What the Hell is Acceptance?

It’s not about liking it.

And it’s definitely not about making it go away.

By acceptance, I mean that you are OK with whatever is happening inside – heat, tension, racing heart, pain, butterflies, racing thoughts, etc. Everyone experiences things a little differently, and everyone has different preferences.

When my heart is racing, and my chest feels like it’s engulfed with a fireball, I’d certainly prefer to be experiencing something different, but I’ve learned to be able to accept whatever happens to be there, as it grows and fades away. 

I don’t like it. 

I’d much prefer to be able to describe my experience with words like calm, ease and excitement.

But this is what’s here right now, so my real choice is whether or not to accept it.

Why does it matter so much?

Because tilt is what happens when we don’t accept whatever internal experience we’re currently having.

When we internally say, ‘I can’t handle this right now and I need it to change’. It doesn’t feel good when you lose a buy-in. I’d much prefer to feel what comes with winning, than what comes with losing.

But when we hit that threshold for when we can’t handle it anymore?

We start to make choices just to relieve that feeling, rather than making effective choices that bring us towards things we actually want.

It’s truly the cause of everything we label ’tilt’. 

We start avoiding and resisting, rather than accepting.

And another thing on acceptance – the mind can’t feel what’s going on in the body. You have to learn to keep your awareness on it and give it attention. 

Any amount of thinking or logic is just prolonging the experience you’re trying to avoid. 

Things like, ‘I don’t need to feel this because I should be happy I got it in good’, 

Or 

‘I’ll just focus on making good decisions’

Eventually the emotion passes anyway, and you’re back to an internal state you have no problem being able to accept. But it didn’t pass because of whatever logic you tried to tell yourself, it passed in spite of it. You were actually prolonging it. 

If you want to stay doing it like you have been, that’s fine. 

You’ll continue to feel the same and progress in life at the same pace.

But on the other side of acceptance tends to be a whole lot of ease and enjoyment, along with a whole lot of confidence and clarity on where you want to go, and what you should do next.

So what are the things that you tend to resist rather than accept?

If you want some help understanding them, schedule an intro call with me below. No commitment – I’ll show you what it is that you’re not seeing on your own.