It’s the first word of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), it’s a foundational piece of psychological flexibility, and it’s vital to how I see the change process and how I try to help clients.
Before you can effectively act to better yourself in meaningful ways, you must accept. Accept the inevitability of negative emotions alongside positive emotions. Accept your areas of challenge and weakness. Accept the parts of yourself you’d prefer did not exist. And accept that you have unrealized potential.
Acceptance allows you to pivot away from avoidance and its effects: procrastination, disconnection from your body, and intolerance of unwanted emotions, and towards an enhanced willingness to feel and act.
Acceptance should not be misinterpreted as resignation. It is not. It is a stance of openness to experience. It is acceptance as one receives a gift. It is the attitude of yes.
And it is a conduit to change.
Through acceptance, you can embrace an empowering paradox: that where you are weakest can be your greatest source of strength.
Through acceptance of yourself as you are, you can begin to embrace the beautiful dualities of life, and begin to see them in other people too, so that you may foster stronger relationships with those around you.