Acceptance Means You Stop Pretending

We all need help sometimes.

Photo taken by the author (Death Valley National Park, CA)

Sometimes acceptance means you take the damn meds.

It is incredibly difficult to acknowledge you need help. Harder still, when you already feel as if you are getting help, but it’s not enough. Even more difficult is when you’ve bought into the belief that you shouldn’t need more help.

But you do. You do need help. Doesn’t matter if you should or shouldn’t. Once you recognize that what you’re doing – even if it is all the right things – isn’t working, you’ve opened the door to acceptance.

Acceptance gets such a bad rap. It’s “resignation,” it’s “just an excuse,” it’s “passivity.” It’s throwing your hands up in the air.

Acceptance is none of those things.

Acceptance is linked to action and a host of positive health outcomes. Research overwhelmingly shows this. Increasing acceptance can mitigate the negative effects of hardships, like chronic pain.

Acknowledging a problem, diagnosis, or symptom paradoxically frees us to do what it takes to improve. To live life better – even with these burdens we carry.  

Acceptance is the harbinger of change. What is not working in life right now? Where are you stuck and who can help?

Once you identify what is not working or what seems stuck, the path of acceptance leads you towards movement. And if it is scary (it is probably going to be scary), acknowledging the fear and taking a step anyway is breathtakingly brave.

Living as if you do not need help, when you are in physical or emotional pain—or both, only worsens the suffering. Acceptance means you stop pretending.

Acceptance means I took the damn meds.

kek

---

Note: This post was initially published on my Medium site.

💡 Never miss a new post! Sign up for alerts here: Reflections