when we’re feeling pain or discomfort.
  14. Practice these acceptance techniques over and over again so they become more automatic and habitual, maintaining faith that it will become easier over time.
  15. Keep the Serenity Prayer (or coping statements) close by to help us avoid reverting to unproductive old ways.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”
-the “Serenity Prayer”
The Serenity Prayer
The Serenity Prayer

Reflection Questions

  1. To what extent are you resisting or judging things?
  2. Are you letting your reactions to things make them worse over time?
  3. Which acceptance techniques will you try?

 

Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

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Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Acceptance

  • “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is…. When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.” -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
  • “Acceptance means events can make it through you without resistance.” -Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
  • “The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” -Baruch Spinoza, philosopher
  • “Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is…. There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life…. Radical Acceptance is the gateway to healing wounds and spiritual transformation. When we can meet our experience with Radical Acceptance, we discover the wholeness, wisdom and love that are our deepest nature…. The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” -Tara Brach, psychologist, author, and meditation teacher
  • “Accepting people as they are has the miraculous effect of helping them improve. Acceptance doesn’t prohibit growth; rather, it fosters it.” -Marianne Williamson, spiritual teacher and author

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Breaking the “Trance of Unworthiness”

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Many of us are walking around in a “trance of unworthiness.” It’s a gnawing feeling that we’re deeply flawed. It tells us we’re not worthy of love, happiness, success, or approval. And it follows us around like a shadow.

When I first encountered this provocative term from psychologist and author Tara Brach, it felt like a revelation to me, because I’ve seen it in so many of my colleagues, clients, and students. And because I’ve felt it at times too. Brach describes it as “fear or shame—a feeling of being flawed, unacceptable, not enough. Who I am is not okay.”

“Who I am is not okay.”

Brach tells the story of a dying mother sharing a searing secret with her daughter:

“You know, all my life I thought something was wrong with me. What a waste.”
-a dying mother, told to her daughter (from Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance)

 

The Sources of Low Self-Worth

Feelings of low self-worth (unworthiness) are surprisingly common—and quite destructive. Where do they come from?

According to the research, the sources of low self-worth include the following:

  • Disapproving or overly critical parents or other authority figures (like teachers or coaches), often accompanied by intense pressure for achievement
  • Uninvolved, distant, or preoccupied parents or other caregivers
  • Frequent comparisons to siblings during childhood, leading to feelings of inferiority
  • Excessive praise by parents for performance or abilities (vs. effort and process)
  • Too much unhealthy conflict in the home (note: many children absorb those negative emotions and attribute the conflicts to their own faults or failures)
  • Childhood experiences with taunting, bullying, or ostracism
  • Overprotective parents, leaving children unprepared for challenges
  • School setbacks or failures, leading children to feel flawed or stupid
  • Societal expectations and pressures, including unrealistic portrayals of life and beauty from social media
  • Trauma and abuse
“Why do we hold on so tightly to our belief in our own deficiency?
Why are we so loyal to our suffering, so addicted to our self-judgment?”
-Tara Brach
Tara Brach

Clearly, there are many triggers of the trance. Next, we need to know the consequences of the trance of unworthiness. How does it affect our lives, and what can we do about it?

 

The Consequences of Low Self-Worth

The effects of low self-worth can range from mild to devastating, potentially including:

  • Unhappiness
  • Stress
  • Anxiety
  • Emotional distress
  • Lowered resilience in the face of adversity
  • Substance abuse
  • Separation from others—a lack of deep connection with people you care about
  • Lower salaries, in part due to a lower inclination to negotiate for better compensation
  • Stifling your potential for growth
  • Preventing you from pursuing new opportunities, including lower rates of entrepreneurship
  • Suicide

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The Signs of the Unworthiness Trance

How can we know if we’re susceptible to the trance of unworthiness? Here are some common signs:

  • Recurring feeling that something’s wrong with you, including what Brach calls “the habit of feeling insufficient”
  • Overly active inner critic and negative self talk
  • Perfectionism
  • Numbing behaviors, including addictions (to food, work, alcohol, drugs, etc.)
  • Perpetual busyness, constant multitasking, and frenzied action
  • Preoccupation with achievement, obsession with success, or status addiction
  • Avoidance of vulnerability and self-disclosure
  • Chronic sense of “shame” (“the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging,” as defined by Brene Brown)
  • A “divided life” (“a life in which our words and actions conceal or even contradict truths we hold dear inwardly,” as described by author and educator Parker Palmer from the Center for Courage and Renewal)
  • Restless and perpetual pursuit of self-improvement, fueled by angst of feeling not good enough
  • Badgering yourself for mistakes you’ve made
  • Excessive fault-finding in others, to distract from your own pain or flaws
  • Excessive sensitivity to criticism, even when it’s constructive
  • Difficulty accepting positive feedback
  • Playing it safe to avoid risk or failure
  • Reluctance to ask for what you want or need, and to accept help
  • People-pleasing
  • Self-hatred

When we’re under this trance, we walk around wondering the following:

What’s wrong with me?

This leads to a related concept: “impostor syndrome.”

