What is acceptance? I assume the most basic sense of the word acceptance is the ability to embrace a person or situation for who they are or what it is without trying to change it.
My biggest challenge is that I am extremely accepting of people and not of situations.
PERSONAL ACCEPTANCE
I have always had the ability to accept people for who they are. There is an understanding that everyone is unique and brings their own personality, strengths and weaknesses to the table. I have never asked anyone to change their personality for me. I have even accepted that my children are their own people. That does not mean I don’t want them to be the best they can be. I can be hard on them at times and want them to succeed. However, at their core, I have accepted who they are – with their strengths and weaknesses.
In accepting people for who they are, I feel like a level of respect is granted to them. There are no expectations to change their core fundamental beliefs or personalities. I want people to be themselves at all times and having that approach has allowed me to develop relationships with a cross section of people.
Where I struggle at times is accepting situations. For whatever reason, I can accept people for who they are but I truly have a hard time accepting situations for what they are. The former has always come easy. The latter has always been a challenge.
SITUATIONAL ACCEPTANCE
I have made a conscious effort over the past few years to really drill down into situational acceptance. I am, by no means, a therapist or trained in this area. This is just a bit of self actualization that I have been working on.
Situations present themselves and one must adapt. Let me make this clear, I do not have a problem accepting professional situations for what they are. I can systematically work through those. However, personal situations are another story.
As I reflect on any stress or anxiety that I have had in my life, much of it has been rooted in challenging situations that were exacerbated by the fact that I was not in control and there was no viable fix that I could drive. This is where that constant struggle for understanding situational acceptance has come from.
I suppose this will be a lifelong journey to accept personal situations for what they are. I would love to be able to wake up one morning and simply accept each situation as a challenge – one that will provide growth. While that seems so far away right now, the one thing I have “accepted” is that I have taken on the journey to tackle situations in life that I have no control over.
I am hoping it leads to personal growth, however the short-term day to day struggles to work on this are real. It seems like there is a never ending quest to understand acceptance. A big part of life’s journey is about accepting people and situations for who and what they are.
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