ACCEPTANCE

Does accepting a situation mean weakness? I was recently asked this question. It's a hard truth about life, when you have to accept unpleasantness, annoying people, annoying questions or a hard core back breaking situation in life ( illness, lost job, mortgage, divorce, death). Life is beautiful but also tough sometimes. No matter how positive or enlightened we are, we will sometimes end up losing the mental equilibrium for a moment. So if you ever meet someone, who is pretending life is awesome and perfect, BE AWARE...I used to be one of those who would freak out at any given situation, acceptance was not even in my dictionary, overly emotional and my emotions made me weak, and one day I realized this is all nonsense. Life cannot be handled this way, Get up and face it. And God knows, the realization came with a head on and never ever again I have shed tears for stupidity or stumbled on useless weeds, until yesterday I went through a little hit and miss situation. Out of all my normal, content days, I felt like my mind was just going through a tiny storm. It was raining cats and dogs in my mental forecast. I really didn't know what or why, but I was not going to sit and dwell on it.  Sometimes there is no reason, no situation, maybe just a little tantrum your mind wants to throw for no apparent reason and sometimes people do have a reason to be annoyed, irritated, angry, restless due to their circumstances....But that situation is always going to sneak in on you, because Life has another side to it. In truth life has its up and down, as we all know, it's never the same all the time but the question now is, how do you deal with it? What do you do when the peace is broken?How do you learn to accept anything and everything that could be happening or about to happen?

That's where the idea of acceptance takes the spotlight. Accepting a situation does not mean whatever bad or unpleasant is happening let it happen and do not react. We are humans after all, we all have little mental mishaps, and sometimes situations do Suck. I have never heard a person coming up and saying, " Wow I lost my job"! yippeee.... yet some enlightened people everyday do manage to get through the suckiest situations like that with a well balanced and accepting spirit. Does that mean they were weak? and have accepted what is going on and just going to sleep on it? In fact these are the people that are strong in their moment, because these people can stand strong despite of knowing the stress and ugliness underneath their circumstances they are able to stand on their feet with faith, most of us would get crippled with the idea of a stressful mind shift.

I was reading a blog by Leonard Noel, a San Diego based therapist, I loved what he had to say about acceptance.

“Acceptance does not mean that we agree with what is happening or that we believe it must continue… Acceptance means that we are able to gaze into the face of the present and say, ’You are in front of me, and I acknowledge you are here."

According to, Thanissaro Bhikkhu a highly respected Buddhist Monk:

“Many people think that self-acceptance means celebrating what’s there already: that you’re good enough, that you don’t have to make any changes. That’s not the case at all.

Acceptance means accepting the fact that you’re responsible for a lot of your experience right now. You can’t blame anybody else. And ultimately that’s a good thing. If other people were ultimately responsible for shaping your experience, what could you do? You’d have to go around pleasing them all the time. But the key fact is that you’re shaping your pleasures and pains here in the present moment. Some of your experience comes from past actions, but a lot comes from the way you shape things with each present intention.
So learn to be open and honest about the role you’re playing in this moment.”

So after my little storm yesterday, I altered my state of mind and trained myself to get up and keep going and Accept whatever I am feeling at the moment. Once you train your mind to understand it, It's not so bad after all. Sometimes mental fatigue from work and routine could end up shifting base in your mind, but I try to learn every single day to understand the mind and it's mood. I get awestruck sometimes when I see people not being able to handle anything at all. Little situations make them crazily upset. And most of the time, people do work on their problems, find solutions, bend backwards but the problems do not seem to vanish, then in that case, there is a magic mantra, repeat after me...  "things are as they are for a reason, there is no reason to hate it, fight it. It will vanish when it's completed it's course. And this too shall pass"!!!!

Easier said than done, but practice always makes perfect. And one thing I mentioned in my last blog was, the best lesson in life is people...Everything we are and want to be is by our surrounding. And people who are mindful, and well trained with handling situations will always survive. I believe in one thing, everyone is a survivor and not a victim. Learning to accept a situation gives people the strength they need when life gets low. And those people pass through quiet smoothly than the rest of us. So next time when you are stuck in a bad mood or an unknown mental tantrum or restlessness, repeat the mantra and it's all going to pass by smoothly.  And just like the saying " Acceptance is having the faith, despite the circumstances, that all is well...