Imagine for a moment that you and your closest family or friends are traveling to Hawaii, on a getaway for a much needed vacation. The excitement amongst your group is tangible, as everyone can be heard chattering about the plans you've made; sitting on the beach and soaking up the sun. The wonderful food that you are going to eat. Exploring the island, the shopping, the experiences and the temporary surrender of responsibilities and stressors to relaxation. The plane takes off, you wave goodbye to the city and the anticipation grows as you near the Pacific Ocean.
Then the unimaginable happens.
Strange clanking noises are heard from one of the engines, and the plane suddenly jerks midair. The breathing masks that they mentioned at the beginning of the flight drop down from their compartments above you, adding to the panic. A voice over the loudspeaker from the captain confirms your worst nightmare; the plane is going down and you are encouraged to prepare for a water landing! Screams and shouting fill the air, and all you can do is focus on gripping your seat tightly. Miraculously, the pilots are able to land the plane without much damage, injury or any loss of life. As everyone exits the plane, someone sees a deserted island close by, and everyone swims to safety. After taking inventory, the only thing lost to the depths of the Pacific is the plane and everyone's luggage inside it. No one is seriously harmed and everyone is accounted for. Take a moment and really think about this next question; what do you do next?
I've put so many clients in this exact scenario, and each and every one of them have answers that are similar.
"We need to make a shelter."
"We need to figure out how to purify or collect water."
"We need to figure out tools, to help us gather firewood or to help us hunt or fish."
"We need to figure out a leadership structure, and to get assigned duties to everyone, so that we can survive."
"We need to try to get a signal of some sort out to those that might be looking for us."
"We need to pray, or to try and encourage each other."
In the years that I have used this example, I have never gotten these answers:
"I would just give up and wait to die."
"I would just sit in the sand and pretend that none of this is happening."
"I would want you to wake me up when we get rescued."
Acceptance is a concept that a lot of people naturally struggle with. There are a lot of misconceptions about what acceptance actually is, and how it might help us cope with life circumstances. In fact, quite a bit of my social media posts have to do with acceptance. One of my favorite blog posts is a transparent and radical demonstration of how I've used acceptance to cope with a life circumstance of my own. Acceptance as a concept happens to be easier to understand in a crisis, as our brains instinctively move toward acceptance in an emergency situation. I'd like to draw your attention to the nature of the answers given to the life-or-death scenario I posed at the beginning of this blog to illustrate this. Notice that every initial answer was a behavior or an action, and that it was all with survival in mind. A person stranded on a deserted island cannot reach those conclusions about what to do in that scenario without first accepting that they are actually in that scenario!
What would you say to me, if you were stuck on the island with me and noticed that I sat on the beach, shook my head in disbelief and said "nope, this isn't happening, I am not actually stuck here, I'm just safe and sound back at home"? I am assuming that you might have some very choice words for me, as that belief and that behavior is not helpful for the situation we had inadvertently found ourselves in. The technical term for this, when using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is experiential avoidance; I am avoiding the painful emotions and thoughts associated with the current experience. The more common phrase for this is 'living in denial'. Denial can be a destructive force in our life, when it gets us to avoid facing the reality of the situations we have found ourselves in. Unnecessary suffering can come from denial. In other words, it is hard to deal with a problem that you deny actually even exists!
Going back to the analogy of being on the deserted island, there are a few key points I would like to make. These points might help dispel some misconceptions about what acceptance is, and might help you understand how acceptance can help you move forward.
Accepting something does not mean you have to like it. I don't have to like being stuck on a deserted island fighitng for my life, to be able to ackowledge that...I am on a deserted island fighting for my life. It is not a requirement to like something you have to accept, but this is a normal misconception that we all make! It is not a prerequisite of acceptance to say that something is good, is ok, or that I have to like it, to be able to practice acceptance. Acceptance is simply acknowledging what it is, and here is where I insert an overused adage that hopefully carries new meaning for you now; "it is what it is". There are some things in life that will NEVER be ok, that you will never have to like, and that are not good, but denying that these things might exist in your life may bring about suffering that is excessive and unnecessary. I understand why people avoid; it is a natural inclination that we all have! When we are in physical pain, our first reaction is to escape, and this is the same reaction we have when we are in emotional pain as well.
