There are many layers to acceptance, and we won’t master it in a day or a week. But we can get better at it quite quickly. The very first thing to know about the art of accepting is that we must give up our perfectionism.
Seeking perfection is part of the nervous illness. It makes us fight harder no matter how well we do, and makes us despair and want to give up because, no matter how hard we fight, we can’t achieve perfection.
We Don’t Have to Accept Perfectly
The good news is that recovery is not about becoming perfect, but is learning to recognize when we are not accepting, and not adding second fear. Hence a key part of the Acceptance Method is: “…accepting as best we can”.
“Lots and lots of imperfect practice will get us to recovery.”
“As best we can” is always good enough. Achieving perfect acceptance isn’t what gets us to recovery; repeated imperfect practice is. Over and over and over.
I recovered without accepting perfectly. In fact, I still don’t accept “perfectly”. I have learned lots about acceptance since I recovered, and I am still improving!
Even now, things can frustrate me in the moment. I can temporarily find myself wishing things were different, or hoping for a particular outcome, or judging something as negative. The difference is that when I don’t accept now, I am aware of it, and I can choose not to add second fear. I then accept whatever level of acceptance I have, and am immediately kind to myself. I don’t make my non-acceptance an issue, and things resolve themselves.
Major Challenge to Accepting
Anxiety resists our attempts to accept. It throws anxious thoughts, unpleasant symptoms and powerful emotions at us relentlessly. It knows what we fear the most, and uses whatever that is against us.
“Our fighting is what keeps the anxiety alive.”
A way of looking at this is that the anxiety is threatened by our attempts to accept. It knows if we are successful in learning the art of acceptance, then it will fade out of existence. Anxiety is doing its utmost to survive by trying to keep us fighting. It does this by throwing things at us that it knows we fear, and that we will react to.
It is our reaction of adding fear, and fighting to avoid or get rid of the anxiety, that feeds it the energy it needs to stay alive. Conversely, acceptance stops providing the energy that sustains the anxiety, and allows it to fade.
The biggest issue we face when we try to accept is that our Voice of Fear butts in and throws us off our game. We have a thought or symptom, and, realizing it is just anxiety, we accept as best we can. Then our Voice of Fear starts up…
“BUT what if it isn’t anxiety?” This is where we accept that thought.
“BUT what if the doctors were wrong?” Accept that thought too.
“BUT what if it doesn’t go away?” Accept that thought too.
“BUT what if I can’t recover?” Accept that thought too.
“BUT what if I can’t do my job and get fired?” Accept that thought too.
“BUT what if __________?”
… and so on.
Responding to the Voice of Fear
Each of these “What if?” thoughts are just creations of our Voice of Fear, part of the bluff of our anxiety. They are not real, but 100% lies, with no basis in fact. They are merely thrown at us to keep us anxious and working things out.
With each thought the Voice of Fear says: “Haha! Now I’ve got you. No way out!” Not true! There is a way out, and that is to do nothing about each thought. In order to begin to accept, we must:
- Stop engaging the Voice of Fear by fighting to get rid of the thoughts.
- Give them no attention, no meaning, no importance.
- Just let the thoughts/questions sit there… …for as long as they want.
- Observe them with as much indifference as we can.
- Do this with each “What if?” thought as it comes.
Responding to Symptoms
We take the same approach with the unpleasant symptoms. These can be physical symptoms, feelings or emotions. Typically when we experience unpleasant, unwanted symptoms, we fight to get rid of them. Instead we accept the symptom, experience it fully, and allow it to be there for as long as it wants. We try to do this as willingly as possible, with an attitude of indifference to the symptom if we can.
Very often when we do this, the symptom will fade only to be replaced by some other hated and unwanted symptom. Face that one too and experience it fully. Accept it as best you can. Physically and mentally sag into it. Surrender. The art of accepting is to do this with each new symptom as it shows up.
As an example, with physical symptoms it might start as dizziness, and change to a headache or wobbly legs. Or it may be replaced by a mental symptom such as unreality or trouble concentrating. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how these things unfold, all we need to do is face and accept each symptom in turn.
With feelings or emotions it may start for example with impatience, and when we accept that it becomes frustration, followed by anger. When we accept those it might morph into fear for example, or sadness, and then into despair and depression. Just as we did with thoughts and symptoms above, we follow the path of these emotions wherever they go, facing, experiencing, accepting and sagging into each one as it shows up.
That is the art of accepting.
