What does it actually mean to accept something that you don't like?
Something that hurts.
Something you wish had never happened.
Or something happening right now that you desperately want to change.
Hi,
I'm John.
I'm an energy healing practitioner and acceptance has become one of the most important parts of my healing.
But for much of my life,
Acceptance wasn't where I went.
Control was.
I used to call myself a control freak.
But I've come to understand that control very differently.
Because underneath a lot of my need to control was something deeper.
Safety.
If I could control what was happening,
Control the outcome,
Get someone to understand me,
Respond differently,
Or do what I believed they should do.
Then maybe I could feel safe.
And I think that's why acceptance used to be so difficult for me.
Because acceptance could almost feel like giving up.
If I accept this,
Am I saying it's okay?
If I accept what happened,
Am I saying that it shouldn't have happened?
If I accept this person for the way that they are,
Am I saying their behavior doesn't matter?
No.
That's not what acceptance has come to mean for me.
Acceptance doesn't always mean something was right.
It doesn't mean I approve of it.
And it doesn't mean I don't do anything about it.
For me,
Acceptance is much simpler.
This is what is here right now.
And this is what I'm feeling in response to it.
That's it.
I'm angry.
I'm hurt.
I'm afraid.
I'm disappointed.
I'm feeling rejected.
I accept that this is what I'm feeling right now.
Acceptance doesn't make something true.
And acknowledge what is already true in this moment.
And I've begun to recognize how much energy I spend throughout my life doing something very different.
Negotiating with reality.
This shouldn't have happened.
They shouldn't have done that.
This person needs to understand.
They need to change.
My parents should have been different.
And sometimes those things are true.
There are things that I wished that happened in my childhood that should have never happened.
There are people who should have treated me differently.
Acceptance doesn't change that.
But neither can I.
I cannot change what already happened.
And I cannot control another person into becoming who I need them to be.
I've had a wound around authority for most of my adult life.
And it's taken me a very long time to understand what was happening underneath it.
When an authority figure didn't recognize me,
Didn't treat me the way that I believe they should,
Or made a decision that I thought was unfair.
I could become incredibly activated.
And sometimes there were legitimate reasons for that.
But I've come to recognize how much of my peace I had outsourced to authority.
Somewhere inside me was this belief.
If they would just do the right thing,
Then I could be okay.
And I can see now how control also allowed me to remain in a victim position.
And not because I hadn't experienced things that were genuinely unfair or painful.
I had.
But because if my peace depended upon them,
Someone else changing,
Then somebody else remained responsible for whether or not I could be okay.
And my attention remained with them.
What are they doing?
Why are they doing this?
How do I change it?
How do I get them to see me differently?
And underneath all of that.
I was leaving myself.
And there's a sentence I've been sitting with that captures this for me.
I leave myself to manage you because managing you feels safer than staying with me.
That's what control could do for me.
It kept my attention out there.
Because staying with what was happening in here,
Didn't always feel safe.
And control didn't only happen outside of me.
I could do with through my mind too.
For years,
I thought about everything.
I analyzed,
I overthought,
I tried to understand why I felt the way I did.
And understanding gave me a certain sense of control.
If I could explain what was happening,
Maybe I could manage it.
But eventually I discovered there were things I couldn't think my way through.
My mind could understand the wound while my body was still carrying it.
And once again,
I could leave myself.
This time,
Not by trying to manage another person,
But by going into my head instead of staying with what I was actually feeling.
And that's where acceptance has changed something.
Instead of immediately asking,
How do I change them?
How do I change this?
How do I get the outcome I need?
I can turn toward myself and ask.
What is happening in me right now?
And that question has become incredibly important in my healing.
I've talked in some of my other videos about completing several significant emotional responses connected to wounds from my childhood.
And there were experiences I couldn't control as a child.
There were needs that weren't met.
There were emotions that overwhelmed me.
And in my experience,
Some of those emotional responses became interrupted.
I froze.
I adapted.
I survive.
And years later,
When those feelings began coming forward again,
I couldn't change what had happened.
I couldn't go back and make my childhood different.
But I could finally meet what was still happening inside of me because of it.
And one of those wounds involved humiliation.
And when that humiliation became activated decades later,
I remember saying,
I'm feeling humiliation.
And then.
I accept that I'm feeling humiliation.
I wasn't saying that what happened to me was okay.
I was saying,
This is what's here.
And instead of leaving myself,
Because it was here.
I stayed.
And my body began to move through something that,
In my experience,
Had remained unfinished for decades.
And eventually that emotional response completed.
And I've now experienced completion with four significant childhood wounds.
And I've noticed something since then.
I don't have the same need to control.
I don't think that's because I've learned some perfect form of surrender.
And it's certainly not because life suddenly started doing what I wanted it to do.
Things still happen that I don't like.
People still disappoint me.
Authority can still activate me.
But something is different.
I'm no longer organized around survival in the same way.
So now when that old authority wound gets activated,
And it still does,
I can often notice it.
I can feel the disappointment.
I can feel the anger.
I can notice the story beginning.
And instead of immediately going outward and trying to change something,
I can bring presence to what's happening in me.
This is what's here.
I accept that this is what I'm feeling.
And I stay.
And something fascinating has been happening.
Very often,
It dissipates.
I don't need to spend days analyzing it.
And I don't necessarily need another enormous healing experience.
And I don't need the authority figure to change.
The circumstances outside of me may not have changed at all.
But I have.
And that has made me wonder whether some of my need to control the present was connected to what I was still carrying from the past.
I don't know that this is true for everyone,
But I can see it in my own life.
As some of these deeper emotional responses completed.
The present stopped carrying quite so much of the past.
And perhaps most importantly,
The present no longer has to provide a different ending to the past.
My parents don't have to become the parents I needed them to be.
The authority figure doesn't have to finally recognize me.
Another person doesn't have to understand me.
I may still want some of those things.
I may still speak up.
I may advocate for myself.
I may set a boundary.
I may decide that that's something or someone no longer belongs in my life.
Acceptance doesn't remove my agency.
It returns me to the part of the experience where I actually have agency.
Because I can ask.
What is actually mine to do?
And what is mine to control.
And maybe that's where surrender comes in.
Not giving up.
Not becoming passive,
And not pretending that something doesn't matter.
But releasing the impossible job of making another person or the past or an outcome become what I needed to be before I can be okay.
I can't control the outcome.
And I've discovered that I can't necessarily control what I feel either.
But I can increasingly choose how I meet what is happening in me now.
I can stay.
I can listen.
I can feel.
I can act when action is mine to take.
And when it isn't,
I can begin to let go of what was never mine to control.
So if there's something in your life right now that you're struggling to accept,
Maybe notice where your attention is going.
Is your peace dependent upon someone else changing?
Apologizing,
Accepting,
Or recognizing you.
Doing what you believe they should do.
And if so,
Maybe turn toward yourself for a moment.
What is happening in me right now?
And what am I trying to control that isn't mine to control?
You don't have to like what's happening.
You don't have to approve of it.
And you don't have to pretend it doesn't hurt.
Maybe acceptance begins much more simply.
This is what's here.
This is what I'm feeling.
And I'm not going to leave myself because it's here.
Thank you for joining me.
I'm John.
Take good care of yourself,
And I'll see you again soon.
