Acceptance is one of the “big ideas” in recovery. There is a natural connection between self-acceptance—learning to accept our true self as we are—and learning to accept the world as it is. And the world as it is never fits our expectations. That’s a tough lesson, because a part of us always clings to the idea that the world will magically solve our problems. That is, a part of us refuses to grapple with reality. However, our wise self knows the world does not belong to us. It knows that our expectations do not fit reality.
When we are not aligned with reality, we will experience internal conflict. We will be in a civil war with ourselves. We will try to control something that is not in our power to control.
We cannot alter reality to meet our expectations, but this doesn’t stop us from trying. We cannot negotiate with reality, but this doesn’t stop us from negotiating. We cannot force reality to bend to our will, but this doesn’t stop us from trying to force it.
But at some point, reality forces our hand. We are forced into acceptance.
Acceptance aligns us with the reality of the situation we are facing. When we are aligned with reality, we can discover new possibilities and paths. Branden acknowledged the key role acceptance plays in making any change: “I cannot overcome a fear whose reality I deny. I cannot correct a problem in the way I deal with my associates if I will not admit it exists. I cannot change traits I insist I do not have. I cannot forgive myself for an action I will not acknowledge having taken”
If we accept the situation we are in and we let the situation inform our actions, then we learn to cope with life.
I want to remind you that acceptance is something we do.
Remember that the prison of our false self is constructed from shoulds—expectations about the way we are supposed to feel, think, and behave in order to be loved, to be safe, and to belong. Did you recognize the “should” in this quote?
Resistance to acceptance generally comes from the idea that what is happening is not supposed to be happening. This means we have an expectation that life should conform to what we think it should be. We idealize what life should be like, and when it doesn’t live up to our expectations, we object.
The should is very strong in every person’s idealized life or idealized reality. It is at the heart of the problem of acceptance. This expectation was generated by our deep unconscious desire to have life reverse the experiences of our past. Every human seems to have a built-in expectation of fairness; in fact, research studies on primates and other animals have shown that we are not the only creatures on the planet who get upset when things don’t seem fair.
On a fundamental level, we all are exposed to and terrified of the unfairness of life. This sets us up to try to create an adult life that reverses the unfairnesses we experienced during childhood, whether those unfairnesses were naturally occurring or caused by others around us. The formula we have is simple: UNFAIR PAST = FAIR FUTURE. That’s one big should. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way.
When we achieve acceptance, we unleash an incredible force within us. We are hardwired to integrate experiences so they become contributors to our integrity, our wholeness.
This force is known as self-actualization. It automatically operates outside of our awareness.
“Earlier, I described this force as having a biological and psychological imperative that moves us toward “what’s next.” If I say one, two, three—you automatically think four. This is a small example of how this force is always present and how it operates. It wants closure. It wants to create what has been called a gestalten—a satisfying experience of a reality that is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the same sense we get when we find that missing piece of a puzzle, plop it in place, and suddenly see the whole work of art come together. Once Charlene reached acceptance, she integrated the terrible experience of losing her daughter into her person. Believing her experience could be of value to others who were forced to experience an unthinkable traumatic event, she decided to go back to school and become a therapist. She converted her deep wound into a sacred wound. The way she carried her cross brought deeper meaning to her life. Charlene found emotional freedom. She achieved emotional sobriety.
The Serenity Prayer is one of our most powerful tools in coping with the seemingly unfair events of life: 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 prayer, which can easily be secularized, reminds us to differentiate between those very few things that we can control and the many things in life that we cannot. Among the few things we can control are our expectations—our shoulds.
When we recognize and then surrender our shoulds, we clear the way for acceptance. We clear the way for emotional sobriety. We can also create a different context around our shoulds.
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