Fear, anger, resentment, confusion, hurt, sadness. Also joy, love, hope. That’s a sampling of the emotions I have felt just in the last week. In other words, a normal week in 2022.
In case you hadn’t noticed, these are really complicated times in the world. Most people are struggling at some level, although some have much harder lives than others. I won’t attempt to explore here any of the dire things that are happening in the world, except to say that I am grateful to all the good people who are out there doing what they can, where they are, to help however they can.
What I want to share right now is a super-helpful idea I have learned from some very wise coaching and mindfulness sources. This is a “meta” idea and a bit tricky to understand, but quite powerful. It goes like this:
We know that it’s helpful to accept reality as it is, and then choose our responses and actions based on reality. That saves a lot of energy that we normally tend to expend on wishing things were different, blaming someone or something for the way things are, and complaining that things “should” be different. Wishing, blaming, and complaining are normal and understandable responses, but not actually useful.
But what if I’m really struggling to reach that state of acceptance so that I can move on to a constructive response? What if I am stuck with resenting all the things that I believe are wrong?
Enter the meta-acceptance move: can I accept myself for struggling to accept reality? Can I say to myself “It’s ok that you’re having trouble letting go of feeling hurt and confused?”
This may sound very strange. It’s a bit like a martial arts move of flowing with your opponent’s energy rather than trying to block it. Accepting the reality that I struggle to accept reality is surprisingly powerful. It has helped me a lot recently: I can take things a bit more lightly, laugh at my situation, and release my tight grip on trying to do everything right. Suddenly it’s ok that things are sometimes difficult and baffling.
Basically this is a move toward self-kindness. And it’s not at all self-centered, because it frees me up to be more kind and more present toward everyone and everything. I need to be kind to myself in order to keep trying to do the best I can for our hurting world.
This loosening of my grip on the struggle also helps me be more open to joy. Here’s a sunset I captured a few years ago. Whatever your struggles are, may you find acceptance and joy as you keep going.
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