SUNDAY AFTERNOON BLOG WITH WRITER AND PSYCHOTHERAPIST - TARA HUSSAIN

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THE ART OF ACCEPTANCE

Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

When I first discovered acceptance, it was a novel concept to me. What does it mean to accept? On what condition? Does it include the good stuff and the bad stuff?

It is a pretty big ask not to brace ourselves, not to run, freeze or fight back when confronted with adversities or the things that take us out of our comfort zones. Instead of accepting each situation and life event as is, we somehow feel the need to push back, to resist, to back ourselves into a corner. We instinctively have an innate desire to challenge the thought of acceptance, because we otherwise feel defeated and weakened. Our fear of victimhood and failure is what I call the emotional mind-monsters that so desperately want to convince us that to resist is to protect ourselves from hurt. But this act of resistance must be levelled against our ability to identify what it is that we are resisting. We need to ask ourselves, in moments like these, whether accepting the situation and letting go of it would be a better option for us.

My go-to has always been to fight, to fix and to help others! Not quite Olivia Pope's kind of glamour and attitude, but definitely a fixer who has convinced herself that to fix others is to find healing. The thought of accepting certain relationships and acknowledging that some situations don’t always have a solution, or even need fixing, was an alien concept to me.

It was while meandering through this mind map that I discovered that holding onto unattainable goals, staying in dark places and clinging onto difficult relationships were simply causing me more hurt than happiness. I also realised that some things don’t change, and some people won’t change, because they just can’t change: just like how a leopard cannot change its spots. Therefore, it is up to me to either continue in my resistance of the truth or to accept and move on. The responsibility falls to me to make my own decisions, and most importantly, to accept these decisions as good.

Acceptance isn’t just about letting go, it is also about letting things be. It is about choosing to change the things we can, while accepting the things we cannot. Not knowing when to apply acceptance can rob us of the happiness we deserve. A good friend once told me to “choose my battles wisely”, and that has stayed with me since. Through life’s cycle of challenges and resistance, sometimes we can give ourselves permission to take off all our heavy armour and rest. Like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, "The best thing we can do when it is raining is to let it rain."

Thrive & shine,

-Tara Hussain.