 

Impostor Syndrome

In 1978, researchers Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes identified a phenomenon called “impostor syndrome” (also called “perceived fraudulence”). It “involves feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persist despite one’s education, experience, and accomplishments.”

Impostor syndrome is a belief that you’re undeserving of your achievements or the esteem you may have. You feel like a fraud who’s about to be revealed. You feel like a phony—and that you don’t belong where you are.

Impostor syndrome is common. Researchers estimate that about 70 percent of adults may experience it at least once during their lives, and they note that it’s more common among women—and specifically women of color—but also relevant to men.

According to Dr. Valerie Young, a researcher who studies impostor syndrome, there are five types of impostors:

  1. The perfectionist: feeling a need to be (or appear) perfect
  2. The natural genius: feeling embarrassed if something doesn’t come easily to you, arising from a belief that competent people can handle anything easily
  3. The rugged individualist or soloist: feeling that you should be able to handle everything on your own and that, if you can’t, it’s a sign of a deep flaw
  4. The expert: feeling like a failure when you don’t know the answer or how to do something
  5. The superhero: feeling that you need to be able to succeed across all domains in your life and work

These feelings are clearly self-defeating. We need to get better at crafting mental narratives that are positive and productive, as opposed to the negative and destructive scripts that have hijacked our brains. Enter the work of Shirzad Chamine on what he calls “positive intelligence.”

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“Positive Intelligence”

 Chamine notes how we’re sabotaging ourselves with our thoughts.

“Most people today live in relatively constant distress and anxiety. This is related to a low-grade but perpetual fight-or-flight response… in reaction to the challenges of life, both personal and professional.”
-Shirzad Chamine, Positive Intelligence

Chamine identified nine “saboteurs,” which are “automatic and habitual mind patterns” that limit our ability to function effectively. The “master saboteur,” as he calls it, is the “Judge”: finding fault with self, others, or circumstances. The Judge sabotages us all, he says.

Other relevant saboteurs include the “Pleaser” (flattering, rescuing, or pleasing others to gain acceptance) and the “Hyper-achiever” (depending on achievement for self-acceptance).

 

What to Do About It

Given how common and destructive these phenomena (including the trance of unworthiness, impostor syndrome, and our mental saboteurs) are, what can we do to flip the script and fill our heads with more forgiving and productive narratives?

Much, it turns out. Here are nine techniques for changing our mental narrative:

  1. The “audacity of authenticity” (described by Brown as “letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are” and “cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable”).
  2. Avoiding the comparison trap, our destructive tendency to compare ourselves to others and judge our worth by how we stack up on superficial metrics
  3. “Radical acceptance” (described by Brach as “clearly recognizing what we are feeling in the present moment and regarding that experience with compassion”). Brach notes that it’s “the gateway to healing wounds and spiritual transformation. When we can meet our experience with Radical Acceptance, we discover the wholeness, wisdom, and love that are our deepest nature.”
  4. Viewing imperfections as gifts, because they connect us more deeply, as Brene Brown notes. People don’t feel deep connections with robots and superheroes. Rather, they form bonds with people when they discover shared humanity and risk vulnerability together.
  5. Challenging our self-doubts and examining the sources of our feelings of unworthiness, recognizing that they’re common and often induced by childhood or other life experiences. We’re not alone in having such thoughts but we must learn to interrogate them.
  6. Forgiving ourselves and healing our wounds. (“We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us.” -Charlotte Joko Beck)
  7. Cultivating contentment, gratitude, and joy. Having a gratitude practice can increase our sense of wellbeing. We can savor what we have, enjoy the little things in life (which often turn out to be the big things, as the saying goes), and find pockets of joy both in the everyday and not just the sublime.
  8. Meditation and mindfulness, including the practice of observing and labeling negative self-judgments when they arise—and then letting them go.
  9. Giving ourselves grace, acknowledging that nobody’s perfect and that the point of life is not to try to appear perfect or successful to others. Sometimes it’s good enough to know that we’re still here and willing to try another day.

The trance of unworthiness is insidious. Its presence in our lives can go unnoticed for years, or even decades, because it operates subconsciously. Its negative effects, while gradual, can accumulate mightily over time, compounding into a mental black hole. It’s time to break the trance.

 

Reflection Questions

  1. To what extent have you and your loved ones fallen into the trance of unworthiness?
  2. What do you think are the root causes?
  3. Which of the techniques above will you try (or have you tried)?
  4. Are you doing enough to stop self-sabotaging and start a more productive mental script?

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Take the Exercise

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles

 

 Postscript: Quotations

  • “Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” -Louise L. Hay
  • “Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-brake on.” -Maxwell Maltz
  • “Most bad behavior comes from insecurity.” -Debra Winger
  • “Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.” -Parker Palmer
  • “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” -Lucille Ball
  • “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” -William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”
  • “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” -Suzy Kassem
  • “You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” -Amy Bloom
  • “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” -Mark Twain
  • “I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” -Carl Jung
  • “All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
  • “The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” -Anna Quindlen
  • “When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable.” -Madeleine L’Engle
  • “Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.’ It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.” -Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

 

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!