Acceptance is a practice, and not a light switch. Acceptance does not happen by accident, but it is an intentional practice. There have been times in my life where I had to return to accept certain things that I did not want to acknowledge or admit. Accceptance is a choice that I had to make, and in some cases this choice was repetitive. I had to accept, over and over and over again the realities of the situation that I was currently in. Don't forget from the previous point, that our natural inclination is to avoid. The things that you choose to approach will sometimes require you to return to the practice of acceptance, which is simply acknowledging what is. Very rarely has acceptance been a one-time occurence and then the situation has been magically worked through. Acceptance sometimes takes dedication and hard work, and an honest friend or a counselor can help movement toward acknowledging some difficult things in your life. But take heart!...
Acceptance can be balanced with action. I often work with individuals who begin the acceptance journey, only to find themselves stuck at a natural crossroad; so now that I accepted this, what do I do? Do I just sit here and let this be what it is? Is there something that I can do about this? The short answer is yes, two things can be true at once! Acceptance of a difficult situation can be balanced with action to change your situation. Here is an example: if you are in an abusive relationship, it might take courage to acknowledge that your partner is abusive. When you come to the place that you are admitting something like this to yourself about your partner, it doesn't mean that you need to stay in the relationship! The next step is to take action, and to do something about it. The next step is to hope that your situation gets better, and to take control of that path and make some changes. Just because you've accepted a situation doesn't mean you don't get to act on it, but acceptance does allow you to see what your actions might need to be with some renewed clarity. Which brings me to my last point...
Acceptance allows you to behave for the situation you are ACTUALLY in, versus the situation you WISH you were in. If we go back to the analogy of the deserted island, each and every one of us on that island can easily say that we wished we were back at home, and that we didn't have to fight for our life on a deserted island. If we stayed with that mindset, it would be hard to think of the next right step, as we might be focused on a situation that does not currently exist. Don't get me wrong, the deserted island analogy is an oversimplification of a difficult process, and human behavior is much more complex in a situation that is difficult to accept outside of an immediate crisis. But these foundational concepts are offered to you as a structure to begin working through difficult scenarios in your life that you might have been struggling with, that have lead to excessive and unnecessary suffering. Experiential avoidance has the capacity to keep you stuck, to miss seeing solutions to your situations when we are behaving for a situation we wish we were in, versus the situation we are actually in.
I'll use myself again as an example of all of these concepts put together. It may come to a shock to you, but I am actually getting older! Aging has historically been something that people have attempted to avoid. Along with age comes certain limitations, and in my case, physical limitations. I love playing basketball. My game 10 years ago, was to put my head down and go straight to the hoop. I tried to play aggressive defense. Because I am aging, I've had to accept the fact that my body cannot move the way that it used to. I don't like it. Sure, I could have fought this and continued to play like I always had, but I quickly realized this lead to an increase in injury for me. When I accepted my limitiations, when I accepted the fact that I have a different role now on the pick-up teams that I found myself on, I had to adjust my game. I had to do something different, and I had to commit to doing something different. I improved my jump shot. My passing game got better. I learned to play more of a supporting role on my team. Much of this adaptation was only made possible because I decided to accept that I am not able to play basketball like I used to. And I have found a renewed joy in the sport, now that I have changed my game and accepted my limitations.
I hope that these concepts have provided a starting point for you, to help if you are struggling with what acceptance is, what it means or how to practice acceptance. Remember that acceptance is just that; a practice! Acceptance can be balanced with hope and action, and it unlocks the ability for you to behave for the situation you are actually in versus the situation you wish you were in!
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