Awareness and Acceptance create the alchemy for change
Emahó Montoya – The Wanderer
There is something about hearing a word repeated many times that makes it lose its meaning.
If you want to see this firsthand, we can do an experiment.
Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance, Acceptance
Does this word look arbitrary now?
Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.
This might not be totally related, but I’ve noticed that when I hear the words like “gratitude, acceptance, mindfulness” and the like, repeated many times in the public domain, they start to fall on deaf ears even if I once recognized their value and still logically do. It’s as if emotionally, I can only connect to the insight a few times, and then some form of adaptation takes place that makes me lose the wonderful feeling of peace.
We don’t have to feel the lesson for it to be true. That’s part of life, and part of acceptance.
The Contrarian Optimist
This could also be hedonic adaptation at play. Hedonic adaptation has been identified by psychologists as “the notion that after positive (or negative) events (i.e., something good or bad happening to someone), and a subsequent increase in positive (or negative) feelings, people return to a relatively stable, baseline level of affect (Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, 2006).”
Either way, I can logically know the truth of something, but the feeling isn’t always there. Still, I know that the lesson has value, and many lessons bear repeating. This is my point. We don’t have to feel the lesson for it to be true. That’s part of life, and part of acceptance.
A Lesson Worth Repeating
We are not logical automatons, we are creatures of neurochemistry, internal monologues, fluxuations, permuatations in spacetime… and so on.
The Contrarian Optimist
So why does it still surprise me when I can’t perfectly accept things?!
I KNOW that if I’m suffering, then I can either do two things.
- IF the solution is within my control & I want to alleviate suffering, THEN I should act on it.
- IF the solutions is outside of my control AND I want to alleviate suffering, THEN I should practice radical acceptance
The two conditional claims here capture a valuable lesson, but if you’ve heard the ideas before, maybe you don’t feel the feeling. SO WHAT. As I’ve come to know, feelings come and go, and part of living a life in flow is acknowledging that.
We are not logical automatons, we are creatures of neurochemistry, internal monologues, fluxuations, permuatations in spacetime… and so on.
So why does it still surprise me when I can’t perfectly accept things?!
Precisely for that reason!! I’m one of those creatures. If you’re getting the sense of absurdity here, then we’re connecting. You get it? To be frustrated with ourselves for commiting some error in rationality makes as much sense as the perceived error we committed. They stem from the same wiggly source…. YOU AND ME!
Radical Acceptance
Quick confession, I haven’t actually read the book of that name… but I know the feeling.
Radical Acceptance is the idea of truly accepting your situation. You’ll know the feeling when it hits you. It’s that deep calm that you feel after something bad has happened, but you know there’s nothing you can do, and you’ve cried all you can.
One way to feel it is to ask yourself “What if there’s no problem to solve?”
If you can deeply feel this, and you truly convince yourself there is no problem… then you’ll know what I mean.
More examples of Radical Acceptance in quote form
Whether you believe we are made in the image of God, an incarnation of the source, or the same stars from the Big Bang, I know this is tough to feel, but would it not be beautiful to be still and taste this, even for a moment.
The Contrarian Optimist
Maybe some of these might spark that feeling within you
- “Giving it up to God”
- or “trusting yourself when all men doubt you and make allowance for their doubting too”
- or remembering that you will die, and all this will be covered by time, and that nothing you can do will change that, BUT it’s still a beautiful existence and an absurd lovely one
AND SO ON
The beauty of acceptance is that from the calm, there is a deep connectedness that can blossom. You might feel, as I once have (at an airport when I had too much caffeine and just completed a deep mediation) that the boundaries between self and other melt away, and you see how, in a different circumstance, all those around you could have been your family, your best friend, or someone you know and love.
I’m not saying that acceptance fixes all things… but it does something great. If we can overcome the adaption through practice, through awareness, and through some semblance of logic, then maybe we can connect to this feeling more.
I know that if I wish to stop worrying, then the answer is often to accept the things I cannot control.
I acknowledge that there are a great many sufferings in the world, but I strive to remain grateful.
Whether you believe we are made in the image of God, an incarnation of the source, or the same stars from the Big Bang, I know this is tough to feel, but would it not be beautiful to be still and taste this, even for a moment.
We can’t hold on to anything — a beautiful sunset, a sweet taste, an intimate moment with a lover, our very existence as the body/mind we call self — because all things come and go.”
Tara Brach